US House Member Urges Legislation on Torture Ban
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Keith Ellison, a Muslim member of the US House of Representatives, called for introduction of legislation to ban torture at the US prison camps and also prosecute officials responsible for the torture program.
In an interview with Tasnim reporter in Washington, D.C., Ellison elaborated on the “next steps” the US Senate needs to take following the release of an extensive torture report in December.
“There needs to be hearings on it and develop some legislation to fully not just ban on tortures but also hold people accountable who have been responsible for that. Those are the next steps,” the US Representative said.
On December 9, 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a five-year review of 6.3 million pages of CIA documents, concluding that the intelligence agency failed to disrupt a single plot despite torturing al-Qaeda and other captives in secret facilities worldwide between 2002 and 2006, when George W. Bush was president.
According to legal experts, the CIA’s use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other harsh techniques used on detainees in overseas secret prisons constituted torture.
The document has reportedly ignored the role of Bush and his administration officials in approving the torture program.
Following the report release, the UN, human rights activists and legal experts renewed calls for the Obama administration to prosecute US officials responsible for the CIA torture program revealed in extensive details.
