GENEVA, March 10.—The reaction of the United States and its allies to the September 11, 2001 attacks to intensify the use of torture in their investigations has had a highly negative influence on the rest of the world, stated Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture.

“Many countries felt that if even the United States is officially torturing, why should not we also torture,” the expert explained during a press conference in Geneva, in which he took stock of his five years of his mandate.

Nowak highlighted the contradiction between the fact that the United States is seen as the country “that invented human rights,” while he added that the “entire world knows that the United States practiced torture although it (the government of then President George W. Bush) denies it.”

Likewise, Nowak referred to the most widespread kinds of torture currently being used, among which he listed sleep disturbance, which is perpetrated at the detention center for terrorism suspects on the U.S. base in Guantánamo Bay (Cuba), where prisoners are woken up every 15 minutes.

Nowak stated that the principal reason given for the use of torture is to obtain a confession, a statement that will later be used in trials.

Translated by Granma International

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