Dear Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
I am deeply concerned about the network of secret detention centers around the world and the situation for those who are “disappeared” into these illegal facilities.
Torturing people in secret facilities or outsourcing torture and holding people without charge, trial or access to the outside world, is a blatant violation of U.S. obligations under international law. The United States must disclose the location of all places of all its facilities around the world and all incommunicado and secret detention should be stopped immediately.
Furthermore, detainees should be held only in officially recognized places of detention with access to family, lawyers and courts; all detainees held in US custody in undisclosed locations should either be charged and given a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty, or else they should be released.
The U.S. government must end the practices of rendition and “disappearance.” Lastly, the United States must adhere to human rights laws and standards to ensure that torture and ill-treatment, incommunicado detentions and “disappearance” play no part in cooperation between U.S. security forces and those of other countries. The United States should affirm its obligation not to conduct or condone torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and recommit to protect human rights standards regardless of location.
I chose to delete prisoner-specific material from the letter.
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