William Schulz Quotations

Untie the hands of state and federal judges and prosecutors, ... Give them options other than turning the courts into assembly lines that mass produce mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children.

Many of the countries highlighted in this report have absolutely abysmal records of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. The United States government must do all it can to end the global culture of torture. But real change can only occur if the Bush Administration not only admits that its own policies perpetuate torture and ill treatment, but also cleans house and stops warehousing detainees in countries with shameful human rights records.

Only the deployment of sufficient numbers of troops with logistical support by UN member states will provide the protection that the civilians so desperately need.

This report by the U.S. government provides a thorough review of today's human rights practices around the globe, except for one glaring omission -- its own record. The United States government considers itself a moral leader on human rights issues, but its record of indefinite and arbitrary detentions, secret 'black sites' and outsourced torture in the 'war on terror' turns it from leader to human rights violator.

We ask the Justice Department and the INS to abide by its own standards and by international human rights standards in the treatment of these detainees. To treat detainees inhumanely is to risk breeding hostility and anger against us where before there may have been none.

We have documented the use of torture and mistreatment, widespread throughout the world. We have documented that the U.S. government is a leading purveyor and practitioner of the odious human rights violation.

The Security Council should not only explicitly reiterate that there can be no impunity for crimes under international law, but also must decide on concrete action to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

Prosecutions of primarily lower-level military personnel create the impression that those on the front lines are the scapegoats for policy set at the top.

Any nation that is party to the Geneva Conventions ... is obligated under international law to investigate those who are alleged to be involved with the formulation of a policy of torture or with its carrying out,

The White House has dodged the truth about torture for too long. With reports of torture in the news virtually every day, it is imperative the president and all in his administration end the secrecy and end the torture. This campaign will allow thousands of Americans to demand that torture in our names is not committed again and insist that the president speak the truth in his State of the Union address about this heinous crime.

It's no wonder that the United States was ousted from the United Nations human rights commission,

The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families,

Not only has the Iraqi government failed to provide minimal protection for its citizens, it has actively pursued a policy of rounding up and torturing innocent men and women. Its failure to punish those who have committed acts of torture has added to the breakdown of the rule of law and to spiraling human rights violations in Iraq.

And in some cases, at least, we know they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed.

The deployment of UN troops clearly has deterred vicious attacks on civilians. In those areas where a UN presence is still lacking, chaos and lawlessness reign, despite promises made at the signing of the peace agreement.

Amnesty International calls today on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal.

The men's captors worked very hard to conceal every aspect of detention but our research assessing information about climate, prayer schedules and flight times suggests that these men may have been held in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.