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March 11, 2010

UN Rapporteur: Obama Admin Should Probe Torture
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The United Nations independent expert on torture has criticized the
Obama administration for refusing to launch an extensive probe of
torture committed under former President George W. Bush. On Wednesday,
Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said the
administration risks laying the groundwork for more torture by refusing
to investigate recent policies.

Manfred Nowak: “There are so many other reasons for the Obama
administration to really establish a high-level, blue-ribbon commission
or a special investigative—has all the investigative powers to really
look into the practices. That means us to declassify still certain
documents, so to tell the American public what happened, but those of
the world, what were major human rights violations committed by the Bush
administration and, in my case, of course, what kind of torture methods.
Perhaps we don’t know everything.”



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