Latest news with #ConventionAgainstTorture
Scoop
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Scoop
UN Torture Prevention Body To Visit Peru As Field Missions Resume
GENEVA (5 June 2025) –The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) is set to undertake its first two visits of this year, to Peru and Serbia, from 15 to 21 June 2025. These visits mark the resumption of SPT's important in-country work, following the postponement of four missions earlier this year. The initial postponement of SPT visits was due to budget constraints related to the UN liquidity situation. The upcoming visit to Peru will be the second mission to the country, following one that took place in 2013. The Subcommittee delegation will visit various places of deprivation of liberty to evaluate the treatment of people held therein and the measures taken to protect them from torture and ill-treatment. 'In addition to visiting centres of deprivation of liberty across the country and interviewing people within the facilities and personnel who work there, we will pay special attention to how the authorities have implemented our recommendations from 2013. We will also use this opportunity to engage and collaborate with the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM),' said Marie Brasholt, head of the delegation. 'A comprehensive national system for the prevention of torture requires an independent and impartial NPM in charge of monitoring places through regular visits, and it must have adequate resources,' she added. Peru ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) in 2006 and its NPM, established by law in 2015, is housed within the Ombudsman´s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo). Under its mandate, the SPT can conduct visits to State parties and carry out visits without prior notice to any places where people are or may be deprived of liberty. To follow up on its prior recommendations and appraise the progress made by the Peruvian authorities towards preventing torture through legislative, administrative, and other measures, the SPT delegation will hold meetings with government authorities, civil society, UN agencies, and the NPM, with whom it will also conduct a joint visit. Following the visit, the delegation will send a report to the State party, which will remain confidential unless and until the Peruvian authorities decide to make it public, as was the case with the first report. The SPT delegation will be composed of the following members: Marie Brasholt, head of the delegation (Denmark), Barbara Bernath (Switzerland), Luciano Mariz Maia (Brazil), and Maria Luisa Romero (Panama), along with two members of the Secretariat. The SPT had originally planned to visit, in 2025, not only Serbia and Peru, but also Burundi, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, France, and Afghanistan. The SPT views the resumption of its visits, despite the ongoing financial constraints, as essential to fulfilling its preventive mandate and to assessing conditions in places of deprivation of liberty, where independent oversight is most urgently needed. Background: The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture monitors States parties' adherence to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which to date has been ratified by 94 countries. The Subcommittee is made up of 25 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties. The Subcommittee has a mandate to visit States that have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, during the course of which it may visit any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty and assist those States in preventing torture and ill-treatment. The Subcommittee communicates its observations and recommendations to States through confidential reports, which it encourages countries to make public.
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Business Standard
a day ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Kilmar Abrego Garcia charged with illegally transporting migrants
By Chris Strohm, Myles Miller and Bob Van Voris Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador, has been brought back to the US to face federal charges that he illegally transported undocumented immigrants within the country. Abrego Garcia was indicted by a grand jury in Tennessee in May, according to court filings. He appeared in a Tennessee courtroom Friday, hours after he was returned to the US, ABC reported. Attorney General Pam Bondi said an investigation determined that he was member of the criminal gang MS-13 and a 'danger to our community.' Abrego Garcia's case became a lightning rod over President Donald Trump's immigration policies, which have seen the administration move to ramp up deportations of undocumented migrants. The Supreme Court had told the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. 'Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country,' Bondi said at a press conference in Washington. 'Upon completion of sentence we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.' The US is seeking to have Abrego Garcia detained as a flight risk and a danger. The charges could result in him spending the rest of his life behind bars, prosecutors said. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along — that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, said in an emailed statement. 'It's now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the constitution guarantees to all persons.' According to court documents, Abrego Garcia's role, with other unidentified people, was to pick up migrants in the Houston area after they'd illegally crossed the border into Texas, then move them to other parts of the country. Abrego Garcia and other members of the group also allegedly transported guns and drugs illegally purchased in Texas into Maryland. Before he was removed from the country, an immigration judge had ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be sent to his home country of El Salvador, finding that he would be at risk of harm under the Convention Against Torture. The government later admitted he'd been deported to El Salvador in error. After he was removed from the country in March, his lawyers asked a federal court in Maryland to order his return to the US. Abrego Garica was initially kept in El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, but was later moved to another facility. On April 10, the US Supreme Court agreed with US District Judge Paula Xinis that Abrego Garcia shouldn't have been deported and ordered the Trump administration to 'facilitate' his release from Salvadoran custody. Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele initially responded by claiming they had no power to return Abrego Garcia. Xinis then ordered the government to answer questions detailing its efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. A US appeals court upheld the order in a harshly critical opinion on April 17. 'Thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Abrego Garcia, this investigation continued,' Bondi said Friday. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democratic senator who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said that the administration will now 'have to make its case in the court of law.' 'For months the Trump administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,' Van Hollen said. 'Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States.'
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
ICE officers stuck in Djibouti shipping container with deported migrants
Three officers and eight detainees arrived at the only US military base in Africa unprepared for what awaited them. Defense officials warned them of 'imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen,' but the ICE officers did not pack body armor or other gear to protect themselves. Temperatures soar past 100 degrees during the day. At night, she wrote, a 'smog cloud' forms in the windless sky, filled with rancid smoke from nearby burning pits where residents incinerate trash and human waste. Advertisement The Trump administration has urged the Supreme Court to stay Murphy's April order requiring screenings under the Convention Against Torture, which Congress ratified in 1994 to bar the US government from sending people to countries where they might face torture. In a filing in that case Thursday, officials told the Supreme Court that Murphy's order violates their authority to deport immigrants to third countries if their homelands refuse to take them back, particularly if they are serious offenders who might otherwise be released in the United States. Advertisement Officials said the conditions in Djibouti highlight the dangers of Murphy's order. 'A small number of ICE personnel are currently guarding dangerous criminals around-the-clock in a converted conference room, under threat of rocket attacks and other security and health hazards — disrupting the base's operations, consuming critical resources intended for service members, and harming national security,' Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the filing. In her declaration, Harper said officers and detainees began to suffer symptoms of a bacterial upper respiratory infection soon after deplaning, including 'coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints.' Medication wasn't immediately available. She wrote that the flight nurse has since obtained treatments such as inhalers, Tylenol, eye drops, and nasal spray, but they cannot get tested for the illness to properly treat it. 'It is unknown how long the medical supply will last,' Harper wrote. The officers spend their days guarding eight immigrants convicted of crimes that include murder, attempted murder, sex offenses, and armed robbery, court records show. Harper said Defense Department employees 'have expressed frustration' about staying in close proximity to violent offenders. Harper said ICE has had to deploy more officers available to work in 'deleterious' conditions to give the initial crew a break. Currently 11 officers are assigned to guard the immigrants and two others 'support the medical staff,' she said. They work 12-hour shifts guarding immigrants, taking them to get medication and to use the restroom and the shower in a nearby trailer, one at a time. Officers pat down the detainees, searching them for contraband. Advertisement At night and on breaks, officers sleep on bunk beds in a trailer, with one storage locker apiece. Some wear N95 masks even while they sleep because the air is so polluted it irritates their throats and makes it difficult to breathe. The area is dimly lit, which Harper wrote poses a security risk to the officers. Department of Homeland Security officials seized on the court filings to criticize the judge. 'This Massachusetts District judge is putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in [Djibouti] without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant,' said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin on X. 'Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders* who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would take them. This is reprehensible and, quite frankly, pathological.' But a lawyer for the detainees said they are also worried about their health, whether they are shackled and, the circumstances that DHS has created for them. 'We're increasingly concerned about the conditions of the detainees,' said Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the deportees. Murphy had said DHS abruptly launched the deportation flight even though it plainly violated his April 18 preliminary injunction barring them from removing people without due process. Federal law prohibits sending anyone — even criminals — to countries where they might be persecuted or tortured. Advertisement Although McLaughlin said officials couldn't deport them to their home countries, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a news conference last month that the US government did not inform her of the Mexican national sent to Djibouti, Jesus Munoz Gutierrez, who was convicted of second-degree murder in Florida 20 years ago, court records show.
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Trump Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in South Sudan Deportations Case
President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to block a lower court order preventing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from deporting illegal immigrants to nations other than their home countries. 'On behalf of a nationwide class of aliens with final orders of removal, the district court issued an extraordinary preliminary injunction that restrains DHS from exercising its undisputed statutory authority to remove an alien to a country not specifically identified in his removal order (i.e., a 'third country'), unless DHS first satisfies an onerous set of procedures invented by the district court to assess any potential claim under the Convention Against Torture,' the Justice Department said in a filing on May 27. It added that, 'Those judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third country removal process.' The administration had been removing individuals to South Sudan, but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts. This is a developing story and will be updated.
27-05-2025
- Politics
Trump asks Supreme Court to remove judge-ordered restrictions on 3rd country deportations
The Trump administration on Tuesday filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to lift what it called "onerous" due process procedures imposed by a federal judge for immigrants slated for deportation to a third country other than their own. Solicitor General John Sauer told the court in the filing that a nationwide mandate issued last week by Judge Brian Murphy of the District Court of Massachusetts has created a "diplomatic and logistical morass" that is imposing "significant and irreparable harm" on the government's efforts to remove criminal aliens. After a group of detainees said to be headed to South Sudan sued over their alleged inability to raise fears of torture, Judge Murphy issued a preliminary injunction halting any future removals unless detainees were given notice of their destination, at least 10 days to raise concerns for their safety, and 15 days to contest an adverse finding by an immigration officer. The temporary order applies universally to any individual slated for removal to a third country. The government is required under international law to ensure that migrants in its custody are afforded protections under the Convention Against Torture, of which the U.S. is a signatory. The Trump administration insists it has been in compliance. "Based on what I've learned," Judge Murphy said during a hearing last week, "I don't see how anybody could say that these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object. If I was in any of those groups and I was going to be deported to South Sudan, I would need an opportunity to investigate that and to be able to articulate a well-founded fear about why being returned to South Sudan would be would result in torture or death. The department did not do it. In this case, they did not offer any opportunity to object." Sauer told the justices Murphy's move exceeds his authority, "jeopardizes the public interest," and has upended sensitive diplomatic and national security negotiations with third countries. He said all of the detainees to be removed have already received adequate due process and had final orders for removal entered. "The district court's invented process offers little but delay. While certain aliens may benefit from stalling their removal, the Nation does not," he wrote. As part of its aggressive push to remove unlawful or criminal immigrants, the Trump administration has pursued third-country partners willing to accept those who will not be taken back by their home countries. Hundreds of migrants in recent months have been sent by the U.S. to the CECOT prison in El Salvador even though they are not Salvadoran nationals. The administration has also sought removals to several African nations. The Supreme Court -- increasingly thrust to the center of escalating disputes over aspects of Trump's immigration policy -- has unanimously ruled that all non-citizens on U.S. soil must be afforded "due process of law" "Detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard appropriate to the nature of the case," the justices unanimously stated last month in a per curiam (unsigned) opinion. The specifics, however, remain contested. Legal scholars say the type of "notice" and "hearing" historically afforded depends on an immigrant's status and circumstance, such as whether they had been lawfully admitted to the country in the first place, have deep ties to the community, or are seeking asylum. The court is also currently weighing the ability of individual federal judges to issue binding nationwide orders, blocking the government from executing a policy. After Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship — and three district court judges issued injunctions against it -- the administration asked the high court to issue definitive guidance the matter. A decision is imminent.
