Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor Tom Malinowski was grilled by members of the Committee Against Torture today, as part of a periodic review of government compliance with torture statutes. The United States delegation waffled on whether geographic boundaries limit application of the torture ban.
Committee member Alessio Bruni took particular issue with the U.S. failure to register detainees:
"Any place where a person is deprived by his or her person's liberty regardless of whether it is a legal or known place of detention becomes a secret place of detention if the person is arrested, is not properly registered there as a detainee... And in this connection I would like to know which are the regulations concerning the detention facility used by the CIA to hold people on a short-term or transitory basis? Are these detainees registered there?"
