Irony alert. As the nation world is still reeling from the details unleashed with yesterday’s torture report, today is International Human Rights Day, marking the UN’s 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
The UN General Assembly proclaimed 10 December as Human Rights Day in 1950, to bring to the attention ‘of the peoples of the world’ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
This year’s slogan, Human Rights 365,encompasses the idea that every day is Human Rights Day. It celebrates the fundamental proposition in the Universal Declaration that each one of us, everywhere, at all times is entitled to the full range of human rights, that human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values.
In addition to the heinous practice known as “waterboarding” we now have other terms to add to our torture lexicon including rectal hydration and rectal feeding. We now know for a fact that prisoners were also sleep deprived, in some cases for up to 180 hours – that’s more than a week! They were forced to stand, in stress positions, on broken legs or feet. They were threatened with sodomy and other bodily harm including mock executions, and in at least three cases, CIA interrogators threatened to harm detainees’ families — including threats to harm a detainee’s children, to commit sexual violence against a detainee’s mother, and to slit a detainee’s mother’s throat.
And as we’ve come to expect when people in power do horrible things, no one will be held accountable.
Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars joined me this morning to talk about the realities of the situation.
Chase Madar joined me in the second hour. In addition to being an author and journalist, Chase is also a civil rights attorney. We spoke a bit about the torture report and ways in which its architects could still, potentially, be held accountable before turning to his latest article for The Nation: Why It’s Impossible to Indict a Cop.
Tomorrow, Jason Leopold will visit from his perch at Vice News, where he’ll bring us more torture news, and it’s the return of the Gliberal Goddesses too… radio or not!
