A3N: With over 2.4 million prisoners today, the US now has the most total prisoners and the highest incarceration rate in the world. Much of the world has rightly condemned the US for the well-documented torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but what do you think the state of human rights inside prisons within US borders says about the US?
TM: The US does have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. It also is the only country that uses prolonged isolation as a routine prison management tool in prisons built for this purpose. This reliance on long term isolation has profound consequences; first, it costs significantly more to house a prisoner in isolation than it does to house them in general population; secondly, the focus on punishment, rather than rehabilitation, that forms the backbone of this prison tool, has severely negative consequences on the prisoner--from mental and physical health, to their success in positively reintegrating back into society. So the costs on society are huge in both financial and other terms.
The conditions and policies of supermax prisons that affect over 30,000 prisoners across the country, falls short of international laws and treaties governing the humane treatment of prisoners, to which the US is a party. This casts a large shadow over any claim by the US administration that it is a champion of human rights.
A3N: In two previous interviews (1, 2) we covered the case before the European Court of Human Rights, of Babar Ahmad and Others v The United Kingdom. Recently the Court ruled against the co-appellants, who are fighting extradition to the US on grounds that the US tortures prisoners, which writer Chris Hedges has argued, "removes one of the last external checks on our emerging gulag state." What do you think is the significance of this Court ruling for the US, Europe, and beyond?
TM: Although the ruling denied the appeal, it conceded that there were circumstances in which prolonged incarceration in ADX could amount to a breach of Article 3. It accepted that there were sufficient safeguards in these particular cases on the basis of information provided the US government while largely disregarding the submissions provided by the lawyers for the applicants. We will be following the actual conditions under which these prisoners are held post-extradition. See this link to the statement AI issued last week.
In terms of the ruling having broader consequences for other cases, each new case that comes before the court will need to be examined on its specific facts and evidence. When it comes to obligation of non refoulement (no transfer to risk of human rights violations of different kinds) a large part of the analysis in each case is highly specific to the evidence in the particular case.
A3N: Shifting to another campaign you've worked on, why is Amnesty International calling for the release of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace of the Angola 3 from solitary confinement?
TM: Amnesty has been working on the case of the A3 for over a decade; however it became a priority case in recent years when the focus of our work shifted to the issue of long term isolation in US prisons. Our support for the case rests on a number of issues: first that they have been held for such a long period in conditions of deprivation; that the process for reviewing their placement in these conditions is no more than a rubber stamping exercise by prison authorities; that serious questions exist about the legitimacy of the legal process - including the evidence used to convict them, the lack of DNA evidence to link them to the crime; and that their political beliefs may in part be responsible for their continued placement in solitary, and even for the charges originally brought against them.
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