UN: Assange exposed to "psychological torture" – UN official

W/S Press briefing in progress, New York City
SOT, Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: "I visited him [Julian Assange] with two medical experts, we came to the conclusion that he has been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. That's a medical assessment. We asked for all the involved States to investigate this case and to alleviate the pressure that has been done on him and especially to respect his due process rights which, in my view has been systematically violated in all these jurisdictions. Unfortunately, none of the involved States have agreed to conduct an investigation, although that is their obligation under the Convention on Torture."
W/S Press briefing in progress *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: "While war is recognized as so called a scourge of mankind, domestic violence is very much regarded as a private matter in most countries. So I want to put this in the agenda that, States, although domestic violence usually not an act of state, States still have the obligation to positively protect their population from this type of violence."
W/S Press briefing in progress *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: "Everyday in all regions of the world women and children predominantly, and also men -millions- are being exposed to, at times, extremely cruel treatment ranging from psychological, mental oppression to mutilation, to murder. I think 70,000 femicides only in 2018. So alarming numbers, in terms of the scale of this problem that are in fact are about comparable to the deaths and injuries caused by all armed conflicts in the world in the same given time period actually."
W/S Press briefing in progress *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Jens Modvig, Chair of the Committee Against Torture: "Asylum determination procedures we always take an interest in because this is where you determine an asylum seeker has actually been tortured. And if the tortured asylum seeker is returned to his own with risk for increased torture, it is a clear violence of the Convention."
W/S Press briefing in progress *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Malcolm Evans, Chair of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture: "Quite often the detention centres for immigration detention are not really detention centres, they are prisons. And in fact we have situations where the person is really being held in prison like conditions subjected to in fact prison-like regimes for not months, but years on the revolving door basis effectively beyond the reach of in fact scrutiny because of the nature of the systems in which they work. I think there are some very real problems with the way in which immigration detention is handled in many places."
M/S Journalists at press briefing
W/S Press briefing in progress
SCRIPT
The UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer said that jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suffered "psychological torture" during a press briefing at the United Nations in New York City on Tuesday.
"I visited him [Julian Assange] with two medical experts, we came to the conclusion that he has been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. That's a medical assessment. We asked for all the involved States to investigate this case and to alleviate the pressure that has been done on him," Melzer said.
He added that none of the nations involved in the case had begun an investigation, despite their responsibility to do so under the UN Convention on Torture.
The Special Rapporteur went on to touch on the issue of domestic violence and the need for action.
"Domestic violence is very much regarded as a private matter in most countries. So I want to put this in the agenda that, States, although domestic violence usually not an act of state, States still have the obligation to positively protect their population from this type of violence."
Melzer stated that the scale of domestic violence is comparable to the number of deaths caused in an armed conflict.
Chair of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture Malcolm Evans added that frequently the situation in migrant detention centres is comparable to that of "prisons".
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV