[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] Wednesday released [press release] a report [text] it has submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture [official website] detailing widespread torture and inhumane treatment [JURIST news archives] of prisoners at US detention sites around the world and at facilities in the United States, saying that the US is "creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish -- including by trying to narrow the definition of torture." The report also says that measures taken by the US government in response to torture allegations at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere have been inadequate, insisting that

While the government continues to assert that abuses resulted for the most part from the actions of a few "aberrant" soldiers and lack of oversight, there is clear evidence that much of the ill-treatment has stemmed directly from officially sanctioned procedures and policies, including interrogation techniques approved by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for use in Guantánamo and later exported to Iraq.