The United States never conducts torture and condemns the practice, State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th June, 2019) The United States never conducts torture and condemns the practice, State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on Wednesday."Torture is prohibited by international law and is incompatible with the values that define us as a people," Ortagus said. "The United States is unambiguous. We never conduct torture, period, full stop."
The statement marked 32nd anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment - a day now called the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Ortagus added.
The United States was widely criticized after it made waterboarding a standard practice in so-called enhanced interrogation techniques used on terror suspects following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Waterboarding, a practice in which a suspect's cloth-covered face is doused with water to simulate drowning, is widely considered a form of torture, including by the United Nations and former President Barack Obama, who banned the practice.
However, President Donald Trump embraced waterboarding and vowed to "bring back" the practice during his 2016 presidential campaign.
US policy now limits American interrogators to techniques outlined in the US Army Field Manual, which does not include waterboarding or other coercive methods.
