U.N. TORTURE BODY RAPS U.S. OVER BRUTALITY IN JAILS

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations publicly rebuked the United States
Monday over brutality in its prisons and called for an end to chain gangs
and to the use of electro-shock belts for restraining inmates.

The U.N. Committee against Torture said it was concerned about breaches of
the international convention against torture in the United States, citing
the alleged sexual assault of female prisoners by law enforcement officers
and the holding of minors in adult jails.

This is the first time the United States, the world's most vocal defender
of human rights, has been put in the dock before the Geneva-based body
alongside the usual suspects such as China.

"The committee expresses its concern about the number of cases of police
ill-treatment of civilians and ill-treatment in prisons. Much of this
ill-treatment by police and prison guards seems to be based upon
discrimination," the report said.

The committee's 10 independent experts urged the United States to abolish
the use of electro-shock stun belts and restraint chairs on uncooperative
inmates.

"The committee recommends that the state party abolish electro-shock stun
belts and restraint chairs as methods of restraining those in custody.
Their use almost invariably leads to breaches of...the convention," they
said. The report also expressed concern about what it said was the
excessively harsh regime in so-called super-maximum prisons, including the
practice of putting inmates in chain gangs, especially in public.

The U.N. forum's two-day examination of the United States' record follows
the fatal police shootings of unarmed blacks in New York and Los Angeles.

London-based rights group Amnesty International charged in a 46-page report
last week that practices in overcrowded U.S. prisons -- whose total
population recently hit two million inmates -- facilitated torture and
other forms of ill-treatment.

Amnesty called for a halt to police beatings and the shooting of unarmed
suspects.

Washington says torture is prohibited by law in the United States and
categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state
authority, but admits its record is not perfect.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Harold Hongju Koh, presenting his
government's report on its compliance since ratifying the convention in
1994, said last week that instances of police abuse, excessive use of force
and even brutality, the death of prisoners in custody, sexual abuse of
inmates and jail overcrowding were causes for concern.

The U.S. report was almost five years overdue, the committee said, and
urged Washington to submit its next periodic report by November 2001.

The U.N. body oversees compliance by 119 states that have ratified the
torture pact, but it has no power to impose sanctions.