U.S. Public Found to Reject Detainee Torture and Coercion: "66 percent of the U.S. believe that 'governments should never use physical torture' and that 60 percent believe that all captured individuals should have the right to appeal their status to a neutral judge, even if they are not conventional soldiers as defined by the Geneva Conventions.
Seventy-seven percent of respondents said a soldier should have the right to refuse to follow an order if he or she believes that it was a violation of international law.
It also found that supporters of President George W. Bush (news - web sites) were more likely to support harsher treatment of detainees than independents or respondents who said they intended to vote for Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) in the November elections. Forty-four percent of the 892 randomly chosen adults said they intended to vote for Kerry; 40 percent for Bush, four percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites), while the rest gave not answer or were undecided.
Survey conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)"
- posted by geoff @ #