A rapper using the name Tef Poe was among the delegation from Ferguson, Missouri to the Geneva-based UN Committee on Torture.
On Twitter, Poe bragged he was going to Geneva “to slap these Ferguson pigs with war crime charges and torture charges.”
Michael Brown’s mother, who was recently arrested for robbing her mother-in-law of proceeds from t-shirt sales, led the delegation to Geneva to ask the torture committee to look into her son’s shooting death by a police officer and the “militarization” of the police.
The torture committee reviews the implementation of the UN Convention Against Torture by the countries that have ratified it. The treaty defines torture as the deliberate infliction of mental or physical pain by a public official in order to elicit a confession or to punish.
United States government officials appeared before the committee on Tuesday to report on US implantation of the treaty. Outside groups are invited to produce “shadow reports” that the committee uses to grill the government before them.
The Brown delegation, including Poe, met privately with the committee prior to the US appearance.
Tef Poe is an activist and rapper who has appeared in many news stories about the Brown shooting. Poe just released a new “diss record” called “War Cry” aimed at Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. In the song, Poe challenges Nixon to “come to the north side to see if you can survive” and calls Nixon “a motherf*ckin slave catcher” and “a motherf*ckin slave master” among other things.
The song was promoted by the local St. Louis Post Dispatch, the paper that canceled George Will’s regular column because they thought he was insensitive to campus rape. The Guardian in the UK has also picked up the song.
It has not been reported what Tef Poe said to the UN committee.
All of St. Louis is on edge as the Grand Jury is expected to release its report soon. Widespread violent protests are feared if the jury does not indict the police officer who shot Brown.