Human Rights Law

Ongoing Guantanamo News

Posted on December 18, 2008
Delays, delays, and obfuscation continue to rule in the Guantanamo Bay detention center these days. nbsp;According to a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7789005.stmBBC News/ablockquoteBarack Obama has said he aims to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and put a clear end to torture in the US within two years of becoming president...

The Plight of Afghani Women

Posted on December 18, 2008
For years women in Afghanistan have been subject to restrictions a href="http://www.rawa.org/wom-view.htm"imposed/a by a society steeped in fundamentalist Islamic beliefs.blockquoteIslamic fundamentalism of any kind in essence looks upon women as sub-humans, fit only for household slavery and as a means of procreation...

Rwanda: A Small Measure Of Justice

Posted on December 18, 2008
pThe most anonymous victims of murder are the victims of genocide. We count the victims in numbers - one in a hundred thousand, one in eight hundred thousand, one in three million, or one in six million. The scale of the crime is so vast that it dehumanizes those of us who live to bear witness to its aftermath...

Colonial Injustice Is Alive and Well Today

Posted on December 18, 2008
a href=http://www.hrw.org/Human Rights Watch/a has a new report, a href=http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/12/17/alien-legacy-0This Alien Legacy: nbsp;The Origins of "Sodomy" Laws in British Colonialism/a detailing the ongoing influence of British colonial laws criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct...

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One Small Step for Justice in Iraq

Posted on December 17, 2008
The U.S-Iraqi a href=http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=468909security agreement/a set to take effect in January will for the first time bring U.S. troops under the rule of law. nbsp;Warrants will be a href=http://wire.antiwar.com/2008/12/16/us-worried-about-need-for-warrants-in-iraq/required/a before searches of Iraqi property...

The Supreme Court Revives A Torture Case

Posted on December 16, 2008
The Supreme Court issued an order on Monday in Rasul v Myers, a case involving a suit by four ex- Guantanamo detainees who alleged they had been tortured. The plaintiffs are British citizens and they are seeking monetary damages against Rumsfeld, Myers and other high ranking officials...

Case Against Omar Khadr Unravels

Posted on December 15, 2008
A key witness in the prosecution of Omar Khadr for war crimes has been withdrawn, on the basis that a self-incriminating "statement" made in 2004 by Omar was in fact a confession made under torture. Omar Khadr, the youngest person in history to have been charged with war crimes, was tortured and used as a human mop since his capture at age 14 and subsequent indefinite detention at Bush's Caribbean gulag...

269-269: The Nightmare Scenarios

Posted on December 13, 2008
The Scenario: 269-269 It COULD happen here! And you REALLY, REALLY don't want it to! Want proof? Just take a look at some of the Worst-Case scenarios that could come to pass if something goes screwy in the Electoral College this year, and Obama and McCain both end up with 269 votes...

Supreme Court To Consider Divine Right Of Kings

Posted on December 12, 2008
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the president enjoys the right to scoop people off US soil and imprison them indefinitely Because He Says So. This most recent case involving George II's invocation of The Divine Right Of Kings--discredited in Anglo-American jurisprudence for some 793 years--concerns Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a native of Qatar and Illinois graduate student who has been held in a Navy brig without charges for more than five years...

Senate Report Nails Rumsfeld, Sets Up War Crimes Trial

Posted on December 12, 2008
They may not have meant to do it, but the Senate Armed Services' Committee released a report by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain that gives us the best timeline to date on administration decisions to begin torturing detainees. The report, an Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U...

PHR to Obama on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Posted on December 11, 2008
Physicians for Human Rights has written a powerful letter to President-elect Obama, calling on "the incoming Obama administration to commit to fulfilling the promise of the entire Declaration and its expansive understanding of universal human rights." The letter notes that Obama's election represented a "triumph over prejudice and...

60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Posted on December 10, 2008
On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The first articles follow.  The full text may be found here. Article 1:  All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights...

Monday Night Book Club: Captain Trips Edition

Posted on December 08, 2008
Tonight's regularly scheduled episode of Monday Night Book Club has been cancelled, as the show's hostess, Alexa, has been felled by a rude and abusive virus, known hereabouts as Captain Trips. Your humble sub will attempt to fill the void with a wambling walkabout that will, among other things, discuss several home remedies designed to extinguish or at least arrest such viral outrages...

Cuba Stifles Blog Freedom. Again.

Posted on December 07, 2008
cross posted from The Dream Antilles La Bloguera Yoani Sanchez Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez, the 2008 Gasset y Ortega Prize winner for digital journalism, and her husband, Reynaldo Escobar, have been forbidden by the Cuban government from attending a blogger conference in Cuba...

Whence Torture? An Early SERE Critic, Circa 1956

Posted on December 04, 2008
Joost Meerloo was a Dutch psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who, having fled German-occupied Holland in 1942, and survived torture by the Gestapo in Belgium, made a name for himself in British and U.S. medical establishments. By the early 1950s, he had undertaken an examination of the supposedly new phenomena of "brainwashing...

The Maddening Equivocation of Dianne Feinstein

Posted on December 03, 2008
Anyone else confused (again) by DiFi? She's not my Senator, but in January, she'll become the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feinstein's ambiguity on torture is puzzling, to say the least. On November 26: Feinstein stated: [..] that she wants to see the closure of Guantanamo Bay within one year and to outlaw "once and for all" the nation's use of torture...

News From The Torture-Endangered Society

Posted on December 02, 2008
The torture-endangered society is no invention of mine; rather, it's a description by medical ethicist Dr. Steven Miles from an interview in 2006. A torturing society is a society that is abraded by the process of dehumanization. In that process, we essentially create our own mirrored netherworlds...

Another View of the Blowback of War

Posted on December 02, 2008
In an earlier diary the effect of detention on the detainees was discussed.  Today a review of the effect on an interrogator is the issue at hand.  In case you missed the article in Sunday's Washington Post, this is worth a read.  The author, Matthew Alexander, is a 14-year Air Force veteran who writes about his experience in Iraq as an interrogator...

Message from Sami al-Hajj / AI

Posted on December 02, 2008
I know some of you have probably received this message from Amnesty International, but we can use all the good news we can get . . . and Sami al-Hajj is a testament to the fact that together, we can make a difference. By writing letters, signing petitions, participating in Action Appeals, and most of all, keeping the names of the detainees in search engines, making sure that their names and stories aren't forgotten, small things add up...

World AIDS Day

Posted on December 01, 2008
I don't know about y'all, but when someone tells me what a great communicator Ronald Reagan was, I have a different take on his "legacy." My name is Ryan White. I am sixteen years old. I have Hemophilia, and I have AIDS. When I was three days old, the doctors told my parents I was a severe Hemophiliac, meaning my blood does not clot...

Honor Killing, $100

Posted on December 01, 2008
Every time anyone begins to think the situation in Iraq cannot get any worse, another new news item comes along.  Today is the story of honor killings for sale.Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year...

Monday Night Book Club: Fear Up Harsh by Tony Lagouranis

Posted on December 01, 2008
Death crosses the line, but you know, torture doesn't. -- Spc. Tony Lagouranis (Ret.) in Fear Up Harsh Tony Lagouranis never expected to become a torturer. He didn't even really want to be a soldier. But at 30, he had a facility with languages and wanted to learn  Arabic...

Let's ask Obama to have New Orleans musicians play at the Inaugural

Posted on November 29, 2008
(NOTE: This diary was originally posted on Daily Kos by azureblue, a musician who got his start in New Orleans. Per a request he made to readers in a comment under that diary, I am crossposting it here--because he and I feel this is an idea that needs as much attention and exposure as possible so hopefully Obama will pick up on it...

After Mumbai, Neighbors With Nukes

Posted on November 29, 2008
This was not terror - not as Indians understood it. This was war. -- Anand Girihadaras, The New York Times This week's terror attacks in Mumbai have been characterized as India's 9/11. With the siege over, the death toll at 200 and counting, all eyes on Pakistan and the near-certainty of Indian retribution: Terrible things, we think, always happen to other people...

Friday After No Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2008
Whereas Thanksgiving isn't a holiday I observe, and whereas I have almost no microexpression control; rather, the kind of "open book" face that all the polite, soft-spoken excuses and apologies can't front for the contempt and shame I feel about The Massacre For Which Thanksgiving Is Named (many thanks to Winter Rabbit), I was the Grinchette who worked all day and evening on Thanksgiving...

Help APA Anti-Torture Candidate Win Election

Posted on November 28, 2008
Monday, December 1, will be the last day members of the American Psychological Association can vote for president of the organization. Members can vote online at this link. They should cast their vote for the only progressive candidate standing for election, Steven J...

Updates on Hamdan, Jawad, & the Army Field Manual Controversy

Posted on November 26, 2008
[I apologize for posting some material that is repetitive of other recent posts. But the material on the Army Field Manual is the raison d'etre of the piece, so please bear with me...] While the drama over the assemblage of Obama's so-called "team of rivals" continues, pressed on by the near-total collapse of the U...

They write letters by night

Posted on November 26, 2008
Kevin Hayden posts another in his series of interviews with attorneys representing Guantanamo prisoners, this time with Buz Eisenberg. Like the others, it's a must read for all who'd like to know what's actually involved in George Bush's detention and interrogation policies...

Prisoner Abuse Continues in Iraqi Jail

Posted on November 26, 2008
For the first time since the American invasion of Iraq, foreign journalists were given access to an Iraqi prison.  Two BBC News reports (here and here) tell the tale of their reporter's findings in Rusafa Prison, Baghdad, Iraq.Inside a small dimly lit room, the first sight was the iron-framed double bunks, packed together and hung with plastic bags, clothes and towels...

Hamdan Released- Even Bush Knows The Gig Is Up

Posted on November 25, 2008
As first reported last night and confirmed this morning Salim Hamdan has been flown back to Yemen. There was considerable concern that Bush would continue to hod him in Guantanamo even after he served his sentence but it seems that even Bush understands there are limits to his outrageous conduct...

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