Kenyan Forces Accused of Abusing Refugees

Chinese Petitioners Held in "Black Jails"

ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

An investigation into a savage torture by a royal family member of a close ally.
A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed.

Read More At ABC News

Rice 'Approved Torture Methods'

Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, approved the use of torture methods such as waterboarding as early as 2002, a new report says.

A US senate intelligence committee report said on Wednesday that Rice, then national security adviser, verbally gave the green light to the CIA in July 2002 to use waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda suspect held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

A few days later on August 1, 2002, the then US justice department approved the use of waterboarding in a secret memo, the report said.

Abu Zubaydah underwent waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002, according to memos from the administration of George Bush released earlier this week.

Read More At Al Jazeera

Burmese Refugees "Treated Like a Commodity"

Many Burmese migrants, escaping extensive human rights abuses perpetrated by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the Burmese military junta, travel to Malaysia to register with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for resettlement to a third country, according to the report.

Once in Malaysia, Burmese migrants are often arrested by Malaysian authorities, whether or not they have registered with the UNHCR and have identification papers. Burmese migrants are reportedly taken by Malaysian government personnel from detention facilities to the Malaysia-Thailand border for deportation.

Upon arrival at the Malaysia-Thailand border, human traffickers reportedly take possession of the migrants and issue ransom demands on an individual basis. Migrants state that freedom is possible only once money demands are met. Specific payment procedures are outlined, which reportedly include bank accounts in Kuala Lumpur to which money should be transferred.

It has become commonplace for the authorities to use the vigilante RELA force to periodically arrest and "deport" Rohingyas, a Muslim minority, but since Burma does not recognise them as citizens, the practise is to take them to the Bukit Kayu Hitam area on the Thai-Malaysia border and force them to cross over into Thailand. Migrants state that those unable to pay are turned over to human peddlers in Thailand, representing a variety of business interests from fishing boats to brothels.

Read More At IPS

Civilians 'escape' Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka

Human Rights Violations in Kurdistan

Since 2000, thousands of people have been detained arbitrarily and held without charge or trial in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in some cases for more than seven years. The vast majority were suspected members or supporters of local Islamist organizations, including both armed groups and legal political parties that do not use or advocate violence as part of their political platform. Some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention.

Invariably, detentions were carried out by members of the Asayish , without producing an arrest warrant, and those detained were then denied access to legal representation or the opportunity to challenge their continuing detention before a court of law or an independent judicial body, throughout their incarceration. Some detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, including some whose fate and whereabouts have yet to be disclosed – typically, following their arrest by the Asayish or the intelligence services of the two main Kurdish parties, their families were unaware of their fate and whereabouts and were unable to obtain information about them, or confirmation of their detention from the authorities. Dozens of other prisoners, meanwhile, are under sentence of death having been convicted in unfair trials.

Read More At Relief Web

No Charges Over CIA Waterboarding

Barack Obama has said that intelligence officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on so-called terrorism suspects will not be prosecuted for their actions.

"It is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution," he said in Thursday's statement.

Read More At Al Jazeera

First Interview With Guantanamo Inmate

Afghans Rally Against Sexist Law

Scores of Afghan Shia women have protested against a new law, which they will take women's civil rights in the country back to the days of the Taliban.

Critics allege that the law allows marital rape by stopping a wife from refusing sex and prevents her from leaving her home without her husband's permission except on urgent business.

Wadir Safi, a law professor at Kabul University, told Al Jazeera that said that the law must be rewritten as it does not conform with either the constitution or Afghanistan's civil law.

"The public opinion of the Shia people has not been asked for, especially not from the females," he said.

"It really violates not only the constitution, but also the human rights of the Shia female, the terms are not in with international rights that have been accepted in the constitution."

Read More At Al Jazeera

Nepal's Bonded Slavery

UGANDA: Officials Complicit In Kololo Torture

The report, entitled "Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force in Uganda," is based on research between last August and February of this year. 106 cases of illegal detention were uncovered by HRW, which is based in New York.

"In more than 25 instances, detainees were also tortured or subjected to other ill-treatment," said the report, which traced back detentions over the last two years and found that 3 detainees had died from abuse suffered and another detainee was shot and killed at home after his release, according to eyewitness reports.

The Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) responsible for or connected to those responsible for the abuses pulls its personnel from a combination of military, police and intelligence organisations, and operates under the command of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). JATT headquarters - which also serves as a detention centre - is located in the wealthy suburb of Kololo.

Because rights groups are denied access to the centre, which is not considered a legal detention centre by Uganda’s constitution, HRW interviewed former detainees there about their treatment and what they witnessed.

"Some described being hit repeatedly with the butt of a gun; slapped in the head and ears; or beaten with fists, whips, canes, chairs and shoes," according to the report. "JATT and CMI personnel put detainees into painful stress positions and forced red chilli pepper into eyes, nose and ears, which causes excruciating pain… Some described being shocked with electricity. They reported watching others being beaten and tortured by JATT agents, as well as observing other people with bruising, swelling and wounds."

Detention centres in Uganda are supposed to be "gazetted" - placed on an official government register - in order to be considered legal. The Kololo facility, among others, does not meet this requirement. Illegal detention centres are often called "safe houses". "The history of these kind of secret ‘safe houses’ has a long and quite horrible history in Uganda that dates back to the Idi Amin era," Paul Ronan, a senior policy analyst with Resolve Uganda, told IPS.

Amin was the military dictator who ruled Uganda for nearly all of the 1970s. Harsh repression and brutal human rights abuses under his rule left more than 100,000 dead - by conservative estimates.

Read More At IPS

Sierra Leone Ex-rebels Sentenced

Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal has handed down sentences of up to 52 years in prison for three leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), convicted of overseeing atrocities during the country's 1991-2002 civil war.

Three men were convicted in February of ordering and carrying out a spree of killings, rapes and mutilations during Sierra Leone's decade-long war. The three are the first RUF fighters to be tried by the court, which has already jailed members of a pro-government force and those of a separate armed group formed by members of Sierra Leone's former military rulers.

By the time the Sierra Leone's civil war ended in 2001, thousands of people had been killed and tens of thousands more had had their arms, legs, noses or ears cut off.

According to a summary of the judgement in February, the three men were part of a so-called joint criminal enterprise aimed at gaining "political power and control over the territory of Sierra Leone and in particular the diamond mining areas". During the trial, the prosecution argued that the RUF needed the "blood diamonds" to fund their war against the government. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to work in the RUF-held diamond mines during the conflict.

The RUF established control by "terrorising the civilian population by massively killing innocent civilians, pillaging and burning houses of those they considered and branded supporters of the corrupt government", the prosecution said.

The judgement also invokes widespread rape, sexual violence and "short sleeved and long sleeved amputations" - where victims were asked to choose between short sleeves, meaning amputation of the arm at the shoulder, or long sleeves, amputation of the hand at the wrist - by RUF fighters.

Read More At Al Jazeera

US Court Allows Apartheid Cases

A US court has ruled that victims of South Africa's apartheid-era government can sue General Motors, IBM and other corporations accused of complicity in human rights abuses. A federal judge in New York ruled on Wednesday that joint actions against the corporations under a US law allowing rights claims from abroad should be addressed in a US court.

Car-makers Ford and Daimler and defence firm Rheinmetall are the other companies set to face legal action from South African plaintiffs.

The lawsuits argue that the car-makers knew their vehicles were being used by South African forces to violently suppress protests. They also claim that IBM and Fujitsu knew their computers were being used by South Africa's white minority government to help strip black citizens of their rights.

The judge disagreed with arguments made by the companies that it was not their responsibility to tell clients how to use their products.

"That level of wilful blindness in the face of crimes in violation of the law of nations cannot defeat an otherwise clear showing of knowledge that the assistance IBM provided would directly and substantially support apartheid," she said. Scheindlen allowed lawsuits against IBM for "aiding and abetting arbitrary denationalisation and apartheid".

Read More At Al Jazeera

CIA to close down secret prisons

The CIA is to close down its global network of secret prisons, where "war on terror" suspects were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, Leon Panetta, the agency's director, has said. Private contractors would also no longer be allowed to interrogate prisoners held by the CIA, Panetta said in a letter to CIA employees on Thursday.

"CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the remaining sites," Panetta was quoted as saying in the letter by the Reuters news agency.

Panetta also said that the CIA had told the US congress that it had captured no new prisoners since he became director in February and the "black sites" were now all empty of prisoners.

Read More At Al Jazeera

Roman Police Find Sewer Children

Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome. The children range in age from 10 to 15 years and are now being looked after by the city's social services.

They were found when the railway police followed up reports of children living near the city's stations. The police say they do not speak Italian and broke into the sewers by removing manhole covers.

The charity Save the Children Italy says that more than 1,000 unaccompanied children arrived in Rome last year from various countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some children were sleeping at night in sewers under the railway station to shelter from the cold, police said.

The number of foreign minors arriving in Italy has risen substantially over the past five years, according to children's charities. Roman police also recently discovered groups of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and China living crammed 20 or more to a room.

Read More At BBC

Revealed: 90 immigrants have died in US custody in last 5 1/2 years

At least 90 immigrants have died while in US custody since October 2003, a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed Friday. At least 32 deaths occurred at facilities run by private contractors.The document -- which has received little to no attention -- also displays an apparent carelessness on the part of prison officials, whose records of the deaths change and omit inmate deaths over time.

Moreover, it shows that prison officials are now recording even fewer details about immigrants' deaths, possibly in response to periodic scrutiny of the list. A previous list that covered the period up until 2007 included the locations of deaths; the current list records either the location or the facility where the inmate was held, without any evident pattern.

"Some information has been changed without explanation," the Times added. "For example, the cause of death for Boubacar Bah, 52, who was held at the Corrections Corporation of America detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., previously was listed as 'brain hemorrhage, fractured skull' and now reads 'undetermined.'"

In an effort to collect more information surrounding the detainees' deaths, the New York Times has created a tipline: if you have any knowledge of the incidents, email the Times' Nina Bernstein here.

Read More At The Raw Story

Women in Israeli Govt? Not if Photoshop Can Help.

Two women serve in Israel's new Cabinet, but some Israelis would rather not see them. Newspapers aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers tampered with the inaugural photograph of the Cabinet, erasing ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver.

Ultra-Orthodox newspapers consider it immodest to print images of women. The daily Yated Neeman digitally changed the photo, moving two male ministers into the places formerly occupied by the women. The weekly Shaa Tova simply blacked the women out, in a photo reprinted Friday by the mainstream daily Maariv. No response was available from the two papers.

During the election, campaign posters featuring female candidate Tzipi Livni were defaced near ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

From The Washington Post

Smuggled Afghan Children Die in Sealed Container

More than 60 Afghans, mainly children and youths, have been found dead after suffocating inside a shipping container in southwestern Pakistan in an apparent human smuggling attempt.

More than 100 illegal immigrants were discovered inside the container, which had been locked from the outside, 20km from the border town of Quetta on Saturday.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's Pakistan correspondent, said the immigrants were first discovered after local residents at a lorry stop heard sounds coming from the container. Most of the dead were reported to be teenage Afghans and at least five were small children. The stench from the container suggested some of the immigrants may have been dead for days, Rasool Bakhsh, a police spokesman, said.

Read More At Al Jazeera

Karzai to Review 'Abhorrent' Law

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has ordered a review of a new law that critics say effectively legalises the rape of women by their husbands.

Western leaders, including Barack Obama, the US president, and Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, have criticised the law which grants Shia husbands the right to have intercourse with their wives every fourth night.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women has said it "legalises the rape of a wife by her husband". Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief in Afghanistan, has called on the Afghan government to revoke the legislation, saying it is "reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime". Under the new measure, Shia women would be banned from working or receiving an education without their husbands' permission, the UN agency said. They would also be forbidden from leaving their homes except for "legitimate purposes," the agency said.

Read More At Al Jazeera

The Global Impact of the War on Terror: From Egypt to Jordan

Without foreign support and assistance, the human rights violations of the past eight years would not have been possible. Today's column gives some examples of this abusive collaboration. Among the dozens of countries that supported abusive U.S. counterterrorism efforts are Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Indonesia and Jordan.

Egypt

The Egyptian authorities worked closely with the CIA on renditions, both arresting suspects in Egypt and handing them over to the CIA, and accepting rendered prisoners for detention and interrogation. Prisoners who were rendered to Egypt by the CIA post-9/11 include Abd al-Hamid al-Fakhiri (better known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi). The majority of the suspects rendered to Egypt were Egyptian nationals who remained in Egypt for long-term detention. However, other prisoners—such as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi (Libyan), Mamdouh Habib (Australian), and Hafez Saad Iqbal Madni (Pakistani)—were non-Egyptians who were apparently sent to Egypt to be interrogated; after some weeks or months there, they were returned to U.S. custody.

One of the first post 9/11 cases of rendition to Egypt was that of Ahmad 'Agiza and Muhammad al-Zari, who were transferred from Sweden to Egypt on December 18, 2001. The two were held in incommunicado detention for five weeks before their families were allowed to visit them.

There is considerable evidence to show that Egyptian security agents tortured the men during this period. A confidential Swedish government memorandum detailing the men's first visit by embassy officials includes allegations from the men that they were repeatedly beaten by prison guards, denied necessary medication, blindfolded during interrogations, and were threatened with reprisals against family members if they did not cooperate during interrogations.

The men also made serious allegations of torture to family members and their Egyptian and Swedish lawyers. According to 'Agiza's mother, he told her that he was subject to repeated beatings and electric shocks, after which a cream was applied (to minimize evidence of the burns), and that he was at one point left chained and blindfolded for 10 days, during which he urinated and defecated on himself. He also alleged that he was made to lick food off of the prison floor.

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi was rendered to Egypt by the CIA in early 2002. While under torture, he "admitted" that Saddam Hussein had trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons, information was later used in Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations justifying the invasion of Iraq.

ABC News reported that they obtained a CIA cable describing a CIA debriefing of al-Libi, in which al-Libi described the circumstances of his purported confession. Al-Libi told the CIA that the Egyptian interrogators told him that they wanted information about al-Qaeda's connections with Iraq, a subject "about which [al-Libi] said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story."

Describing the treatment that led to al-Libi's statements about Iraqi-al-Qaeda links, the cable continues:

Al Libi indicated that his interrogators did not like his responses and then "placed him in a small box approximately 50cm x 50cm [20 inches x 20 inches]." He claimed he was held in the box for approximately 17 hours. When he was let out of the box, al Libi claims that he was given a last opportunity to "tell the truth." When al Libi did not satisfy the interrogator, al Libi claimed that "he was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and he fell on his back." Al Libi told CIA debriefers that he then "was punched for 15 minutes."

Former detainees Hafez Qari Mohamed Saad Iqbal Madni, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr (aka Abu Omar), and Mamdouh Habib have all told similarly graphic stories of torture and abuse.

Read More At Counterpunch

A Year Without a Mexican: The Debilitating Loss of Economic Lifeblood

For years, there were rumors that the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant at the edge of town was under scrutiny by immigration authorities. Later that morning, Brackett's wife called with confirmation: She'd spotted two helicopters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in jackets and flak vests down by the slaughterhouse.

Brackett quickly drove to the hulking plant, which had been cordoned off by scores of ICE agents, state troopers, and sheriff's deputies. The authorities soon began to emerge from the building escorting workers, hundreds in all, and many in shackles. Mostly Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants, they were loaded onto white buses emblazoned with the Homeland Security logo, and taken away for detention and trial.

The 389 arrests eliminated more than one-third of the meatpacker's workforce and nearly one-fifth of the town's population. It also prompted an exodus of hundreds more Hispanic residents who were either afraid of being targeted or simply opted to escape the town's inevitable tailspin. Postville's businesses began to suffer almost immediately. Even the Wal-Mart in Decorah, a half-hour away, called Postville mayor Robert Penrod with concerns about the economic impact.

Read More At AlterNet

Khmer Rouge Custodial Torture Exposed

On a recent morning, tourists who visited a former high school in this city, turned into an infamous torture chamber during the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in the mid-1970s, were in for a surprise – the presence of a man who lived to tell the tale.

The tourists got to listen to Chum Mey, now 78 years, who was among the 11 people who came out alive from the four buildings that were turned into the Tuol Sleng prison, or S-21. At least 12,380 people imprisoned here, including children, were tortured and killed.

Chum Mey’s account of the sufferings that male and female prisoners endured within Tuol Sleng helped bring alive the scenes the visitors encountered when walking through the three floors of each of the grey-walled buildings, their window grills encrusted with rust and sections wrapped in barbed wire.

Read More At IPS

Lawmakers Debate Establishing “Truth Commission” on Bush Admin Torture, Rendition and Domestic Spying

On Capitol Hill, debate has begun over forming a truth commission to shed light on the Bush administration’s secret polices on detention, interrogation and domestic spying. A hearing on the issue was held Wednesday, two days after the Obama administration released a series of once-secret Bush administration Justice Department memos that authorized President Bush to deploy the military to carry out raids inside the United States.

Read More At Democracy Now!