Psychologists Notes May Indicate Zubaydah Torture Experimentation

One interesting nugget found innewly released CIA documentsrelated to the destruction of 92 torture tapes concerns the unreported existence of psychologist's notes as a standard part of the interrogation protocol.

In a "top secret" paper (undated) entitled "The CIA Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, March 2001 - January 2003," in a section that, though heavily redacted, describes the review of the tapes by a CIA attorney from the Office of General Counsel, "interrogation materials" are described as consisting of "videotapes, logbook, notebook, and psychologist's notes.

Read more at Truthout

Eliminate the Arbitrary One-Year Bar to Asylum: Co-Sponsor the Restoring Protection to Victims of Persecution Act (H.R. 4800).

Read the letter here 

Peoples' Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR): Testimony of Ram Lal and NHRCs' response

Peoples' Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR): Testimony of Ram Lal and NHRCs' response

Read here

Mexico migrants face human rights crisis, says Amnesty

Migrants in Mexico are facing a "major human rights crisis" as the authorities fail to tackle widespread abuses, Amnesty International has warned.

The human rights group said officials ignored or even played a part in the rape, kidnap, and murder of migrants, often carried out by criminal gangs.

Tens of thousands of Central American migrants pass through Mexico every year to try to reach the US and find work.

Mexico has often stated its commitment to the protection of migrants.

Read more at BBC

Iraqis tortured at secret Baghdad prison, says watchdog

Iraqis held at a secret prison in Baghdad were routinely tortured using whips, electric shocks and rape, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch.

The organisation said it had interviewed 42 men who were among about 300 detainees transferred from the secret facility in the old Muthanna airport in west Baghdad to al-Rusafa into a special block of 19 cage-type cells over the past several weeks. The existence of the secret prison wasrevealed in the Los Angeles Times.

All the detainees interviewed, Human Rights Watch said, described the same methods of torture.

Read more at the Guardian

COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE HOLDS MEETING WITH STATES PARTIES

27 April 2010

The Committee against Torture this afternoon held a meeting with States parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to discuss various key issues, including the large number of non-reporting States, the backlog in consideration of State party reports and individual communications, and a lack of resources, among others.

Committee Chairperson Claudio Grossman, in opening remarks, noted that, of the 146 States that had ratified the Convention, 39 had not submitted their initial report to the Committee, which was a violation of their obligations under the Convention. Indeed, the Committee's recommendations on State party reports had frequently led to significant changes within countries, including stronger protections for vulnerable groups, a reduction in acts of torture, and better conditions for detainees. In terms of the complaints mechanism, that had provided an effective measure. So far, some 420 individual complaints had been received. Of those, the Committee had considered 228, finding violations in 48 cases. That had given rise to valuable jurisprudence in international case law.

Read more at the United Nations Office of Geneva

FORMER CHIEF OF “SOMALI GESTAPO” FACES LAWSUIT FOR TORTURE

(COLUMBUS, OHIO, April 21, 2010) – Today, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP filed a lawsuit on behalf of constitutional law professor Abukar Hassan Ahmed who was imprisoned and tortured in Somalia during the brutal regime of Siad Barre.  The lawsuit was filed against Abdi Aden Magan, a resident of Columbus, Ohio and the former head of the Somali National Security Service (NSS) Department of Investigations during the Barre regime.  The NSS, which came to be known as the “Somali Gestapo,” engaged in systematic and horrific torture of prisoners.  In this complaint, Magan is accused of directly ordering, conspiring with and aiding and abetting subordinates in the torture and other human rights abuses of Mr. Ahmed. Today, more than twenty years after he fled Somalia, Mr. Ahmed still bears the scars -- physical and emotional -- from the torture he suffered.  


Read more at the Center for Justice & Accountability Website

UAE MUST INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE OF INDIAN MEN ON DEATH ROW

Amnesty International has condemned abuses and torture said to have been meted out to 17 Indian men facing the death penalty in the United Arab Emirates for the murder of a Pakistani national.

The migrant workers, sentenced to death on 29 March, are alleged to have been tortured by police over nine days while in custody in a bid to make them ‘confess’ to the crime.

The men were beaten with clubs, subjected to electric shocks, deprived of sleep and forced to stand on one leg for ‘prolonged periods’, say Lawyers For Human Rights International (LFHRI), an Indian NGO campaigning on behalf of the men.

Navkiran Singh, of the LFHRI says that a month after their arrest they were taken to the scene of the killing and forced to re-enact it. They were made to beat up a policeman posing as the dead man. The scene was videotaped and later presented at their trial as genuine CCTV footage of the killing. 


Read more at Amnesty International

Argentina former ruler Bignone jailed for 25 years

Argentina's former military ruler Reynaldo Bignone has been sentenced to 25 years for human rights abuses committed almost three decades ago.

Gen Bignone, 82, ordered abductions and torture while second in command of the country's largest torture centre between 1976 and 1978.

Relatives of victims held up photos of their loved ones and cheered at the end of the trial in Buenos Aires.

Read more at BBC

Indian Justice Inches Closer to Chapters of Violenc

NEW DELHI — On Oct.s 31, 1984, two Sikh bodyguards gunned down Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her garden. In the three harrowing days that followed, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed by enraged mobs seeking to avenge her death.

Eighteen years later, 58 people, most of them Hindu pilgrims, died in an inferno on a train in Gujarat, in western India. The fire was blamed on Muslims, and within days 1,000 died in widespread riots.

These two spasms of horrific sectarian bloodletting have stood as direct challenges to India’s status as a democratic, secular state governed by the rule of law. In both instances, senior officials of the party in power were accused of looking the other way or, in some cases, even orchestrating the bloodshed. In both cases, a mere handful of the killers were ever convicted. In both cases, the political fortunes of politicians accused of fomenting the violence flourished in the aftermath.

Read more at the New York Times

Speaking of fatwas: What about female circumcision?

Last month, a group of prominent Muslim scholars met in the Turkish city of Mardin to revisit the Mardin fatwa, the 14th-century legal edict written by Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya, who lived during the brutal Mongol invasion. While the Mongols eventually embraced Islam, they unleashed terror on their religious brethren. Ibn Taymiyya declared that, although the Mongols were nominally Muslim, they did not rule according to classical Islamic law and, therefore, could be killed. The Mardin fatwa is often quoted by Osama bin Laden and other extremists to excommunicate and murder Muslims who don’t share their views. The fatwa is also used to justify the murder of unarmed combatants.

The scholars declared that these interpretations of the Mardin fatwa are erroneous, that the killing of non-combatants is forbidden. Furthermore, they made it clear that jihad has multiple meanings, one of which is armed conflict. But only a head of state, not individuals, can declare armed jihad, and only as a defensive means against aggression.

Read more at the Globe & Mail

Court Slaps Government Over Use Of Torture Evidence

You might not know it from the asleep at the wheel major media, but the Bush/Cheney war on terror foundation has taken some serious hits recently, from news of the murder of Gul Rahman at the Salt Pit, to the selective prosecution of David Passaro, to the finding by Judge Walker that thewiretapping was illegal, to widely acclaimed terror pros Steve Kappes and Phil Mudd both suddenly bailing from their high ranking intelligence jobs. You can add to the list a hard slap down by a Federal Court of the government’s continued use of bogus evidence obtained by brutal torture to try to justify continued detention of detainees at Guantanamo.


Read more at the Empty Wheel Blog

Somali ex-colonel living in Columbus ordered torture, lawsuit says

COLUMBUS -- A former Somali military colonel now living in Ohio ordered the detention and torture of a lawyer and human rights advocate in Somalia in 1988, an ordeal that permanently crippled the victim, according to a federal lawsuit filed today.

The lawsuit claims Abdi Aden Magan of Columbus authorized the torture of Abukar Hassan Ahmed when Magan served as investigations chief of the National Security Service of Somalia, a force dubbed the "Gestapo of Somalia."

Ahmed, now retired in London, says the three months of torture he endured make it painful for him to sit and injured his bladder so much that he is incontinent.

Read more at the Columbus Dispatch

India cabinet approves anti-torture bill

[JURIST] The Cabinet of India has approved the Prevention of Torture Bill [text, PDF] in an effort to move closer to international human rights standards. The bill, which experienced long delays before being passed [Times of India report] last week, will now be introduced to the Indian Parliament [official website]. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh[official website] strongly supports the bill in order to move the country closer to complying with the UN Convention Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [text, PDF] by expanding Indian law to define torture, among other things. India remains among the small number of nations that has not ratified the treaty. The bill was introduced more than a year before it was passed. Many Cabinet members feared political backlash, as the public strongly supports actions taken against terrorists. Despite the passing of the bill, human groups believe [Globe and Mail report] that India still has a long way to go to prevent torture in the country. 


Read more at the Jurist

Argentina former ruler Bignone jailed for 25 years

Argentina's former military ruler Reynaldo Bignone has been sentenced to 25 years for human rights abuses committed almost three decades ago.

Gen Bignone, 82, ordered abductions and torture while second in command of the country's largest torture centre between 1976 and 1978.

Relatives of victims held up photos of their loved ones and cheered at the end of the trial in Buenos Aires.

Read more at BBC

Secret prison revealed in Baghdad

Hundreds of Sunni men disappeared for months into a secret Baghdad prison under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's military office, where many were routinely tortured until the country's Human Rights Ministry gained access to the facility, Iraqi officials say.

The men were detained by the Iraqi army in October in sweeps targeting Sunni groups in Nineveh province, a stronghold of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq and other militants in the north. The provincial governor alleged at the time that ordinary citizens had been detained as well, often without a warrant.


Read more at the Los Angeles Times

Spanish Judge Indicted for Inquiry Into Franco-Era Abuses

MADRID — Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who attained international fame for pursuing leaders like Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, was himself indicted Wednesday on charges of abusing his powers to investigate Spanish Civil War atrocities.

The charges against Mr. Garzón mark an extraordinary reversal for a prosecutor who has also spearheaded Spain’s fight against political corruption and terrorism perpetrated by ETA, the militant Basque separatist group.

Mr. Garzón was indicted Wednesday by a fellow judge, Luciano Varela, on charges of overreaching his authority in October 2008, when he launched a politically sensitive investigation into tens of thousands of deaths and disappearances during Spain’s Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Read more at the New York Times

U.S.: Groups Hail Refugee Protection Act

NEW YORK, Apr 7, 2010 (IPS) - Immigrants' rights activists are virtually unanimous in their endorsement of proposed legislation that would change decades of U.S. asylum practices. But proponents of the legislation fear it may never find its way out of the U.S. Senate to the president's desk.

Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Refugee Protection Act of 2010 back in March. The objective of the bill is to "affirm the U.S. commitment to provide refuge to individuals fleeing persecution in their homelands."

It helps restore protection to deserving individuals fleeing persecution and torture, who have been denied refuge under increasingly restrictive immigration laws and court decisions.

The bill protects women and girls fleeing gender-based harms - such as forced marriage, female genital cutting, honour killings and domestic violence - children seeking asylum on their own, traumatised or isolated refugees who are unable to file an application for asylum within one year of arrival to the U.S., and other vulnerable victims of persecution. 


Read more at IPS

Australia Asylum Suspension Could Harm World's Most Vulnerable

9 April 2010

Amnesty International has condemned the Australian Government's suspension of the processing of new asylum claims by Afghan and Sri Lankan nationals, which is fundamentally inconsistent with Australia's international obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

"This decision is outrageous. Sadly, it appears that the Australian government is now attempting to override the rights of the most vulnerable," said Sam Zarifi, director of Amnesty International's Asia Pacific programme.

Read more at Amnesty International

Participant in 1980 assassination of Romero in El Salvador provides new details

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was raising a chalice during Mass in a peaceful chapel in San Salvador 30 years ago when a shot rang out. The clergyman fell to the floor -- and his country ignited into civil war.

Now Salvadorans are finally hearing details of the incendiary assassination from a self-confessed participant, former military captain Alvaro Saravia, on an online news site, http://www.elfaro.net.

Read more at the Washington Post

U.N. sees Congo troops withdrawn over three years

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations has prepared a plan for a three-year phased withdrawal of the world body's biggest peacekeeping force from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a U.N. report released on Monday.

The government of the sprawling, mineral-rich Central African country has called for the 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the country, known as MONUC, to depart Congo sooner -- in 2011.

Read more at the Washington Post

Preventing future atrocities best way to honour Rwandan genocide victims – Ban

7 April 2010 – Securing justice for the victims of genocide and preventing future atrocities are the best ways to honour the hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered in Rwanda 16 years ago, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today as the United Nations observes a global day of remembrance for the tragedy.


More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutus were murdered in the tiny African nation, mostly by machete, during a period of less than 100 days beginning in April 1994.


Read more at the UN News Centre 

Gay Iranians increasingly fleeing their country after June's crackdown

As Hassan walked -- well, more like sashayed -- through the market in this southern Turkish city, the population on the sidewalk -- elderly women in dark veils, men behind stalls selling Turkish pears five to a bag, children in woolly striped sweaters -- all gawked


"Yes, look! Look all you want," Hassan said with a flourish, opening his arms in a benevolent gesture, as if their stares were rooted in adulation and not curiosity bordering on disgust. A portly, middle-aged woman narrowed her eyes and curled her lip at him.


Read more at the Washington Post

Decades Later, New Details In Oscar Romero Death

Thirty years after the death of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, new details are coming to light about his assassination and the men behind the plot to kill him. Melissa Block talks to Geoff Thale, program director of the Washington Office on Latin America. He led a delegation to El Salvador last month to mark the anniversary of Romero's death.


Read more at NPR

Amnesty International Press Release: Victims of rape and sexual violence denied justice in Uganda

Amnesty International Press release
7 April 2010

Amnesty International has urged the Ugandan authorities to provide support for women seeking justice for sexual and domestic violence in a new report highlighting the barriers faced by the victims.

I Can’t Afford Justice – Violence against women in Uganda documents the economic and social obstacles to justice, including the costs of criminal investigations and discrimination by government officials.

Victims are left facing inadequate responses by police, having to pay for the cost of police transportation to arrest the accused, forensic examination fees and other expenses related to the investigation. 


Read more at Amnesty

Interview: António Guterres From Darfur to Afghanistan, the U.N.’s point man on refugees says, the world’s conflicts are getting “more worrisome and more difficult to solve.”

As High Commissioner for refugees at the United Nations, António Guterres monitors the safety, security, and well being of the some 10.5 million refugees in the world today. And though that figure is down by 8 percent from 2009, thanks mostly to returns and changes of status among the displaced from Iraq and Colombia, the challenge it poses is still enormous. Now, as he comes to the end of his five-year term, Guterres reflects on fast-changing situations in Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. "Conflicts are not getting better," he tells Foreign Policy's Elizabeth Dickinson. Excerpts:

Read more at Foreign Policy

UNHCR and South African police coordinate to protect refugees

PRETORIA, South Africa, March 29 (UNHCR) – What began as a protest by disgruntled commuters against a decision to reduce the number of trains to Pretoria's Phomolong Informal Section because of attacks on Metrorail property, quickly evolved into a march against the lack of promised housing, with police engaged in running battles with hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators.

It also was a test of UNHCR's efforts to enhance coordination with police in South Africa to protect the refugees and asylum-seekers who sometimes become the targets of protests against the lack of services.

Read more at UNHCR

Philippines move to protect women's rights during armed conflict

Amnesty International has welcomed a decision by the Philippine government to implement a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution, which aims to ensure the protection of women's rights during armed conflict and post-conflict situations.

The Philippine government launched the National Action Plan (NAP) on Women Peace and Security in Quezon City, on Friday, 26 March. 

Read more at Amnesty International