Graphic photographs of alleged prisoner abuse, thought to be among up to 2,000 images Barack Obama is trying to prevent from being released, emerged yesterday. The shocking images of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan were published just a day after the US president announced plans for a legal battle stop them ever being seen.
Images emerged from Australia yesterday where they were originally obtained by the channel SBS in 2006 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They risked provoking renewed hostility in the Middle East as Mr Obama attempts to build bridges with the Islamic world.
He is scheduled to make a major speech in Cairo on June 4 when he will launch his version of a plan to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
One picture showed a prisoner hung up upside down while another showed a naked man smeared in excrement standing in a corridor with a guard standing menacingly in front of him. Another prisoner is handcuffed to the window frame of his cell with underpants pulled over his head.
Others yet to be released reportedly show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps.
The images emerged from Australia yesterday where they were originally obtained by the channel SBS in 2006 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They were not distributed around the world at the time but are now believed to be among those the president is trying to block.
Mr Obama previously committed to allowing thousands of images to be published but changed his mind after senior generals warned that their publication could place US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in greater danger.
The president's change of heart brought bitter criticism from the left wingers and the American Civil Liberties Union, which had brought a freedom of information case against the US government applying to see the pictures.
Pledging to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court, the ACLU accused him of betraying his principles of open government and "complicity in covering up" the "commission of torture by the Bush administration".
"It is true that these photos would be disturbing. The day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one," said Anthony Romero, executive director.
Read More At CommonDreams.org
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2009
Obama to Restart Military Tribunals
President Obama is on the verge of breaking two key campaign promises in his troubled attempt to shut Guantánamo Bay — with plans to revive the military tribunal system set up by George Bush and to continue the indefinite detention of up to 100 inmates.
The moves, which have not yet been signed off by Mr Obama but look increasingly likely, are a result of his promise on his second day in office to shut the Guantánamo Bay prison within a year.
Since then, officials charged with working out how to shut down the prison concede that up to 100 of the 241 detainees remaining are either too dangerous to release or cannot be tried in a military or civilian court. The evidence against many of them is tainted because they were tortured, or involves sensitive issues of national security that cannot be revealed.
The latest Administration thinking has been decried by human rights groups who point out that as a presidential candidate, Mr Obama called the military tribunal system an enormous failure and condemned the indefinite detention of detainees as a gross breach of the US Constitution.
Read More At Times Online
The moves, which have not yet been signed off by Mr Obama but look increasingly likely, are a result of his promise on his second day in office to shut the Guantánamo Bay prison within a year.
Since then, officials charged with working out how to shut down the prison concede that up to 100 of the 241 detainees remaining are either too dangerous to release or cannot be tried in a military or civilian court. The evidence against many of them is tainted because they were tortured, or involves sensitive issues of national security that cannot be revealed.
The latest Administration thinking has been decried by human rights groups who point out that as a presidential candidate, Mr Obama called the military tribunal system an enormous failure and condemned the indefinite detention of detainees as a gross breach of the US Constitution.
Read More At Times Online
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Obama Moves to Protect Rumsfeld in Torture Case
When he was a candidate for president, Barack Obama spoke forcefully in favor of granting habeas corpus rights to terror suspects. But now that he is president, he is taking a less-principled approach. In a brief filed Thursday, Justice Department lawyers contended that even though the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees do have habeas corpus rights, these rights do not apply to four former detainees suing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Read More At AllGov
Read More At AllGov
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