Torture in the News

Lead Story
Convicted "terrorist" Jose Padilla may be permanently damaged by US enhanced interrogation techniques.



Other Torture News

The Uganda Human Rights Commission orders the Ugandan government to compensate two victims of illegal detention and torture. An international legal precedent for Guantanamo suits...?

"Because of its power and global interest U.S. leaders have committed crimes as a matter of course and structural necessity. A strict application of international law would have given every U.S. president of the past 50 years Nuremberg treatment." (Edward Herman, Z Magazine, Dec.1999, p.38) Ethiopian columnist Tesfaye H.H. agrees.

Blackanthem.com reports the discovery of an insurgent "torture house" near Mahmudiya A few "wire whips" and a "short handled maul" were the give-away. Sounds a bit flimsy--the Pentagon wants to document insurgent atrocities in the worst way--so the Maiden will keep an eye on whether this story develops.

In Sydney, Australia, a man named Saleh Jamal has been sentenced to a prison term for a gangland shooting. His story is unremarkable except for the account he gave during his trial of being tortured by Syrian and Lebanese authorities during an earlier imprisonment in Lebanon.

Following the revelation that American psychologists have participated in US-sponsored torture, and responding in part to an ACLU call, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association bans members from taking part in over a dozen "interrogation" techniques, but stops short of a complete ban on all techniques. The APA is the largest professional organization in the mental health field. Now, what about the American Medical Association?

Guantanamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, who also happens to be a British citizen, alleges that he and others are tortured by US guards and interrogators. Deghayes charges are made in testimony to an attorney seeking his release.

In her recent New Yorker piece on CIA torture tactics, Jane Mayer mentions an International Committee of the Red Cross report on the US interrogation of prisoners at CIA "black sites." University of Toledo law professor Benjamin Davis calls for the public release of the report.

Torturers are nothing if not inventive. The Pakistan Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into allegations that cops recently forced suspects in a robbery case to strip naked and bite one another "in a replay of traditional dog-and-bear fight — a common sport in some parts of the country."

Chicago's finest have a sorry history of torturing criminal suspects. The latest chapter revolves around allegations that James Andrews, convicted of a couple of murders in 1984, confessed under torture.

Alas. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been corrupted by the CIA. Released documents indicate that the RCMP cooperated with US authorities in the 2002 extraordinary rendition and subsequent torture of Maher Arar. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was kidnapped in New York City during a flight stop and whisked off to Syria. His lawsuit against the US was dismissed in 2006 on national security grounds.

torture, human rights, terrorism

Torture in the News

Top Stories

A victory for School of the Americas/Assassins Watch. The House of Representatives has approved a report accompanying the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill that demands the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC) release to the public the names of all students and instructors who attended the school during the fiscal years of 2005 and 2006. The directive also requires that the same information be available to the public in all future fiscal years.
In the report accompanying HR 3222, the fiscal year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, the committee declares:

The Committee supports the mandate of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to be a transparent and democratic institution. To promote such transparency and democratic values, the Committee directs the Institute to release to the public the names of all students and instructors at the Institute for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. The list shall include all names, including but not limited to the first, middle, and maternal and paternal surnames, rank, country of origin, courses taken or taught, and years of attendance. In all future fiscal years, this same information shall be made available and provided to the public no later than 60 days after the end of each fiscal year.

______________________________

The New Yorker reports that al-Qaeda lieutenant and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured at a "black site" following his 2003 capture. The CIA, of course, responds by saying "the United States does not conduct or condone torture." This and more on the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" practices in Jane Mayer's "The Black Sites."



Also in the News


The Los Angeles Times editorializes on the duplicity of the Bush Administration's denial of torture. Meanwhile, the Vero Beach Press-Journal criticizes what it calls the "sort of against torture" policy of the White House.

Bisher al-Rawi and other victims of extraordinary rendition sue Boeing, the parent company of the private airline chartered to fly al-Rawi to imprisonment and torture. The experience, says al-Rawi, was "horrific beyond words."

The Muslim Brotherhood accuses Cairo police of torturing and disappearing three of their members. The Egyptian Interior Ministry refused to comment, but Egypt has a notorious torture record, so the accusation is credible on the surface. The Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist international organization, publicly denounces violence but has been implicated in several terrorist actions. Elsewhere in Egypt, in the Nile Delta village of Tilbanah, local cops have been accused of torturing Nasr Amed Abdallah to death.

Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler denounces rape as torture in the Congo, where rape, forced amputation, murder, and lawlessness, despite a 2003 peace agreement, continue.

Torture victim Clement Abaifouta reflects on Chad's "African Pinochet," ousted dictator Hissene Habre's, reign of terror.

Azerbaijani officials announce a criminal investigation into allegations that Baku cops tortured two criminal suspects. Given Azerbaijan's poor human rights record, it's not clear how genuine the investigation will be.

A senior police official in India's Tripura district has been suspended for torturing a criminal suspect while interrogating him. "The police official pierced pins in my nail and thrust chilli powder inside my anus and penis, besides the nose. Then he beat me for the whole night using a thorny branch," Kamal Acharjee, the victim, told journalists at a hospital.

Ten years after his torture by New York City cops, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima reflects on police brutality.

torture, human rights, politics

Torture in the News

Top Story

July 20. President Bush issues new Executive Order that continues the policy of allowing torture just so long as it's called something else in public (text); the White House issues a statement (text) that insists on the usefulness of torture, even though the White House also insists that al Qaida is growing; and a White House press conference on the EO follows (text) in which Senior Administration Officials demonstrate that it is indeed possible to speak for an entire half hour without actually saying anything. The civilized world recoils in horror. Two days later, National Intelligence czar Mike McConnell repeats the refrain on "Meet the Press": "I would not want a US citizen to go through [the approved interrogation techniques]. But it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen." A small percentage of the US public sputters in disheartened protest for approximately 98 seconds, after which business as usual resumes.



Other Stories

• Torture in Uganda. Activists cite torture as the number one human rights abuse in Uganda. Report to be released next month. Majority of reported cases attributed to national security forces.
• Tortured Confessions. The six medics, 5 Bulgarians and 1 Palestinian, released after a decade in Libyan prisons, reported that their "confessiona" of infecting Libyan children with HIV were made under torture. All six endured electric shock and beatings. There are also allegations of rape.
• A World Without Torture. Yemen editor Yusra Al-Shathli opines that the "human soul is too precious and sensitive to be subjected to torture." A courageous stand, considering Yemen's torture record.
• Madison, WI, Apparently Secedes from the US. The Madison Impeachment Coalition, obviously separating itself form the rest of the nation, protests state-sponsored torture.
• Police Torture. Pakistan cops apparently tortured 5 boys to death. The lads, aged 7 to 15, had been picked up for petty theft. Most torture in the world is perpetrated against criminal suspects, not political prisoners.
• Conservative Christians & Torture. Four months ago, the National Association of Evangelicals endorsed a statement calling for an end to torture. Religious columnist Peter Steinfels wonders why it's caused no buzz.
• Force Feedings at Gitmo. Two Gitmo prisoners, Abdul Rahman Shalabi and Zaid Salim Zuhair Ahmed, continue their hunger strike, and are force-fed by US military.

torture, terrorism, politics, intelligence, bush, gitmo

Torture in the News

Top Story

From the "Right. Let's see how utterly banal we can make torture" Department.

Tristar, an Australian car parts manufacturer, is in hot water. Seems that Tristar is scaling back operations, and has reduced its number of workers from 350 to 35. These 35 are long-standing employees, and their severance and redundancy packages run into the millions. So Tristar has kept them on the payroll to save itself a bundle until their contract expires. Only problem is that there's no work left for the guys to do. So they show up at the Tristar factory each day, punch in, and sit around playing cards or reading newspapers until it's time to knock off.

The 35 are suing Tristar, claiming that the boredom they're enduring on the job is "mental torture" and "their version of Guantanamo Bay." A representative of the 35 notes that they're left "essentially undirected and idle" and "left to amuse themselves," and concludes that this is "harsh treatment."

Tristar is obviously trying to screw the employees out of their rightful severance packages. It's also obvious that meaningless, degrading, and uncreative work--the kind most workers endure, unfortunately--is psychologically and morally bad. But to compare getting paid for sitting around and playing cards with torture is an outrageous trivialization of what torture is and does to its victims. It's worse than just plain stupid (not to mention mawkishly self-pitying). It's downright dangerous.

Likening the unpleasantries in our lives to torture has become popular in the last three or four years. But such comparisons normalize torture by trivializing it, and they condition us to suppose that tortured prisoners around the world are really only enduring inconvenient but and minor and transitory psychological and physical pain. And once we think of torture in this way, it's very easy for us to allow it as an "interrogatory technique." The Maiden's hunch is that most people who condone torture don't do so because they're thugs or idiots. They do so because they misunderstand what torture really is.

Other News

Hamas & Torture. The "Popular Committee," a Fatah organization formerly known as the "Popular Resistance Committee," has accused Hamas of abducting and torturing Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip. In the meantime, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights alleges that Hamas brutally tortured to death 45 -year old Waleed Abu Dalfa. Khalil Salman Abu Dalfa, Waleed's 41-year old brother, was also tortured. The torture was allegedly perfomed by the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas infamous for its willingness to torture detainees.

Blinded & Muted. In July 2003, Shahin Portofeh sewed shut his lips and eyes to protest the plans of the UK to deport him back to his native Iran. Portofeh, a gay man, feared what awaited him if returned to Iran. But returned he was, and this BBC story is the first of a three-part series recounting his torture at the hands of Iranian jailers. Caution: not for the squeamish.

Nepal & Torture. The Collective Campaign for Peace is lobbying the Nepalese government to sign on to the International Criminal Court charter. The ICC defines torture as a crime against humanity. Torture is on the rise in Nepal, with 1,300 new cases reported since last April, when democracy was supposedly restored there.

torture, human rights, politics

Torture in the News

Lead Story

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. James Taranto warns that granting constitutional protections to Gitmo detainees will actually trample on constitutional rights. (Honest to God, I'm not making this up.) (Hat tip to Comments from Left Field.)

Other News

"Today, you will learn how to torture." Zimbabwean graduate of Robert Mugabe's torture academy recounts his training.

Disappeared. The Kenya-based Muslim Human Rights Forum reports that nearly 80 refugees from the Somalian war are being secretly held in Ethiopia and subject to torture. For a series of films on CIA rendition in the Horn of Africa, click here. (Hat tip to Dear Kitty. Some blog.)

Torture in your own back yard. Human rights coalition in Chicago calls for an end to torture by city cops. Chicago Reader reporter John Conroy chronicles the infliction of torture on criminal suspects here as well as in his book Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. It's a sordid, sorry story. Kudos to Conroy for tracking it for almost two decades.

Ugandan blight. The Gulu African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims reports that it treated nearly 1,200 torture survivors during the past year (May 2006-June 2007). Many of them suffer from PTSD.

A chip off the old ax-block. Torture charges against Charles McArthur Emmanuel, son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, have been upheld by a US federal judge. Emmanuel is accused of torturing a political detainee in 2002. In the meantime, Papa Charles is on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

Justice delayed. Christian von Wernich, Roman Catholic priest and one-time chaplain to Argentine cops, went on trial late last week on charges of "primary complicity" in seven murders and dozens of tortures and abductions during Argentina's "time of trouble" (1976-83).

From the alternative press. "One thing you know for sure when you torture someone..."

torture, human rights, gitmo, terrorism, rendition, politics

Torture in the News

Lead Story

U.S. Scares Europeans (& young Americans)

For the 12th time in a year, a significant percentage of polled Europeans see the U.S. as the single biggest threat to world stability.

The latest survey, conducted last month by Harris Research for London Financial Times, revealed that 32% of respondents in Spain, England, Germany, France, and Italy believe that the U.S. is more dangerous than China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Russia. Spain led the pack with 46% giving the U.S. the number one spot.

An idential poll conducted in the States revealed that 35% of American youth in the 16 to 24 age range agree.

Reasons for the high rating included the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture and denial of due process for detainees in U.S. custody. This comes in the wake of revelations that the CIA tried to silence European Union objections to "extraordinary renditions" taking place from European airports and in European airspace.

Other News

• A military judge (no less) drops charges against Omar Khadr, held prisoner at Gitmo since he was 15 years old. A pissed-off Pentagon requests a review of the decision.
• Trinidad journalist Basil Ince offers a good reflection on Gitmo as the "Achilles heel" of U.S. foreign policy.
• Nat Hentoff on President Bush, U.S. generals, an ex-CIA director, and torture.
• The ACLU urges Congress to create an "independent and bipartisan" commission to investigate torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
• UK Telegraph's Tim Shipman reports that even supporters of Vice President Cheney admit he's become the world's "comic book villain" because of his torture policies and contempt for process. An unrepentant Cheney couldn't care less.
• Tortured Sri Lankan youth tries to kill himself--take note, everyone who believes that torture stops at the torture chamber.
• Chen Guangcheng, blind Chinese pro-life activist, may be close to death after imprisonment and torture.
• Ghanian columnist Prize F. W. McApreko asks "Who cares about torture, ill-treatment, and degrading punishment?"
• And UK Guardian commentator Peter Thatchell wonders why the European Union plans to roll out the red carpet at an upcoming summit for Zimbabwe's head torturer Robert Mugabe.

torture, gitmo, human rights, politics, terrorism

Torture in the News

Top Story
President Blows Off Students Expressing Concern About Torture

"We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants." This from a letter presented to the President on Monday by 50 of the nation's brightest high school seniors. The students, selected as members of this year's national Presidential Scholars, handed the statement to President Bush during a photo op in the East Room. Bush, apparently taken by surprise, glanced through the letter and then dismissed it with the familiar mantra that "the United States does not torture and that we value human rights." (For more on "the United States does not torture," see the bottom story in this segment of Torture in the News.)
Three of the kids explain why they confronted the President in this CNN interview. Wow!

Also in the News

Torture Continues in Nepal, Zimbabwe, and the Ukraine

In a report released Tuesday, Advocacy Forum Nepal, a human rights NGO, announced that the Nepalese Army and Nepalese Maoist rebels are equal opportunity torturers. The AFN has recorded over 1,300 new cases since April 2006. In that same time period, nearly 28% of detainees claim they were tortured, with minors suffering the worse abuse.
According to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum, torture is on the upswing for the third straight year in Zimbabwe, with 300 alleged cases occuring so far this year. Along with Angola, Zimbabwe is the only Southern African Development Community (SADC) that refuses to sign the International Convention on Torture. There are 14 nations in the SADC.
You most definitely don't want to be arrested in the Ukraine. According to reports filed by the UN Committee Against Torture, the Council of Europe, and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Ukrainians are regularly subjected to torture from the moment of their arrest to their subsequent conviction and imprisonment. As detainees, they're tortured to elicit "confessions." As convicted criminals, they're tortured just because guards enjoy ass-kicking.

UK Attorney General Calls for Investigation

Lord Goldsmith, the UK Attorney General who will soon vacate his post, earlier this week called for an inquiry into allegations that British troops stationed in Iraq have tortured detainees. Goldsmith's call comes on the heels of the acquittal of members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment accused of prisoner abuse.

More Revelations of Cheney's Involvement in Prisoner Abuse

In Part II of their series on the Vice (and I do mean vice) Presidency of Dick Cheney, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker chronicle Cheney's hardline defense of torture in the war on terror that led to the administration's notorious distinction between illegal torture and permissible cruelty in the treatment of detainees.
(Hat tip to Kim)
torture, gitmo, human rights, politics, terrorism