Guantanamo detainee says prison 'shakedown' sparked hunger strike
An Afghan gives a detailed account of prison conditions in a declassified affidavit. He says U.S. guards in a February raid confiscated detainees' personal items and roughly handled Korans.
May 4, 2013
WASHINGTON — Obaidullah, an Afghan villager captured with diagrams of improvised bombs, has marked nearly 11 years as a detainee at the U.S. naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Three months ago, outraged by what he called another prison "shakedown," he joined a hunger strike there, and now is locked in solitary confinement with at least 100 fellow detainees.
"I have seen men who are on the verge of death being taken away to be force-fed," Obaidullah said in a federal court affidavit declassified Friday. "I have also seen some men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, becoming weak and fatigued."
Self-styled heir to Robespierre hopes to mobilise 100,000 to retake Bastille
Jean-Luc Mélenchon says demonstration will be a ‘show of strength’ against President François Hollande
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the MEP and founder of the parti de gauche (party of the left), chose tomorrow to stage his “citizens’ march for the sixth republic” because it is the 224th anniversary of the estates-general – the beginning of the 1789 revolution.
Mélenchon is the self-styled modern-day incarnation of the revolutionary leader Robespierre. He hopes to mobilise “more than 100,000 people” on – where else? – the Place de la Bastille. The demonstration will be a “show of strength” against President François Hollande and what Mélenchon calls the “government of thieves”.
SOUTH ASIA
Generators a possible cause of Bangladesh factory collapse
The head of a Bangladeshi government committee investigating last week's factory collapse near Dhaka has said generators may have caused the disaster. Chancellor Merkel, meanwhile, has appealed for improved standards.
Politician Mainuddin Khandkar, who's leading a parliamentary inquiry into how a clothing factory near Dhaka collapsed and killed more than 500 people, said on Friday that four large power generators high in the building might have prompted the tragedy. He said his committee's full report would soon be submitted to Bangladesh's government.
Kenya truth commission 'will recommend prosecutions'
A long-awaited report investigating violence and human rights abuses in Kenya will recommend some prosecutions, one of its authors has told the BBC
Ahmed Sheikh Farah said the Truth Reconciliation and Justice Commission had looked at past injustices going back to independence in 1963.
It was set up following deadly post-election clashes five years ago.
Mr Farah said the report would be published once it was formally handed over to new President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Debate over Easter greetings roil Egypt’s sensitive religious tension
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Foreign Staff
CAIRO — As Egypt prepares to celebrate Orthodox Easter this weekend, controversial comments by a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood have sparked debate over whether supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who rose to prominence through the group, can wish their Christian countrymen “Happy Easter” without being considered un-Islamic.
The latest flare-up between Morsi supporters and Egypt’s minority Christian communities has renewed fears that a democratic Egypt does not welcome its largest religious minority and that Morsi is not a national figure but an Islamist one.
Obama in Mexico: Little talk of human rights
The US has noted Mexico's 'significant human rights-related problems' in the past, but some say it and the Mexican government haven't done enough to encourage change.
It didn’t appear to get much play in the meeting between presidents, but civil society organizations in Mexico and the United States say they hope human rights will be higher on the bilateral agenda than they have in recent years.
Making respect for human rights central to the US-Mexico security strategy is a critical issue for those who have suffered at the hands of soldiers, police, investigators, and other authorities here.
Abuses mounted over the past six years, as the Mexican government deployed the military to police communities wracked by drug-related violence. The US has recognized Mexico's shortcomings on human rights, but some say it and the Mexican government haven't done enough to encourage change.
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