Released Palestinian detainee details torture and dire conditions in Israeli jails

A group of recently released Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails, detained for months near their homes in Gaza, describe the torture and harsh conditions faced by Palestinians inside. Surrounded by their families, they recount the torment and abuse endured during interrogations, including physical and verbal assaults.

Information suggests Russia attack suspects have been tortured

Four men charged in connection with Friday's concert hall attack near Moscow are being held in custody, awaiting trial on terrorism charges. At least 139 people were killed in Friday's assault - the deadliest on Russian soil for nearly 20 years

Taliban 'tortured and massacred' men from Hazara minority in Afghanistan

 

The Taliban recently "massacred" and brutally tortured several members of the Hazara minority in Afghanistan, says human rights group Amnesty International.

DW reporter says he was tortured in Belarus prison | DW News

 

International pressure continues to mount against Belarus for forcing a commercial flight to land and seizing a journalist on board. Many reporters in Belarus have been prosecuted in recent months, including DW reporter Alexander Burakov.

Germany: Syrian torture on trial

 

Torture in Syria - a German court has been deliberating it for one year now. It is an extraordinary process: not only are the defendants being held responsible, but also the Assad regime itself. Survivors are hoping justice will be served.

Blackwater Founder To Open Training Camp In Xinjiang China

Erik Prince the founder of Blackwater USA which is infamous for its actions in Iraq. Which among other incidents involved a mass killing in a public square in Baghdad.  Several of those involved were convicted of killing, among others, two Reuters Journalists.  Now he's going to open a training camp in Xinjiang. a Provence in Western China which is home a large Muslim minority.  China has, in recent years gone to extreme measures to suppress the population with internment camps.

 Deal is controversial because of sweeping security crackdown that has detained one million Muslims

A Hong Kong-listed security firm run by Erik Prince has signed a deal with authorities in China to build a training centre in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims have experienced a huge security crackdown.

Frontier Services Group, which specialises in providing security and logistics for businesses operating in risky regions, said it had signed a deal to run a training base in the city of Kashgar, according to a statement posted on its Chinese website.

The firm was founded by Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL and the brother of US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

But its presence in Xinjiang is controversial because of the sweeping security crackdown Chinese authorities have launched in the restive far-western region, including reported mass incarcerations.

Up to one million Uighurs and members of other mostly Muslim minority groups are held in extrajudicial detention in camps in Xinjiang, according to a group of experts cited by the United Nations.

Donald Trump Authoritarian Ruler Wannabe

Donald Trump in an interview with the Miami Herald stated his support for sending U.S. citizens charged with terrorism to the U.S. Naval prison at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.   The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military tribunals violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.

Jose Padilla a U.S. Citizen was arrested and held as an enemy combatant in a U.S. military prison at the Charleston Naval base in the U.S. state of South Carolina.  He was allegedly tortured while in custody. The interrogations were filmed and though ordered not to, the videos were destroyed to cover up the abuse and torture. Jose Padilla was never tried or convicted of any of the original crimes he'd been charged with.  After a trial in Miami Florida he was convicted of providing material support  and funding for terrorist activities outside the United States.    

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump either doesn't understand the constitution and how it works, or just doesn't care and is willing to violate the rights of U.S. citizens.  If elected he would become an authoritarian leader.


ORLANDO, Florida — Donald Trump on Thursday said he'd be "fine" with American citizens accused of terrorism being tried in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

Trump has previously come out against closing Guantanamo, forcefully promising to keep it open at different points in the primary season.

Guantanamo Bay: Americas Jail Of Shame

The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba was turned into a prison following the attacks of 11 September 2001. It's been open for 15 years in all that time not a single prisoner has been tried in a court of law.  Most of those held there have been released after it was determined that they either weren't terrorists, had any connection to terrorism or  were low level operatives with no intelligence value.  Many of the prisoners held at the facility were victims  of rendition  others ended up incarcerated at Guantanamo thanks to bounties offered by the U.S. government for the capture of suspected terrorists.  Once there a number of detainees were subjected to torture which violated their rights as prisoners.

779 prisoners have been held at Guantanamo Bay of those 678 have been released to 56 countries. It can't be stated enough. None of these men were ever charged, tried or convicted of a crime associated with terrorism.

Why was Guantanamo Bay chosen as the facility to hold these terror suspects? Because it was viewed as being outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.


From the Guardian:

2002

The first 20 detainees arrive from Afghanistan on 11 January. The world is shocked by pictures from Camp X-ray of men in orange jumpsuits kneeling in wire mesh cages outdoors. Vice-President Dick Cheney describes the prisoners as “the worst of a very bad lot” and “devoted to killing millions of Americans”.

2003

Prison population hits a peak of 697 detainees in May.

2004

The “Tipton three” – Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, who were detained in Afghanistan in 2001 by a local warlord – are released without charge and flown back to Britain.

2005

Moazzam Begg, a British citizen detained in Pakistan in 2002 as a suspected member of al-Qaida, is released and continues to advocate for detainees through the organisation Cage Prisoners.

2006

A UN report recommends the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison.

A behind the scenes tour of the Guantánamo Bay library – video

Guardian US correspondent David Smith was granted a tour of Guantánamo Bay prison, and a peek inside the library shows about 35,000 items available for inmates, from Harry Potter novels (very popular) to men’s health and fitness magazines, to a scratched-out copy of Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope

Man held at Guantánamo for 13 years a case of mistaken identity, say officials

No one should be surprised that this miscarriage of justice should take place, especially involving prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.  2/3 of those incarcerated there have been cleared for release as there is no evidence that any of them were involved in terrorist activities.  Many of those imprisoned  at Guantanamo Bay ended up there because bounties placed on any person whom American authorities believed to be associated were any terrorist group.  Others were victims of extraordinary rendition a policy enacted by the Bush administration.  After arriving at Cuban prison many were tortured even though it's against the law.

A man who has spent 13 years in the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested partly in a case of mistaken identity, US officials conceded Tuesday.
Officials admitted that Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri, 37, was a low-level Islamist foot soldier and not an al-Qaida courier and trainer as previously thought, during a Guantanamo hearing.
Wearing a beard and voluminous white T-shirt, and accompanied by a linguist and two personal representatives, the Yemeni appeared before a panel assessing whether he can be released.
A profile published by the Department of Defense maintains he fought in Afghanistan and mixed with members of al-Qaida. But officials concede that they wrongly believed he had a more significant role because he was confused with others who had a similar name.

This Is What Happens When You Protest Against The Saudi Government

A young man in Saudi  Arabia was sentenced to be crucified and beheaded following his arrest and trial for participating in an anti government protest.

 A young man facing beheading and crucifixion in Saudi Arabia was tortured and sentenced for political reasons, according to rights groups and a source close to his family calling for a halt to his execution.Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 when he was 17 years old for participating in a protest. He was later sentenced to death for joining a criminal group and attacking police forces in proceedings which a United Nations body said "fell short of international standards."
The conviction was upheld this week by Saudi Arabia's highest court, and the execution could take place at any time. Al-Nimr's family has appealed for Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to issue a pardon during the current Muslim holiday period of Eid.
The crucifixion sentence means that al-Nimr will most likely be beheaded first and his body later displayed on a cross in a public location, according to campaigners.

North Korean defector flees to Finland 'with evidence of chemical testing on humans'

The researcher left the country in June and said he plans to present his information to the EU parliament

A North Korean biochemical weapons scientist has defected to Finland, taking with him gigabytes of information on human experiments that he plans to present to EU parliament.

The expert fled a research centre on the border of China on June 6 via the Philippines, a source from a North Korean human rights group told Yonhap news agency.

“His ostensible reason for defection is that he felt sceptical about his research,” they told Yonhap.

The 47-year-old told the human rights group that he took with him 15 gigabytes of information on human experiments being carried out at the laboratory he was working at.

He will present his information in front of the EU parliament later in July, Yonhap claimed.

Given North Korea's overall human rights record and that the United Nations has issued a report on the issue following a year long investigation it shouldn't surprise anyone if these claims are verified.

Malnutrition and kidnappings: broadcast that

North Korean statistics may not be reliable but tape measures, that show defectors to be between three and eight centimetres shorter than their South Korean couterparts, are.

The World Food Programme attributes this disturbing reality it on mass malnutrition, from one generation to another. Broadcast that.

Most of the scant information about North Korea comes from defectors and a tiny number of westerners who have been chewed up by the regime. The latest to write a book is Hyeonseo Lee. Broadcast that.

 Broadcast, too, the state’s history of kidnapping foreign nationals. In 1978 a Romanian artist, Doina Bumbea, was taken from Italy and forced to travel to North Korea. The best guess for the insane rash of kidnaps was to enhance the regime’s intelligence efforts. .

Once there, Doina was invited to marry James Dresnok, an American GI who had defected to the DPRK in the 1960s and the couple had two sons, Ted and James Jr. Blond-haired, blue-eyed young American-Romanians who speak English with a North Korean accent. Broadcast that.

Italian chef Ermanno Furlanis was flown to North Korea in 1997 at the height of the famine, which one estimate sayskilled between 600,000 and 2.5 million people, to cook for Kim Jong-il. He was given the finest ingredients flown in from the world’s most expensive shops, banquets of delight washed down with Barolo wine and Remy Martin. Broadcast that.

John Oliver Addresses Americans' 'Fairy Tale' Ideas About Torture

John Oliver really is both principled and brilliant: With the help of British actress Helen Mirren, Oliver compared the reality of torture to the version most American's believe from television shows like "24." With Mirren reading from the report about "rectal rehydration" - in the case of one detainee who was force fed a meal of…

'I sat in that place for three days, man': Chicagoans detail abusive confinement inside police 'black site'

• Four black men recall prolonged shackling and off-the-books interrogation
• Lawyers: ‘majority of abuse’ at Homan Square focuses on minority Americans
• Black Lives Matter movement backs protests amid pressure for federal inquiry

Four black Chicagoans have now come forward to the Guardian detailing off-the-books ordeals at the facility, including another who describes being detained in “a big cage” with his wrists cuffed to a bench so he couldn’t move.

Brock Terry, 31, says police took him to Homan Square in 2011, after finding him with five and a half pounds of marijuana, and describes being held for three entire days without public notice, booking or a lawyer.
“I sat in that place for three days, man – with no talking, no calls to nobody,” Terry told the Guardian on Friday. His friends and family could not find him: “They call police stations, I’m not there, I’m not there.”
“I was kept there. I didn’t speak to a lawyer or anything,” he continued. “I didn’t interact with nobody for three days. And then when I do see the light of day, I go straight to another police station, go straight there to county and be processed.”
Terry detailed being handcuffed in one room at Homan Square by one wrist to a “little circular thing behind the bench”, echoing the accounts of the two Nato protesters interviewed by the Guardian, though Terry said he did not have his ankles cuffed together.

The current mayor and former Chief of Staff to President Obama Rahm Emanuel whose currently running for a second term had this to say;

 Mayor Rahm Emanuel, currently facing a heated runoff for re-election, said on Thursday night it was “not true” that the police maintain a facility lawyers have compared to a CIA “black site”.

"It's not true." All those people interviewed separately are lying about what happened  to them while incarcerated at Homan square. 

Naming the Torturers, Part Two

By Ek Hornbeck From Docudharma


So Leni Riefenstahl Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn_Bigelow, how do you feel about Maya now that she's been exposed not only as a bloodthirsty sadist, but a lying incompetent as well?

Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA’s Torture Scandals
By Glenn Greenwald and Peter Maass
12/19/14


NBC News yesterday called her a “key apologist” for the CIA’s torture program. A follow-up New Yorker article dubbed her “The Unidentified Queen of Torture” and in part “the model for the lead character in ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’” Yet in both articles she was anonymous.

The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted — even by some within the agency.
...
The executive summary of the torture report released by the Senate last week provides abundant documentation that the CIA repeatedly and deliberately misled Congress about multiple aspects of its interrogation program. Yesterday, NBC News reported