Human Rights Glance
In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys – that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.
Obama Justice Dep. defends Rumsfeld in torture case
Raped and killed for being a lesbian: South Africa ignores 'corrective' attacks
The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.
Israeli Supreme Court upholds ban on Palestinian activist from traveling to accept award
The Supreme Court of Israel has banned a Palestinian human rights activist from traveling to Amsterdam to receive a prize. Shawan Jabarin, the West Bank-based director of Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq, hoped to travel to the Netherlands Friday to receive the Geuzenpenning Prize on behalf of his organization.
But spokeswoman Ayelet Filo says the court ruled there was real evidence that he is involved with terror organizations, and therefore he will not be allowed to leave for security concerns.
ACLU demands Obama administration release prisoner abuse photos
Despite a unanimous federal appeals court panel ruling last year that ordered the Bush administration to do just that, the outgoing administration asked the full court to rehear the case. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has yet to do so, according to a statement released Tuesday by the ACLU.
"The Obama administration's commitment to transparency is commendable," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "We want to make sure that this rhetoric becomes reality." The Obama administration has not weighed in on the case.
You Can't Be a Christian and Tolerate Torture
The whole point of giving the accused a trial is to sort the guilty from the innocent. While the effectiveness of torture is highly doubtful (American experts claimed it doesn't work but were ignored by the Bush administration), there's no denying that torture must include accidental torture of innocents if it is to be done in a timely manner. You simply can't wait for a trial before the torture commences.
Vatican backs ex-communication for abortion after rape of 9 year old girl
A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a young girl who had an abortion with their help.
The nine-year-old had conceived twins after alleged abuse by her stepfather.
Guards 'taking their last revenge' at Guantanamo: ex-prisoner
A freed Guantanamo Bay prisoner has said conditions at the US detention camp in Cuba have worsened since President Barack Obama was elected, claiming guards wanted to "take their last revenge".
Mohamed, a 30-year-old Ethiopian-born former British resident, gave further details of what he called the "medieval" torture he faced in Pakistan and Morocco, as well as in a secret CIA prison in Kabul and at Guantanamo.
"The result of my experience is that I feel emotionally dead," he told the Mail on Sunday newspaper. "It seems like a miracle my brain is still intact."
Far from conditions at Guantanamo improving since Obama was elected in November, Mohamed said the situation there was worse now than before.
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