Saturday, Dec 13th
Last update09:42:56 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
A US defence department review of conditions at Guantanamo Bay detention camp has called for an easing of the isolation of prisoners there.
The Pentagon report says inmates should be allowed more social interaction and opportunities for recreation.
TVNL Comment: Yeah, let's turn it into Country Club Guantano. These men have had NO charges pressed against them for all these years, and they are still prisoners. Just end it..
But even throughout these wilderness years, Julie Christie has never felt so dislocated from the world that she could ignore its horrors. Her campaigning record reads like a history of human rights abuses over the last 40 years.
This week she was back again highlighting Britain’s role in the alleged torture of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
How does Israel explain the executions, the shooting of Palestinians point blank in cold blood? How does it justify Israeli soldiers shooting Kassab Shurrab with five bullets across the chest as he came out of his car with his hands to his side, especially as one of the Palestinian hostages sitting blindfolded by the soldiers heard the commander tell the soldier in Hebrew to shoot the civilians that were driving down the road. What about the two daughters of Khaled Abed Rabbo, Amal, age 2, and Suaad, age 7, murdered by an Israeli soldier using a semi automatic rifle before their father 's eyes as the other Israeli soldiers ate chips and chocolate? Let us not forget about Sameer Rashid Mohammad Mohammad, a 43 year old UNRWA worker, who was separated from his family by Israeli soldiers and taken to a separate room and shot in the chest?
From October 2003 until May 2005, I was illegally detained by the U.S. government and held in CIA-run "black sites" with no contact with the outside world. On May 5, 2005, without explanation, my American captors removed me from my cell and cuffed, hooded, and bundled me onto a plane that delivered me to Sana'a, Yemen. I was transferred into the custody of my own government, which held me -- apparently at the behest of the United States -- until March 27, 2006, when I was finally released, never once having faced any terrorism-related charges. Since my release, the U.S. government has never explained why I was detained and has blocked all attempts to find out more about my detention.
According to a 16 February report by Save the Children Alliance "at least 100,000 people, including 56,000 children, remain displaced with many continuing to take shelter in tents or crowding into remaining homes with other families, one month since the Gaza ceasefire was declared."
The NGO estimated that some 500,000 people, including 280,000 children, were forced from their homes at some point during the conflict and added that 'tent cities’ had sprung up where whole neighbourhoods were destroyed. Many tent residents are without access to clean drinking water and toilets, it said.
William Hague today stepped up pressure on the government over claims that the Foreign Office asked the US for help in suppressing crucial evidence concerning torture allegations.
The shadow foreign secretary wrote to David Miliband demanding urgent clarification on a number of specific allegations about whether the UK was complicit in the mistreatment or torture of Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.
Today Downing Street rallied to Miliband's defence, insisting that the Foreign Office had merely asked the US to "set out its position in writing" when it solicited a letter for the American authorities to back up its claim that, if the evidence was disclosed, Washington could stop sharing intelligence with Britain.
Anti-terror measures worldwide have seriously undermined international human rights law, a report by legal experts says. After a three-year global study, the International Commission of Jurists said many states used the public's fear of terrorism to introduce measures.
These included detention without trial, illegal disappearance and torture.
TVNL Comment: They hate us for our freedoms? Just asking....
Page 158 of 196
