Monday, Sep 26th
Last update05:20:13 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
)As Lauren Chopek painfully details her story, she does so with the reticence of a survivor, as if somehow remaining silent would have been better.
The first person to be subjected to the CIA’s now-defunct “enhanced interrogation program” sat before a parole board at Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday, in his first public appearance since he was captured more than a decade ago.
Flanked by two personal representatives clad in green camouflage and one translator dressed in civilian clothes, Abu Zubaydah listened silently during the 15-minute unclassified session of his periodic review board hearing.
When two dozen women sail from Barcelona on September 14, mounting the latest international challenge to Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, their boats -- the Amal, or "hope," and Zaytouna, or "olive" -- will confront a seemingly intractable impasse.
"There is no freedom of transport or travel owing to the closure of cross points and borders, which led to the death of a score of patients [from Gaza] who were unable to receive their treatment abroad," Samar Al-Dreamly, media coordinator for Gaza's Women's Affairs Center and editorial secretary of its Al-Ghaidaa magazine, told Truthout.
The threats have come via emails, phone calls, and once with flowers delivered directly to the front door.
Amid months of sustained intimidation, harassment and threats, Palestinian human rights defenders are coming forward to denounce a campaign that they say aims to "plant fear" into their efforts to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations.
"This is a very organised and advanced campaign," said Shawan Jabarin, director of Al Haq, a prominent Ramallah-based Palestinian human rights organisation.
The Pentagon is expected to announce the transfer of 15 prisoners out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on Monday evening, marking the largest single exodus of detainees from the infamous prison in Barack Obama’s presidency.
Multiple sources confirmed an AFP report, which broke the news of the transfer ahead of the Pentagon’s announcement. Sources say they expect the detainees to be sent to the United Arab Emirates, a country that accepted five Yemeni detainees last year since the U.S. ruled out repatriating them to their unstable home country. Because congressional restrictions currently outlaw transferring detainees to the U.S., the Obama administration has relied on other countries to take in prisoners who are cleared for release by an inter-agency review board.
Nearly two dozen women held at a Berks County, Pennsylvania, migrant family detention center have launched a hunger strike to protest their and their children’s long detentions – some which have lasted over a year.
The 22 women say they’ve taken action in response to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s recent pronouncement that the average length of stay at family detention centers was 20 days or less.
More than 2,000 incidents, including sexual abuse, assault and attempted self-harm, were reported over two years at an Australian prison for asylum seekers in Nauru, more than half involving children, the Guardian has reported.
Leaked documents published by the Guardian Australia on Wednesday detailed the level of abuse at the prison on tiny Nauru, one of two run by Australia on neighbouring South Pacific islands, and showed that children bore the brunt of the trauma.
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