Sunday, Jan 04th
Last update07:45:54 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
In an emotional speech that was by turns tearful, defiant and humorous, Meryl Streep doubled down on her harsh criticism of Donald Trump, and spoke of having become a target since she first took him on in her Golden Globes speech in January.
Addressing a cheering audience at a fundraising gala for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT group, on Saturday night, Streep referred to Trump’s tweet after her Globes speech, in which he called the celebrated actress “overrated”.
srael's High Court rejected a government bid to delay the evacuation of an unsanctioned Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank beyond a December deadline, in a case that has drawn international concern.
Amona settlement is under a court order to be evacuated by December 25 since it was built on private Palestinian land. But right-wing Israeli politicians have called for about 40 families living on the outpost to be allowed to remain.
A United Nations report into the Nauru prison camp has raised "profound" concern over the inhuman and degrading treatment of refugee children there, which it says is having an impact on their physical wellbeing.
About 500 people, including 50 children, are stuck in a prison on the tiny Pacific Island nation as they seek asylum in Australia.
U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning may face indefinite solitary confinement and a move into a maximum-security prison after a suicide attempt earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
Manning, a transgender woman whose name was Bradley Manning when he was convicted of sending classified documents to WikiLeaks, is under investigation for resisting the force cell move team, prohibited property and conduct which threatens, the ACLU said. She is also facing an additional nine years in medium custody and the chance of no parole. She was treated after her suicide attempt and returned to prison.
The Israeli government stands accused of waging a campaign of incitement against human rights groups as it tries to hamper efforts by the international community to monitor abuses of Palestinians under occupation.
A so-called Transparency Law, passed by the Israeli parliament last week, compels some two dozen Israeli rights organisations to declare publicly that they receive a majority of their funding from foreign governments.
TVNL Comment: Another example of the 'great democracy' that Israel pretends to be.
By January of 2004, when German citizen Khaleed al Masri arrived at the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret prison in Afghanistan, agency officials were pretty sure he wasn’t a terrorist. They also knew he didn’t know any terrorists, or much about anything in the world of international terror.
In short, they suspected they’d nabbed the wrong man.
Still, the agency continued to imprison and interrogate him, according to a recently released internal CIA report on Masri’s arrest. The report claims that Masri suffered no physical abuse during his wrongful imprisonment, though it acknowledges that for months he was kept in a “small cell with some clothing, bedding and a bucket for his waste.” Masri says he was tortured, specifically that a medical examination against his will constituted sodomy.
TVNL Comment: If nothing else, the CIA has been consistent in its criminality.
As a witness to the removal of fallen U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Army Chaplain Christopher John Antal can’t recall a time when that solemn ceremony wasn’t conducted without the presence of drones passing along the horizon.
They were sleek and quiet, making a gentle humming noise as they flew over the flight lines — where aircraft can be parked and serviced — of the Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan, where he was stationed in 2012. Not everyone had access to the flight lines, according to Antal, but he was responsible for participating in dignified transfer ceremonies, also known as ramp ceremonies, which were set there to greet the caskets of fallen service personnel as they were returned to base, en route to the U.S. On these occasions, he would watch the drones drift in and out, loaded with Hellfire missiles.
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