Human Rights Glance
U.S. military intelligence assessing the threat of nearly 800 men held at Guantanamo in many cases used information from a small group of captives whose accounts now appear to be questionable, according to a McClatchy analysis of a trove of secret documents from the facility.
The allegations and observations of just eight detainees were used to help build cases against some 255 men at Guantanamo — roughly a third of all who passed through the prison. Yet the testimony of some of the eight was later questioned by Guantanamo analysts themselves, and the others were subjected to interrogation tactics that defense attorneys say amounted to torture and compromised the veracity of their information.
WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo gave evidence against 255 others
Guantánamo files: US agencies fought internal war over handling of detainees
One of the biggest and most explosive clashes at Guantánamo Bay has been fought not between guards and prisoners but between US interrogators, the leaked files reveal.
It was a fundamental clash of cultures: between those who stuck rigidly to US law and those who, in the frightening post-9/11 world, adopted techniques from a US manual detailing psychological and physical torture used by China during the Korean war.
US scrambles to contain fallout from 'damaging' Guantanamo leak
The Obama administration was working furiously to prevent the reignition of international criticism and Arab fury over the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba where hundreds of terror suspects have been kept in extra-judicial limbo, after leaked documents revealed the flimsy intelligence on which many of the detentions have been based.
The US insisted that the documents, originally handed to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and then obtained by the New York Times, painted an incomplete and outdated picture of life at the camp, which scarred President George Bush's relations with the rest of the world and which President Barack Obama has failed to close as he promised.
Noncriminals swept up in federal deportation program
Under the program, fingerprints of all inmates booked into local jails and cross-checked with the FBI's criminal database are now forwarded by that agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be screened for immigration status. Officials said the new system would focus enforcement efforts on violent felons such as those convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping.
But Secure Communities is now mired in controversy. Recently released ICE data show that nearly half of those ensnared by the program have been noncriminals, like Norma, or those who committed misdemeanors.
Guantánamo leaks lift lid on world's most controversial prison
More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America's controversial prison camp in Cuba.
The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called "worst of the worst", many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment.
The 759 Guantánamo files, classified "secret", cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there.
Pakistan Court Frees Five in Notorious Rape Case
Five out of six men convicted of gang-raping a Pakistani woman were acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday, in a highly watched decision that critics say will set back the struggle for women’s rights.
The Supreme Court's verdict upholds a previous High Court judgment to acquit the alleged rapists of Mukhtaran Mai. It also commutes the death penalty of a sixth man convicted of raping her to life imprisonment. Ms. Mai became a national and international symbol of a then almost nonexistent women’s rights movement in Pakistan when she spoke out against her attackers following her ordeal in 2002. Today's verdict highlights the bumpy road ahead for that movement.
Israeli TV shows Palestinian torture
Israel's Channel 2 TV station has released video footage showing Palestinian detainees being tortured by Israeli troops in the regime's desert prison of Naqab (Negev) back in 2008.
The footage showed one Palestinian died and several others sustained injuries due to the torture by the Israeli soldiers, Qodsna news agency reported.
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