Friday, Jan 30th
Last update10:16:32 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
At a closed briefing in 2003, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee raised no objection to a C.I.A. plan to destroy videotapes of brutal interrogations, according to secret documents released Monday.
The senator, Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, also rejected a proposal to have his committee conduct its own assessment of the agency’s harsh interrogation methods, which included wall-slamming and waterboarding, the documents say.
Late Friday, the Department of Justice issued it's long awaited report on the actions of the DOJ lawyers who authored the infamous legal memos authorizing torture. The report consists of two parts: the first is a 300-page report from the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility finding that the attorneys, specifically John Yoo and Jay Bybee, engaged in "professional misconduct." The second is a 69-page cover letter from career DOJ staffer David Margolis finding that the lawyers exercised "poor judgment." The OPR finding would under normal circumstances require transmittal to the state bar for disciplinary proceedings. However, Mr. Margolis, a 17-year employee of the DOJ who was in a supervisory position when the legal memos were written, has specifically refused to allow the OPR report to be transmitted. However, he did state that "[t]he bar associations in the District of Columbia or Pennsylvania can choose to take up this matter, but the Department will make no referral."
According to Mohammed Hessey, general secretary of Gaza's Fishing Workers Trade Union, established in 1998, Israel waited just four years before unilaterally reducing the officially allowed fishing zone to 10 miles from shore.
Then, when resistance fighters kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, the approved fishing zone was ratcheted down to six miles. Following Israel's latest attack on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, it was reduced once again to three miles. But even that zone isn't always honored. Israeli gun boats have been known to attack Gaza fishermen just one or two miles from the shore.
The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report by released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
"Murderous blood flows in Israeli arteries," says the grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Avindav Begin, who is also the son of the current Likud Knesset member Benny Begin, refuses to stand during the Israeli national anthem "Hatikva" and participates in protests against the Apartheid Wall. He does not see himself as a Jew or a Zionist and believes that his grandfather did not make real peace with Egypt. He also is not worried about being the target of rotten eggs after his inflammatory interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot.
Denial may be a contagious disease, as evidenced by the disturbing parallel between former President George W. Bush and Jonathan Evans, head of the UK’s MI5 security service: Both denied using torture.
Given the recent revelation that Evans knew about CIA torture tactics used on Binyam Mohamed—despite parliamentary testimony to the contrary—it seems that Britain’s loyalty to the United States is more important than its defense human rights.
Bassam would have become yet another hidden detail of a non-event. A non-event of the sort that takes place countless times, all the time. Without those non-events, it is impossible to comprehend what life is like under hostile rule.
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