Monday, Sep 15th
Last update08:21:01 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
The CIA today was accused of lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago.
"These were Americans that were killed with the help of their government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating."
A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US.
Maher Arar filed a lawsuit before the US supreme court on Monday, appealing a lower court ruling that rejected his case because it involved national security information.
Two senior officers - one the commander of the Gaza ground operation, no less - were reprimanded for failing to follow their own rules of engagement.
The document was slipped out late on Friday night in an attempt, presumably, to minimise its impact. This is an explosive admission, especially after Israel had said earlier - after an investigation by a senior general - that white phosphorus was not misused during the Gaza conflict.
A Haaretz probe reveals that while the number of checkpoints with a consistent Israel Defense Forces presence has indeed dropped, the army has been positioning more roadblocks with only sporadic supervision on an operational basis.
This phenomenon is true not only along the Green Line, but also near major cities in the northern West Bank - including Ramallah, Nablus and Tul Karm. Many of the roadblocks that made it impossible for Palestinians to conduct normal lifestyles over the course of the Intifada have indeed been dismantled.
The American Civil Liberties Union has criticised a recommendation that 47 Guantanamo Bay inmates should be held indefinitely without trial. Justice department officials said the men were too dangerous to release, but could not be tried as evidence against them would not stand up in a US court.
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said their detention would reduce the camp's closure to a "symbolic gesture". The White House said the president did not have to accept the recommendation.
A Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama administration officials.
The task force's findings represent the first time that the administration has clarified how many detainees it considers too dangerous to release but unprosecutable because officials fear trials could compromise intelligence-gathering and because detainees could challenge evidence obtained through coercion.
More...
TVNL Comment: They hate us for our freedoms. Yeah, right!
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.
This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.
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