Friday, Jun 20th
Last update08:34:07 PM GMT
Human Rights Glance
Israel must investigate the "unlawful" killing of 11 civilians carrying white flags during its Gaza operation earlier in 2009, Human Rights Watch has said.
Five women and four children were among those killed in seven incidents detailed by the US-based rights group.Researchers said the soldiers at best failed to protect civilians, and at worst deliberately shot at them.Researchers said the soldiers at best failed to protect civilians, and at worst deliberately shot at them.
In March 2003, two C.I.A. officials surprised Kyle D. Foggo, then the chief of the agency’s main European supply base, with an unusual request. They wanted his help building secret prisons to hold some of the world’s most threatening terrorists.
Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterroris.
Now in a federal court in suburban Washington, a case is unfolding that gives us a practical sense of what an Obama-era rendition looks like.
Raymond Azar, a 45-year-old Lebanese construction manager with a grade school education, is employed by Sima International, a Lebanon-based contractor that does work for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has the unlikely distinction of being the first target of a rendition carried out on the Obama watch.
An inquiry into allegations of UK complicity in torture has been rejected by the Government, as Sir John Scarlett, head of MI6, said the service was committed to human rights.
A Downing Street spokesman said the Government had already said it would publish the guidance it issues on the interrogation of detainees held abroad once it has been revised. "We do not support calls for an inquiry," the spokesman said. "We believe that an inquiry is not necessary."
However, the updated law has dire implications for the activity of Women on Waves. Because the law requires that only licensed clinics can prescribe the abortion pill for early pregnancies, Women on Waves is no longer legally able to offer abortion medication on their campaigns.
The issue of Western complicity in the torture of terrorist suspects is not going away.
But amid the furore about whether members of the intelligence services, or their political masters, should be held accountable, there has been no scrutiny of those who arguably played an equally critical role: the doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other medical personnel whose expert opinion was relied upon in arguing that "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not constitute torture.
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