Eideard

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Witness Against Torture outside FBI headquarters

The US is violating UN rules by refusing unmonitored access to the Army private who is accused of passing secret documents to WikiLeaks, the UN’s chief torture investigator has said.

UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez said the US had has broken rules by insisting on monitoring conversations with Private Bradley Manning.

Mr Mendez says he needs unrestricted access to Private Manning to do his job…

After being confined alone in a cell for 23 hours per day in a detention facility in Quantico in the state of Virginia, Private Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas in April.

Mr Mendez said the US had told him Mr Manning was being treated better now than when he was in Quantico.

But the UN investigator said the US must allow him to determine whether the conditions at Quantico that Pte Manning experienced amounted to “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

“For that, it is imperative that I talk to Mr Manning under conditions where I can be assured that he is being absolutely candid,” Mr Mendez said in a statement.

Mr Mendez said that because the US is a “strong supporter of the international human rights system“, the country’s actions “must seek to set the pace in good practices that enhance the role of human rights mechanisms, ensuring and maintaining unfettered access to detainees during enquiries”.

Living up to the standards we help set might actually prove we are a nation of law and justice – instead of the hypocrisy our government so often practices. A history shared by Republicans and Democrats, libertarians and liberals – so different in reality from pieces of paper and campaign slogans.

Santorum’s favorite base: anti-abortion, anti-Gay, anti-freedom to think and live
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

By now you may have heard that Rick Santorum has now responded to John McCain’s claim that torture didn’t lead to Bin Laden’s death by insisting that on the subject of torture, McCain has no idea what he’s talking about:

Here’s the quote from numbnuts:

“Everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation. And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden.”

McCain, of course, has direct experience of this process. He has even written that he did not become cooperative under “enhanced interrogation” at all, and in fact gave his tormentors false information to get them to stop.

So I asked McCain spokesperson Brooke Buchanan for a response to Santorum. She emailed a one word reply:

Who?

Read the rest of this entry »

Egypt’s interior minister has disbanded the country’s feared state security agency, which was accused of torture and human rights abuses during the 30-year rule of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Major General Mansour el-Essawy, a former Cairo security chief and the new interior minister, announced the dissolution of the security apparatus…He said a new agency in charge of keeping national security and combatting terrorism will be formed “in line with the constitution and principles of human rights”.

Officers for the new agency will be chosen in the coming few days, the statement said, adding that the new agency will “serve the country without intervening in the lives of citizens while they practice their rights and political life”…

The security branch, which was empowered to conduct emergency trials, was widely hated and its officers accused of committing torture.

The move was announced as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited the capital, Cairo in a bid to lend support to Egypt during its transition. Speaking at a joint news conference with the Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Elaraby during a visit to Cairo on Tuesday, Clinton welcomed the announcment.

RTFA. Overdue.

Think we’ll ever get round to the NSA and FBI?

A planned trip to Switzerland by George W. Bush was canceled after human rights activists called for demonstrations and threatened legal action over allegations that the former president sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and several European human rights groups said they were planning to file a complaint against Bush and wanted Swiss prosecutors to open a criminal case against him once he arrived in the country.

In what would have been his first European trip since leaving the presidency, Bush was scheduled to speak in Geneva on Feb. 12 at a dinner in honor of the United Israel Appeal. A lawyer for the organization said Bush’s appearance was canceled because of the risk of violence, and that the threat of legal action was not an issue…

“President Bush was looking forward to speaking about freedom and offering reflections from his time in office,” David Sherzer said in an e-mailed statement…

Organizers of a rally outside the Hotel Wilson, where the speech was scheduled to take place, had called on demonstrators to each bring a shoe, an effort to echo the assault on Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008 when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at him…

“Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he canceled his trip to avoid our case,” the Center’s statement said. “The message from civil society is clear: If you’re a torturer, be careful in your travel plans. It’s a slow process for accountability, but we keep going.”

Never forget.

A former commodities trader threatened to torture his regulator until he would “beg to be killed”, according to court documents.

Vincent McCrudden, founder of Alnbri Asset Management, was arrested in New York last month and charged with drawing up an “execution list” of more than 40 employees of the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other agencies.

Details of one threatening email McCrudden wrote to Dan Driscoll, chief operating officer of the National Futures Association, have now been released in court papers. McCrudden said he had hired “professionals” to torture and kill Driscoll. “They have things they will do to you that will make you beg to be killed, shot, anything to get away from the pain,” he wrote. “And the great thing is, you will be the first, but not the last.”

According to his website, McCrudden is a former professional football player and a 25-year Wall Street veteran. The CFTC filed a civil enforcement lawsuit filed against McCrudden in December, according to prosecutors, who also say that McCrudden has been the subject of various enforcement or disciplinary proceedings over several years.

McCrudden’s website says he has spent “the past 13 years and counting combating a colluded government attempt to discredit and harass” him.

“As a twice survivor of the WTC [World Trade Centre] bombings, Mr McCrudden knows all too well what the Government can do in the ‘name of public interest’…

“Wake up my fellow citizens and middle class and go look into the mirror, because you my friends are the face of the new Al Qaeda! Civil disobedience can be a start for justice. Its [sic] us (middle class) against them (Government officials and the Bourgeosie [sic]). Start acting now before its [sic] too late!” the website states.

Should run this killer klown for Congress. He’d be the perfect KoolAid Party candidate.

Bob Barr speaks for Baby Doc Duvalier

An American attorney representing Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier said Saturday that the former dictator returned to Haiti in hopes of recovering millions frozen in Swiss bank accounts and channeling them through a U.S. intermediary to help rebuild his troubled homeland.

In the past, Duvalier has attempted to personally claim the $5.7 million in a bank account belonging to a family foundation. But attorney Ed Marger said the highly controversial and polarizing former leader now wants to use the money to help Haiti…

Marger is working with two other Georgia attorneys — former Republican congressman Bob Barr and Mike Puglise — to find a company that could transfer those funds…

Duvalier could face charges of human rights abuses committed under his leadership. Amnesty International wants Duvalier to face justice for the alleged torture and killings of thousands of Haitians.

Barr, who represented Georgia’s 7th District from 1995 to 2003, and was the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nominee, said Saturday that the allegations against Duvalier are just that.

“I deal with allegations all the time,” he said. “They are the cheapest commodity on the market.”

Barr said he returned to Port-au-Prince for the first time in nearly 30 years because he believed Duvalier is genuinely interested in alleviating Haiti’s suffering. He said the three American lawyers were not involved in Duvalier’s legal problems in Haiti. They were there to advise him on international matters…

He has laid claim to the $5.7 million in Switzerland but that battle has dragged on for a quarter century…

After the earthquake, Duvalier pledged some of the money to the Red Cross for relief efforts. His attorney in Haiti, Reynold Georges, told CNN that Duvalier had already transferred money to the agency.

“There have been media reports for more than a year about a donation from Mr. Duvalier for Haiti earthquake relief, but the American Red Cross has no record of ever receiving any donation from him,” said Laura Howe, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

In any case, she said, the Red Cross is not willing to accept Duvalier’s money.

Baby Doc Duvalier’s funds are no less bloody than his father’s original fortune. Gathered by torture and murder through his Tonton Macoutes gangsters, his anguish results only from failure to grab all the money when he fled the country – courtesy of the US Air Force and Ronald Reagan.

Yes, even Hitler’s henchmen received fair trials and competent representation in the Nuremberg Trials. But, that’s not what Bob Barr is about. That’s not what Baby Doc has declared for the past three decades. It’s all about the money.

An increasing number of children are being accused of witchcraft in parts of Africa, the UN children’s agency says. Orphans, street children, albinos and the disabled are most at risk.

A new Unicef report warns that children accused of being witches – some as young as eight – have been been burned, beaten and even killed as punishment.

The belief that a child could be a witch is a relatively modern development, researchers say. Until 10-20 years ago, it was women and the elderly who tended to be accused.

The agency says the rise in vulnerable children being abused in this way is linked to greater urbanisation in the continent and disruption caused by war…

The agency said there was little it could do about the belief in witchcraft itself, and that it was not trying to eradicate the practice. But it said violence against children was wrong, and that it would do everything it could to stop it…

It is reported that some evangelical preachers have added to the problem by charging large sums for exorcisms. One was recently arrested in Nigeria after charging more than $250 for each procedure.

Anyone surprised?

Do you wonder if this cruelty was helped or hindered by Christian missionaries.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration initiated new human intelligence collection programs. To that end, it detained and questioned an unknown number of people suspected of having links to terrorist organizations. As part of these programs, the Bush administration redefined acts, such as waterboarding, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, stress positions and prolonged isolation, that had previously been recognized as illegal…to be “safe, legal and effective” “enhanced” interrogation techniques (EITs).

Bush administration lawyers at the Department of Justice’s (DoJ’s) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) accomplished this redefinition by establishing legal thresholds for torture, which required medical monitoring of every application of “enhanced” interrogation. Medical personnel were ostensibly responsible for ensuring that the legal threshold for “severe physical and mental pain” was not crossed by interrogators, but their presence and complicity in intentionally harmful interrogation practices were not only apparently intended to enable the routine practice of torture, but also to serve as a potential legal defense against criminal liability for torture.

Investigation and analysis of US government documents by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) provides evidence indicating that the Bush administration, in the period after Sept. 11, conducted human research and experimentation on prisoners in US custody as part of this monitoring role. Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of those interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations. Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity…

The use of human beings as research subjects has a long and disturbing history filled with misguided and often willfully unethical experimentation. Ethical codes and federal regulations have been established to protect human subjects from harm and include clear standards for informed consent of participants in research, an absence of coercion, and a requirement for rigorous scientific procedures. The essence of the ethical and legal protections for human subjects is that the subjects, especially vulnerable populations such as prisoners, must be treated with the dignity befitting human beings and not simply as experimental guinea pigs.

The HMO I used for the past 23 years has decided the Santa Fe market isn’t profitable enough for them to maintain a presence. They’ve become a physician-owned-practice and I guess they need to make more money than rolled in over the last half-century. So, I’m casting about, having to find a new doctor.

I’m making appointments, this week, with a few local doctors trying to find someone to carry me through my remaining years. I hope to meet someone with a conscience and backbone stronger than the sonsabitches who collaborated with the Bush/Cheney years of torture.

Mexican authorities found 55 bodies inside a mine ventilation shaft that was used as a mass grave in the city of Taxco.

Of the 55 bodies, three were mummified, and two were skeletal remains, the Guerrero state attorney general’s office said.

Only four of the bodies have been identified. Among them is David Bravo Mota, who was an area prison warden, officials said.

State Attorney General Albertico Guinto Sierra said he was asking families with missing loved ones to come to his office to begin a process of genetic testing to help identify the remaining bodies.

Meanwhile, authorities said they would explore the mine’s 10 other ventilation shafts to see whether any more bodies were discarded there.

Also…authorities in the southern Mexican state of Quintana Roo found inside a cavern six bodies that had signs of torture and mutilation.

The bodies of four men and two women were found just outside of the resort city of Cancun, the Quintana Roo state attorney general’s office said.

Three of the bodies were marked with the letter Z, and had holes in their chest over their hearts. An autopsy would confirm whether or not the hearts were removed, the agency said.

One of the six was identified as Isaias Valenzuela Ruiz, who was the head of security at Playa del Carmen and had been reported as missing five days ago.

Anyone volunteering for law and order gigs in Mexico? A nation defined by lawlessness and death – seems to me – would have to offer some pretty special incentives for a career in law enforcement.

Starting with throwing at least the most corrupt politicians in jail.

The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA’s secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan.

After years of stonewalling, Warsaw’s air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003.

“It is time for the authorities to provide a full accounting of Poland’s role in rendition,” Adam Bodnar, of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said…

For years, European and human rights investigators have believed Poland played a key role in the secret renditions programme, which became a human rights scandal for the George Bush administration…

Scandal as far as the minority of progressive Americans and whole of the world was concerned. For most Americans, the government did it. Must be OK.

The Polish authorities told the investigators they were not aware of flight data that would reveal the traffic in kidnapping.

But following a freedom of information campaign from the Helsinki Foundation and the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency released flight data showing that at least two of the aircraft used in the CIA operations flew from Kabul and Rabat, in Morocco, to Szymany at least six times between February and September 2003…

“[The Polish aviation authority] collaborated with the CIA by accepting the task of navigating these disguised flights into and out of Szymany airport without adhering to the requirements of international flight planning regulations.

“The most remarkable aspect is that the Polish government, which maintained for more than four years that no such records existed – or that, if they did, they were untraceable – has now provided an apparently comprehensive list of these landings, compiled and presented in an orderly and coherent fashion.”

Must be an election coming soon enough that “transparency” gets a chance – for a while.

The month’s mendacity award goes to Kwasniewski, Poland’s president at the time who now admits he knew of the flights – but, didn’t know the prison(s) existed. Uh-huh.