Tag: torture

Jamal Khashoggi’s Apple Watch recorded his torture and murder

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Jamal Khashoggi and fiancee Hatice Cengiz

According to a Sabah Gazetesi report, Khashoggi recorded what is believed to be audio evidence of his death inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey more than a week ago. Sabah Washington correspondent Ragip Soylu posted a screenshot of the story to Twitter on Friday.

In its report, Sarah claims Khashoggi recorded questioning by a “hit squad.” A copy of the audio file was synced with Khashoggi’s iPhone, which was in the possession of fiancee Hatice Cengiz. Cengiz was waiting outside the consulate during the alleged exchange, assumedly within Bluetooth range of the Apple Watch in question…

While Saudis were able to wipe certain files from Khashoggi’s device or devices, they were less successful in deleting data from iCloud, the report says.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the truth to come out voluntarily from the criminal Saudi royals…or their pimp in the White House.

Coppers using Tasers for Torture

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Police Sergeant using taser on handcuffed prisoner

❝ Corporal Matthew Stice pointed his Taser at Martini Smith’s bare chest.

Smith was 20 years old, pregnant and stripped nearly naked, standing in a cell in the Franklin County jail in Columbus, Ohio. She had been detained on charges of stabbing a boyfriend she’d accused of beating her. Stice and a deputy had ordered her to disrobe, take off all jewelry and don a prison gown. But she hadn’t been able to obey one command – remove the silver stud from her tongue.

❝ “Take the tongue ring out,” Deputy Shawnda Arnold said. Smith continued struggling to unscrew the ring, inserting fingers from both hands into her mouth. No luck. Her fingers were numb, she protested: She had been cuffed for six hours with her hands behind her back.

“I will Tase you,” Stice said. The ring was slippery, Smith said, asking for a paper towel. The deputies refused. “I just want to go to sleep,” Smith cried.

Stice warned her again, then fired. The Taser’s electrified darts struck Smith’s chest; she collapsed against the concrete wall and slid to the floor, gasping, arms over her breasts.

❝ “Why did you Tase me?” she moaned. “I wasn’t harming nobody. I can’t just take it out.”

Five days later, Smith had a miscarriage…

❝ Reuters identified 104 deaths involving Tasers behind bars, nearly all since 2000 – 10 percent of a larger universe of more than 1,000 fatal law enforcement encounters in which the weapons were used. Some of the in-custody deaths were deemed “multi-factorial,” with no distinct cause, and some were attributed to pre-existing health problems. But the Taser was listed as a cause or contributing factor in more than a quarter of the 84 inmate deaths in which the news agency obtained autopsy findings.

RTFA and begin to understand why most poor or non-white or just ordinary workingclass folks consider our police departments to be something other than institutions chartered to “serve and protect”.

Trump ready to end the ban on Black Site prisons

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❝ The Trump administration is preparing a sweeping executive order that would clear the way for the C.I.A. to reopen overseas “black site” prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Barack Obama shut them down.

President Trump’s three-page draft order, titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” and obtained by The New York Times, would also undo many of the other restrictions on handling detainees that Mr. Obama put in place in response to policies of the George W. Bush administration.

❝ If Mr. Trump signs the draft order, he would also revoke Mr. Obama’s directive to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees in American custody. That would be another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions, although statutory obstacles would remain…

❝ It was not clear whether the C.I.A. would be enthusiastic about resuming a role in detaining and interrogating terrorism suspects after its scorching experience over the past decade.

Not that our Fearless President has any problem ignoring law, regulations or institutional procedures when it comes to stamping his little feet to get his way.

Obama didn’t remove the Bush “national security” policies — now, he hands them over to Trump

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❝ As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to refill the cells of the Guantánamo Bay prison and said U.S. terrorism suspects should be sent there for military prosecution. He called for targeting mosques for surveillance, escalating airstrikes aimed at terrorists and taking out their civilian family members, and bringing back waterboarding and a “hell of a lot worse” — not only because “torture works,” but because even “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway.”

It is hard to know how much of this stark vision for throwing off constraints on the exercise of national security power was merely tough campaign talk. But if the Trump administration follows through on such ideas, it will find some assistance in a surprising source: President Barack Obama’s have-it-both-ways approach to curbing what he saw as overreaching in the war on terrorism.

❝ Over and over, Obama has imposed limits on his use of such powers but has not closed the door on them — a flexible approach premised on the idea that he and his successors could be trusted to use them prudently. Trump can now sweep away those limits and open the throttle on policies that Obama endorsed as lawful and legitimate for sparing use, like targeted killings in drone strikes and the use of indefinite detention and military tribunals for terrorism suspects.

And even in areas where Obama tried to terminate policies from the George W. Bush era — such as torture and the detention of Americans and other people arrested on domestic soil as “enemy combatants” — his administration fought in court to prevent any ruling that the defunct practices had been illegal. The absence of a definitive repudiation could make it easier for Trump administration lawyers to revive the policies by invoking the same sweeping theories of executive power that were the basis for them in the Bush years.

RTFA and reflect upon the range of backwards tools handy to any criminal onslaught against constitutional rights, crushing dissent, reviving sedition prosecutions unheard of since the turn of the 19th Century.

Detainee used as a lab rat for CIA torture experiments coming up for a hearing on release from Gitmo

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The whole world is watching

❝ A man the CIA used as a guinea pig for its post-9/11 torture program will plead his case for freedom from Guantanámo Bay later this month…in perhaps the hardest challenge to date for Barack Obama’s intentions to empty the infamous detention center.

Zayn al-Ibidin Muhammed Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah, is one of three men the CIA acknowledged that it waterboarded, a process simulating drowning, at an unacknowledged prison in Thailand. At some point during his 14-year captivity by the US, he lost the use of his left eye.

❝ The 23 August hearing, Guantánamo’s equivalent of a parole board, will present the first time Abu Zubaydah will have an opportunity to speak about his captivity – an opportunity that contradicts the CIA’s preferences. The CIA, per a landmark 2014 Senate investigation, has contended that he ought to be held incommunicado until he dies.

Yup. Why allow someone we tortured to testify about that torture – when we deny torturing anyone?

❝ “We anticipate our client will make a statement” at the hearing, said Zubaydah’s attorney, Joseph Margulies.

Abu Zubaydah presents the hardest test thus far for the Obama administration’s last-ditch attempt at vacating the Guantánamo detention facility through the quasi-parole process. While the much-tortured Abu Zubaydah may or may not be too dangerous to release – the criterion that a multi-agency Guantánamo tribunal known as a Periodic Review Board (PRB) will evaluate later this month – he knows a vast amount about CIA torture, which makes his ultimate release doubtful…

RTFA if you care to learn what our government did in the name of freedom.

❝ …The CIA represented [his torture] to the Bush administration and Congress as a success, and subsequently tortured at least 118 others…

Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham Law School’s Center on National Security, said the decision to permit Abu Zubaydah a hearing represented a boldness by the White House in its internal and congressional battles over closing Guantánamo.

“Abu Zubaydah is at the heart of everything that keeps Gitmo from closing: the issue of torture,” Greenberg said.

Most Congressional Republicans and many conservative Democrats have no problem with the United States torturing people. You know that. I know that. We share the same contempt for the excuses they lap up from CIA torturers and executioners.

The Senate finally voted to outlaw torture, last year.

Shrinks who designed CIA torture admit to torturing — but say it wasn’t torture!

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Bruce Jessen — Jim Mitchell

❝ The acknowledgement by two former Air Force psychologists that they used waterboarding and other harsh tactics against detainees in the war on terror is a striking development…

“It’s remarkable to see an end to the deniability of the existence of records of torture,” said Sarah Dougherty, a senior fellow with Physicians for Human Rights…

“This is a significant step forward for accountability,” Dougherty said.

❝ In federal court documents filed this week, the two psychologists who helped design the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques said they used harsh tactics, but they denied allegations of torture and war crimes leveled by the American Civil Liberties Union.

❝ The ACLU has sued James E. Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen of Washington state on behalf of three former CIA prisoners, including one who died, creating a closely watched case that will likely include classified information.

In response, the pair’s attorneys filed documents this week in which Mitchell and Jessen acknowledge using waterboarding, loud music, confinement, slapping and other harsh methods but deny that they were torture…

The records don’t say why Mitchell and Jessen don’t consider the techniques to be torture. They declined to respond to many of the ACLU’s allegations, saying much of the information is classified.

I’ve been writing about these two pricks for seven years, now. They sit back on their overpaid butts and rely on the CIA to hide their tracks.

RTFA for the latest. You can read here and back here to catch up with early days in the history of a nation that violates international protocols on torture.

Federal court backs up Senate decision to hide the full CIA torture report

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A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit calling for the full release of a U.S. Senate report detailing the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation and detention program following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought access to the more than 6,000-page document, often referred to as the “Senate torture report.”…

When the report was released in 2014, only a 500-page executive summary was made public. It said the CIA misled the White House and public about torture of detainees. Some captives were deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, at times with their hands shackled above their heads, and the report recorded cases of simulated drowning or “waterboarding” and sexual abuse, including “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration” without any documented medical need.

I wonder what the response would be to a national referendum calling for “rectal feeding” of some of our elected officials?

The ACLU sued under the Freedom of Information Act in 2013 to obtain the full report prior to its release. Congressional documents are exempt from the law, but the ACLU said the Senate Intelligence Committee relinquished control when it transmitted the report to the White House and other agencies, which are subject to freedom of information requests.

The appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s decision in favor of the government.

Transparency becomes less and less a standard, a priority, for the government of the United States. Keep on rocking in the Free World!

Torture in Mexico reaching catastrophic levels

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La Jornada: According to Amnesty International, Mexico’s torture epidemic continues, reaching “catastrophic levels in the past year, with more than double the number of reports at the federal level of suffocation, rape and other sexual abuse, electric shocks and beatings.”

In the report, [.pdf full English text] AI stated that the number of complaints for torture more than doubled between 2013 and 2014, from 1,164 to 2,403, according to the Attorney General’s Office…

…It was asked why President Enrique Peña Nieto has not launched an initiative in Congress for a general law on torture, as a first step in addressing the crisis, when he said he would. The deadline for the Legislature to approve the initiative is in less than three months (January 2016) and it has not yet been delivered…

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director AI, said: “A strong general law against torture, which means more than words and ensures justice for the victims, would be a good first step for Mexico to recover from the deep crisis of human rights in which it is immersed.”

She added that it was hard to imagine a year ago that Mexico’s torture crisis could get any worse, and now we see that that is exactly what happened as the government continues to ignore a crisis it created.

AI noted in its report that the President’s commitment to the law is a major step forward, but these paper promises have not been accompanied by concrete results that would translate into a change in people’s lives.

Same as it ever was. Not just in Mexico, not just in Israel, not just in offshore prisons run by the United States. The mentality of many “freedom-loving” democracies often finds excuses for torture.

Who will profit the most from the Death and Destruction Fair?

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More than 30,000 visitors are expected next week at the biannual arms fair organised by Defence and Security Equipment International at the ExCel Centre in London. The 2013 event drew 97 delegations from 56 countries, checking out the goods on offer from 1,489 “defence and security suppliers”, from handguns to fighter jets. The London Independent described the showcase as “where the world’s worst dictators love to shop”…

DSEI was privatised by the Blair government in 1999 but continues to operate in the manner of a government agency. Invitations to the arms fair are issued by the ministry of defence. Visitors will have to pass through five security checks. Hundreds of armed police will be deployed. Protesters from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Amnesty International and others are unlikely to breach the defensive ring. The arms dealers will be able to ply their trade in peace. Middle Eastern states with dubious records on human rights will again be among the biggest spenders. Ordinary citizens may see the ocean of suffering and the pell-mell flight of millions as the most salient aspects of the turmoil engulfing the region. But arms manufacturers will note nothing problematical. Every arms company has a business interest in bloodshed. Those looking to sell to the Middle East can anticipate a bonanza.

The New York Times reports that US arms industry officials have notified Congress they expect rising demand over the coming year for aircraft, missiles, armoured vehicles, helicopters, bombs and drones from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar. Saudi Arabia has become the world’s fourth-largest market for military equipment, passing out Britain and France, splurging more than $80 billion…in 2014. The Saudis can be confident of spectacular sucking-up…

Vice, corruption, lies and disdain for law as well as life are the hallmarks of the arms trade in general. But experience suggests nobody in the British political mainstream will show concern, much less shame, at the merchandising of murder in their capital next week.

Not every arms supplier will make it to the ExCel. The Russians aren’t coming…Israel has booked a “national pavilion”, advertising “combat-proven” weapons. Proven in asymmetrical assaults on Palestinian civilians, presumably.

And no one has a War department anymore. They’ve learned all the lessons pioneered by the United States. We need all this crap to “defend” ourselves. Especially with our troops in someone else’s country.

Psychologists end collaboration with “national security” interrogations

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So, why is Gitmo an exception?

The American Psychological Association…overwhelmingly approved a new ban on any involvement by psychologists in national security interrogations conducted by the United States government, even noncoercive interrogations now conducted by the Obama administration…

The vote followed an emotional debate in which several members said the ban was needed to restore the organization’s reputation after a scathing independent investigation ordered by the association’s board.

That investigation, conducted by David Hoffman, a Chicago lawyer, found that some officers of the association and other prominent psychologists colluded with government officials during the Bush administration to make sure that association policies did not prevent psychologists from involvement in the harsh interrogation programs conducted by the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.

…The ban was approved by the association’s council by a vote of 156 to 1. Seven council members abstained, while one was recused…

The final vote was met by a standing ovation by many of the council members, as well as the large crowd of observers, which included anti-torture activists and psychology graduate students who had come to the meeting to support the ban. Some wore T-shirts proclaiming “First, Do No Harm,” a reference to the physicians’ Hippocratic oath.

RTFA for all the gory details. I think it stands as mute testimony for the sentiment solidly rooted in many Americans that war criminals like George W Bush and Dick Cheney should stand trial for their crimes.

Members of the APA have been expelled for their role in torture. I think that body would support their prosecution. I hope so, anyway.

Psychologists are also still assigned at the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they oversee “voluntary” interrogations of detainees.