tagged w/ Guantanamo
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Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison has a comprehensive piece online detailing the relationship between WikiLeaks and The Guardian. The story gives an up-close look at how Julian Assange provided his leaked cache of classified documents on Afghanistan, Iraq, and U.S. diplomacy to the British newspaper and other news organizations last year.
The alliance between the old-media outlet and the Web-driven document clearinghouse proved rocky at times. It grew particularly strained recently after the paper turned its lens on Assange. (This was pretty much the same dynamic that upended WikiLeaks' relationship with the New York Times.)
What's more, Ellison notes, the Guardian and WikiLeaks were by no means committed to a shared agenda or pursuing common journalistic aims just because each organization wanted to make information public:
The partnership between The Guardian and WikiLeaks brought together two desperately ambitious organizations that happen to be diametric opposites in their approach to reporting the news. One of the oldest newspapers in the world, with strict and established journalistic standards, joined up by one of the newest in a breed of online muckrakers, with no standards at all except fealty to an ideal of 'transparency'—that is, dumping raw material into the public square for people to pick over as they will. It is very likely that neither [Guardian editor-in-chief] Alan Rusbridger nor Julian Assange fully understood the nature of the other's organization when they joined forces."
Ellison's account offers a great tick-tock chronology of last year's set of WikiLeaks dumps, together with several revelations regarding WikiLeaks' media strategy.
How The Guardian got involved: Reporter Nick Davies has written about his involvement with Assange before, but Ellison adds new details to the timeline. In June, Davies read a short Guardian piece on the arrest of Bradley Manning, the army private who's believed to be a principal WikiLeaks source and who's been kept in solitary confinement since his detainment. Davies was determined to track Manning down. Davies learned Assange would be in Brussels, so Brussels-based Guardian reporter Ian Traynor spoke with the WikiLeaks chief and learned he had two million documents. Davies headed to Brussels and "went to the Hotel Leopold, woke up Assange, and began a conversation that lasted for the next six hours."
How the New York Times got involved: Davies and Assange discussed bringing in the Times while in Brussels, and back in London, Rusbridger called Times executive editor Bill Keller. Times reporter Eric Schmitt flew to London to see the material, reported it was genuine, and the Times came aboard. Assange then brought in Der Spiegel on his own.
How Channel 4 got involved, and Assange split with Davies: In July, Assange provided Britain's Channel 4 network with the Afghanistan documents. Ellison writes that Davies was "livid" over the breach of Assange's presumed first-look arrangement with The Guardian and that the two haven't spoken again. (Slate's Jack Shafer has a good take on Vanity Fair piece, including the expectations reporters sometimes have for the sources they've "cultivated.")
How The Guardian got the cables from Assange: Investigative editor David Leigh agreed to a delay in publishing articles related to the Iraq documents because Assange wanted to bring in the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism to work with Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. In exchange for a six-week delay, Assange provided "package three" -- the State Dept. cables -- to the Guardian. In doing so, Assange got a letter from the Guardian agreeing not to publish anything on the leaked cables until he gave the go-ahead. But...
The Guardian got the cables from a second source: This bit of news fills in an interesting gap and explains friction between Assange and The Guardian. The British newspaper agreed to Assange's embargo on a release date for the cables, because WikiLeaks was its source. But in October, The Guardian received the full cache of cables from freelance journalist Heather Brooke. She had obtained the cables independently from an ex-WikiLeaks volunteer. (Brooke suggested on Twitter today that there's more to the story). Regardless, The Guardian now had the full database from a different source and believed it was free from the embargo agreed upon with Assange. The Guardian then provided those documents to Der Spiegel and The New York Times. These news organizations planned to published on Nov. 8--with or without Assange's input.
Why Assange threatened to sue: Assange and his lawyer met in Rusbridger's office and threatened to sue if The Guardian published anything from the cables ahead of the embargo. Ellison writes that Rusbridger, Guardian investigations editor David Leigh, and editors from Der Spiegel "spent a marathon session with Assange, his lawyer, and [WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn] Hrafnsson, eventually restoring an uneasy calm." They agreed to delay publication a few weeks while Assange brought in two more media partners, Le Monde (France) and El Pais (Spain).
So what's next? Last week, The Cutline raised some questions for WikiLeaks in 2011. In Ellison's piece, Davies notes that Assange has discussed having files on all Guantanamo Bay prisoners. (Wired zeroes in on this detail). Assange has also spoken about having documents that could take down a bank or two. But it remains to be seen exactly what Assange has and also how he may choose to work with news organizations going forward. As Ellison explains, it hasn't always been an easy relationship.
Since readers have asked me about neglecting specific revelations from the WikiLeaks docs, just a reminder: this is a media blog so the focus is on the media relationships and strategy. For more on WikiLeaks revelations, check out The Guardian, New York Times, a very good new CBS round-up or WikiLeaks itself. And for daily updates on all-things-WikiLeaks, The Nation's Greg Mitchell is a must-read.Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison has a comprehensive piece online detailing the... more
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Remember when Barry Obama said he would close Gitmo because it wasn’t right to hold people without formal charges and trials? He made the pledge soon after assuming the ceremonial throne. He said he would get it done within 12 months. Barry didn’t really mean it.
Now comes word that Obama will sign an executive order that will formalize indefinite detention without trial of detainees kidnapped on the battlefields of undeclared and illegal wars.
The supposed plan to close Guantanamo is on hold, according to the Washington Post. It could be crippled if Congress bans the transfer of detainees to the United States for trial and sets up steep hurdles to the repatriation or resettlement in third countries of other detainees.
Obama’s cronies are working feverishly on the executive order. “If Congress blocks the administration’s ability to put detainees on trial or transfer them out of Guantanamo… the executive order could still be implemented,” the Post explains.
“I would argue that you still have to go ahead because you can’t simply have people confined to a life sentence without any review and then fight another day with Congress,” said a senior administration official.
Earlier this month, Congress passed on a 212-206 vote a bill that forbids Obama and crew from transferring any detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to the United States and giving them trials. The bill mentions by name the al-Qaeda scary man and poster child for the forever war against mercurial terror, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
KSM supposedly confessed to all aspects of the September 11, 2001, terror attack, including making NORAD stand down and defying the laws of physics.
“KSM’s confession was announced to the world by the very people who routinely torture prisoners, hold secret military trials behind closed doors, and bar all lawyers and reporters from being anywhere near the courtroom,” Nila Sagadevan wrote in 2007.
Millions of people bought into Obama’s change mantra. But some of us knew it would be merely a continuation of policies adopted during the Bush regime, policies built upon a foundation created by Bill Clinton who inherited the agenda from Reagan and George Dubya’s daddy.
Mitt and Sarah or Huck – whomever the elite decide will be the carnival barker next time – will continue and build upon the malodorous edifice constructed by Barry Obama, or rather constructed by the shadow government men behind Obama the teleprompter reader.
Next up – American citizens who are described as white al-Qaeda.
On Tuesday, we learned that Obama’s man at the Justice Department, Eric Holder, stays up at night worrying about miscreant Americans who may plot murder and mayhem in the name of the international jihad formulated by CIA operatives, patsies, and useful idiots.
“The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here to worrying about people in the United States,” Holder said. “American citizens raised here, born here. You didn’t worry about this even two years ago.”
“The threat is real,” he added. “The threat is different. The threat is constant.”
Holder was praised by incoming House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King of New York who is pleased that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration have had an “awakening” about the threat of homegrown Islamist terrorism, according to The Daily Caller.
King plans to open a congressional inquiry into the radicalization of American Muslims once the Republicans take control of the House Homeland Security Committee in the next Congress.
Obama’s latest executive order will come in mighty handy if King’s witch hunt produces a fresh crop of victims.
The Fourth Amendment will not be allowed to stand in the way of the forever war against manufactured enemies who are not permitted to pull off an effective attack on the freedom lovers. Flaming underwear and dud barbeque gas grill canisters will have to suffice – for now.
Holder said officialdom may have missed signals of the next attack. He cited the internet and the Pentagon diner Awlaki who is “able to utilize the web to reach out to an increasingly tech-savvy worldwide population, accessing potential converts around the world,” according to KKTV in Colorado.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-executive-order-targets-fourth-amendment.htmlRemember when Barry Obama said he would close Gitmo because it wasn’t right to... more
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Setback for Obama as first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in civilian court is convicted on just one of 285 chargesSetback for Obama as first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in civilian... more
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It is reported by the BBC a former detainee of Guantanamo bay who was returned to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation, turned himself in and told officials about the parcel bomb threat.
"After leaving Guantanamo he went through a rehabilitation programme in Saudi Arabia and then rejoined al-Qaeda in Yemen before turning himself in to Saudi authorities, AFP news agency reports.
[...]
Both bombs - hidden inside printer toner cartridges - contained the powerful plastic explosive PETN, which is difficult to detect.
UK authorities have come under criticism after the initial failure to find one of the two bombs on a plane at East Midlands airport."-BBCIt is reported by the BBC a former detainee of Guantanamo bay who was returned to... more
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In a first for a former Guantánamo captive freed by a federal judge, a Syrian man now living in Europe is suing the U.S. government for damages from what he calls a "Kafkaesque nightmare."In a first for a former Guantánamo captive freed by a federal judge, a Syrian... more
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US cannot document any payment to detainees for abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Fending off demands that he resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress he had found a legal way to compensate Iraqi detainees who suffered "grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces."
"It's the right thing to do," Rumsfeld declared in 2004. "And it is my intention to see that we do."
Six years later, the U.S. Army is unable to document a single payment for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Nor can the more than 250 Iraqis or their lawyers now seeking redress in U.S. courts. Their hopes for compensation may rest on a Supreme Court decision this week.
Story continues below...
The Army says about 30 former Abu Ghraib prisoners are seeking compensation from the U.S. Army Claims Service. Those claims are still being investigated and many do not involve inmate abuse.
The Army added that U.S. Forces-Iraq looked at its records and could not find any payments to former detainees. The Army also cannot verify whether any such payments were made informally through Iraqi leaders.
From fiscal years 2003 to 2006, the Defense Department paid $30.9 million to Iraqi and Afghan civilians who were killed, injured, or incurred property damage due to U.S. or coalition forces' actions during combat. The Army has found no evidence any of those payments were used to compensate victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib.
So instead of compensation, the legacy of the most infamous detainee abuse episode from President George W. Bush's tenure is lawsuits, and the court battle mirrors the Iraq war — a grinding, drawn-out conflict.
At the U.S. Supreme Court, the former detainees are asking the justices to step into a case alleging that civilian interrogators and linguists conspired with soldiers to abuse the prisoners. All the detainees, who allege they were held at Abu Ghraib or one of the other 16 detention centers in Iraq, say they were eventually released without any charges against them.
Source: AP NewsUS cannot document any payment to detainees for abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Fending off... more
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Tomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of the death of Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson in Iraq. Yesterday, in Part I of this article, I described how, appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that likely involved what most would call torture, Spc. Peterson, 27, refused, then killed herself a few days later, on September 15, 2003, with her own rifle.
Of course, we now know from the torture memos and the US Senate committee probe and various press reports, that the "Gitmo-izing" of Iraq was happening just at the time Alyssa, a valuable Arabic-speaking interpreter, got swept up in it. When she objected, she was reprimanded, according to the official report. Then she chose suicide.
Yesterday's article concluded with a comment from Peterson's brother, and a few quotes from former Sgt. Kayla Williams, another Arabic-speaking interpreter who Peterson sought out for advice shortly before her death. But because Alyssa's suicide note and contents from her journal have not been released, we can't say for certain what factor or factors led directly to her death.
Chelsea Russell, who studied Arabic with Peterson at a military facility in Monterrey, California, told me that she found Alyssa to be an especially "sincere and kind person" but she had come to question her Mormon faith a few months before getting shipped to Iraq. "I believe that Alyssa was at a crossroads at the time of her death," Russell added. " I don't know if she had strong emotional support in Iraq. Questioning her own religious beliefs, her military colleagues, and her part in the war may have been too much for her."
Arabic-speaking Kayla Williams, now out of the Army, described how she had been recruited to briefly take part in over-the-line interrogations. Like Peterson, she protested torture techniques—such as throwing lit cigarettes at prisoners—and was quickly shifted away. But she told me that she is still haunted by the experience and wonders if she objected strongly enough.
Follow the link this is only part of the story...
http://www.thenation.com/blog/154648/part-ii-soldier-who-chose-suicide-after-she-refused-go-along-tortureTomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of the death of Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson in... more
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With each revelation, or court decision, on US torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo -- or the airing this month of The Tillman Story and Lawrence Wright's My Trip to Al-Qaeda -- I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson, who died seven years ago this week. Appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that, no doubt, involved what most would call torture, she refused, then killed herself a few days later, on September 15, 2003.
Of course, we now know from the torture memos and the US Senate committee probe and various press reports, that the "Gitmo-izing" of Iraq was happening just at the time Alyssa got swept up in it.
Spc. Alyssa Peterson was one of the first female soldiers who died in Iraq. Her death under these circumstances should have drawn wide attention. It's not exactly the Tillman case, but a cover-up, naturally, followed.
Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. She was a valuable Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge."
A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian." And that might have ended it right there.
...Follow the link
http://www.thenation.com/blog/154649/us-soldier-who-committed-suicide-after-she-refused-take-part-tortureWith each revelation, or court decision, on US torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and... more
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Barack Obama's pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay will not be honored until at least a year after the President's self-imposed deadline – and may not be completed in his administration.Barack Obama's pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay will not be honored until at... more
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A serving US Army officer who told a court he feels that the Guantanamo Bay prison camps should be closed down has been removed from a jury hearing allegations of war crimes against an alleged child soldier. Among the seven jurors remaining on the panel are officers who have lost close friends or colleagues fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.A serving US Army officer who told a court he feels that the Guantanamo Bay prison... more
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A good amount of documentation on the involvement of psychologists in the torture and abuse of detainees or “terror suspects.” And, a new study(http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0805/study-cia-doctors-gave-green-light-torture/) provides even more revelations on the involvement of physicians making it increasingly clear that medical professionals put limits on ethical standards they were expected to follow in order to help the CIA interrogate detainees.
The study, titled “Roles of CIA Physicians in Enhanced Interrogation and Torture of Detainees,(http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/117511/Roles_of_CIA_Physicians_in_Enhanced_Interrogation_and_Torture_of_Detainees)” authored by Leonard S. Rubinstein, the president of Physicians for Human Rights, and Brigadier General (ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, a former Army psychiatrists (who is now with the Center for Public Health and Human Rights), utilizes a previously secret document from 2004 and lays out the “guidelines for detainee interrogation” that physicians, psychologists, and other health care professionals developed and followed so they could serve the CIA.
Guidelines indicate the doctors, who were working for the CIA’s Office of Medical Services, conducted medical evaluations [experimentations] on detainees “before and during interrogations” and waterboarding “required the presence of a physician.”
Physicians documented the effects of “enhanced interrogation techniques” [torture] like waterboarding and decided waterboarding “created risks of drowning, hypothermia, aspiration pneumonia, or laryngospasm.” They ignored “clinical experience/research” and assured lawyers “there was no ‘medical reason’ to believe that waterboarding [would] lead to physical pain.”
It was established that “cramped confinement could result in deep vein thrombosis” and death could result from “lengthy exposure to cold water.” And, the physicians, psychologists, and other health care professionals working for the CIA developed “limitations” so that techniques like waterboarding, cramped confinement, sensory deprivation, stress positions, etc could be used on detainees.
Limitations included: “exposure to specified temperature either up to time of hypothermia would develop or on evidence of hypothermia,” dietary restrictions up to “body weight loss of 10% or evidence of significant malnutrition,” “exposure to noise just under decibel levels associated with hearing loss,” up to 48 hours of exposure to stress positions “provided hands were no higher than the head” of a detainee, and no more than eight consecutive hours or eighteen hours per day of “confinement in a box.”
Much of this took place after 2003, after a CIA Inspector General investigation of “enhanced interrogation techniques” [torture], OMS physicians were asked to provide “opinions to the agency and lawyers on whether techniques used would be expected to cause severe pain or suffering and thus constitute torture.” Slowly, OMS physicians’ work for the CIA transformed into work, which violated “ethical standards,” prohibiting physicians from using “medical skills to facilitate torture or be present when torture is taking place.”
The physicians consulted directly with Department of Justice lawyers and were asked to provide legal cover by supporting “legal decisions” that “interrogators who applied enhanced interrogation techniques neither inflicted sever mental or physical pain or anguish and thus did not commit torture.” For techniques like sleep deprivation, they claimed the use thereof “could not lead to profound disruption in the detainees’ senses or personality (the legal definition of psychological torture).”
As suggested in the opening paragraph, it has been evident that physicians and psychologists have been involved in torture for some time, especially since Wikileaks leaked the Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures Manual in November 2007(http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Guantanamo_document_confirms_psychological_torture).
The manual indicated that, “incoming prisoners were to be held in near-isolation for the first [four] weeks to foster dependence on interrogators and `enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process.’” It outlines how isolation was to be used on detainees, a technique Physicians for Human Rights said can lead to symptoms of “`bewilderment, anxiety, frustration, dejection, boredom, obsessive thoughts or ruminations, depression, and, in some cases, hallucination'” and, if prolonged, could result in “increased stress, abnormal neuroendocrine function, changes in blood pressure and inflammatory stress responses.”
Then, it was known those involved understood how they could be prosecuted for violating international law. As an April 16, 2003, memo from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained
"Caution: the use of isolation as an interrogation technique requires detailed implementation instructions, including specific guidelines regarding the length of isolation, medical and psychological review, and approvals for extension of the length of by the appropriate level in the chain of command. This technique is not know to have been generally used for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days. Those nations that believe that detainees are subject to POW protections may view use of this technique as inconsistent with the requirements of Geneva III, Article 13 which provides that POWs must be protected against acts of intimidation; Article 14 which provides that POWs are entitled to respect for their person; Article 34 which prohibits coercion and Article 126 which ensures access and basic standards of treatment. Although the provisions of Geneva are not applicable to the interrogation of unlawful combatants, consideration should be given to these views prior to application of this technique."
The report is yet another indication of the need for more investigation, accountability, and reform from the Obama Administration. Yet, as demonstrated by a comprehensive report ("Establishing the New Normal")(http://www.aclu.org/national-security/establishing-new-normal) from the ACLU, the Obama Administration has avoided its obligation to accountability for torture and chosen to follow the dangerous mantra of “looking forward, not back,” a false choice because, as the ACLU states in the report:
“a strong democracy rests not on the goodwill of its leaders but on the impartial enforcement of laws. Sanctioning impunity for government officials who authorized torture sends a problematic message to the world, invites abuses by future administrations, and further undermines the rule of law that is the basis of any democracy.”A good amount of documentation on the involvement of psychologists in the torture and... more
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An attorney for Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr expressed outrage this week over a ruling by a U.S. military judge allowing Khadr's confessions to interrogators to be used as evidence against him in his murder and terrorism conspiracy trial at Guantanamo.An attorney for Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr expressed outrage this week over a ruling... more
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1. 2009 heat
2. Beds are Burning
3. Meltdown 2010
4. Skiing in the desert
5. iPon
6. Obama’s fighting deception
7. Supreme Handout
8. Howard Zinn R.I.P.
9. Anti-Flag
10. Radical sports writer Dave Zirin1. 2009 heat
2. Beds are Burning
3. Meltdown 2010
4. Skiing in the desert
5. iPon... more
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Before taking up the question of the UK torture inquiry, announced the other day, we should consider other important developments on the anti-torture front today.
Omar Khadr, captured as a child, abused, mistreated and tortured for years at Guantanamo, has fired his military attorneys — most likely because he seeks some method to exert control over his situation. God knows how we would respond if placed in his situation.
Meanwhile, Daniel Shulman at Mother Jones has posted an article describing two new actions taken to strip licensure from two former Guantanamo psychologists, Major John Leso and retired Colonel Larry James. James is now dean of the professional psychology program at Wright State University in Ohio, and was the subject of a complaint against him in Louisiana, which was dismissed by the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, and subsequently brought to the Louisiana Court of Appeal. Leso is the infamous “Maj. L” in the interrogation log released by Time Magazine some years ago in the torture case of Mohammed Al-Qahtani.
Both Leso and James were members of the Behavioral Science Consultant Team, or BSCT, at Guantanamo. Indeed, James was in charge of the BSCT while he was there. The complaint against Leso, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability, can be viewed here. The James filing — the work of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic — is available in PDF format. http://motherjones.com/files/LarryJamesComplaint.pdf
These filings were separate from yet another complaint(http://trueslant.com/toddessig/2010/06/17/psychology-and-torture-a-formal-complaint-filed-against-james-mitchell/), this one filed with the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, against James Mitchell, one of the principals for CIA torture contractors Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, who has also been identified as one of the interrogators involved in reverse-engineering SERE techniques for the interrogation-cum-torture experiments made upon Abu Zubaydah in the spring and summer of 2002. (PDF link to full document here. http://trueslant.com/toddessig/files/2010/06/MIT-FINL.pdf)Before taking up the question of the UK torture inquiry, announced the other day, we... more
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The government’s attempts to delay the current proceedings that have yielded highly classified documents for public consumption have received a rebuttal out of court. The failed attempt to suppress the information out of court, a ’spin-off’ hope from the appeal court’s dismissal of the same case in May, has dented the coalition’s plans to restore confidence in the British Intelligence service who have been implicated in the torture of British citizens in Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/spectacleblog/guantanamo/government-tried-to-prevent-disclosure-of-detention-manual/The government’s attempts to delay the current proceedings that have yielded... more
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An official report of an interview with Omar Deghayes confirmed his testimony, that British Intelligence were complicit in his torture during interrogation at a US airbase in Afghanistan.
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/spectacleblog/guantanamo/measured-antipathy-and-treachery-by-british-intelligence/
The report formally recognises Deghayes complaints that he suffered internal bleeding, and showed considered revulsion at Deghayes’ health visibly deteriorating during repeated visits to interrogate him in US custody, “Throughout the interview Deghayes expectorated rather disgustingly into a tissue as if he were still tubercular. These moments usually coincided with those answers were he was most evasive.”An official report of an interview with Omar Deghayes confirmed his testimony, that... more
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“Public opinion has on the whole shown little concern about the welfare of the British detainees, or the legal terms of their detention. But the issue is clearly of sensitivity to Muslim opinion in the UK and abroad.”
The source of this quote is a memo circulated to the junior Foreign Office ministers, the Foreign Office press office and the department’s senior legal advisor, Sir Michael Wood on 4 January 2002, and refers to a number of British citizens and residents who at the time were being detained by US forces.
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/spectacleblog/guantanamo/no-ones-really-bothered-keep-going/“Public opinion has on the whole shown little concern about the welfare of the... more
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Clive Stafford-Smith has published a letter sent to Sir Peter Gibson – the man elected by David Cameron to lead the inquiry into whether the UK has been complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects – that calls for him to renounce his position. The letter was written on behalf of Reprieve (http://www.reprieve.org.uk/), an organisation which represents prisoners held ‘beyond the rule of law’ or those facing the death penalty, and which represented Binyam Mohamed in the trial which cleared his name of any connections with any terrorist acts.
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/spectacleblog/guantanamo/reprieve-ask-sir-peter-gibson-to-stand-down-from-inquiry/Clive Stafford-Smith has published a letter sent to Sir Peter Gibson – the man... more
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Documentary telling the story of Guantánamo: torture, extraordinary rendition and secret prisons. Focusing on the stories of three prisoners, Shaker Aamer, Binyam Mohamed and Omar Deghayes, 'Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo' is powerful rebuke to the myth that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst”.
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/Outside-The-Law-Stories-From-GuantanamoDocumentary telling the story of Guantánamo: torture, extraordinary rendition... more
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"MI5 officers interviewed Omar Deghayes in Afghanistan Kabul for three hours on the evening of 3 July 2002. He commented that he was treated better by the Pakistanis."
You can hear Omar Deghayes talk about his ordeal in his own words in the documentary 'Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo'
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo
A lot of extra interviews can be watched online, for example Omar Deghayes speaking on Torture and British Intelligence:
http://www.spectacle.co.uk/projects_page.php?id=309"MI5 officers interviewed Omar Deghayes in Afghanistan Kabul for three hours on... more
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