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Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations - NYTimes.com
"Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency overseas, the association said on Wednesday "Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at... more
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Supreme Court give Habeas Corpus Legs in Guantanamo Bay!
The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's polarizing Guantánamo Bay policies Thursday, giving the roughly 300 foreign terror suspects being held there the right to challenge their detention through the U.S. civilian court system. In a 5-4 ruling on the jointly decided cases Boumediene v. Bush and Al-Odah v. The United States, the nation's highest court determined that the detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus despite their detention outside the borders of the United States. The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's polarizing Guantánamo Bay policies Thursday, giving the ... more
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Documentarian Held in Nigeria
NEW YORK, September 3, 2008 – Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detained Sunday August 31st by the Nigerian military along with his translator, Samuel George. Andrew entered Nigeria legally in April 2008 to complete a documentary film.
Andrew was held in custody without food, sleep, or representation, and with limited water for the first 36 hours. He has been questioned by the army, the police, and the State Security Services in Port Harcourt. The State Security Services has confiscated his passport and personal property. Andrew has been returned to sleep in his rented room each night after the initial 36 hours, but then re-detained each morning. Andrew's translator, Samuel George, has not been released at night and has remained in custody since Sunday.
The US State Department is aware of the situation, and an attorney has been retained on Andrew's behalf. Reporters without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have issued statements condemning Andrew's arrest. We, Andrew's friends, family, and colleagues, are deeply concerned that he has been held without cause and are calling for his safe treatment and immediate release. NEW YORK, September 3, 2008 – Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detai... more -
Iraq War Veterans Testify about War Crimes
Winter Soldier Conference sponsored by IVAW and Democracy Now. Several soldiers detailing their time in Iraq
For the full clips and more please visit:
http://www.ivaw.org Winter Soldier Conference sponsored by IVAW and Democracy Now. Several soldiers detailing their time in Iraq ... more -
War crimes system is still on trial
It was quintessential Guantánamo, where things are rarely what they seem. The Pentagon’s spokesmen, for example, repeat like a mantra that the detention camp delivers “safe and humane” care. But military investigators have documented a history that includes treatment of one detainee who was isolated, deprived of sleep and forced to perform dog tricks.
Another military mantra is that the tribunal is open and transparent. But no one can go to this remote naval station to attend the sessions without military orders. At the tribunal itself, where many seats are empty, journalists are accompanied at all times by military escorts, who stand guard even outside the latrine.
So it was in keeping with the contradictions of Guantánamo that the Hamdan trial in many ways looked like an American trial and in many ways did not.
There were secret filings. There were closed sessions. There were unexplained mysteries. After a session was cut short because a participant was said to be ill, a military spokeswoman said it was not Mr. Hamdan. The next day, a different spokeswoman disclosed that it had indeed been Mr. Hamdan, who had, she said, been seen at a hospital for flulike symptoms. It was quintessential Guantánamo, where things are rarely what they seem. The Pentagon’s spokesmen, for example, repeat like a mantra ... more -
More than 10,000 detainees released in Iraq
The U.S. military said Saturday it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year - more than in all of 2007 - as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons.
The military said about 21,000 people remained in custody, and it is currently releasing about 45 detainees and detaining 30 a day.
The United States wants to transfer the detainees to Iraqi control. Reaching that goal has been slowed partly by the lack of adequate Iraqi prison space and trained guards. More than 8,900 people were released from detention last year.
The U.S. military separated moderate detainees from extremists and instituted religious, educational and vocational programs over the past year to try to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners. It also increased releases under amnesty programs.
"Due to changes in the conduct of detainee operations and programs to prepare detainees for reintegration into society, we have not only gone over 10,000 releases, but our re-internment rate is less than 1 percent," said Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
The U.S. military says its detention system is authorized by a U.N. resolution under which the Iraqi government allows U.S. troops to arrest people at will. U.S. military attorneys say it also complies with international laws covering warfare and was created in "the spirit" of the Geneva Conventions.
Commanders say they are entitled to hold any prisoner until the detainee is no longer considered a threat to U.S. forces. Local law and court rulings do not apply, they add.
Rights groups have criticized U.S. detention policy as a misrepresentation of international law, which they say requires some form of legal process to detain someone.
The right of the U.S. to detain Iraqi citizens has been one of the contentious areas of debate with the Iraqis over a new security agreement that would keep U.S. forces in the country after a U.N. mandate expires at year's end. The U.S. military said Saturday it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year - more than in all of 2007 - as it... more -
GitMo Interrogation Video Released: "Help Me!"
A 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay sobs during his questioning, holding up his wounded arms and begging for help in a video released Tuesday that provided the first glimpse of interrogations at the U.S. military prison.
"Help me," he cries repeatedly in despair.
The 10 minutes of video _ selected by Omar Khadr's Canadian lawyers from more than seven hours of footage recorded by a camera hidden in a vent _ shows Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, as he is questioned by Canadian intelligence agents over four days in 2003.
The video, created by U.S. government agents at the prison in Cuba and originally marked as secret, provides insight into the effects of prolonged interrogation and detention on the Guantanamo prisoner.
A Canadian Security Intelligence Services agent in the video grills Khadr about events leading up to his capture as an enemy combatant when he was 15. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. He was arrested after he was found in the rubble of a bombed-out compound _ badly wounded and near death.
At one point in the interrogation, Khadr pulls off his orange prisoner shirt and shows the wounds he sustained in the firefight. He complains he cannot move his arms and says he had not received proper medical attention, despite requests.
"They look like they're healing well to me," the agent says of the injuries.
"No, I'm not. You're not here (at Guantanamo)," says Khadr, the son of an alleged al-Qaida financier.
The agent later accuses Khadr of using his injuries and emotional state to avoid the interrogation.
"No, you don't care about me," Khadr says.
Khadr also tells his interrogator that he was tortured while at the U.S. military detention center at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was first detained after his arrest in 2002.
Later on in the tape, a distraught Khadr is seen rocking, his face in his hands.
On the final day, the agent tells Khadr that he was "very disappointed" in how Khadr had behaved, and tries to impress upon him that he should cooperate.
Khadr says he wants to go back to Canada.
"There's not anything I can do about that," the agent says.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, denied that Khadr was mistreated while in U.S. custody. "Our policy is to treat detainees humanely and Khadr has been treated humanely," Gordon said.
The video is believed to be the first footage shown of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in action during its 24-year history, offering an unprecedented glimpse into its interrogation strategies. The video was made by U.S. authorities and turned over to Khadr's defense team, Gordon said. The tapes are U.S. property.
The Supreme Court of Canada in May ordered the Canadian government to hand over key evidence against Khadr to his legal team to allow a full defense of the charges against him, which include accusations by the U.S. that he spied for and provided material support to terrorists.
In June, a Canadian Federal Court judge ordered the Canadian government to release the video to the defense team after the court ruled the U.S. military's treatment of Khadr broke human rights laws, including the Geneva Conventions. A 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay sobs during his questioning, holding up his wounded arms and begging ... more -
Red Cross report confirms US torture of prisoners
Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the CIA's interrogation methods for high-level al-Qaida prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
The book says the International Committee for the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the CIA last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major al-Qaida figure the United States captured, were "categorically" torture, which is illegal under both U.S. and international law.
The book says Abu Zubaydah was confined in a box "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position" and was one of several prisoners to be "slammed against the walls," according to the Red Cross report. The CIA has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were waterboarded, a practice in which water is poured on the nose and mouth to create the sensation of suffocation and drowning.
The report says the prisoners considered the "most excruciating" of the methods being shackled to the ceiling for as long as eight hours. Eleven of the 14 prisoners reported prolonged sleep deprivation, the book says, including "bright lights and eardrum-shattering sounds 24 hours a day."
Facing the death penalty for their roles in the Sept. 11 attacks, self-described mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and an accused accomplice told a judge Thursday the military-commission process is so dysfunctional they cannot file legal motions or have pretrial documents translated into their native languages. Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the CIA's interrogation methods for high-level al-Qaida priso... more -
Is there anything the president could not order to be done to a suspect? Yoo can&#...
This has to be seen to believed. John Conyers asks John Yoo a simple question: "Is there anything the president could not order be done to a suspect?" He can't give a straight answer. So Conyers reduces it to a simple hypothetical: "Could the president order a suspect to be buried alive?" He still can't answer! It's a yes or no question!
What can be done in the face of such a disgusting evasion of simple decency from the Bush administration? Not much, but laugh. This has to be seen to believed. John Conyers asks John Yoo a simple question: "Is there anything the president could not order b... more -
Guantanamo Bay: Pentagon 'urged notes destroyed'
Guantanamo Bay interrogators were told to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify on detainee treatment, a military lawyer alleges.
The lawyer, Lt-Cmdr William Kuebler, said the instructions were contained in a Pentagon operations manual.
He said this apparent destruction of evidence at the prison camp stopped him from challenging alleged confessions in the case of his client, Omar Khadr. He would use the document to seek a dismissal of the charges, he said. Mr Khadr - a Canadian - is the only Westerner still held at the jail.
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Two weeks ago, Canada's Supreme Court ruled the Canadian government had acted illegally by handing over documents from an interview with the suspect by its own intelligence services a year after his capture. Guantanamo Bay interrogators were told to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify on detainee treatment, a milit... more -
Involuntary drugging of detainees
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has been systematically administering psychotropic drugs to immigrants in the process of being deported as the Washington Post reported this week. Deportees who in the past had resisted deportation were injected with drugs, often a three drug "cocktail," in order to keep them pliant during deportation. These drugs included the powerful antipsychotic drug Haldol, as well as the antianxiety drug Ativan, and Cogentin, a drug used to treat the often severe Parkinsons illness like side-effects of Haldol. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has been systematically administering psychotropic drugs to immigrants in th... more
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