19.9.10
On September 14, Intelligence Squared U.S., an organization founded in 2006 that holds “Oxford-style debates” in New York, with high-profile figures discussing hot political topics, held a debate on the motion, “Treat terrorists like enemy combatants, not criminals,” which was proposed by former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and torture apologist Marc Thiessen, and opposed […]
15.9.10
Sometimes a story is so troubling that it takes some time to digest, and the ruling delivered last Wednesday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF), in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of five men subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture, is one such story. The men — Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed […]
3.9.10
On Tuesday evening — the day before Colonel Muammar Gaddafi marked the 41st anniversary of the coup that brought him to power — 37 political prisoners were released from the notorious Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, site of a brutal massacre of prisoners in 1996, when up to 1,200 men were murdered. Although the release […]
4.8.10
On Friday, the Polish Border Guard Office released a number of documents to the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which, for the first time, provide details of the number of prisoners transferred by the CIA to a secret prison in Poland between December 5, 2002 and September 22, 2003, and, in one case, the […]
21.7.10
In the history of the “War on Terror,” few stories are as disturbing as that of Abu Zubaydah. Seized in Pakistan in March 2002, Zubaydah was initially regarded as a “high-value detainee” of such significance that the Bush administration conceived its torture program specifically for use on him, but the case against him has steadily […]
8.7.10
Human rights campaigners have reacted with cautious optimism to the British government’s official announcement of a judicial inquiry into the involvement of the British security services — MI5 and MI6 — in torture and rendition since the 9/11 attacks, although many pressing questions are, as yet, unanswered. These concern the scope of the inquiry, its […]
25.6.10
To complement my recent article, “Abu Zubaydah and the Case Against Torture Architect James Mitchell,” analyzing the complaint filed with the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists regarding ethical violations by Dr. James Elmer Mitchell, one of the architects of the Bush administration’s torture program, I’m reproducing below the full complaint, primarily, as I […]
24.6.10
Attempts to call to accountability any of the architects of the Bush administration’s torture program have so far been depressingly unsuccessful. First, any hopes that President Obama would lead the way were dashed when, even before taking office, the President-Elect declared “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Then, […]
17.6.10
To complement my recent article, “UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report,” in which I explained how, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council had — after some delays — finally discussed the findings of the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” a detailed, […]
16.6.10
To complement my recent article, “UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report,” in which I explained how, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council had — after some delays — finally discussed the findings of the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” a detailed, […]
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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