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11 Jan 2012 14:10

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U.S.: Guantanamo Bay has seen a decade as a detainee facility

  • A controversial anniversary: It was ten years ago to the day that the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was turned into a prison facility, designed to house suspected terrorist detainees indefinitely, pending a process of oft-criticized military tribunals. For the Obama administration, this was an occasion they once hoped (and indeed promised) would not happen; the President’s first full day in office was marked with the signing of an order to close the facility within a year. Three years on, and the failure to fulfill this promise (as well as the absence of any earnest public explanation of it) does beg the question: was this truly a moral issue for the President, or simply a made-to-order, feel-good issue to stoke a liberal base? Check the link for a very thoughtful piece on the anniversary of Gitmo from The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen. (photo by Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images) source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Dec 2011 09:04

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Politics: Rand Paul kills detainee bill by simply asking for recorded vote

  • Suspicion of committing a crime should lead to your attempted prosecution. If the evidence does not support conviction, it would be against everything we believe in and fight for in America to still allow the government to imprison you at their whim. Tonight, a blow was struck to fight back against those who would take our liberty.
  • Sen. Rand Paul • In a statement about how he managed to kill an amendment that was likely to pass by voice vote — an amendment that would have clarified the ability for the U.S. government to hold detainees indefinitely while the War on Terror continued — by merely asking for a recorded vote on the matter. This was an awkward situation many in the Senate were trying to avoid, and as a result, the amendment lost resoundingly — with a 41-59 tally. If Paul hadn’t have spoken up, the bill would’ve received a voice vote and passed under the radar. Not bad,  Rand Paul. That’s a moment to put in the ‘ol resume. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Apr 2011 13:43

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U.S.: Parsing Wikileaks’ trove of Gitmo detainee files

  • The U.S. has a pretty low threshold for proof when it comes to tossing somebody in Guantanamo Bay, at least that’s what seems true when you read the latest files revealed by Wikileaks. As reported by The Guardian, the U.S. government targeted people wearing a certain type of Casio wristwatch (the F-91W) for detention, because that model of wristwatch was known for its use and distribution by al-Qaeda for training in bomb-making. More than fifty of the released detainee files list the cheap, digital timepiece as a point of interest.
  • No exception for age Two early detainees, an 89-year-old and 70-year-old, sound like they never should’ve been there. U.S. doctors described the former as suffering from major depression, senility and dementia, while the latter authorities internally assessed had no real reason for their detainment at Guantanamo Bay.
  • No exception for youth Naqib Ullah was one of the youngest detainees, at just 14 when he spent a year in confinement. Authorities ultimately decided he was telling the truth when he insisted he’d been kidnapped by the Taliban — his file claims to want to “afford him an opportunity to ‘grow out’ of the radical extremism he has been subject to.” source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Apr 2011 13:54

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World: Syria’s Assad orders detainee release; torture reports abound

  • Reports of torture coming from Syria: As the Assad government in Syria released some of the people arrested during the violent crackdown in the port city of Banias, many of the detainees accused their captors of torture. This shouldn’t come as a fantastic surprise, as Assad’s regime has been known to use tactics such as torture for a while now, but it’s yet another reminder of the basic, raw humanity that’s at stake in these political uprisings. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Feb 2011 10:59

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World: Report: Egyptian military detaining, torturing protesters

  • Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not. It’s unusual and to the best of our knowledge it’s also unprecedented for the army to be doing this.
  • Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights director Hossam Bahgat • Describing the nature of some of the arrests and detainment taking place in Egypt at the moment. Bahgat’s words go against the narrative suggesting that the military is on the side of the people in the current spate of protests, and instead paint a picture that they are in fact taking part in incidents more commonly associated with the country’s notorious state security intelligence. One protester, only offering to go by his first name, Ashraf, put his experience as such: “I was on a sidestreet and a soldier stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him and he accused me of working for foreign enemies and other soldiers rushed over and they all started hitting me with their guns.” Harrowing. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jan 2011 11:21

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U.S.: ACLU: No accountability for US detainee treatment, deaths

  • So far, the documents released by the government raise more questions than they answer, but they do confirm one troubling fact: that no senior officials have been held to account for the widespread abuse of detainees. Without real accountability for these abuses, we risk inviting more abuse in the future.
  • A statement from the ACLU • Regarding a series of documents they released detailing the deaths of 190 US detainees, some of which have been reported by the media, but others are new. A handful – around 25 to 30 – are what the ACLU describes as “unjustified homicide.” One disturbing finding – over 25 percent of the deaths listed were due to cardiac problems, which leads to questions over how detainees are being confined. For its part, the Department of Defense, uh, defends itself. “Although there have been cases of individuals involved in misconduct,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher,  “there is no evidence of systematic abuse by the United States military.” Food for thought? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 11:46

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Politics: Keep America Safe isn’t exactly winning fans of its Eric Holder rip

  • Top sign your political ad isn’t as effective as you think it is: It gets criticized by your own side. This commercial, by Liz Cheney’s Keep America Safe organization, has been criticized by at least one former Bush staffer as being “unfair” for its lack of disclosure of attorneys who dared help Al-Qaeda detainees (despite working pro bono), and the subject of a letter from the non-partisan Brookings Institution criticizing it. Keep America Safe isn’t backing down, though. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Dec 2009 00:56

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U.S.: Thomson, Illinois is looking a lot like Guantanamo Bay right now

The rural town, 150 miles south of Chicago, will reportedly house some of the detainees being vacated from Gitmo. People will complain … soon. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Jun 2009 22:29

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U.S.: Poll: Dick Cheney won the public mindshare on Guantanamo

  • 2:1 the rate which USA Today/Gallup poll respondents preferred keeping the detention camp open
  • 3:1 the rate which respondents disliked the idea of putting detained terrorists in their home states source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Jan 2009 10:34

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U.S., World: Obama pauses Gitmo prosecutions, for now

  • 21 detainees will have their prosecutions put on hold; Obama did not shut down Guantanamo Bay, though
  • 120 days, the length of the moratorium on prosecutions at the Cuba-based prison camp source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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