Peace and Justice Post

The following is the preface written for the report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, released by Physicians For Human Rights:

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals’ lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted-both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.

But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.

And so do the American people.

Maj. General Taguba led the US Army’s official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and testified before Congress on his findings in May, 2004.

Report cites medical review of former inmates

WASHINGTON – A Cambridge-based human rights organization said it has found medical evidence supporting the claims of 11 former detainees who were allegedly tortured while in American custody between 2001 and 2004, in what a former top US military investigator said amounts to evidence of war crimes.

Medical evaluations of the former inmates found injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and forced nudity as well as signs of “severe physical and sexual assault,” Physicians for Human Rights said in a report scheduled for release today.

The report also alleges that in four of the cases, American health professionals appeared to have been complicit by denying the detainees medical care and observing the abuse but making no effort to stop it – charges that, if true, represent gross violations of medical ethics.

Four of the men were captured in Afghanistan and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and seven were held in Iraq. All were released in recent years, and none was charged with a crime.

Physicians for Human Rights, a liberal-leaning nongovernmental organization established in 1988, relies on health professionals to investigate human rights abuses around the world. It has been credited for chronicling the AIDS epidemic in Africa and investigating conditions in US prisons and juvenile detention centers.

A Physicians for Human Rights official was questioned earlier this month by Israeli authorities after organizing mobile health clinics in Palestinian areas.

The subjects of the group’s latest study were identified with the help of two law firms that represent the former detainees, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal advocacy group. The group also established a five-person internal ethics board to review the investigative procedures.

The 130-page report, a copy of which was provided to the Globe, is being released as Congress convenes hearings on the Bush administration’s use of controversial interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. The hearings have examined allegations that some techniques amounted to torture and violated international law, and the Physicians for Human Rights study offers medical evidence to support those allegations.

Continued . . .

Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice

June 17 2008

Shortly after that the Egyptians, which have worked out a truce between the Hamas Government on Gaza Strip and the Israelis,said that the ceasefire will begin on Thursday this week, Hamas officials made an announcement from Gaza City that a long awaited cease-fire is reached with the Israelis, a truce that would end months of Israeli assassination attacks on the Palestinian resistance and Palestinian retaliation assaults on Israeli border towns.

In the very last minute before the ceasefire – announcement,Israeli aircraft attacked three targets in the southern Gaza Strip.One of the air strikes destroyed a civilian car,killing five resistance fighters. An Israeli “Drone” ( spy plane) fired a missile towards a car driving in the town of Al-Qarara in the north of Khan Younis.The Israeli assassination operation killed 5 Palestinian citizens and more than 10 citizens were injured in this attack.

Moa’taz and Ahmed Doghmosh,Mahmoud Asalyia,Ezz El – Azzazi,and Mahmoud El-Shendi died fighting for freedom, just before the truce with the enemy, the Israelis was announced on Tuesday.Dr Moa’wayia Hassanein, director and coordinator of the ambulance and emergency department in the Palestinian Health Ministry, told our reporter that the remains of the Martyrs, arrived as torn and burnt body parts to the hospital and the dead are difficult to identify.

Also on Tuesday a second Israeli air strike targeted a jeep in Deir Al-Balah refuge camp in the central Gaza Strip, near the coast line of the Mediterranean sea.The attack injured two people, one seriously.The third air strike, targeted a civilian car driving on the Al-Baraka street in Deir Al-Balah, three people were injured in this third attack,one in serious condition,the injured are transferred to Al Shefa Hospital.

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By Omid Memarian

Emad Baghi is a leading authority on the issue of child executions in Iran. Credit:emadbaghi.com

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 18 (IPS) – A human rights group has published the first detailed list of juvenile offenders on Iran’s death row, finding that at least 114 children under the age of 18 are awaiting the ultimate penalty.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says that two child offenders have already been executed this year, and notes that Iran’s judicial system is so opaque, it is unclear whether others on the list have already been put to death.

At least one of those awaiting execution, Ahmad Noorzehi, was just 12 years old at the time of his crime.

“Iran is the only country putting child offenders to death in great numbers,” Hadi Ghaemi, a spokesperson for the campaign, told IPS. “This barbaric practice is justified in the name of Islamic law, but many religious scholars have challenged it,” he added.

Launched on Wednesday, the list is the result of comprehensive research by prominent Iranian human rights defender Emad Baghi. It forms part of a book he has written called “Right to Life II”, which argues that such executions are not sanctioned by Islamic law as claimed by Iranian authorities.

Baghi’s book compiles numerous authoritative religious sources arguing for the abolition of executions of child offenders. Copies of it have been distributed to Iranian officials in the judiciary and parliament, as well as to human rights defenders and organisations inside Iran. However, Iranian censors have not permitted the book to be published.

The campaign obtained a copy of “Right to Life II”, which documents 177 death sentences for child offenders over the past decade. At least 34 executions have been carried out, another 114 are apparently pending, and the remaining offenders were pardoned.

“While the whole world is moving towards abolishing death penalty in general, Iran’s increasing number of executions of minors is shameful,” said Ghaemi. “They should immediately abolish it. There is much momentum in this direction both domestically and on the international front, and this is the time for Iran to act and bring its practices in line with its international commitments.”

According to a report published by Human Rights Watch this year, only Iran, Sudan, China and Pakistan are known to have executed juvenile offenders since 2004. Sudan carried out two such executions in 2005, while China executed one juvenile offender in 2004 and Pakistan executed one juvenile offender in 2006. In contrast, Iran is known to have executed at least three juvenile offenders in 2004, eight in 2005, and four in 2006.

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The Times, June 18, 2008
Daniel Finkelstein

By Amnesty International

17/06/08 “Amnesty International” — 15/06/08 — The international community is evading its responsibility towards refugees from Iraq by promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said today.

In its new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, which is based on recent research and interviews with Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world’s richest states are failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution.

“Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees, failing in their moral, political and legal duty to share responsibility for them,” said Amnesty International. “Instead, apathy and rhetoric have been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the world.”

Amnesty International said that the Government of Iraq and states involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in particular the USA and the UK, highlight “improved” security or “voluntary” returns to Iraq out of political expedience, to demonstrate that their military involvement has been a success.

“Rhetoric cannot hide the reality that the wider human rights situation in Iraq remains dire,” said Amnesty International.

“People are being killed every month by armed groups, the Multinational Force, Iraqi security forces and private military and security guards. Kidnappings, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention pervade the daily lives of Iraqis. People continue to attempt to flee, something that is now very difficult with the recent imposition of visa restrictions on Iraqis by Jordan and Syria.”

According to the latest estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has now reached 4.7 million, the highest since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent internal armed conflict.

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By Stephen de Tarczynski | Inter Press Service, June 18, 2008

Former Australian PM John Howard insists he was right to invade Iraq. Credit:US Department of Defence

MELBOURNE, The withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq is coinciding with a push to have the man responsible for the country’s participation in the “coalition of the willing”, former prime minister John Howard, indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.

“Our soldiers have worked tirelessly to ensure that local people in southern Iraq have the best possible chance to move on from their suffering under Saddam’s regime and as a government we are extremely proud of their service,” said Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon in a statement on Jun. 2, the same day that he announced the end of Australia’s combat mission.

Roughly 550 troops are currently in the process of being “extracted” from Iraq, where they had undertaken security operations and the training of Iraqi army personnel in the provinces of Al Muthanna and Dhi Qar since 2005.

The withdrawal — which is not expected to have major implications for Australia-U.S. ties — fulfils “a key election promise” of the governing Labour Party, according to Fitzgibbon. Labour opposed the Mar. 2003 invasion while in opposition.

With some 800 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel to remain in and around Iraq — at sea, at coalition headquarters, and as the security detachment to Australia’s embassy in Baghdad — questions have been raised regarding what actually constitutes a withdrawal.

While the opposition coalition has said that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd government’s claim of a withdrawal of combat forces is “pure spin”, Robert Marr, from the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW), argues that the pullout has not gone far enough.

“It is only a part-withdrawal. We’re calling on the Australian government to set a firm timetable for the withdrawal of all of the rest of the Australian troops, except those guarding the embassy, from Iraq,” says Marr.

He told IPS that Australia’s decision to be a part of the coalition of countries that invaded Iraq in 2003 — performed under the auspices of former leader John Howard — is “the worst foreign policy mistake Australia has ever made.”

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The Independent, Tuesday, 17 June 2008

It gets an outing on every visit of an American president to these shores. And yesterday’s appearance of President George Bush in London, stopping by on his farewell tour of Europe, was no different. Both Gordon Brown and Mr Bush paid tribute to the “special” relationship between our two nations.

The “special relationship” is a concept that cuts little ice with hard-headed diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet it was once more than a platitude. While the default position of much of the world has traditionally been to look upon America with guarded scepticism, Britons (at least for the past century) have been instinctively well-disposed to the United States and its leaders. The bonds of a common language and a history of shared struggle in two world wars did indeed make this relationship something out of the ordinary.

So perhaps Mr Bush’s most significant legacy, as far as Britain is concerned, will be the destruction of the instinctive trust of America and its leaders that once prevailed here. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr Bush has done more damage to relations between our two nations than any president in living memory. This rupture is not an accident of circumstance; there are no impersonal forces of history to blame. This sorry state of affairs is the consequence of the actions of a single leader and his small coterie of advisers.

Continued . . .