Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Anti-War, bill of rights, Congress, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorist, Empire, end the fed, enemy combatants, John McCain, mandatory detention, mccain, Military, Military Industrial Complex, Protest, rendition, tea party, Torture, truth movement, US Constitution, War On Terror
Americans Could Be Locked-Up For Life Without Trial Under New Bill
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 mastermind, 9/11 patsies, 9/11 Truth, alqaeda, black site, CIA, Detainees, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, George Bush, gitmo, Guantanamo, human rights, interrogation, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, KSM, Military, Military Industrial Complex, Official 9/11 Story, Pentagon, poland, rendition, Torture, torture prison, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House, World Trade Center | Tags: lite, LLC
EXCLUSIVE: CIA Secret ‘Torture’ Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy in Lithuania
ABC
November 19, 2009
The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.
Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.
“The activities in that prison were illegal,” said human rights researcher John Sifton. “They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions.”
Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the “black site” in 2004.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 mastermind, 9/11 patsies, 9/11 Truth, alqaeda, black site, Child Abuse, CIA, Detainees, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, George Bush, gitmo, Guantanamo, human rights, human rights watch, interrogation, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, KSM, Military, Military Industrial Complex, Official 9/11 Story, Pakistan, Pentagon, prison camp, red cross, rendition, Torture, torture prison, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House, World Trade Center | Tags: Ron Suskind
KSM’s children tortured with insects
Raw Story
April 17, 2009
Bush Administration memos released by the White House on Thursday provide new insight into claims that American agents used insects to torture the young children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
In the memos, released Thursday, the Bush Administration White House Office of Legal Counsel offered its endorsement of CIA torture methods that involved placing an insect in a cramped, confined box with detainees. Jay S. Bybee, then-director of the OLC, wrote that insects could be used to capitalize on detainees’ fears.
The memo was dated Aug. 1, 2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children were captured and held in Pakistan the following month, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
While an additional memo released Thursday claims that the torture with insects technique was never utilized by the CIA, the allegations regarding the children would have transpired when the method was authorized by the Bush Administration.
At a military tribunal in 2007, the father of a Guantanamo detainee alleged that Pakistani guards had confessed that American interrogators used ants to coerce the children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into revealing their father’s whereabouts.
The statement was made by Ali Khan, the father of detainee Majid Khan, who gave a detailed account of his son’s interrogation at the hands of American guards in Pakistan. In his statement, Khan asserted that one of his sons was held at the same place as the young children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs and were denied food and water by other guards,” the statement read. “They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.” (A pdf transcript is available here)
Khan’s statement is second-hand. But the picture he paints of his son’s interrogation at the hands of American interrogators is strikingly similar to the accounts given by numerous other detainees to the International Red Cross. The timing of the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s son — then aged seven and nine — also meshes with a report by Human Rights Watch, which says that the children were captured in September 2002 and held for four months at the hands of American guards.
“According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult detention center for at least four months while U.S. agents questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts,” the report said.
The use of insects isn’t mentioned in a recently leaked International Red Cross report, in which Red Cross officials questioned detainees about their treatment at the hands of US forces and ultimately judged them to have been tortured. A second memo released Thursday, dated May 10, 2005, says the CIA told the White House insects were never actually used in interrogations.
“We understand that — for reasons unrelated to any concerns that it might violate the [criminal] statute — the CIA never used the technique and has removed it from the list of authorized interrogation techniques,” Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a footnote.
It’s worth noting, however, that the Red Cross was denied access to individuals held at CIA black sites. Khan’s son, Majid, was among those President Bush moved from the CIA’s secret prison network to Guantanamo Bay.
The techniques Khan says were employed against his son also match those approved in the Bybee memo.
“What I can tell you is that Majid was kidnapped from my son Mohammed’s [not related Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] house in Karachi, along with Mohammed, his wife, and my infant granddaughter,” Khan said in his military tribunal statement. “They were captured by Pakistani police and soldiers and taken to a detention center fifteen minutes from Mohammed’s house. The center had walls that seemed to be eighty feet high. My sons were hooded, handcuffed, and interrogated. After eight days of interrogation by US and Pakistani agents, including FBI agents, Mohammed was allowed to see Majid.
“Majhid looked terrible and very, very tired,” Khan continued. “According to Mohammed, Majid said that the Americans tortured him for eight hours at a time, tying him tightly in stressful positions in a small chair until his hands, feet and mind went numb. They re-tied him in the chair every hour, tightening the bonds on his hands and feet each time so that it was more painful. He was often hooded and had difficulty breathing. They also beat him repeatedly, slapping him in the face, and deprived him of sleep. When he was not being interrogated, the Americans put Majid in a small cell that was totally dark and too small for him to lie down in or sit in with his legs stretched out. He had to crouch. The room was also infested with mosquitoes. The torture only stopped when Majid agreed to sign a statement that he was not even allowed to read.”
Later in his statement, Khan alleges that the Pakistani guards revealed other abuses by American agents.
“The Americans also once stripped and beat two Arab boys, ages fourteen and sixteen, who were turned over by the Pakistani guards at the detention center,” he said. “These guards told my son that they were very upset at this and said the boys were thrown like garbage onto a plane to Guantanamo. Women prisoners were also held there, apart from their husbands, and some were pregnant and forced to give birth in their cells. According to Mohammed, one woman also died in her cell because the guards could not get her to a hospital quickly enough. This was most upsetting to the Pakistani guards.”
One blogger notes, “The first indications the children may have been tortured were reported in Ron Suskind’s 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine.”
“When KSM was being held at a secret CIA facility in Thailand, apparently the revamped Vietnam War-era base at Udorn, according to Suskind, a message was passed to interrogators: ‘do whatever’s necessary,’” Kevin Fenton writes at History Commons. “The interrogators then told KSM ‘his children would be hurt if he didn’t cooperate. However, his response was, ’so, fine, they’ll join Allah in a better place.’”
Fenton has two questions: “Did the Khans invent the allegations or garble them in some way and then ‘get lucky’ two years later, when it was revealed the CIA was, at least, contemplating the techniques they alleged it used at the time in question?” and “Given that nobody heard of the CIA using insects for another two years, why would they invent these specific allegations, which sounded bizarre when they were made?”
New Gitmo Video: Child Detainee Cries During Interrogation
Filed under: afghan pipeline, Afghanistan, alqaeda, bin laden, CIA, craig murray, Detainee, Dictatorship, Extraordinary Rendition, fake alqaeda, human rights, Oppression, rape, rendition, Torture, Uzbekistan, war crime, War Crimes
Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’
Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
November 5, 2009
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.
“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”
Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is “endemic” to the country’s justice system.
Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a “totalitarian” state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.
Suspects in Uzbekistan’s gulags “were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes.”
“I was absolutely stunned — it changed my whole world view in an instant — to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn’t do the torture ourselves,” Murray said.
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Dictatorship, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, federal crime, gitmo, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogation, Iraq, nation building, Nazi, occupation, Oppression, rendition, Torture, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror
U.S. Interrogator: “You have 3 minutes to live”
Filed under: 1st amendment, 2008 Election, Abu Ghraib, Anti-War, brazil, Britain, civil liberties, civil rights, demonstration, Detainee, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, free press, free speech, Guantanamo, human rights, london, Minneapolis, Nazi, Oppression, pain compliance, police brutality, rendition, RNC, Taser Guns, Toll Roads, Torture, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Delaware, Elliot Hughes, minneapolis police department, peter willimae, queensland, queensland police department, Ramsey County, ramsey county jail, Rio de Janeiro, st. paul police, st. paul police department
RNC police brutality and torture victims speak out
Queensland Police Brutality
Aiken County Sheriff stops group for saggy pants
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080916/twl-rio-cops-kill-three-people-a-day-3fd0ae9.html
Cop who arrested TV cameraman has been fired
http://kob.com/article/stories/S578979.shtml?cat=500
Delaware Bridge cops want toll cheats’ money, or their cars
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/186/story/260008.html
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2008 Election, Abu Ghraib, Anti-War, civil liberties, civil rights, demonstration, Detainee, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, free speech, Guantanamo, Homeland Security, human rights, Minneapolis, Nazi, Oppression, pain compliance, police brutality, Police State, Protest, rendition, RNC, stasi, stasi tactics, Taser Guns, Torture, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Elliot Hughes, minneapolis police department, Ramsey County, ramsey county jail, st. paul police, st. paul police department
RNC Protester Tortured in Ramsey County Jail
Elliot Hughes recounts allegations of torture while being detained in Ramsey County Jail. Hughes was detained during an RNC08 protest after reportedly colliding with a police bicycle on accident. …
Filed under: 4th amendment, al-qaeda, Congress, Detainee, Dictatorship, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, George Bush, Guantanamo, House, Iraq, John McCain, Military, nation building, Nazi, neocons, NSA, occupation, Oppression, Posse Comitatus, rendition, Senate, telecoms, Torture, US Constitution, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap | Tags: Jose Padilla
Bush quietly seeks to make war powers permanent, by declaring indefinite state of war
Raw Story
August 30, 2008
As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain’s choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.
Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention — and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and “associated organizations.”
Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”
The New York Times’ page 8 placement of the article in its Saturday edition seems to downplay its importance. Such a re-affirmation of war carries broad legal implications that could imperil Americans’ civil liberties and the rights of foreign nationals for decades to come.
It was under the guise of war that President Bush claimed a legal mandate for his warrantless wiretapping program, giving the National Security Agency power to intercept calls Americans made abroad. More of this program has emerged in recent years, and it includes the surveillance of Americans’ information and exchanges online.
“War powers” have also given President Bush cover to hold Americans without habeas corpus — detainment without explanation or charge. Jose Padilla, a Chicago resident arrested in 2002, was held without trial for five years before being convicted of conspiring to kill individuals abroad and provide support for terrorism.
But his arrest was made with proclamations that Padilla had plans to build a “dirty bomb.” He was never convicted of this charge. Padilla’s legal team also claimed that during his time in military custody — the four years he was held without charge — he was tortured with sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, forced stress positions and injected with drugs.
Times reporter Eric Lichtblau notes that the measure is the latest step that the Administration has taken to “make permanent” key aspects of its “long war” against terrorism. Congress recently passed a much-maligned bill giving telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for their participation in what constitutional experts see as an illegal or borderline-illegal surveillance program, and is considering efforts to give the FBI more power in their investigative techniques.
“It is uncertain whether Congress will take the administration up on its request,” Lichtblau writes. “Some Republicans have already embraced the idea, with Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, introducing a measure almost identical to the administration’s proposal. ’Since 9/11,’ Mr. Smith said, ’we have been at war with an unconventional enemy whose primary goal is to kill innocent Americans.’”
If enough Republicans come aboard, Democrats may struggle to defeat the provision. Despite holding majorities in the House and Senate, they have failed to beat back some of President Bush’s purported “security” measures, such as the telecom immunity bill.
Bush’s open-ended permanent war language worries his critics. They say it could provide indefinite, if hazy, legal justification for any number of activities — including detention of terrorists suspects at bases like Guantanamo Bay (where for years the Administration would not even release the names of those being held), and the NSA’s warantless wiretapping program.
Lichtblau co-wrote the Times article revealing the Administration’s eavesdropping program along with fellow reporter James Risen.
He notes that Bush’s language “recalls a resolution, known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001… [which] authorized the president to ’use all necessary and appropriate force’ against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks to prevent future strikes. That authorization, still in effect, was initially viewed by many members of Congress who voted for it as the go-ahead for the administration to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban, which had given sanctuary to Mr. bin Laden.”
“But the military authorization became the secret legal basis for some of the administration’s most controversial legal tactics, including the wiretapping program, and that still gnaws at some members of Congress,” he adds.
Filed under: 2008 olympics, beijing, China, christian, Communism, Concentration Camp, Detainee, Dictatorship, disney, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, Germany, Hitler, human rights, Israel, Media, media blackout, Military, Nazi, nuremburg, olympics, Oppression, rape, re-education, religion, rendition, slave labour, slavery, Torture | Tags: Colonel Yehuda Wegman, death camp, detention camp, erping zhang, falun dafa information center, falun gong practitioners, FDI, forced labor camp, Jennifer Zeng, labor camp, Masanjia Labor Camp, Nestle, opening ceremony, re-Education Through Labour, RTL, Shanxi Forced Labour Camp, Shanxi Women’s Forced Labour Camp
Beijing’s Concentration Camp Tour Will Be Fake Warns Victim
Epoch Times
August 17, 2008
Rumours surfaced last week that Chinese authorities may be preparing to allow labour camp tours after reports that many Falun Gong practitioners, illegally arrested for their spiritual beliefs, were being moved out of Beijing forced labor camps and replaced by Chinese Communist Party loyalists or otherwise coerced inmates.
Jennifer Zeng, who gained refugee status in Australia after spending a year detained in the Beijing Municipal Women’s Re-Education-Through-Labour (RTL) Camp, said she was forced to participate in fabrications of prison life for high level officials on many occasions and that it is quite possible there are plans afoot to stage an event for Western media.
“Whenever there were visitors we were made to get up one hour earlier and make everything shine and neat like in a hospital,” she told The Epoch Times.
“We would work very hard but when there were visitors, we were forced to stop and we were taken to a kind of playground or recreation room and we were forced to play cards or play basketball to show to the visitors.
“As soon as the visitors were gone, we were taken back to our dormitories and back to our work again,” she said.
“It was all faked.”
Human rights watchdog, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI), said Chinese authorities began moving Falun Gong prisoners out of Beijing last week—immediately after their publication of a guide pinpointing detention centers close to Olympic sites.
FDI’s sources within China revealed that many practitioners have been moved to Shanxi Forced Labour Camp and Shanxi Women’s Forced Labour Camp, while others were reported to have been sent to Inner Mongolia.
So-called “reformed” practitioners, people who say they once practiced Falun Gong and now repeat the Communist Party’s denunciations of the practice, have also been moved into the Beijing RTL camps, furthering suggestions that there could be an inspection.
In April 2001, a month after the regime invited them, foreign and Chinese media visited Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning Province, where “interviews” with Falun Gong practitioners were allowed, an FDI report states.
The labor camp had freshly painted walls and prisoners wore brand-new jumpsuits with their names embroidered on them in Chinese and in English. They were apparently “enjoying” a clean and healthy environment. However, documentation of dozens of prisoners previously held there reveal tales of horrific torture and abuse.
Ms. Zeng said any hope of obtaining the truth of prisoners’ status from the fake inspections is wishful thinking. In her experience, not only was the physical environment dressed up but prisoners themselves would be too afraid to tell the truth.
“Everybody knows you are not supposed to talk to anyone visiting because after they have gone, you will bear all the consequences,” she explained, “that is the reason why they have taken all these Falun Gong practitioners away.
“Only Falun Gong practitioners have the courage to tell the truth so they have to make sure all the “unreformed” ones were taken away.”
She also said that moving reformed Falun Gong practitioners into detention camps to speak to the media would yield little understanding of prison life because people who have been “reformed” through torture have suffered severe handicaps.
“I actually saw many Falun Gong practitioners driven into insanity or madness so I was not surprised to see “reformed” practitioners talk nonsense about Falun Gong.” She continues, “The torture was too much and it has passed their limitations of endurance. I have observed that they have a kind of special mental problem after that.”
The extent of the torture inflicted on Ms. Zeng and a number of other detainees in Chinese labour camps close to Olympic sites is well-documented. The following excerpt is from The Sydney Morning Herald, December 28, 2001.
“In February 2001, nearly 1000 illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners were forced to make 100,000 toy rabbits for Beijing Mickey Toys Co., Ltd subcontracted by Nestle at the Xin’an Labor Camp. Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Jennifer Zeng was detained there for 12 months.
’I was forced to squat motionlessly and continuously under the scorching sun. The longest period lasted more than 15 hours. I was beaten, dragged along the floor and shocked with two electric batons until I lost consciousness. I was forced to stand motionless with my head bowed, looking at my feet for 16 hours every day, while repeatedly reciting out loud the insulting labor camp regulations. I was watched 24 hours a day by criminal inmates, who were given the power to do anything they liked to me. From February of 2001 I was forced to make 100,000 promotional toy rabbits for Nestle where 130 of us worked up to 22 hours a day to fill the order.’
Military Expert: Olympic Opening Ceremony Looked Fascist
NTDTV
August 18, 2008
An Israeli military expert has said the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing sparked memories many would rather forget.
Colonel Yehuda Wegman is an expert on military doctrines and Israeli military history. He said he started watching the ceremony but immediately felt something was wrong.
“The phenomenon of thousands of people moving together in huge blocks, like a machine operated by one person to serve one purpose, is a phenomenon that history has proven to be associated with regimes we would rather forget ever existed,” he said.
Colonel Wegman found similarities between the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and the ceremonies held by the Nazi regime. He quotes from the biography of Hitler’s Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer.
“Opposite the giant stages, Speer positioned huge blocks of people dressed in brown and black uniforms who, together, formed an impressive geometric shape…The spirit of the generation, which was disturbed by the anarchy and disorder, couldn’t but watch the scene in great awe.”
“The visitors in Nuremberg, including many foreigners, were so impressed they were ready to disregard the repulsive aspects of the regime.”
Colonel Wegman recently published an article on Ynet–a major Israeli newspaper’s website. The article calls the public’s attention to the dangers the Bejing ceremony represents to the Free World.
“If this was about a small country like Andorra, then that wouldn’t have been a reason for concern. But this is China – a country that accounts for a fifth of the world’s population and has enormous power and natural resources. It has the ability to bring into action the ideas that lie behind those ceremonies – ideas of imperialism, intervention and oppression.”
Colonel Wegman said history is repeating itself.
Colonel (Res.) Yehuda Wegmen served for over a decade as a senior instructor of fighting doctrine at the IDF Command and General Staff College. During the Yom Kippur War he served as an officer in the first reservist battalion to reach the Golan Heights. Today he develops military instructional methods and writes on military and security matters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/18/olympics2008
Paranoia Keeps Stands Empty at Beijing Olympics
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/china/par..s-empty-at-beijing-olympics-2924.html
Rounded up into torture camps: the ‘undesirables’ China doesn’t want you to see
http://www.dailymail.c..mps-undesirables-China-doesnt-want-see.html
Filed under: civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Iraq, Military, nation building, navy, occupation, Oppression, pepperspray, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Iraq prisoners sealed in pepper-spray cell
Herald Sun
August 15, 2008
SIX American sailors working as prison camp guards in Iraq face courts martial for abusing detainees, some of whom were sealed in a cell with pepper spray.
The US Navy said seven other sailors were given non-judicial punishments over the incident, which took place on May 14 at Camp Bucca, the vast desert camp in southern Iraq where the US military houses 18,000 of its 21,000 prisoners.
“Two detainees suffered minor abrasions as a result of the alleged assaults, eight others were confined overnight in a detainee housing unit which was sprayed with riot control agent and then the ventilation secured,” the Navy said in a statement.
Navy Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Commander Jane Campbell said the riot control agent was pepper spray. None of the victims required medical attention apart from the two who were beaten, she said.
“The day that this all took place there had actually been some unrest at the camp. There had been some detainee-on-guard issues, which ranged from spitting to throwing bodily functions at some guards,” she said.
The six facing courts martial have remained with their unit at the prison camp but were removed from duty.
“They are no longer doing the mission of guards,” Commander Campbell said.
The courts martial will begin at Camp Bucca within the next 30 days.
The seven guards already subjected to the less-severe system of non-judicial punishment had mainly faced accusations that they failed to report the incident, rather than being accused of taking part themselves, she said.
Two had their charges dismissed and the rest were given reductions in rank, with some also docked pay or confined to base for 45 days.
Use of pepper spray in warfare is banned by international treaties on chemical weapons, but many governments say members of their armed forces are permitted to use it in war zones for law-enforcement duties.
Filed under: Baghdad, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, Detainee, Dictatorship, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, federal crime, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Iraq, Military, nation building, Nazi, occupation, Oppression, prison camp, rape, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: iraqi civilians, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Video: 9 year old in U.S. prison camp
Filed under: 1984, 2008 olympics, beijing, Big Brother, China, civil liberties, civil rights, Communism, Detainee, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, free press, free speech, George Bush, hong kong, human rights, humiliation, Japan, journalists, Media, mugabe, olympics, Oppression, orwell, police brutality, Police State, Protest, rendition, Surveillance, tibet, tibet protests, Torture, War On Terror, Zimbabwe | Tags: falun gong, falungong practitioners, Gao Zhisheng, Nippon Television Network Corp., olympics security, Shinji Katsuta, Shinzou Kawakita, tokyo, Xinjiang
Chinese Pleading For Human Rights Are Harrassed & Jailed Before Olympics, Journalist Are Intimidated
Washington Post
August 2, 2008
Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.
Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted.
“My bet is the authorities won’t let them out until after the Olympics,” said Wang Xiahua, a veteran anti-government agitator from this farm town 180 miles southwest of Beijing and a supporter of the imprisoned farmers.
The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands.
The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would “not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights.”
Now, human rights have been set back rather than enhanced, activists say.
“The Olympics have reversed the clock,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based specialist for Human Rights in China.
Another foreign human rights advocacy group, Amnesty International, came to a similar conclusion in a report issued Monday titled “The Olympics Countdown — Broken Promises.”
“By continuing to persecute and punish those who speak out for human rights, the Chinese authorities have lost sight of the promises they made when they were granted the Games seven years ago,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific deputy director. “The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the Games.”
The repressive atmosphere has intensified in part because senior Communist Party officials seem to be just as determined to prevent embarrassing protests — which could be televised — as they are to avert terrorist attacks during the Olympics. In exhortations to security forces, Public Security Ministry commanders and Xi Jinping, the senior Communist Party leader in charge of Olympic preparations, repeatedly have said that police must block any attempt to damage China’s image.
Despite these concerns, President Bush and many other world leaders have accepted China’s invitation to attend the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday. After saying for months that the Games should be viewed only as a sporting event, Bush met with Chinese rights activists Tuesday and said he would use the opportunity to remind President Hu Jintao of U.S. support for human rights. The Foreign Ministry criticized his gesture, calling it interference in China’s internal affairs. But his decision to attend was still being interpreted as endorsement of China’s contention that the Olympic Games are not an appropriate stage for human rights appeals.
Chinese police beat, detain 2 Japanese reporters
AP
August 5, 2008
Two Japanese journalists were briefly detained and beaten by police in western China, their companies and one of the men said Tuesday, triggering a protest by the Japanese government. Chinese officials later apologized.
They were working in Xinjiang at the scene of a deadly attack Monday on Chinese policemen when they were forcibly taken to a border police facility, said Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp.
“My face was pushed into the ground, my arm was twisted and I was hit two or three times in the face,” he said in a phone interview broadcast on his station.
A photographer from the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, Shinzou Kawakita, was also apprehended and roughed up, said a company spokesman who declined to give his name, citing company policy.
Chinese Rights Advocate Tortured in Captivity
Yu Hang
Sound of Hope Radio
August 5, 2008
In the shadow of a Beijing Olympics touted as a harbinger of change and human rights improvements, a well-placed informant from China disclosed to Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) the painful plight of renowned Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng since his disappearance a year ago.
The anonymous insider told SOH in a telephone interview that Gao, after his mysterious disappearance on September 22, 2007, was taken by the PRC police to a secret location where he suffered physical and psychological torture for nearly 60 days. The source said the level of torture was “beyond anyone’s imagination” and even the police executing the torture admired Gao’s uncompromising spirit.
While recounting the tortures inflicting on Gao, the insider souce said [transcribed from the telephone recording], “For example, they stripped attorney Gao Zhisheng naked, threw him to the ground and attacked him with electric batons. They deprived him of sleep. This is very common. It goes without saying that they beat him up as well. They have resorted to lowly, despicable means.”
The insider added that they tortured Gao Zhisheng to make him do three things. First, to make him write an article condemning Falun Gong. Second, to make him write articles condemning the founder of Falun Gong. Third, to make him write articles praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“But Gao Zhisheng did not compromise,” the source said. “The police were shattered to watch the horrible tortures. The outside world cannot imagine [the severity of the torture.]”
The insider added that Gao was tortured in the same way Falun Gong practitioners are tortured and that the level of torture will make one feel like an animal instead of a human being. The tortures were so cruel that Gao Zhisheng thought of committing suicide and hurting himself, according to the source. While recounting Gao’s plight, the insider repeatedly said, “the tortures are beyond anyone’s imagination.”
The insider told SOH that, with the Beijing Olympic Games impending, the CCP has secretly removed Gao’s family away from Beijing for fear of any unwanted incident, and the Chinese authorities do not plan to release Gao before the Olympic Games are over.
Gao Zhisheng is an attorney once highly praised by China for his successes. In 2005, after sending a series of open letters to authorities questioning the torture and abuse of Falun Gong practitioners, a campaign of harassment, arrest and torture was directed at Gao and his family.
http://www.watoday.com.au/news/la../08/05/1217701960735.html
China Orders Highest Alert for Olympics
http://www.nytimes.com/20..l?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
China apologises for roughing up journalists on eve of Games
http://www.breitbart.com/article…1.vz49fe9h&show_article=1
Beijing Olympics security: theater of the absurd
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/05/sports/OLY-Inside-the-Rings.php
Filed under: 9/11, ACLU, Baghdad, Britain, Centcom, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, FOIA, Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Impeach, interrogation, Iraq, john ashcroft, london, Mi5, Military, Nancy Pelosi, nation building, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House | Tags: diego garcia, indian ocean, island of diego garcia, prisoner boxes, wooden crates
Iraqi detainees put in wooden crates
The Memory Hole
July 23, 2008
In Iraq, some prisoners/detainees are kept in wooden crates known as “prisoner boxes,” so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Central Command asking for the following:
“Vanity Fair (Feb 2005 issue) has reported the existence of wood “prisoner boxes” being used by the US military in facilities in and around Baghdad. They are used to hold individual prisoners and detainees.
“I hereby request all photographs of these boxes, including empty boxes as well as boxes holding prisoners and detainees.”
Around nine and a half months later, CentCom responded by sending the three photographs on this page.
Another Secret Terror War Prison Found
Huffington Post
August 1, 2008
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the “War on Terror,” and recent revelations in TIME — based on disclosures by a “senior American official,” who was “a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings” after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that “a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island” — will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely.
The news will, however, be an embarrassment to the US government, which has persistently denied claims that it operated a secret “War on Terror” prison on Diego Garcia, and will be a source of even more consternation to the British government, which is more closely bound than its law-shredding Transatlantic neighbor to international laws and treaties preventing any kind of involvement whatsoever in kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition” and the practice of torture.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..6my6QSyHcMGDyb_qe2WwvIE
ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/A..horized_CIA_torture_0724.html
Former Gitmo Prosecutor Says Trials Rigged
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/07/former-gitmo-prosecutor-says-t.html
MI5 Outsourced Torture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/15/humanrights.civilliberties
`Terrorist’ Loses 60 Pounds on Cheney Torture Diet
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/new..8&sid=as7YVr4Wamak&refer=home
Why Pelosi won’t impeach: She knew about the torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88NXHsgi08
Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/17/ashcroft-torture/
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, ACLU, Afghanistan, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, flip flop, flip flopping, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogations, Iraq, John McCain, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, veto, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding | Tags: Detainee Treatment Act, gitmo
Forgetting His Vote To Allow Waterboarding, McCain Says ‘We Could Never Torture Anyone’
Think Progress
July 28, 2008
In February, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted against a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding and using other torture tactics in their interrogations. When the bill passed, McCain urged Bush to veto it, which he did.
In an interview with Newsweek published today, McCain defended his position, insisting that the CIA plays “a special role” in defending the U.S. and thus should be allowed to use harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding:
NEWSWEEK: On torture, why should the CIA be treated differently from the armed services regarding the use of harsh interrogation tactics?
MCCAIN: Because they play a special role in the United States of America and our ability to combat terrorists. But we have made it very clear that there is nothing they can do that would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits torture. We could never torture anyone, but some people misconstrue that who don’t understand what the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions are all about.
McCain’s vote against the waterboarding ban did make one thing clear: that he condones torture. With Bush’s veto, waterboarding remains a distinct option for the CIA:
Still, waterboarding remains in the CIA’s tool kit. The technique can be used, but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis. Bush wants to keep that option open.
“I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack,” Bush said in a statement.
McCain is either clueless or ignorant about the fact that his vote allows the CIA to waterboard detainees. And as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of McCain’s chief surrogates, has said about waterboarding, “I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place.”
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, intimidation, neocons, rendition, Torture, White House
DOJ lawyer says lunatics running the country
Filed under: 1984, 2008 olympics, beijing, Big Brother, Checkpoints, China, civil liberties, civil rights, Communism, Detainees, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, free speech, free speech zone, George Bush, hong kong, human rights, Iraq, Nazi, neocons, olympics, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, Protest, rendition, Surveillance, Torture | Tags: Jilin Province petitioner, killed, mass arrests, petitioners, seized
China petitioners killed, beaten and seized by police
Epoch Times
July 23, 2008
At least two petitioners are thought to have died as Beijing authorities intensify their campaign to “clean up” the capital for the Olympics, with busloads of people taken away each evening.
Petitioners contacted by telephone told The Epoch Times that on the evening of July 13, five busloads of people were seized and taken away, with another busload taken the following evening.
“Every evening they are seizing people,” Mr Zhao Jianping, told The Epoch Times by phone. “The people living under bridges are becoming fewer and fewer.” Mr Zhao has been appealing in Beijing for more than four years.
Beijing appellant Tang Xuiyun told of a similar situation. “These past two days have been very dangerous for us,” he said. “If you hand in a letter of appeal you’re immediately seized.
“Jilin Province petitioner Xingrong [sic] was yesterday beaten lifeless, then dragged away, right now we have no idea whether [he or she] is dead or alive. Right now everyone is very vulnerable, and we don’t dare to step outside.”
Airing Grievances
Thousands of people, mostly from rural districts, travel to Beijing each year to air their grievances at government “appeals offices”, mostly over land grabs by corrupt local officials.
They are routinely arrested and sent back to their home provinces, but Beijing authorities are now ramping up a campaign that started in September last year, with the central government doing all it can to present a “harmonious” China to the world during next month’s Olympic games.
The mass arrests are coupled with measures to prevent petitioners from reaching the capital. Those wanting to enter Beijing now must apply for a permit, a process that rules out the many who have been blacklisted. All vehicles entering and leaving the capital undergo a “safety check”, with passengers asked to show their identification. Leaflets have been distributed telling residents to report any foreigners or suspicious people to the police.
Daily commuters on buses and trains are randomly asked to show their ID, with government officials stressing both “strictness” and “convenience” for security forces while inspecting people, state media reported.
Additionally, landlords renting out their basements were ordered in June to clear out existing tenants by July 1, according to Hong Kong’s Mingpao newspaper, with estimates that this forced more than 100,000 non-Beijing residents to return to their home provinces. Small hotels and guesthouses have been closed, surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city, and large numbers of police wearing red armbands have started patrolling the streets.
“They are arresting people everywhere, and hotels don’t allow us to stay there for the night, our identities are all blacklisted,” Mr Zhao said. “The public safety authorities are more restrained in the daytime, but come evening, every appellant they discover is thrown into a vehicle and taken away.”
http://www.theage.com.au/w..p-begins-20080721-3irj.html
Bush: Olympians Ambassadors For Liberty
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bush.._be_ambassado_07212008.html
How Many Chinese Have Been ‘Suicided’?
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/china/by-lin-zhanxiang-1480.html
China says no Olympic terror link found in bus blasts
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080..-blast-oly2008-ef7dd21.html
Filed under: ACLU, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Cuba, Detainee, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Military, mukasey, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, supreme court, Taliban, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: gitmo, John Walker Lindh, US Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Leaked photo shows detainee’s lips sewn shut, wires coming out of the face
Wikileaks
July 22, 2008
Photo leaked from a military computer
Photo of a detainee held by the United States, with his face wired, lips sewn, red eyes and torso sacked. According to digital camera metadata the image was taken on Feb 9, 2003 03:49:25. The 6 Aug 2004 is also mentioned in relation to this photo. The facial wiring is clearly non-medical. The location of the detainee is unknown, possibly the US Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan. Although there is a resemblance to the US Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh, the connection is superficial. The negative image to the right was created by Wikileaks to draw attention to certain regions of the photo on the left. Wikileaks staff have verified that the photograph came from a US military computer network.
ACLU: AG Wants Congress To Subvert Constitution
Raw Story
July 21, 2008
Attorney General Michael Mukasey prompted Congress Monday morning, during a speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, to create new rules governing the rights of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The American Civil Liberties Union immediately responded to Mukasey’s request, calling his proposals nothing short of asking Congress to subvert the Constitution.
Mukasey “proposed that Congress subvert the right of habeas corpus with a new scheme of procedures that will hide the Bush administration’s past wrongdoing – an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systematic torture and abuse of detainees,” the group charged.
“Mukasey is asking Congress to expand and extend the war on terror forever,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a media advisory. “Anyone that this president or the next one declares to be a terrorist could then be held indefinitely without a trial. This is clearly the last gasp of an administration desperate to rationalize what is a failed legal scheme that was correctly rejected four times by the Supreme Court.”
The Associated Press, acknowledging a Congress eager to transition into a busy election season, notes the rules are not likely to be approved. Mukasey’s requests come on the heels of a Supreme Court decision granting detainees the right to challenge their captivity in US federal court. Under Mukasey’s proposals, a detainee would be able to challenge their detention, but would receive no extradition to the United States for the proceedings.
According to the Washington Post: “Under the Justice plan that Mukasey talked about today, the U.S. government could hold prisoners indefinitely so long as the armed conflict with al-Qaeda persisted.”
http://rawstory.com//news/2..ps_over_opposing_0721.html
Lawyer: U.S. Military Jails Are Legal Black Holes
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US..black_holes_say_U_07202008.html
US tells lies about torture, say MPs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/20/humanrights.uksecurity
Conservative Lawyers Urge Bush To Issue ‘Pre-Emptive Pardons’ To Officials Involved In Illegal Programs
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/21/bush-preemptive-pardons/
Guantánamo children
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/20..gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews