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Cori Crider on 11 April 2012
A struggle is brewing in England over the fate of British justice. In a wide category of cases against the government, British spies are seeking to muzzle British judges, supposedly to appease the CIA. It’s a bad idea predicated on a myth, and the British people shouldn’t fall for it.
Full disclosure: I am not a Briton. I’m from Texas, but for years have watched British courts closely from my perch in London at Reprieve, a human-rights law firm that defends people who have been tortured or held in secret detention around the world. Judges here have ...
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Clive Stafford Smith on 11 April 2012
Too much bad news swirls around us; sometimes we should celebrate the positive. Yesterday the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office published William Hague's speech on consular services, committing 'to increase our focus on vulnerable people.'
This is welcome news for Reprieve and the British nationals we assist: there can hardly be someone more vulnerable than a penniless person who some foreign government wants to put to death.
Reprieve now has over 25 staff and we fight on the behalf of dozens of people - from those kidnapped and delivered to torture to those facing execution round the world. We began ...
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Crofton Black on 05 April 2012
Ten years ago – 3 April 2002 – US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld hailed the capture of a man by name of Abu Zubaydah, then regarded as a high-ranking al-Qaida operative.
In reply to fevered speculation about what would happen to the new captive, Rumsfeld said: “He will be properly interrogated by proper people who know how to do those things.”
Ten years later, who those people were, what they knew how to do, and where they learnt it, has become an increasingly widely circulated story. A new piece fitted into the jigsaw today, with the publication by Truthout’s Jason ...
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Aditi Gupta on 29 March 2012
This powerful film features excerpts from seven hours of the prison’s CCTV video footage of Canadian agents interrogating Omar. It reveals in excruciating clarity how his joy at meeting representatives of his own government turned to despair when he realized that they had not come to Guantánamo to help him. Commentary on the footage is provided by Khadr’s US and Canadian lawyers, journalist Michelle Shephard, former US guard Damien Corsetti, and former prisoners, including Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg. The footage was released by the Canadian courts after a ruling that Khadr’s rights had been violated ...
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Clive Stafford Smith on 29 March 2012
The Guardian has reported an extraordinary attack on Reprieve by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). Reprieve is accused of "'intimidation and commercial harassment' of manufacturers of medical drugs used in lethal injections". We are "authoritarian ideologues who menace and harass private citizens who decline to submit to Reprieve's opinion on the morality of capital punishment by lethal injection." The Guardian is correct that this is "astonishingly vivid language"; it is also defamatory nonsense, and I would like to set the record straight.
This week, I was in Copenhagen, meeting with the Ulf Wiinberg, the CEO of Lundbeck ...
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Aditi Gupta on 28 March 2012
Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, more commonly known as Abu Zubaydah, is a stateless Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia. He was held in secret detention by the CIA of the United States of America from the time of his abduction from a house in Faisalabad, Pakistan on 28th March 2002 until approximately 6th September 2006, when it was announced that he was transferred to the custody of the U.S. Department of Defence ('DOD') at Guantánamo Bay. He remains in indefinite detention in DOD custody at Guantánamo Bay. However he has never been charged with any crime ...
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Aditi Gupta on 28 March 2012
February 14th marked the 10th anniversary of the arrival at Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. On that day, his family and his lawyers in London launched an e-petition on the British government's website (http://www.freeshaker.com/), entitled, "Return Shaker Aamer to the UK".
This petition calls on the government - and, specifically, the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary, William Hague - to "undertake urgent new initiatives to achieve the immediate transfer of Shaker Aamer to the U.K. from continuing indefinite detention in Guantánamo Bay." This ...
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on 27 March 2012
Source: GazetaWyborcza.pl, Wojciech Czuchnowski, Adam Krzykowski
Translation: Agathe Osinski
The former head of Polish intelligence (AW) Zbigniew Siemiatkowski has been charged with participating in the organisation of a center, located in Poland, which held prisoners suspected of terrorism between 2002-2003.
“I have repeatedly refused to provide any explanations to the prosecutors, and I will continue to refuse it at every step of the procedure, even in court,” Siemiatkowski, who is now a university lecturer, told the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and television station Panorama. He justifies this silence as necessary for the sake of state security.
He does ...
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Aditi Gupta on 26 March 2012
British Citizen, Ruhal Ahmed, spent two years at Guantánamo Bay. After his release he returned home to Tipton, England without ever being charged with a crime by the British or US governments. During his time at Guantánamo, he was repeatedly tortured. The method of torture that he feared most, however, was torture by music.
This documentary by the BBC World Service explores the use of music as a weapon to induce sleep deprivation, prolong capture shock and disorient detainees - all in name of the ‘War on Terror’.
Since the ‘War on Terror’ began, Michael Korzinski, a psychologist for ...
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Ariane Adam on 23 March 2012
“Potato, potato, potato” was Robert Towery’s last utterance before he took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes. His nephew will have recognized it as an approximation of the sound made by a Harley Davidson engine.
This diary chronicles the last 35 days of his life, starting on 2 February 2012 when he went on “Death Watch,” that is, when he was removed from his cell and placed in a special holding unit. On 7 February 2012 he was moved to the death house. Arizona executed by lethal injection on 8 March 2012. He was 47 years old ...
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