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Torture

Pardon Me For Being Angry

I’m angry right now, and I’ve decided to write anyway. It’s no secret that I asked President Joe Biden to pardon me for my 2008 violation of the obscure Intelligence Identities Act of 1981. My case for a pardon was strong. But I was ignored. Again. And this is despite the fact that Biden pardoned his entire immediate family, a crooked Pennsylvania judge who literally sold children into bondage, and a Chinese spy, in addition to giving “preemptive pardons” to General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the members and staff of the Jan. 6 Committee.

After 23 Years, Prisoners Remain In Guantanamo Without Charges

January 11 marked the twenty-third anniversary of the opening of the US military prison on occupied land in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Clearing the FOG speaks with Andy Worthington, an investigative journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files. Worthington explains that the United States opened the prison in Guantanamo to avoid legal restrictions. He describes the connections between Guantanamo and the CIA 'black sites' where prisoners were tortured and who the men are that were recently released as well as who remains. There are calls for Joe Biden to release all of the men and end the scandal of the prison at Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office.

US Transfers 11 Detainees Out Of Guantanamo Bay Prison

The United States sent 11 Yemeni detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Oman, the Pentagon said on Monday, leaving 15 people at the infamous detention centre. The transfer was initially slated for October 2023 but the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and Israel's subsequent war on Gaza delayed the transfer, according to an admission from US officials in May last year. "The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility," the US military said in a statement.

The ‘Ghost’ Of Guantanamo Is Freed

In welcome news, the Pentagon has announced that it has repatriated from Guantánamo Ridah Al-Yazidi, 59, a Tunisian prisoner held without charge or trial since the very first day of the prison’s operations nearly 23 years ago, on January 11, 2002. Although almost completely unknown to the outside world, because of the mainstream media’s persistent lack of interest in investigating the mundane lawlessness of so much of the prison’s operations, Al-Yazidi’s case is one of the most outstanding cases of casual injustice at Guantánamo.

Chicago Rally Demands State’s Attorney Free Torture Survivors

Chicago, IL – On the morning of Monday, December 2, about 30 demonstrators, led by survivors of wrongful convictions and their loved ones, gathered in below-freezing temperatures outside the downtown Chicago office of incoming Cook County State's Attorney Eileen Burke to demand she free torture survivors and the wrongfully convicted. Speakers gave testimony, chanted, and held signs that reinforced their demands. Burke has a lot of work to do to keep up with her predecessor Kim Foxx, who freed over 300 survivors of wrongful conviction and police torture during her eight years in office.

Iraqi Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Win $42 Million In Lawsuit

Three Iraqi survivors of U.S. torture won a major victory in early November when a jury in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded each of them $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages to be paid by American defense contractor CACI, which was responsible for the cruel and inhumane treatment that they endured in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison more than two decades ago. The judgment is notable for several reasons. First, it is the first time that a U.S. defense contractor has ever been successfully sued for managing a torture program.

ICC Issues Arrest Warrants For Netanyahu And Gallant

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued on 21 November arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza, in a landmark move coming several months after the court’s top prosecutor filed applications for their arrest. “Today … Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (‘Court’), in its composition for the Situation in the State of Palestine, unanimously issued two decisions rejecting challenges by the State of Israel (‘Israel’) brought under articles 18 and 19 of the Rome Statute (the ‘Statute’).

From Guantanamo To Abu Ghraib: Female Participation In Prisoner Abuses

As a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel with 13 years on active duty and 16 in the Reserves, I became interested in the topic of women involved in prisoner abuses when so many U.S. women at all levels were linked to the prisons or prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Iraq.  In reading press articles about detentions, incarcerations, and the abuse and torture of prisoners identified as threats to national security, I was struck by the number of women who had some role in the detentions -- women in the U.S. military, civilian women in various U.S. government agencies and civilian women contractors.

Jury Finds US Military Contractor CACI Guilty Of Abu Ghraib Torture

Iraqi torture survivors won a major jury verdict against CACI, a United States military contractor that was responsible for their cruel and inhuman treatment at Abu Ghraib more than twenty years ago. The jury awarded the three survivors—Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist, Suhail Al-Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor—$3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages. This was the second trial for Iraqi torture survivors. As The Dissenter previously covered, the first trial in August ended in a mistrial.

USAID Officials Take ‘Daily Meetings’ At Israel’s Sde Teiman Torture Camp

Officials from the US’s main humanitarian agency attend daily meetings on an Israeli military base that also hosts the notorious Sde Teiman torture camp for Palestinian detainees from Gaza, The Guardian reported on 15 October. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is tasked with working with Israeli officials, the UN, and international NGOs to bring humanitarian assistance into Gaza as part of the Joint Coordination Board (JCB). According to three officials with the agency, USAID officials have been attending meetings as part of the JCB at the Sde Teiman base in southern Israel since 29 July.

Deal Or No Deal?

The case of the Gitmo plea agreement keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. A few weeks ago, we learned that a plea agreement had been entered into by way of a signed contract among the retired general in the Pentagon who is supervising all Gitmo prosecutions, the Gitmo defendants and defense counsel, and the military prosecutors. The agreement, as we understand it from sources who have seen it, provides that in return for a guilty plea, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others will serve life terms at Gitmo, rather than be exposed at trial to the death penalty. The guilty plea is to include a public and detailed recitation of guilt.

‘Gross Human Rights Violations’ At ICE Detention Center

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - When immigrants are picked up from their communities and eventually detained at Moshannon Valley Processing Center, Pennsylvania’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, they are forced to endure “punitive, inhumane and dangerous conditions.” The charge of “widespread human rights violations” was made in a report by the Stephen and Sandra Sheller Center for Social Justice, with support from the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union. Entitled “In the Shadow of the Valley: The Unnecessary Confinement and Dehumanizing Conditions of People in Immigration Detention at Moshannon Valley Processing Center,” the report was released at a press conference at Temple University Beasley School of Law on Sept. 4.

Palestinians Endure ‘Guantanamo-Like’ Conditions In Israeli Torture Camps

A new report from The Washington Post published on 29 July details Israel’s torture, starvation, and killing of Palestinians in its prison system in a manner resembling the notorious US prison in Guantanamo Bay. Based on eyewitness accounts from former prisoners and autopsies carried out by Israeli authorities, The Post reports that “One Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A third screamed for help for hours before dying.” The three prisoners are among at least 12 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel to die in Israeli jails since 7 October.

US Military Contractor Finally Goes On Trial For Abu Ghraib Torture

A civil trial against CACI Premier Technology, a United States military contractor that allegedly engaged in torture at Abu Ghraib prison, begins today in Alexandria, Virginia. Nearly 16 years ago, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Iraqi torture survivors. CACI repeatedly sought to derail the case through various legal maneuvers. One Iraqi torture survivor was dismissed from the lawsuit, and CACI International successfully had their company removed as a defendant.

West Papua: The Torture Mode Of Governance

Budi Hernawan said it ten years ago: “torture in Papua … has become a mode of governance.” It hasn’t stopped. It’s got worse. It’s got worse precisely because it’s a mode of governance accepted and blessed by the international “community” whose neoliberal politics of extraction means extermination of anything and anyone getting in its way. It’s got worse just now because Israel’s genocide, ecocide, starvation, and torture in Palestine isn’t only distracting attention from these practices in smaller and more remote places but also showing that it’s okay, it’s part of our system, you can do it with impunity because it’s all part of a bigger plan.
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