Skip to content

Torture

DOJ Knew About and Used Notorious Homan Square ‘Black Site’

March 19, 2025 Iain Carlos and Sam Carlen, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
Scandals don’t get much more disturbing than that of Homan Square. In 2015, the Guardian revealed Chicago Police had allegedly employed torture and days-long unlawful detention at the secretive “black site”-like Homan Square facility, a nondescript warehouse located in Chicago’s west-side Garfield Park neighborhood. Outraged and alarmed by these revelations, politicians and activists clamored for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate human rights abuses at the facility, which still operates today. Despite the pleading, the DOJ elected not to investigate Homan Square, and instead conducted a broad investigation of Chicago Police Department use of force practices.

Over 160 Gaza Health Workers Remain Trapped In Israeli Torture Camps

February 26, 2025 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , ,
At least 160 healthcare workers from Gaza, including more than 20 doctors, are believed to still be inside Israeli detention facilities where torture and rape are routine, The Guardian reported on 25 February. According to Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical NGO, 162 medical staff remain in Israeli detention, including some of Gaza’s most senior physicians, while 24 others remain missing after being abducted by Israeli forces from hospitals during the war. Another 179 were previously detained but have been released.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya Has Been Tortured And Denied Care In Prison

February 17, 2025 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
After multiple postponements by the Israeli occupation, Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was finally allowed to see a lawyer. The visit confirmed suspicions about the torture he has endured since his arbitrary imprisonment at the end of December 2024. According to reports from Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Dr. Abu Safiya suffered the same methods of torture inflicted by Israeli forces on all Palestinian prisoners, including having his hands tightly shackled and being forced to kneel and sit on gravel for hours.

Pardon Me For Being Angry

January 23, 2025 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
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 14, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
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

January 7, 2025 Middle East Eye. , , ,
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

January 1, 2025 Andy Worthington. , , ,
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

December 3, 2024 Gabe Miller, Fight Back! News. , , , ,
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

November 28, 2024 John Kiriakou, Scheer Post. , , , , , ,
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

November 21, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , , , ,
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

November 18, 2024 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , , , , ,
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

November 14, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , , ,
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

October 16, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , ,
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?

October 3, 2024 Andrew P. Napolitano, Consortium News. , , , , ,
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

September 10, 2024 Joe Piette, Workers' World. , , , , , ,
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.
«12345678910»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.