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Torture

Cuba Impression

January 5, 2016 Gene Bruskin, www.stansburyforum.com , , , , ,
By Gene Bruskin for Stansbury Forum - As I prepared for my recent November trip to Cuba I thought back to my many memories of my first visit in the spring of 1970. Having left teaching in the South Bronx, discouraged and risking the draft deferment NYC teaching ironically provided, I decided, with my wife at the time, to go on to Cuba on the Second Venceremos Brigade. The Brigade was a left initiative to help break the US imposed blockade on Cuba and 800 of us went from across the country to cut cane with the Cubans and help them succeed in their production goal in the Year of the Ten Million tons.

Human Rights Watch: Prosecute Bush Officials For Torture

December 2, 2015 Staff, www.hrw.org , ,
By Staff of Human Rights Watch - It is now well established that following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated a global, state-sanctioned program in which it abducted scores of people throughout the world, held them in secret detention—sometimes for years—or “rendered” them to various countries, and tortured or otherwise ill-treated them. While the program officially ended in 2009, the cover-up of these crimes appears to be ongoing. Many detainees were held by the CIA in pitch-dark windowless cells, chained to walls, naked or diapered, for weeks or months at a time.

Report From The Frontline Of Resistance In America

November 29, 2015 David Stocker, www.counterpunch.org , ,
By David Stocker for Counterpunch. I went to Columbus to attend the annual School of the Americas (SOA) protest and to meet the remarkable and controversial Roy Bourgeois, former Catholic priest and founder of the SOA Watch. As a catholic priest Bourgeois, was an outspoken critic of US policy in Latin America. Subsequent to the murder of four American church women by SOA trained assassins, Bourgeois founded SOA Watch and has maintained a 26 year tradition of civil disobedience and protest including documentation of atrocities in Latin America linked to SOA training programs. Later he took a controversial stand on ordination of women in the Catholic Church and was canonically dismissed. The School of the Americas was started in Panama in the 1950’s and became the CIA training ground for “counterinsurgency”, moving to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. The CIA manual for counterinsurgency developed and taught at Ft Benning advises totalitarian regimes and military dictators how to silence opposition to corporate and military take over of public land and natural resources. Assassination and disappearance of labor leaders, teachers, journalists, community activists, and human rights defenders is strategically outlined and often followed up with CIA support and tactical weapons to SOA graduates.

Thanksgiving: Witness Against Torture Fasting In Guantanamo

November 27, 2015 Staff, www.witnesstorture.org , , ,
By Staff, Witness Against Torture. Fourteen members of Witness Against Torture have been in Guantanamo province for 3 days now, vigiling in solidarity with the 107 men remaining at the US detention camp. At dusk on Wednesday, we established camp at El Mirador – scenic grounds overlooking the base from a distance of 2-3 kilometers. To close our first day, Peace Poet Frank Lopez led us in a Four Directions ceremony that came from the traditions of the Arawak peoples, who are indigenous to Cuba. On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we faced the base directly and announced one-by-one our political, personal and spiritual intention in being there. To conclude the day, we performed a Thanksgiving ritual titled “Forced-Feeding, Not Feasting at Guantanamo.” Twelve persons, all fasting for the day, sat at a table in front of empty plates to represent the terrible pain endured by hunger strikers, past and present, at Guantanamo. At the head of the table, one WAT member dressed as a detained man sat in front of the terrible apparatus of forced feeding. Forced-feeding continues to be used to wound the bodies and break the spirit of hunger-striking men.

CIA’s Torturers & Leaders Must Face The Law

October 29, 2015 Chelsea E Manning, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Chelsea E Manning for The Guardian - Successful intelligence gathering through interrogation and other forms of human interaction by conventional means can be – and more often than not are – very successful. But, even though interrogation by less conventional methods might get glorified in popular culture – in television dramas like Law and Order: Criminal Intent, 24 and The Closer and movies like Zero Dark Thirty – torture and the mistreatment of detainees in the custody of intelligence personnel is, was and shall continue to be unethical and morally wrong. Under US law, torture and mistreatment of detainees is also very illegal. Even the most junior level intelligence officials know that this is, and has been, the case for decades.

Update From Menard Prison Hunger Strike

October 4, 2015 Alice and Staughton Lynd, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Alice and Staughton Lynd for Popular Resistance. Menard, IL - On September 23, 2015, at least 19 (and possibly as many as 22) men in Administrative Detention at the Menard Correctional Center began a hunger strike that ended on September 28. It was nearly a week after the hunger strike ended before we received any mail from them. The following is a composite account based on what they sent us, written on the first and last days of the hunger strike. Alice Lynd. Day 1, September 23, 2015 “On 9-23-15, after filing multiple grievances dealing with my diet tray, indeterminate seg hearings, yard conditions as well as living conditions, . . . and no response or action taken, I declared a peaceful hunger strike. . . . I declared my hunger strike only after trying multiple ways to bring relief to my issues which were and still are being completely ignored.”

Street Signs Changed After Pope Canonizes Torturer, Killer

October 2, 2015 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. San Francisco, CA - After midnight on September 23, the day that Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra during mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC., unknown activists - reported to be five elder white women - spent the night changing the signs all along Junipero Serra Blvd to "Toypurina" in honor of the Indigenous Shaman,known as the Native American 'Joan of Arc,' who led the revolt against Serra. Activists in San Francisco plan to lobby their City Councils to officially rename Junipero Serra streets and parks for Toypurina. Toypurina, who was the daughter of a shaman and a shaman herself, was young when Spanish missionaries and soldiers stole land from her village to build the San Gabriel Mission.

SOA Watch Actions: Resist Empire, Create Peace

September 27, 2015 Maria Luisa, www.soaw.org , , , , ,
By Maria Luisa for School of the Americas Watch. Fort Benning, GA - Join us this November 20-22, on the 25th anniversary of our movement, to connect with activists and organizers from across the Americas. Our continental movement will converge in Georgia to call for the closure of the School of the Americas and the closure of Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest private for-profit immigrant prisons in the country. It is incumbent upon us to continue making the connections between SOA violence and the root causes of migration. Join us as we continue to denounce the failed U.S. policies, which have left a brutal legacy of impunity and Human Rights violations throughout the hemisphere.

Shaker Aamer To Be Transferred Home After 13 Yrs In Guantanamo

September 26, 2015 Elizabeth Beavers, www.blog.amnestyusa.org , , ,
By Elizabeth Beavers in Amnesty USA - This is big news. At long last, the Obama administration has reportedly notified both Congress and the UK government that Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer will be transferred home to the UK after 13 years. Shaker’s case has for years compelled the Amnesty movement, along with many others, to call loudly for him to be transferred back to the UK. So today’s news is, to say the least, heartening. But as we celebrate, let us not forget – there is much more to be done, and not much time left to do it. The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay continues to house many who, like Shaker, have been approved for transfer. About half of the current detainees, in fact, are waiting for their own transfer. Although the U.S. national security agencies have conducted stringent reviews and cleared these people for transfer out of the prison, they are still there. They languish behind bars even though many have been cleared for years. Some, like Shaker, were cleared both by the Bush administration and now by the Obama administration.

Emergency Fast To Save Innocent Guantanamo Prisoner

September 18, 2015 Witness Against Torture, www.popularresistance.org , ,
By Witness Against Torture - Witness Against Torture is calling for an emergency fast to highlight the case of Guantánamo prisoner, Tariq Ba Odah, a Yemeni man who has been detained at the prison without charge since 2002 and cleared for release in 2009. According to his attorneys, Tariq, who at 74 pounds—56% of his ideal body weight-- is on the brink of death according to three health officials. Please consider fasting on Friday, September 18, 2015 in solidarity with Tariq Ba Odah and the remaining 115 Guantánamo prisoners. If you plan to fast, send an email to witnesstorture@gmail.com. Please include in the email where you live and a brief statement as to why you are fasting. If you cannot fast on Friday, feel free to choose another day this week to fast.

Emergency Call To Fast For Tariq – Sept 18

September 15, 2015 Chrissy Nesbitt, www.witnesstorture.org , , ,
By Chrissy Nesbitt - Witness Against Torture is calling for an emergency fast to highlight the case of Guantánamo prisoner, Tariq Ba Odah, a Yemeni man who has been detained at the prison without charge since 2002 and cleared for release in 2009. According to his attorneys, Tariq, who at 74 pounds—56% of his ideal body weight– is gravely ill and on the “precipice of death” according to three health officials. Please consider fasting on Friday, September 18, 2015 in solidarity with Tariq Ba Odah and the remaining 115 Guantánamo prisoners. If you plan to fast, send an email to witnesstorture@gmail.com. Please include in the email where you live and a brief statement as to why you are fasting. If you cannot fast on Friday, feel free to choose another day this week to fast.
Rikers

Rikers Families Protest ‘No Touching’ Prison Visitation Rules

September 10, 2015 Victoria Law, www.gothamist.com , , ,
By Victoria Law in Gothamist - Trina Regis travels from Sunset Park three times a week to visit her husband, who has been jailed on Rikers Island since February. "Physical contact means so much to us," she told Gothamist. "It brings a sense of peace to me and it brings a sense of peace to him. It's a little thing he can hold on to 'til the next visit." Regis, who declined to give her husband's name or details of his case for fear of retaliation by staff, also knows firsthand how important touch can be. In early 2015, she spent five months at Rikers for shoplifting. Her husband visited twice a week. "The intimacy from a loved one means a lot," she explained. "They're showing me—I'm here for your support. I love you still, no matter how it is." But new rules proposed by the Board of Correction, which sets minimum standards and guidelines for the city's jail system, may soon limit the couple's ability to touch each other.

Advocates Rally To Keep Solitary Confinement In Spotlight

September 4, 2015 David Howard King, www.gothamgazette.com , ,
By David Howard King in Gotham Gazette - Last November he United Nations committee on torture found that the United States was not in compliance with its Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment because of excessive use of solitary confinement in prisons across the country. The UN found that use of solitary confinement of over 15 days amounts to torture. Nearly a year later New York state has no limit on how long an inmate can be held in solitary--some have served decades. With increasing focus on the conditions in prisons, New York is struggling to address flaws in its prison system that has led to deaths and that advocates say does irreversible mental and physical damage to inmates.

California Agreement Ends Solitary Purely Due to Gang Validation

September 2, 2015 Center for Constitutional Rights, www.ccrjustice.org , , , ,
By Center for Constitutional Rights - Today, the parties have agreed on a landmark settlement in the federal class action Ashker v. Governor of California that will effectively end indeterminate, long-term solitary confinement in all California state prisons. Subject to court approval, the agreement will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of people in solitary across the state and a new program that could be a model for other states going forward. The class action was brought in 2012 on behalf of prisoners held in solitary confinement at the Pelican Bay prison, often without any violent conduct or serious rule infractions, often for more than a decade, and all without any meaningful process for transfer out of isolation and back to the general prison population. Ashker argued that California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and denies prisoners the right to due process.

US Tracks Deaths Of Bees Better Then People Jailed

August 25, 2015 Shawn Musgrave, www.muckrock.com , , ,
By Shawn Musgrave in MuckRock - Every year, a certain number of bees die. And every year, a certain number of people die while in police custody. We have a solid figure for one of these death tolls. At present, it’s not the human body count. As with deaths in custody, the issue of honeybee deaths is not new. Colony collapse disorder — the generic term for mass exodus of adult worker bees from a given colony — is nearly vernacular, and wonks routinely debate the scale of the problem and its long-term consequences. Such debates hinge on quantitative modeling, on forecasts that correlate honeybee population against crop yields or ecosystem resilience. Ask any beekeeper: the only way to know how many bees are around is to count them.
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