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Torture

Chelsea Found Guilty Of Infractions, Spared Solitary Confinement

August 20, 2015 Chelsea Manning Support Network, www.chelseamanning.org , , ,
By Chelsea Manning Support Network - We are only $15,000 short on paying for Chelsea’s appeal! Please donate today. After 100k petitions were delivered to the Army yesterday, the secret disciplinary panel at Fort Leavenworth military prison sentenced Chelsea to 21 days of restrictions on her recreational activities, including no access to the gym, library or outdoors. Supporters delivering 100,000 petitions to Army officials the morning of Chelsea’s hearing. Chelsea Twitter Chelsea’s reactions, over the last 24 hours, to being found guilty of prison infractions. Chelsea doesn’t have Internet access in prison, so she tells us what to post during our regular phone calls with her. We won an important victory by keeping Chelsea out of “indefinite solitary confinement;” however, this ruling of guilty on all four absurd charges is not without significant ramifications. “Now these convictions will follow me through to any parole and clemency hearings, forever. "

Chelsea Manning Faces Indefinite Solitary Confinement

August 19, 2015 Courage, www.couragefound.org ,
By Courage - Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, serving 35 years in prison for releasing hundreds of thousands of US Army and diplomatic cables, exposing scores of human rights abuses, has a hearing today, 18 August, in which she faces indefinite solitary confinement as punishment for appallingly trivial charges. Manning, who already endured torturous pretrial conditions for which military judge Denise Lind took 112 days off of her sentence, is being penalised for possessing magazines like Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan, the Senate Torture Report and “expired” toothpaste, as well as brushing food crumbs onto the floor and “being disrespectful” to a prison official. The websiteFreeChelsea.com documents the charges and hosts a petition supporting Manning with more than 100,000 signers.

Obama Seeks To Stop Release Of Hunger Striking Gitmo Detainee

August 17, 2015 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com , , , ,
By Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian - In an extremely rare legal manoeuvre, the Obama administration has challenged a legal request to free a hunger-striking Guantánamo Bay detainee entirely in secret. US officials said the objection to freeing Tariq Ba Odah, who is undernourished to the point of starvation, and the decision to challenge his legal gambit outside of public view, are indications that the Obama administration will fight tenaciously to stop detainees from seeking freedom in federal courts, despite Barack Obama’s oft-repeated pledge to close Guantánamo. Late on Friday, the US justice department submitted a long-awaited filing in Ba Odah’s habeas corpus petition. The filing was kept under seal, a rarity for a challenge to the so-called “great writ,” the underpinning of Anglo-American jurisprudence.

Crackdown On Manning Intensifies Before Confinement Hearing

August 17, 2015 Deirdre Fulton, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Deirdre Fulton in Common Dreams - Military prison authorities are allegedly denying whistleblower Chelsea Manning access to the facility's legal library, just two days before a disciplinary board hearing that will decide whether she is placed in solitary confinement for what her supporters and lawyers say are innocuous offenses—like possession of a tube of expired toothpaste. As Common Dreams reported, the Chelsea Manning Support Network revealed last week that prison authorities are using trumped up charges—including "medicine misuse" and "prohibited property"—to silence Manning, who has become a Guardiancolumnist and outspoken advocate for transgender, privacy, and prisoners' rights during her incarceration. The disciplinary board hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, will take place behind closed doors, despite Manning's request that the proceedings be made public.

Nobel Peace Laureates Oppose Torture, Perpetuate Myths

August 16, 2015 Robert J. Burrowes, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Robert J. Burrowes of Flame Tree Prtoject. In a recent letter to US President Barack Obama twelve Nobel Peace laureates declared their support for the long history of US elite violence against Native Americans and enslaved Africans, as well as the US imperial violence around the world that has butchered tens of millions of people over the past 200 years. See 'US: An End to Torture: Twelve Nobel Peace Prize laureates write to President Barack Obama asking the US to close the dark chapter on torture once and for all. Obama responds'. The letter, the response from Obama and a subsequent article written by Ramos-Horta – see 'Obama: The Courage to Say "We Were Wrong"' – were a stark reminder to those of us who struggle to end the violence in our world of what genuine peace activists are up against.

Chelsea Manning Facing Solitary Confinement For Books & Toothpaste

August 14, 2015 Chelsea Manning Support Network, www.chelseamanning.org ,
By Chelsea Manning Support Network - Aside from her 35-year prison sentence, Chelsea Manning is now facing indefinite solitary confinement to be determined in a closed hearing August 18th. Donate today to Chelsea’s legal defense fund, to beat back this attack and to help her challenge her unjust 35-year prison sentence. Chelsea faces this incomprehensibly severe punishment as a result of ridiculously innocuous institutional offenses, including the possession of books and magazines related to politics and LBGTQ issues (which she received openly via the prison mail system), and having a tube of toothpaste that was past its expiration date–deemed “medical mis-use”. The catalyst for this attack on Chelsea seems to have been an incident in the mess hall where she may have brushed, or accidentally knocked, a tiny amount of food off of her table. When aggressively confronted by a guard, she asked to speak to her lawyer.

The Sentence They Don’t Tell You About

August 9, 2015 John Kiriakou, www.otherwords.org ,
By John Kiriakou in Other Words. Washington, DC - Eight years ago I blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. I knew there’d be trouble, but I never could’ve predicted the years-long ordeal that followed. My revelations led to a four-year-long FBI investigation and five felony charges — against me, not the torturers. Facing a lifetime in prison, I pled guilty to a lesser charge of confirming the name of a former CIA colleague to a reporter who never published it. That may sound familiar to you. It’s exactly what former CIA director David Petraeus did when he exposed the names of multiple undercover officers to his girlfriend. Petraeus took a plea to a misdemeanor. I didn’t have four stars on my shoulder, and I wasn’t a friend of the president’s, so I’d gotten stuck with a felony.

Six Rebel Psychologists Win Long War Against Torture

August 8, 2015 Peter Aldhous, www.buzzfeed.com , ,
By Peter Aldhous for Buzz Feed - They were ridiculed and sidelined by the leadership of the American Psychological Association, which they accused of complicity in human rights abuses. When the association voted to ban psychologists from these activities on Friday, the rebels scored an improbable — and emotional — victory. They call themselves “the dissidents.” Officially, they are the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. In reality, they’re just six psychologists united by a shared moral outrage at their profession’s involvement in torture. Last month, these tenacious rebels were vindicated by a damning independent report, which concluded that the American Psychological Association (APA) colluded with the Pentagon to allow psychologists to help U.S. military interrogators employing brutal methods on terrorist suspects. On Friday morning, amid emotional scenes, the APA’s governing Council of Representatives overwhelmingly backed the dissidents’ proposal to ban psychologists from taking part in national security interrogations.

Anti-Torture Reforms Opposed Within Psych Group

August 5, 2015 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian - Opposition is building to intended anti-torture reforms within the largest professional organization of psychologists in the US, which faces a crossroads over what a recent report described as its past support for brutal military and CIA interrogations. Before the American Psychological Association (APA) meets in Toronto next Thursday for what all expect will be a fraught convention that reckons with an independent review that last month found the APA complicit in torture, former military voices within the profession are urging the organization not to participate in what they describe as a witch hunt. Reformers consider the pushback to represent entrenched opposition to cleaving the APA from a decade’s worth of professional cooperation with controversial detentions and interrogations. TheAPA listserv has become a key debating forum, with tempers rising on both sides.

Social Worker Blows Whistle On Private Prison In Texas

July 28, 2015 Franco Ordoñez, www.mcclatchydc.com , , , , ,
By Franco Ordoñez in McClatchy DC - Olivia López thought she’d be working with migrant mothers and children in a group-home setting when hired as a social worker at a Texas family detention center. But when she arrived at the concrete facility and the doors were unlocked to let her in, she was startled by the cacophony of cell doors clanging. “I walked in and thought, ‘oh my Lord, this is really a prison,’” she said. In an exclusive interview with McClatchy, López shared an inside perspective of troubling operations at the Karnes County Residential Center, which has been at the center of controversy over the Obama administration’s family detention policy. She described a facility where guards isolated mothers and children in medical units, nurses falsified medical reports, staff members were told to lie to federal officials and a psychologist acted as an informant for federal agents.

Guantánamo Nurse Refused To Force-Feed, To Receive Ethics Award

July 23, 2015 Physicians For Human Rights, www.physiciansforhumanrights.org , ,
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today commended the American Nurses Association (ANA) for honoring a nurse who refused to take part in the unethical and criminal practice of force-feeding detainees on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay. “We commend the American Nurses Association for honoring the Guantánamo Navy nurse for his exceptional commitment to medical ethics in refusing to force-feed his patients,” said Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s medical director. “Bestowing a prestigious ethics award on the nurse not only confirms he followed his profession’s highest ethical standards, but also sets an example that all health professionals should follow.” The ANA will present its Year of Ethics award to the nurse’s attorney during its membership meeting in Washington, D.C. tomorrow.

Solitary Confinement In NJ Immigration Detention Centers Overused

July 23, 2015 American Friends Service Committee, www.afsc.org , , ,
An investigation of the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey’s immigration detention centers finds an unnecessarily harsh and unfair system that violates state and international standards. The report “23 Hours in the Box, Solitary Confinement in New Jersey Immigration Detention” is released by New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees*, a coalition of community-based groups that support immigration and detention reform, and NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic. The investigation examined hundreds of documents from public record requests and found that solitary confinement is applied far too often and far too long to immigrant detainees in New Jersey. Investigators also found an unnecessarily harsh system severely limiting due process and fraught with violations of state regulations and international standards.

U.N. Remains Barred From Visiting U.S. Prisons Amid Abuse Charges

July 23, 2015 Thalif Deen, www.ipsnews.net , , ,
By Thalif Deen in IPS News - When U.S. President Barack Obama visited the El Reno Correctional Facility in Oklahoma last week to check on living conditions of prisoners incarcerated there, no one in authority could prevent him from visiting the prison. Obama, the first sitting president to visit a federal penitentiary, said “in too many places, black boys and black men, and Latino boys and Latino men experience being treated different under the law.” The visit itself was described as “unprecedented” and “historic.” But the United Nations has not been as lucky as the U.S. president was. Several U.N. officials, armed with mandates from the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, have been barred from U.S. penitentiaries which are routinely accused of being steeped in a culture of violence.

What President Obama Didn’t Hear Or Smell At El Reno

July 21, 2015 Carl Takei, www.aclu.org , , ,
By Carl Takei in ACLU - From several years of touring prisons, I’ve learned they all have a distinctive and oddly similar smell: sweat, human misery, and grime — sometimes overlain, but never hidden, by the acrid odors of chlorine and other cleaning products. The sounds give you a sense of the different parts of the institution. Dorm-style general population units are a constant murmur of activity, with TV programs blending into the sound of people talking, playing cards, microwaving overpriced cups of noodles—anything to pass the idle hours, days, months, and years in custody that lay before them. I wish he had reached behind a solid steel door to shake the hand of someone in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, solitary confinement units are filled with the yells of those seeking help, the screams of those battling hallucinations, and the echoing metallic thuds of people banging their hands — or sometimes their heads — against the metal doors of their cells.

Questions Surround Private Prisons After AZ Riot

July 20, 2015 Donald Cohen, www.capitalandmain.com , , ,
By Donald Cohen in Capital and Main - By now, you have probably heard about the riot at the for-profit Kingman Prison in Arizona. Days of unrest at the prison, run by the privately-held Management Training Corporation, left 15 wounded and forced nearly 1,000 incarcerated people to be transferred to other facilities. The same facility also suffered from a major riot in 2010. Similarly, people detained at an MTC-run camp in Texas names Willacy rioted earlier this year, forcing that facility to close completely. The Kingman riots are focusing renewed attention on the Arizona legislature’s long, cozy relationship with the private prison industry.
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