Denounce Torture

From March 13 to March 26, the Denounce Torture Initiative held more than 250 anti-torture teach-ins nationwide as part of its “Tell The Truth About Torture" campaign.  Amnesty activists from Alaska to Florida educated people in their communities and on their campuses about the use of torture and ill-treatment in the context of the U.S. led "war on terror" and mobilized them to take action to stop it. BuffaloNews.com comments on a protest hosted by Western New York Peace Center as part of the "Tell the Truth" Teach-ins:

The executive director of the Western New York Peace Center eyed the crowd from the steps of the monument at Main and Court streets. Colin Eager declared the event a success. His organization was among more than a dozen groups that sponsored the demonstration, and he said they were anticipating a crowd of about 200.

See "Area protesters demand troop withdrawal from Iraq."

Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, who is challenging the fairness and legality of U.S. military commissions in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, commented on the day that his trial was to go before SCOTUS:

See "Navy Lawyer Charles Swift Battles Bush in Guantanamo Bay Case."

From former AIUSA Board Chair Chip Pitts:

Next month marks the second anniversary of the now-iconic images of torture emerging from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. While Amnesty International would like to report that the situation for detainees being held by agents of the U.S. government has improved, it cannot. Contrary to the Bush administration's claim that the abuses in U.S.-run prison facilities in Iraq were the work of a few bad apples, Amnesty International has documented a systemic pattern of abuses by agents of the U.S. government that spans the globe.

The New York Times reports the Department of Defense is considering a law that prohibits evidence obtained from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay through torture to be used to prosecute terror suspects at the military tribunal.  According to Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman:

We have not, to this point, believed that a specific commission rule was necessary, and in fact to some degree would erroneously suggest that torture had actually occurred.

See "Barring Evidence From Torture Is Considered."

The Calgary Sun reports Maher Arar, who was abducted by U.S. officials, taken to Syria and tortured, has traveled for the first time since his release. Arar is testifying in Brussels before a European Parliament committee investigating allegations that the CIA has used  European airports to for the outsourcing of torture. Arar said:

I am testifying so the world will know that the U.S. government abducted me for no reason in New York and sent me to Syria, where I was tortured and the U.S. government knew this was a common practice. The Bush administration does not dispute that I was held without ever being charged or tried with any crime. I still believe that when people realize they are living in countries that advance the detainment and torture of innocent people, they will rise up and demand change.

See "Arar wants to prevent U.S. torture."

Meanwhile, AI Secretary General Irene Khan visited German Chancellor Merkel on Monday to take up the issue of the use of European airbases for "extraordnary renditions" -- also referred to as outsourcing torture.  Secretary General Khan asked Chancellor Merkel to obtain assurances from the United States that it would not use German airbases for outsourcing torture.  Khan also asked Merkel to get clarification from the Bush Administration on its past use of the German bases for this practices.

Read "Germany: Amnesty International's Secretary General meets Chancellor Merkel."

MSNBC reports Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, was found guilty on 6 of the 13 counts of terrorizing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Smith allegedly used his own dog to intimidate prisoners for his own amusement:

The government contended that Smith, of the 523rd Military Police Detachment, Fort Riley, Kan., used his black Belgian shepherd to intimidate five prisoners for fun and competed with another canine handler trying to make detainees soil themselves.

 

In closing arguments Friday, a prosecutor said Smith had violated two tenets of his training: treat prisoners humanely and use the minimum amount of force needed to ensure compliance.

Another dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 31, awaits to trial on May 22nd.

See "Jury finds dog handler at Abu Ghraib guilty."

OpEd News reports that Russian leaders have made a public statement about the closing of Guantanamo Bay. The federation of Russia is requesting that the UN order the closing of the prison:

In a paper called "In Defense of Humanity", the 46 deputies representing of the Russian Federation Communist Party have denounced what they've termed the "Guantanomo's shame" and have demanded that the U.S. detention center in Cuba be closed. 400 intellectuals from 30 countries signed a formal document calling for the closure.

See "U.S. Torture Policies Inspire International Outrage."

The Jurist Legal News and Research comments on the increasing pressure on the United States to close Guantanamo Bay. This week the UN torture expert urges the European Union to get involved.

In recent months, many political actors have suggested that the US should end operations at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, including the UK Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Tony Blair, various Christian world leaders, several European ambassadors, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan [JURIST reports]. While the US has no intention of closing Guantanamo [JURIST report], citing the security risk involved if the US were to release several hundred suspected terrorists, the US has taken steps to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to prisons in Afghanistan [JURIST report] and elsewhere.

See "UN torture expert urges EU pressure on US to shut down Guantanamo."

Read more "EU urged to press U.S. to close Guantanamo."

While Amnesty acknowledges closing Gitmo is a good start, it's also just the tip of an iceberg that includes a detention facility at Bagram  Airforce Base and an unknown number of black sites.  These too must be opened to independent scrutiny.

See "USA: Amnesty welcomes UN call to close Guantánamo Bay -- but it is the tip of the iceberg."

Whether your planning an event as part of our Tell the Truth about Torture National Teach-in initiative or just interested in learning more about U.S. torture policy, check out or new video: Dial-up | High-speed

Salon.com has obtained and posted an archive of 279 photos and 19 videos documenting abuse and ill-treatment at Abu Ghraib.  These images were first gathered by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID).  Salon's reporting suggests that there is a renewed interest (at least in the CID) in determining if individuals up the chain of command gave the okay to commit the abuses depicted in these images:

In fact, after two years of relative silence, there's suddenly new interest in asking questions. A CID spokesman recently told Salon that the agency has reopened its investigation into Abu Ghraib "to pursue some additional information" after having called the case closed in October 2005. Just this week, one of two prison dog handlers accused of torturing detainees by threatening them with dogs went on trial in Fort Meade, Md. Lawyers for Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith argue that he was only implementing dog-use policies approved by his superiors, and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the former commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony at Smith's trial.

See "The Abu Ghraib files."

Australian Democrats are petitioning for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. According to ABC, the petition centers around Australian prisoner, David Hicks, who has been held at Guantanamo for four years. Senator Natasha Stott Despoja is calling for accountability:

The blind support that we're showing for Guantanamo Bay is in breach of international standards, in breach of international humanitarian law and indeed, is breaching the human rights for one particular Australian citizen, namely David Hicks.

See "Democrats petition for Guantanamo Bay closure."

Amnesty International applauded the United Nation's call to close Gitmo, but recognizes that it's just the tip of the iceberg.  The United States has rejected any independent inquiry into its overseas detention facilities.  Closing Gitmo would be a good start, but the United States needs to open other facilities (like Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan) to independent scrutiny, too.

See "Amnesty welcomes UN call to close Guantánamo Bay -- but it is the tip of the iceberg."

The New York Times is investigating the identity of a hooded prisoner, whose picture has become a gruesome icon of the horrors of Abu Ghraib. ABC news reports that Salon.com has challenged the identity of the man after an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command:

In an e-mail to the Times, Chris Grey, chief spokesman for the Army investigations unit, wrote: 'We have had several detainees claim they were the person depicted in the photograph in question. Our investigation indicates that the person you have is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph released in connection with the Abu Ghraib investigation.'

The New York Times has begun their own investigation into claims that Ali Shalal Qaissi is the man in the photograph:

'We take questions about our reporting very seriously, and we will carefully investigate Salon's findings,' Susan Chira, the Times' foreign editor, said in Tuesday's editions. 'We attempted to verify the claims of Mr. Qaissi thoroughly. We spoke with representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who had interviewed Mr. Qaissi and believed him to be the man in the photographs.'

See "N.Y. Times' Iraq Detainee Story Challenged."

This week begins our special Tell the Truth About Torture national teach-in mobilization. We have nearly 250 teach-ins planned across the country. Thanks to those of you who have gotten involved. 

From Alaska to Florida, to Arizona and South Carolina, Denounce Torture activists are taking the truth about torture and inhuman treatment in the “war on terror” to their communities. Together we will make a powerful impact in helping to inform more people about the extent of abuses taking place in the US-led “war on terror,” and move more people to action against these abuses.

If you have any questions during the final preparations of your teach-in, please feel welcome to contact the Amnesty International USA regional office nearest you at 866.A.REGION or the Denounce Torture initiative at dtorture@aiusa.org. Also, don’t forget to download our special teach-in checklist.  Our resources page has flyers and other stuff you can download for your event.

We want to hear from you: leave a comment on our blog to let us know how your teach-in goes!

TalkLeft joins the debate over Amnesty's placement of anti-torture ad on conservative blogs:

I wouldn't mind a reasoned debate on the issues raised in the ad, but to make statements like "So click on the ad. Laugh at the page it links to. Amnesty International is a joke" and "The ad is a lame little connect-the-dots video they really didn't put much effort into" makes it seem like they are only into blogging for the ad money and willing to compromise their principles for financial gain.

Be sure to check out the comments and add your own. Here's a snippet:

From the Junkyard:

Amnesty International used to be a great organization, dedicated to drawing attention to the very real human rights injustices that governments around the world commit against their own people every single day.

In other words, Amnesty International was a good organization as long as they criticized other countries and not the US.

Right Wing's got it wrong:

He admits that he confessed to the Syrians that he went through an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

It's been proven that information obtained through abuse is not reliable. Abdullah Almalki, for instance, was detained and interrogated in Syria beginning in May 2003 for twenty-two months. While detained, Abdullah regularly faced intense torture and was held in abysmal prison conditions. He was later released without charge.  He stated in a recent online discussion with Amnesty International USA:

But after few hours of continuous torture, I gave in, and basically repeated what they were accusing me of. Once I said that, they stopped the beating. But they resumed again when they found out that what I said could not be true.

Few months into my imprisonment and after countless interrogation sessions and severe torture. I found that the best way to stop the torture is to say what they wanted to hear. Then later when they asked me a question, I gave my answer, if they did not like my answer and wanted to beat me, I used to tell them that no need to beat me, that that was my answer, but if they wanted me to say something else, I would sign a blank paper and they could write whatever they wanted on it. But that did not always save me from being beaten.

McCain, who himself was tortured while serving in the Vietnam war stated in an interview with Larry King in November:

KING: Did you learn a lot -- by the way, you would know this better than anyone, do we learn a lot from torture?

MCCAIN: No, we don't, Larry. If you inflict enough physical pain on someone they'll tell you anything that they want to know to relieve it. It's interesting to me that the Israelis, who deal with acts of terror all the time, their Supreme Court ruled against torture and they don't use that against the prisoners that they take.

Maher Arar himself said in a recent interview with Democracy Now!:

Well, I do agree 100% with what I just heard. I can tell you, for example, during the first two weeks of my stay in Syria, I was physically beaten. What happened during this initial period is I just wanted them to leave me alone, even in that dark and damp underground cell. But after a while, the psychological torture that I endured during this lengthy period, I was ready – I was ready, especially by the end of my stay, by the end of the ten-month period in this underground cell, I was ready, frankly, to confess to anything. I would just write anything so that they could only take me from that place and put me in a place where it is fit for a human being. I was – not only that, I was ready to endure more physical beatings, more physical beatings just to get rid of this place.

Here's an excerpt from another conservative blogger reaction to Amnesty's anti-torture Flash video:

I could do some deep research and debate the various claims AI makes here, plus dump on their misguided crusade against the U.S., which even they don’t claim is actually DOING the torturing, and instead go after the real bad guys, but hey, that could be dangerous for those latte-sipping Birkenstock-wearing hippies. Much safer here in the U.S. making flash ads and importuning people to send emails (and contributions to AI, by the by, so they can continue good works like these).

Here are some of the reactions from the conservative blogosphere on our new ad. This one comes from Junk Yard Blog:

You’ll see a new blogad in the side bar on the right, about “Connecting the Dots” on torture (but not on stopping terrorists, of course). It’s an Amnesty International ad that links to a Flash presentation on Amnesty’s latest hobbyhorse. It’s a typical Amnesty hatchet job, trying to connect a guy celebrating his birthday to President Bush authorizing “torture.” It’s really dumb and somewhat offensive, but not beyond the pale for Amnesty these past few years.

Amnesty International used to be a great organization, dedicated to drawing attention to the very real human rights injustices that governments around the world commit against their own people every single day. But that Amnesty International is dead, and it’s been replaced by yet another moonbat outfit that smears the US to raise money from guilty liberal elites in the US and Europe. That’s all it is, plus a dash of red thrown into its politics.

I gave money to Amnesty when I was in college, but I don’t support them now, so I look at them buying an ad on my blog as me finally getting some of my money back. Now if Greenpeace would advertise here for a couple of months, I’d have that month of flirting with liberalism back in my piggy bank.

So click on the ad. Laugh at the page it links to. Amnesty International is a joke.

Thanks, Junk Yard.  But what about the issues brought up in the Flash piece? This earlier post comes from Right Wing News:

Despite the fact Amnesty International does some good around the world, they're also a far left-wing group that is implacably hostile to America

That's why I don't think conservatives should support AI in any way. That's where I stand. But, interestingly enough, the reverse doesn't seem to be true because Amnesty International has bought an ad on RWN.

The ad is a lame little connect-the-dots video they really didn't put much effort into. Some of the "dots" have nothing to do with the point of the ads and they just got lazy at the end and didn't even have words to go with the images.

Their complaint is that terrorism suspect, Maher Arar, was captured in the United States and sent back to his home country of Syria where he claims to have been tortured.

The practice of capturing people like Maher Arar and sending them back to their home countries to be interrogated, after we receive promises that they will not be mistreated or tortured, is called extraordinary rendition.

Since the American court system is poorly equipped to deal with foreigners who are suspected of terrorist activities based on classified intelligence data and since sending them off to Gitmo can sometimes be a big political problem (In Arar's case, he is a Syrian AND Canadian citizen), extraordinary rendition seems like a very reasonable way to deal with the issue without having to compromise our security.

If Arar is innocent (He admits that he confessed to the Syrians that he went through an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan) and if he was tortured in Syria (which is entirely possible), then take it up with them, not us. They're the ones who may have kept an innocent man in jail for a year and may have tortured him.

Whatever the case may be with Arar, extraordinary rendition is a useful tool in the war on terror and it should continue.

So what do you think?  Is extraordinary rendition "a very reasonable way to deal with the issue without having to compromise our security"?

So what happened to the chapter on the United States, anyway? 

See "Human Rights Violations Report by U.S. Government Has Major Omission: Scrutiny of It's Own Record."

Today we begin two days of online education to help prepare activists for leading teach-ins on torture in their community. Watch our special three-minute training on holding an effective teach-in featuring Amnesty International USA field organizer Lia Lindsey.

View the training (dial-up | high-speed)

Find other resources to help plan a teach-in.

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe has confirmed Amnesty International's concerns that many states may be facilitating secret detention, unlawful renditions and other human rights violations through their own legal shortcomings and practices.

The Secretary General’s report, released today, found that many of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe do not have adequate measures in place to prevent, monitor and investigate the use of their territory for secret detention and 'renditions'.

Several member states did not provide complete and satisfactory answers to the questions put to them in the course of the Secretary General's inquiry.

In particular, Amnesty International urges Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Poland and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to provide full information to the Secretary General about specific allegations that took place on their territories.

In addition, Amnesty International  says all Council of Europe Member States should act individually and collectively to:

• ensure that secret detention and unlawful rendition are immediately brought to an end;
• ensure that anyone who has been subjected to secret detention or unlawful rendition receives adequate reparation;
• prevent, investigate and prosecute those responsible for secret detention and rendition;
• cooperate fully with the ongoing inquiries of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe;
• European Union members should also ensure that officials provide all relevant information and appear if invted before the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners.

The World Today reports that in the Archbishops of Canterbury latest visit to the Sudan, he was vocal about his disapproval of the U.S. torture:

Any message given that any state can just override some of these basic habeas corpus type provisions is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.

See "Archbishop of Canterbury speaks out against Guantanamo Bay detention."

Ireland On-Line reports released Guantanamo Bay detainee Feroz Abbasi says that he endured  psychological abuse and ill treatment during his detention:

The Briton, who was detained for more than three years before being released last year, also alleges his captors tried to feed him pork and misled him into praying toward America instead of Mecca.

See "US police 'had sex in front of Guantanamo Bay prisoner."

The more than 5,000 pages of transcripts from closed-door hearings of detainees that were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Associated Press put a human face on those detained at Gitmo:

...the detainees try to make their cases, explaining that they were picked up by the Pakistani government by mistake while trying to flee the U.S. bombing raids in Afghanistan in 2001, or that they love the United States and hate al-Qaeda. Others, arrested with top al-Qaeda suspects, say they do not know anything about terrorism and should be sent home.

See "In Guantanamo Bay Documents, Prisoners Plead for Release."

Time.com has published an 84-page report on the interrogation of who it calls Gitmo's most "notorious" detainee:

Of the roughly 500 detainees held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, none is more notorious than Mohammad al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker." Only weeks before 9/11, he tried to enter the U.S. illegally in Orlando, Fla., while the plot's leader, Mohammad Atta, waited to pick him up in the airport parking lot. As the Pentagon has said, "Had al-Qahtani succeeded in entering the U.S., it is believed he would have been on United Airlines Flight 93, the only hijacked aircraft that had four hijackers instead of five [and the one that ended up crashing in a Pennsylvania field instead of striking the White House, its widely believed intended target]."

Last June, TIME published excerpts from a highly classified, 84-page log minutely detailing al-Qahtani's interrogation at Guantanamo. Now, as an increasing number of detainees mount legal challenges to their incarceration, TIME is making the record of al-Qahtani's treatment available to the public in its entirety (except for some names which have been redacted) for the first time.

See "Exclusive: '20th Hijacker' Claims That Torture Made Him Lie."