Denounce Torture

Images depicting abuse and ill treatment at the U.S.-operated Abu Ghraib detention facility were made public two years ago today. Azmat Begg (pictured) is the father of Moazzam Begg -- just one of many individuals scooped up, detained and abused for months in U.S.-operated detention facilities.  Moazzam Begg was eventually released after more than three years of detention where he faced ill-treatment (he was never charged with a crime).

To commemorate the two year marker of the publication of the Abu Ghraib images, we have published an article by historian Alfred McCoy exploring how torture has become an official weapon of war in the U.S.-led "war on terror" and what rights groups are doing to stop these abuses:

In the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the White House has defended torture as a presidential prerogative and blocked reform efforts. By contrast, a loose coalition of civil-liberties lawyers and human rights groups has mobilized to stop the abuse. In June 2004 the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case, Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo detainees were, in fact, on territory leased to the United States and thus deserved access to U.S. courts. Leading U.S. law firms responded by filing 160 habeas corpus cases for 300 detainees.

We've also developed a multimedia feature detailing the cases of seven of the more than 70,000 individuals detained by the United States in the U.S.-led "war on terror." Check it out. And once you have, take action.

Tags: amnesty international, torture, war on terror, cia, human rights, secret detention, disappearances, abu ghraib.

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