Rousseff hails unveiling of Brazilian torture report
The BRICS Post | December 11, 2014
Brazilian national Truth Commission’s report presented to President Dilma Rousseff moved her to tears as it published accounts of torture, killings and disappearances during two decades of military rule from 1964-85.
“I am very proud to be here, because the people here contributed to combat the violation of human rights,” Rousseff said during an emotional speech at the ceremony on Wednesday.
“We, who so love democracy, hope that the wide circulation of this report helps to reaffirm the priority that we must give to upholding democratic liberties. In this way, we must show our absolute aversion to authoritarian states and dictatorships of any kind,” President Rousseff said.
Rousseff is a former leftist guerrilla once imprisoned and tortured by the country’s military regime. The report has identified 377 people of committing “crimes against humanity”, 200 of whom are still alive.
“This is a key step in the right direction for Brazilians: knowing their history they can build a better society,” Rousseff tweeted on Wednesday.
The Brazilian leader has alluded to her past imprisonment and physical torture under the military dictatorship during the presidential campaigning this year.
“I have come up against hugely difficult situations in my life, including attacks which took me to the limit physically. Nothing knocked me out of my stride,” said Rousseff.
Hundreds of Brazilians were murdered and thousands were tortured by the Brazilian military rule but the Latin American nation has never put anyone on trial for the murder and widespread torture of political dissidents during its dictatorship.
In 1979 the Brazilian army pushed an amnesty law to shield themselves from future prosecutions through the Brazilian Congress.
The report released on Wednesday has identified Germany’s Volkswagen AG as one of several foreign companies that provided the Brazilian military with lists and accounts of union activists.
Brazil is seeking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and was this week voted in with a majority to the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).
The vote marked the first time a Latin American country was admitted to the agency’s top consultative body, which advises on “key strategic decisions,” said the UNRWA.
Obama Administration Fights to Keep Details of Justice Department Torture Report Secret
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | December 12, 2014
While the media parsed the details of the Senate committee’s report on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torturing of detainees last decade, the Obama administration was fighting in court to prevent documents from another investigation into the spy agency’s program from being examined by a leading national newspaper.
The New York Times has sued in federal court to obtain thousands of pages from a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the torture of detainees by the CIA during the George W. Bush administration. The materials that the newspaper wants to see include “10 reports and memorandums totaling 1,719 pages — more than three times the number of pages in the Senate report,” wrote the Times’ Charlie Savage, who is a party to the lawsuit. The documents in question include transcripts of interviews by a special prosecutor with about 100 witnesses as well as documents explaining why no charges were ever filed.
The Justice probe into the CIA program was conducted by prosecutor John H. Durham, who spent four years delving into the controversy but ultimately recommended to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to not file charges against the agency or any of its employees or contractors. Holder followed Durham’s suggestion and refrained from going after the CIA.
The Justice Department filed court documents on the same day that the Senate Intelligence Committee released its 524-page report on the CIA’s rendition and torture program. It argued in its filing with the New York federal court that all of the pages requested by the Times should remain locked away “because disclosing them could affect the candor of law enforcement deliberations about whether to bring criminal charges,” according to Savage.
To Learn More:
U.S. Tells Court That Documents From Torture Investigation Should Remain Secret (by Charlie Savage, New York Times )
New York Times v. Department of Justice (U.S. District Court, Southern New York)
Judge Gives Obama Administration until December to Justify Withholding 2,100 Photos of U.S. Use of Torture in Iraq and Afghanistan (by Danny Biederman and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov )
Obama Refuses to Turn Over 9,400 CIA Torture and Interrogation Documents to Congress (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov )
New calls for return of Guantanamo Brit, after 13 years of torture
Reprieve | December 11, 2014
In the wake of a new report on US abuses post-9/11, calls have been renewed for the return of a British resident held without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay for the past 13 years.
Shaker Aamer, a Londoner with a British wife and four British children, was captured and tortured by US forces in Afghanistan in 2001 before his rendition to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. His ordeal has included a litany of abuses similar to those described in the US Senate report on CIA torture, a portion of which was released this week. The details of CIA torture revealed in the report have provoked widespread condemnation.
As one of the first five prisoners taken to Bagram Air Force Base in late December 2001, Mr Aamer was forced to stay awake for nine days, beaten, denied food, and tied up in such a way as to risk strangling himself if he moved. Other times, he was forced to stand up for over 16 hours a day.
During his 13 years at Guantanamo Bay, Mr Aamer has been repeatedly subjected to physical violence – including regular beatings and “forcible cell extractions” (FCEs), at times as often as eight per day. He has also been forced into prolonged periods of solitary confinement, protracted sleep deprivation, manipulation of the temperature around him, and humiliating ‘genital searches.’
Earlier this year, Mr Aamer said: “The worst thing about torture is that you don’t know how to think, what to do, how to feel. You know you have your mind, but you don’t know how to react, which is horrible because you feel vulnerable. It’s terrible.”
The UK government has repeatedly stated that it wants Mr Aamer released from Guantanamo and returned to his family in London. Mr Aamer’s lawyer, Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith believes that he is still imprisoned because of the evidence he might give around UK complicity in torture. He has said: “It is deeply suspicious that the UK won’t say why their friends in the US refuse to transfer Shaker home to London.”
Did Theresa May lobby Senate Committee on CIA report?
Home Secretary Theresa May was one of several UK officials who met with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) ahead of the publication of its report on torture by the US and its allies, it’s emerged.
Documents unearthed by legal charity Reprieve reveal that from 2009, 24 meetings were held between UK Government officials or ministers and SSCI members. The Home Secretary met with the Committee in 2011 “in her capacity as Home Secretary”, while other UK Government visitors to the SSCI included former and current UK ambassadors to the US.
The SSCI began its formal inquiry into the CIA torture programme in 2009, and the timing of the UK meetings with the Committee have raised concerns that the UK may have attempted to influence the contents of the report.
Yesterday, Downing Street admitted that redactions were requested by the UK on “national security grounds” – an apparent shift from a claim made earlier this week, when the Prime Minister’s spokesman said there had been no such UK requests made.
Justice for Eric Garner? From the Justice Department? Don’t Hold Your Breath
By Mark P. Fancher | Black Agenda Report | December 10, 2014
When news broke of the grand jury’s refusal to indict Eric Garner’s killer, Spike Lee told CNN interviewers that because the death was video recorded he remains hopeful that the U.S. Department of Justice investigation will produce the results thousands of protesters crave. Based on the Justice Department’s record, it is probably a vain hope.
The Garner killing is not the first one to be captured by cameras. The Justice Department had access to a video record of the police firing squad execution of Milton Hall in Saginaw, Michigan, but no charges were brought against the cops who shot 46 bullets at the 49-year-old homeless black man. The reason? In a statement, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said: “…this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to give rise to a federal criminal prosecution of the police officers involved.”
Few who watch the police cruiser dashboard camera footage of the killing reach the same conclusion. That video is probably the best indication that if the Justice Department believes the evidence against Milton Hall’s killers is insufficient, then the bar is so high that there is no case that is likely to qualify for prosecution – including Eric Garner’s killing. While it is possible that public pressure might force Eric Holder to handle the Garner case differently, some legal analysts discount that possibility because they have bought into the Justice Department’s inaccurate and incomplete interpretation of the applicable federal law.
The law that authorizes federal criminal civil rights charges against police officers says that in a homicide case like Eric Garner’s or Milton Hall’s, a police officer can be guilty only if he not only violated the victim’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force, but the officer also “willfully” violated that right. In its explanation of why Milton Hall’s killers were not prosecuted, the Justice Department said: “Law enforcement actions based on fear, panic, misperception or even poor judgment do not constitute willful conduct prosecutable under the statute.” Implied in that statement is the belief that it would not be possible to get into the heads of the officers and extract private thoughts that might betray their intent to “willfully” violate a constitutional right.
To the great disappointment of those outraged by Milton Hall’s death, the Justice Department conveniently ignored what the courts have had to say about the “willfulness” requirement. Starting with the U.S. Supreme Court and ending with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (which has jurisdiction over Milton Hall’s hometown) the courts have made it clear that the Justice Department is not required to engage in mind reading in order to hold the police accountable.
The Supreme Court said: “[t]he fact that the defendants may not have been thinking in constitutional terms is not material” to whether they satisfy the willfulness requirement. The Sixth Circuit explained that a jury: “need not, in order to convict, determine that [the accused] actually knew that it was a Constitutional right that they were violating…”
Not only is it unnecessary to prove that an officer was thinking specifically of trying to violate a victim’s Fourth Amendment rights, but the Supreme Court took the additional step of providing a much easier way to charge and convict police who kill. The court said: “[to] act willfully in the sense in which we use the word [is to] act in open defiance or reckless disregard of a constitutional requirement…”
It is therefore hard to imagine why charges cannot be brought when police officers fire dozens of bullets at a homeless man armed only with a pen knife; or when police use a choke hold to put a submissive man on the ground because he was alleged to be engaged in unauthorized cigarette sales. By almost anyone’s reckoning, such conduct should be regarded as “open defiance” or “reckless disregard” for the constitutional rights of the victims.
Will the Justice Department’s investigation result in the criminal prosecution of Eric Garner’s killers? It’s possible, but don’t hold your breath. With each new incident of unpunished police violence, it becomes more likely that concerned observers will conclude that African people born or living in America have no rights that the Justice Department is bound to respect.
Mark P. Fancher is the staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Project, which pursues justice for Milton Hall. He is also a member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. He can be contacted at mfancher@comcast.net.
Journalist most recent victim of Israeli military violence at Kufr Qaddum
International Solidarity Movement | December 9, 2014
Kufr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – Bashar, a journalist from Palestine TV, was shot in the left leg at Kufr Qaddum on Friday the 5th of December 2014.
The weekly demonstration aims to highlight the issue of the road that has been closed to Kafr Qaddum and demands for it to be reopened. The road is closed to Palestinians but connects several illegal Israeli settlements nearby. The road was once the Palestinians’ main route to the villages of Jit and Sarra, and to the city of Nablus. Residents of Kafr Qaddum and nearby villages must now use a 14 kilometer detour on badly paved roads through olive groves. This proves especially problematic in emergency situations when ambulances are trying to get patients to Nablus hospital. Kafr Qaddum villagers state that several people have died because of the longer ambulance trip.
Bashar has been going to the Kafr Qaddum demonstrations since they began four years ago. This particular one was a special demonstration in solidarity with Patrick, an Italian activist who was shot in the chest with a .22 caliber bullet the Friday before. The demonstration began peacefully with people holding Italian and Palestinian flags. A skunk water truck, a renowned demonstration repression technique, sprayed the people who were peacefully holding flags right at the beginning of the protest. Within ten minutes, Bashar had been shot in his left leg by an Israeli sniper.
The bullet used to shoot Bashar was an expanding bullet, often called a “dum-dum”. International law has declared their use illegal in war because they are so destructive. Bashar was shot by a sniper with a weapon that is only supposed to be used when soldiers are at mortal risk and skunk water, tear gas, rubber bullets, rubber coated steel bullets, and other nonlethal weapons have all proved ineffective. This is supposed to be the last weapon soldiers use before they shoot to kill with M16s. Witnesses say that Bashar was filming as he usually did when he was shot. He was no threat to the soldiers at all. Witnesses say that there were no people in front or behind him throwing stones.
Bashar was taken by ambulance to Nablus hospital. The X-ray showed that the dum-dum bullet did as it was designed to, breaking into many pieces when it entered his leg.
Bashar had an operation on the 6th of December, the day after he was shot, to take out most of the bullet fragments.
Doctors have decided to leavein some pieces for the time being because they are very close to veins and would be dangerous to remove. Bashar will be bed bound for two weeks until the decision is made, but his condition remains stable.
Within one week at Kufr Qaddum, three people were shot with lethal, live ammunition—two with .22 caliber bullets and one with a dum-dum. One was a journalist, another an international peace activist. None of them were any threat to the soldiers. So why, then, were they shot at? To create fear for all the people who are in solidarity with the Palestinians and who want to tell the world the story of what is happening here? To physically stop peaceful resistance using the most extreme repression techniques?
It will not work. Patrick and many other international, Palestinian and Israeli activists will continue to nonviolently resist the confiscation of their lands in Kufr Qaddum each week. Bashar will continue to report their stories to the world. The unnecessary use of violent repression techniques will only continue to delegitimize the illegal occupation of the Palestinian people.
Israeli settlers stab Palestinian youth on his family’s land
CPTnet | December 9, 2014
On 8 December 2014, Israeli settlers attacked seventeen-year-old Palestinian boy, Moad Al Rajabi on his family land in Bani Naim, on the outskirts of Al-Khalil/Hebron. He was sitting with his father, Noah Al Rajabi, and two of his cousins when settler cars stopped nearby. As seven settlers exited the cars and came towards them, Noah ran away with his two nephews, believing that his son was also with him. He soon realised his son was not there, and turned to see seventeen-year-old Moad encircled by the settlers.
The seven were stabbing Moad, but fled as Noah ran back in a bid to rescue his son from the assault. Moad required hospitalization to treat the stab wounds, one of which penetrated to the bones in the hand; the other was on his thigh. He is now stable, and the hospital hopes to discharge him later today.
The Al Rajabi family has also suffered the violence of home demolition and the destruction of their livelihood by the Israeli military. In May 2012, Israeli forces destroyed the family’s dairy farm and home, which was on the land where Moad was stabbed yesterday. Commenting on the destruction of the caravan (mobile home) in which the family lived, an iron barn stabling cows, milking machines and other equipment worth over 8000 USD, Noah explained that the Israeli army not “only destroy[ed] my livelihood but also the livelihoods of three other families; our farm is our bread and butter.” The Al Rajabi family has continued to have financial difficulties ever since the demolition.
More young men and teenagers arrested by the Israeli military
International Solidarity Movement | December 9, 2014
Nablus, Occupied Palestine – On December 8th in Nablus, the Israeli army broke into the homes of two families in Balata refugee camp and arrested two young Palestinians, 19-year-old Mujahed al Shekhalil and 17-year-old Yazan Hta.
In both cases, their homes were raised by the military in the middle of the night (3am and 3:30am) damaging doors and property inside the houses. At the time of the incursions, all family members were sleeping. The military forced all family members into one room whilst they arrested the teenagers. Both families state that between 15 and 20 soldiers broke into their homes, and they were given no reason for either the intrusions or the arrests.
In the village of Madama, on the same night, the Israeli army also entered the home of the Wajeihqut family and arrested 23-year-old Assad Allah. The army spent an hour inside the house between 2:20am and 3:20am, again forcing all family members inside one room. The family reported to ISM that the soldiers told Assad’s 9-year-old brother that if he did not stop speaking they would take him with his brother. Another brother was told that if he did not go into the room with the family then they would cut his head off.
The army confiscated every family members phone and stole the sim cards from them and the hard drive from the family computer. They also smashed the apartments heating system.
This was the fifth time Assad has been arrested and the family home has been raided by the army on numerous occasions.
In all cases, the families were not given a reason for the arrests or for the damage done to their homes, and do not have any information as to where their sons have been taken.
Photo by ISM
Another Witness in Michael Brown Shooting Found Dead
teleSUR | December 8, 2014
Another witness of the shooting of Michael Brown has been found dead in a dry channel near River Des Peres in Misssouri, local authorities confirmed.
The man has been identified as 23-year-old Shawn Gray, a black man who testified during the grand jury proceedings over the killing of Brown by former police officer Darren Wilson.
According to relatives and friends, Gray was last seen leaving a restaurant on Thanksgiving Day. The manner and cause of his death are pending autopsy results. However, his family is demanding answers and say the death could have been premeditated murder.
Another witness DeAndre Joshua, also a young black man, was found shot dead and his car was torched outside the same neighborhood where Brown was killed.
Two witnesses of the Brown shooting have now been found dead under suspicious circumstances, while local authorities have not announced any leads in either case, and the press has provided minimal coverage.
The police murders of black young men in recent months has provided a stark reminder to the world of the harsh reality faced by many black communities in the United States. Their deaths exposed the continued persecution of black people.
Mass protests against these injustices have taken place across the country. Protesters are demanding justice for black lives lost at the hands of state sanctioned violence, with over 100 days of peaceful protest ranging from #HandsUpWalkOut and solidarity days with Ferguson.
See a collection of teleSUR analysis, video, and news pieces on the issue of, and resistance to police racism in the United States.
Israeli group storms al-Aqsa as settlers attack 3 Palestinians in Jerusalem
Al-Akhbar | December 8, 2014
A group of right-wing Israelis toured the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem on Monday under police escort, a mosque official said.
The storming of the mosque compound came as Israeli settlers attacked three Palestinians in Jerusalem, and Israeli forces detained 19 in the West Bank.
Al-Aqsa director Omar al-Kiswani told Ma’an that groups of Israeli right-wingers “stormed the compound and toured its squares under the so-called foreign tourism program.”
A group of Israeli intelligence officers also toured the compounds, he added.
The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs complained to Israeli police, expressing their objection to the visits, Kiswani said.
Meanwhile, Israeli police detained a woman identified as Umm Radwan Omar at one of the gates leading to al-Aqsa. Omar usually gives religious lectures inside the compound.
Israeli police collected the identity cards of all Palestinian men and women who entered the compound on Monday.
The al-Aqsa mosque is sensitive for Palestinians due to its status as the third holiest site in Islam and its location in the heart of the Old City of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
The al-Aqsa mosque compound, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the holiest site in Judaism.
Tensions have been running high in occupied East Jerusalem after months of Israeli pressure on the region, including through a massive arrest campaign and a major military offensive on Gaza that left more than 2,100 dead and provoked outrage across Palestine.
They have also been stoked by Israeli authorities’ decision to hold a vote on splitting the al-Aqsa compound despite the existence of a Jewish prayer area at the Western Wall immediately next door.
Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, an agreement with Jordan has maintained that Jewish prayer be allowed at the Western Wall plaza – built on the site of a Palestinian neighborhood of 800 that was destroyed immediately following the conquest – but not inside the al-Aqsa mosque compound itself.
Israeli forces have long restricted Palestinians’ access to the al-Aqsa compound based on age and gender, but have further prevented Muslim worshipers from entering the mosque for more than a month while facilitating the entrance for Zionist extremists.
Settlers attack Palestinians in Jerusalem
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers attacked three Palestinians in two separate incidents in Jerusalem, leaving the latter with bruises and injuries, an Israeli news channel reported Sunday night.
On Sunday evening, Israeli police arrested an Israeli who – along with several other settlers – attacked a Palestinian bus driver, leaving him with injuries, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.
The settlers chanted “death to Arabs” while attacking the bus driver and threatened to kill him, the channel added.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses told Anadolu news agency that a group of Israeli settlers assaulted two Palestinians from Jerusalem while working in a petrol station in the neighborhood of Ein Karem on Sunday night.
One of the Palestinians sustained injuries that required his transfer to a hospital, the witnesses added.
Israeli forces arrest 19 across West Bank
The Israeli army detained 19 Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, a Palestinian NGO has said.
Israeli forces searched scores of homes in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and arrested nine Palestinians, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement.
Three more Palestinians were detained in Nablus, two in Jenin, two in Ramallah and one in Bateen village, the NGO added.
Israeli police detained another two Palestinians in East Jerusalem, according to a statement issued by the NGO.
Israeli forces routinely conduct arrest campaigns against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on claims they are “wanted” by Israeli authorities.
Over 7,000 Palestinians are currently languishing in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs.
On Saturday, Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Authority Department of Prisoner Affairs, said that 2014 has been “the most difficult year” for prisoners.
Qaraqe said in a statement that prisoners in 2014 have been victims of “Israeli revenge policies,” adding that Israel’s move to re-arrest prisoners who were released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal in 2011 was a dangerous political action.
Qaraqe also decried Israel’s policy of detaining minors, saying some 1,500 minors were detained in 2014, mostly in Jerusalem.
According to Qaraqe, there were 550 new Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention without charge or trial this year, and Israel renewed administrative detention orders for 63 percent of administrative prisoners. Excessive use of administrative detention is considered illegal under international law.
(Ma’an, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)
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“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
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