Andrea Prasow writes on Huffington Post regarding the significance of the military commission arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The stubborn determination of Formula One’s governing body to press ahead with the grand prix in Bahrain has delighted the country’s rulers, who portray it as a sign that the Gulf state is back to normal. It is anything but.
Recent executions in Belarus exemplify repression on a scale unprecedented in the post-Soviet era, and the EU should apply more pressure on the Lukashenka regime.
Torture occupies a special place in international law – it is banned at all times and in all places, no exceptions. Most countries, including the UK and Jordan, have signed up to the UN Convention Against Torture, which means they agree not only to the absolute ban on torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment, but also to refrain from any complicity in the crime. They cannot send people to a country where there is a real risk of torture, or use evidence in court obtained through torture.
Dozens of eye injuries from rubber bullets have marked the crackdown on protesters in Tahrir Square. “Eye-hunters,” Egyptians are calling the armed police who aim at head-level.
The Central Asian state has huge energy reserves that Germany would like to tap, and a strategic location neighbouring Afghanistan. It also has one of the worst human rights records in the world, with credible reports from the United Nations and elsewhere of widespread torture, forced disappearances and repression of all critical voices.
Obama has corrected course from the worst of the Bush-era detainee abuses but the US should implement public procedural safeguards to ensure detainees are not transferred to countries where they face a risk of torture.
Rehab here may be hard but it has nothing on drug "treatment" in Vietnam, where tens of thousands of unfortunate users are detained in forced labor camps and tortured and beaten. Even worse, international donors and aid groups actually work inside these detention centers, providing funding and a fig leaf to an extremely abusive system.
Confronted with fresh evidence unearthed by Human Rights Watch that the UK security services were complicit in the rendition and possible torture of opponents of the Gaddafi regime, Prime Minister David Cameron gave a confident performance in the House of Commons. He told MPs that the “significant accusations” would be looked at “very carefully” by the existing Detainee Inquiry.
Andrea Prasow writes on Huffington Post regarding the significance of the military commission arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.