Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 11 December 2014

Reactions to this week’s release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program continued today, with CIA director John Brennan giving a press conference on the report,which details the CIA’s use of torture in the aftermath of 9/11. Make no mistake: the evidence is strong enough to formally investigate and likely prosecute CIA officers, contractors employed by the CIA, and senior U.S. government officials for a range of crimes, from torture and kidnapping to rape. Even if the CIA doesn’t consider “waterboarding” — mock execution by near drowning — to be torture, but the U.S. State Department does. In El Salvador, 17 women convicted of murder, after being accused of having had an abortion, are sitting in prison for up to 40 years. Activists in El Salvador and around the globe are pressuring the government for their release, hopefully in time for the Christmas holidays. The world celebrated Human Rights Day yesterday, but with an eye to the sad truth that human rights are under attack. Not just by brutal extremist groups, but also by governments that want to silence any dissent that may challenge or weaken their rule. But this is all the more reason to celebrate the work of the tireless and unsung heroes on the front lines of human rights activism. Israeli forces marked Human Rights Day by assaulting peaceful protesters attempting to plant olive trees. Multiple witnesses have described how a Palestinian official who died on December 10 had been assaulted by at least three Israeli border police, but had not used any force against the officers and posed no threat. Ivorian authorities should promptly surrender Simone Gbagbo, wife of the former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, to the ICC, which has charged her with four counts of crimes against humanity in relation to the deadly violence that followed Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010 presidential election.