CIA torture; Aleppo attacks; Hurricane 'Matthew': HRW Daily Brief
Plus: Calls to free pastor serving 11 years in Vietnam; migrants die off Libya coast; EU's asylum seeker relocation scheme is both "tragedy and farce"; protesting Poland's abortion law; chemical weapons attacks in Sudan; Pakistan death penalty; & all-male panels...
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“Terrifying accounts" of previously unreported CIA torture methods show how little the public still knows about the US torture program, Human Rights Watch has said. It comes as two former detainees - who have never previously spoken publicly about their ordeal - described in detail to HRW new methods of torture they were subjected to, including different forms of water torture and threats to be put in an electric chair.
Using massive firepower in residential areas of the Syrian city of Aleppo where thousands of civilians are trapped is reckless and could amount to a war crime, and the Security Council should immediately adopt a resolution demanding an end to the slaughter, HRW has said.
Many courageous individuals are languishing behind bars for daring to speak the truth. Worse, some of them risk being forgotten by the outside world. Today, HRW calls attention to the plight of Vietnamese pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, who is serving a sentence of 11 years.
Scores of migrants and asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in the past 24 hours, many of them in dangerously overcrowded boats. And, as is so often the case, some of those trying to reach safety did not survive the journey.
On the one-year anniversary of the EU plan to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy, the scheme must be judged a farce, HRW has said.
Hurricane “Matthew” is set to hit Haiti and Jamaica in the next few hours. Among the many people who will suffer as the storm makes landfall will be the thousands of stateless people who live along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, where they live in makeshift camps constructed from sticks, cardboard and clothes tied together.
Scores of people in Poland are continuing to protest the country's proposed new abortion law.
Sudan has been accused of using chemical weapons against civilians in Darfur. And it's possible that President Omar Al-Bashir was emboldened by similar cases in Syria and the fact that he's not been prosecuted yet for other crimes against humanity.