Urgent Alert: Boycott Zionism

In protest of Israel’s bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians of Gaza

1. Summary

In light of the traumatic circumstances in Gaza, where innocent civilians, including women and children are being mercilessly killed from relentless Israeli aerial attacks, IHRC urges campaigners to support the Boycott Israel Campaign to show allegiance to the cause of these helpless victims of Zionist hatred.

Visit Inminds website (www.inminds.com/boycott-israel.html and http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php) for resources on boycotting Israeli products and companies supporting the Zionist entity.

2. Background

On the fourth day of Israel’s renewed bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians of Gaza, death toll has reportedly reached nearly 400. Around 2000 have been injured.

According to reports doctors are finding it difficult to tend to so many patients, as there are far too few intensive care units, ambulances and other vital equipment compared to the hundreds of injured civilians pouring into the hospitals every day. Many young patients have lost parts of their arms or legs. There is no heating in the hospitals to keep the patients warm. One observer reportedly noted that the morgue of Shifa Hospital, the main one in Gaza, was full and bodies were left in the streets.

Another witness to the destruction in Gaza reportedly said that the city is ‘dead.’ Buildings have been destroyed. Most shops are closed, and electricity comes and goes intermittently. People are living in constant fear and grief. Reports also state that streets are deserted except for bereaved families taking their dead to be buried or the injured being driven to the hospitals.

Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, stated in a BBC interview, "Israel is committing a shocking series of atrocities by using modern weaponry against a defenceless population - attacking a population that has been enduring a severe blockade for many months."

Israel has promised to continue these cold-blooded attacks for weeks to come.

In these traumatic circumstances IHRC urges all campaigners to show support to the helpless Palestinians by taking part in the Boycott Zionism campaign. The Boycott Israel campaign page produced by Innovative Minds is an excellent source for information and resources on boycotting Israeli products and companies supporting Israel.

Please visit: www.inminds.com/boycott-israel.html

Campaigners can do the following as part of an active boycott of the Zionist State of Israel:

1) Educate yourselves: Use the Boycott Israel pages on Inminds website to learn more the product and companies to boycott, why to boycott and how the boycott works etc.

2) Start boycotting: Keep a copy of the boycott card with you and start boycotting as many Zionist products as you can. (The boycott card leaflet can be downloaded in PDF form from www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-a4-ramadan-flyer.html)

3) Educate others: Hold small workshops at your local mosque or community centre and inform others about Boycott Israel Campaign. Download the boycott card leaflet and distribute. IHRC can be contacted for guidance about the workshops at the contact details mentioned at the end of this alert.

4) Write letters: For a boycott to be effective, it must be followed up with a letter writing campaign to inform the companies that we are boycotting their products until they stop collaborating with Israel. See Inminds letter writing campaign on www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#letters

5) Pickett: Organize a picket in your area. Picketing is a form of public protest and aims to draw attention to the realities of Palestinian suffering by exposing those that help to sustain it. It embarrasses those shoppers that know they shouldn't be shopping there, informs those shoppers that are not aware of the moral objections as well as irritating supporters of Israel generally. The companies themselves become aware of the protests and news of pickets goes all the way to the top. See Inminds’ guide on picketing to find out if there a picket near you and how to join it. The guide also includes tips on setting up your own picket and legal FAQ on what your rights are when picketing. www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#direct

Source: www.ihrc.org.uk

The Torturers of Tashkent

President Islam Karimov's regime in Uzbekistan has survived for 19 years, in no small part because it has repeatedly resorted to police brutality and torture to extract confessions from people who have committed no crime. These tactics have also been used to break the spirits of political opponents and intimidate anyone who might think of becoming one.

Sometimes the police brutality results in innocent deaths, after which the regime tries to cover up the killings. But Karimov has never condemned torture, and he has instituted no measures to prevent it.

A few cases make it to the public eye, but only when things go too far and victims of brutality or torture die. The latest to surface is the case of 30-year-old Muzaffar Tuychiyev, a healthy young man when the police detained him on the evening of March 24 in the region of Tashkent. They then transported Tuychiyev to a police station in Angren, 100 kilometers south of the capital. By the next morning, Tuychiyev was dead. Four police officers are on trial for his killing. His parents say higher-ranking officers are going free.

Talib Yakubov, a human rights advocate in Uzbekistan, says torture is an integral part of the Karimov regime's domestic policy. Torture, he says, enables the government to keep the public in fear and submission.

The government uses the threat of terrorist attacks to justify domestic repression of political opponents and the absence of democratic reforms. But, according to Yakubov, "Only thanks to torture, hundreds and thousands of people admit that they are guilty of religious extremism and terrorism. Without torture, none of them would have incriminated themselves."

In 2003, the international community tried to persuade Karimov to publicly denounce torture before an annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Two months prior to the gathering, a United Nations special reporter published a paper condemning Uzbekistan for "widespread and systematic" use of torture. The report unleashed a wave of criticism of the EBRD for choosing to hold its meeting in Tashkent.

In response, the EBRD promised to pressure Karimov to condemn torture. Not surprisingly, he has completely dodged the issue. During a speech at the meeting, he boasted that Uzbekistan was a partner of the United States in the war on terror, and for him the war on terror is tantamount to a license to torture in his quest to remain in power.

On May 13, 2005, when government troops in the eastern city of Andijan opened fire from armored personnel carriers on thousands of people demonstrating against poverty and abuse of power, the guns killed hundreds of people. Thereafter, torture in Uzbekistan became routine.

No one has managed to speak to a victim of torture in Uzbekistan. Dozens have died as a result of their ordeals. Most survivors languish in prison. Those who have been released prefer to keep silent about their experiences.

I had a chance to see one of the victims of Uzbekistan's regime. Rasul Haitov was 27 when he was detained in Tashkent with his brother Ravshan, 32, in October 2001. Police officers resorted to torture to get them to admit that they were members of an Islamist party, Hizb-ut Tahrir.

The police choked the brothers with plastic bags. They drove needles under their fingernails, and then tore them out. They sodomized them with glass bottles, beat them up with clubs and threw their bodies around a room. Ravshan died. Rasul barely survived. When I saw him in a courtroom, he was weak and feeble and looked like a broken old man. After two months of treatment, he could still not sit upright.

- Galima Bukharbaeva, the editor-in-chief of uznews.net, is an Uzbek journalist who has been in exile since witnessing the Andijan massacre in May 2005.

Source: www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/373017.htm

Internment & Interrogation Of 13-Year-Old Canadian Teen At Guantanamo Raises Ethical Issues

The internment and severe interrogation of 13-year-old Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay raises serious ethical issues. His interrogators at the notorious camp have used snarling dogs against him. He was also placed in "stress positions," upended and used as a human mop to clean the floor. The U.S. forces were convinced he had thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier.

Omar Khadr, originally hailing from Canada, is one of the 19 Guantanamo prisoners charged with war crimes. His fellow prisoner, Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan, is a year younger. These two of the lot were juveniles at the time of their alleged offenses, it may be noted.

The latest, and possibly last, sessions of the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal have revealed disturbing details about how Khadr was treated during three months in custody at Bagram, Afghanistan.

The tribunal has refused permission for the defence counsel to introduce as evidence photographs taken at the scene of the July 27, 2002, firefight near Khowst, Afghanistan – it was there Khadr is supposed to have thrown the grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer.

The photographs taken by U.S. soldiers as they stormed the bombed-out compound show Khadr lying facedown in the dirt under the blasted remnants of a roof. The soldiers didn't know he was there until one stepped on rubble and felt something underneath give way.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, Khadr's lead defense lawyer argued Khadr could hardly have thrown the grenade that killed Speer if he was buried and unconscious when the Delta Force soldier entered.

But neither the prosecution nor of course the Bush administration nor even the Canadian government seem bothered about the facts of the case or the fate of the 13-year-old Khadr.

He was a toddler when his father began shuttling his family between Toronto and the Islamic militant strongholds along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Now 22, Khadr has spent almost a third of his life in U.S. custody. He was raised in a militant Muslim family and was surrounded in his teen years by holy warriors. His lawyers describe him as confused, immature and emotionally damaged.

The Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child hold that it is the responsibility of the state whose soldiers capture juveniles on the battlefield to work to rehabilitate and integrate them into society. But neither the tribunal nor the Bush administration seemed to care one bit.

"Under international law, adults who recruit children for combat are to be prosecuted for that offense. But the children caught up in combat are to be protected, not prosecuted," said Diane Marie Amann, a UC Davis law professor who observed the latest hearing in Khadr's case for the National Institute of Military Justice.

The institute joined legal scholars, parliamentarians and human rights proponents in arguing in amicus briefs that underage combatants should be treated as victims, not responsible adults who made conscious decisions to join the fight.

Khadr's trial is set to begin Jan. 26, with pretrial hearings starting on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to shut Guantanamo, Carl Williams reports for Los Angeles Times.

Army Col. Patrick Parrish has ruled that Khadr's trial can go forward on charges of murder, attempted murder, spying, conspiracy and material support for terrorism. His predecessor as judge in the case, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, ruled last spring that the defendant's age and upbringing were "interesting as a matter of policy" but irrelevant to prosecution under the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Jawad's military judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, ruled similarly on the child soldier question but excluded evidence the government was relying on to convict the Afghan of attempted murder and other charges. Henley ruled that Jawad's confessions were coerced, a decision prosecutors have asked the Court of Military Commission Review to overturn, but it is unclear when that appeal will be decided.

The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence J. Morris, dismisses critics' contentions that juveniles are prohibited from being held accountable for war crimes by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and a supplemental protocol.

"The convention is misunderstood, if not intentionally misrepresented," Morris said. "It is not a bar to prosecution."

Army Capt. Keith Petty, on the prosecution team in Khadr's case, said it was up to military jurors at sentencing to consider a convict's age at the time of the offense.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, lodged a protest over Khadr's prosecution, warning that it could set a precedent and undermine the protections intended by the convention.

U.N. tribunals established to prosecute alleged war criminals from Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda have tended to treat child soldiers as victims. David Crane, a Syracuse University law professor who served as chief prosecutor in the Special Court for Sierra Leone, wrote that "no child had the mental capacity to commit mankind's most serious crimes."

Defence counsel Kuebler says, "My hope is that the Obama administration, as its first action, will say, 'We don't want to be the first administration in history to preside over the trial of a child soldier for war crimes.' "

Source: www.medindia.net/news/Internment-And-Interrogation-Of-13-Year-Old-Canadian-Teen-At-Guantanamo-Raises-Ethical-Issues-45662-2.htm

Gaza Massacre - Emergency Protest

The Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed more than 270 people over the weekend, the bloodiest attack since 1967. Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence Minister, has threatened further attacks on Gaza, one of the most impoverished places on earth.

Below is a notice of a protest tomorrow (Monday) from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Please circulate this notice as widely as possible. If you are not in London, please consider local actions.

Date: Monday 29 December
Time: 4.00pm – 6.00pm
Venue: Opposite Israeli Embassy - Kensington High Street (Nearest tube: High Street Kensington)

Please monitor news channels and call BBC and ITV every day to ask for accurate figures of numbers killed and injured. We will not accept Israeli spokespersons – we want Palestinian commentators.

Betty Hunter, General Secretary, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

www.palestinecampaign.org

Top Ten Myths About Iraq, 2008

1. Iraqis are safer because of Bush's War. In fact, conditions of insecurity have helped created both an internal and external refugee problem:

' At least 4.2 million Iraqis were displaced. These included 2.2 million who were displaced within Iraq and some 2 million refugees, mostly in Syria (around 1.4 million) and Jordan (around half a million). In the last months of the year both these neighbouring states, struggling to meet the health, education and other needs of the Iraqi refugees already present, introduced visa requirements that impeded the entry of Iraqis seeking refuge. Within Iraq, most governorates barred entry to Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence elsewhere.'

2. Large numbers of Iraqis in exile abroad have returned. In fact, no great number have returned, and more Iraqis may still be leaving to Syria than returning.

3. Iraqis are materially better off because of Bush's war. In fact, A million Iraqis are "food insecure" and another 6 million need UN food rations to survive. Oxfam estimated in summer, 2007, that 28% of Iraqi children are malnourished.

4. The Bush administration scored a major victory with its Status of Forces Agreement. In fact, The Iraqis forced on Bush an agreement that the US would withdraw combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, 2009,and would completely withdraw from the Country by the end of 2011. The Bush administration had wanted 58 long-term bases, and the authority to arrest Iraqis at will and to launch military operations unilaterally.

5. Minorities in Iraq are safer since Bush's invasion. In fact, there have in 2008 been significant attacks on and displacement of Iraqi Christians from Mosul. In early January of 2008, guerrillas bombed churches in Mosul, wounding a number of persons. More recently, some 13,000 Christians have had to flee Mosul because of violence.

6. The sole explanation for the fall in the monthly death rate for Iraqi civilians was the troop excalation or surge of 30,000 extra US troops in 2007. In fact, troop levels had been that high before without major effect. The US military did good counter-insurgency in 2007. The major reason for the fall in the death toll, however, was that the Shiites won the war for Baghdad, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis from the capital, and turning it into a city with a Shiite majority of 75 to 80 percent. (When Bush invaded, Baghdad was about 50/50 Sunni and Shiite).

The high death tolls in 2006 and 2007 were a by-product of this massive ethnic cleansing campaign. Now, a Shiite militiaman in Baghdad would have to drive for a while to find a Sunni Arab to kill.

7. John McCain alleged that if the US left Iraq, it would be promptly taken over by al-Qaeda. In fact, there are few followers of Usamah Bin Laden in Iraq. The fundamentalist extremists, if that is what McCain meant, are not supported by most Sunni Arabs. They are supported by no Shiites (60% of Iraq) or Kurds (20% of Iraq), and are hated by Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, who would never allow such a takeover.

8. The Iraq War made the world safer from terrorism. In fact, Iraq has become a major training ground for extremists and is implicated in the major bombings in Madrid, London, and Glasgow.

9. Bush went to war in Iraq because he was given bad intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. In fact, the State Department's Intelligence & Research (I & R) division cast doubt on the alarmist WMD stories that Bush/Cheney put about. The CIA refused to sign off on the inclusion of the Niger uranium lie in the State of the Union address, which made Bush source it to the British MI6 instead.

The Downing Street Memo revealed that Bush fixed the intelligence around the policy. Bush sought to get up a provocation such as a false flag attack on UN planes so as to blame it on Iraq. And UN weapons inspectors in Feb.-Mar. of 2003 examined 100 of 600 suspected weapons sites and found nothing; Bush's response was to pull them out and go to war.

10. Douglas Feith and other Neoconservatives didn't really want a war with Iraq (!). Yeah, that was why they demanded war on Iraq with their 1996 white paper for Bibi Netanyahu and again in their 1998 Project for a New American Century letter to Clinton, where they explicitly called for military action.

The Neoconservatives are notorious liars and by the time they get through with rewriting history, they will be a combination of Gandhi and Mother Teresa and the Iraq War will be Bill Clinton's fault. The only thing is, I think people are wise to them by now. Being a liar can actually get you somewhere. Being a notorious liar is a disadvantage if what you want to is get people to listen to you and act on your advice. I say, Never Again.

- By Juan Cole

Source: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21540.htm

Torture, Slaughter and Lies

In September an Afghan journalist, Jawed Ahmad, was released from a US military prison in Afghanistan where his jailers " broke two of my ribs during the beatings." He worked for Canadian TV and the BBC, among other media outlets, and he had done nothing wrong. That is obvious, because he was freed without charge after a year of hellish treatment at the hands of uniformed filth whose claim to being human is at best feeble. If there had been the slightest genuine suspicion that he had committed a crime he should have been put on trial, but that is not the way the US system works, in these horrible days. Bush policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is never to admit that anyone can be innocent because everyone arrested is automatically guilty. But will it get any better under Obama? Can he alter what has become normal behavior on the part of the robotic minions of the commander-in-chief?

In February Jawed Ahmad was declared an "enemy combatant," which is a glib catch-all description used by Washington's foulest to describe any foreigner who, in shades of the horrible McCarthy years, they suspect of possibly being involved in what they term anti-American activities. These victim of hysteria, of whom there are countless thousands around the world, are locked up in prisons where their treatment varies from casual brutality to hideous torture. From the British-owned, US-leased island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to the US colonial enclave at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, by way of Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan and equally horrible prisons in Iraq, the misery of innocent – or even guilty – detainees casts a dreadful blot on what the world used to think was a fair and free democracy.

Two Afghans were beaten to death by American soldiers in Bagram in 2002 (and these are the ones we know about). As recorded by McClatchy Newspapers "Spc. Jeremy Callaway, who admitted to striking about 12 detainees at Bagram, told military investigators in sworn testimony that he was uncomfortable following orders to "mentally and physically break the detainees." He didn't go into detail. "I guess you can call it torture," said Callaway." The maximum punishment awarded to the killers was three months in confinement. Imagine the penalty that would have been meted out if an American had been beaten to death by an Afghan. Imagine the sentence if an American in America had been murdered in this fashion : the death penalty, automatically. But Afghans don't matter. Nor do Iraqis.

Anyone unfortunate enough to be taken captive by US forces or intelligence people can expect nothing but the direst conditions, indefinite confinement without charge and without legal representation, and – oh joy – methods of interrogation that "have been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm."

That quotation is from one of the worst Secretaries of State the US has suffered, the Bush protégé Condoleezza Rice, who wrote to Congress on 12 September that the "simulated torture techniques" administered to would-be members of US special forces during their training, would not harm them.

Right. Of course it wouldn't harm them : because these volunteers knew that the 'torture' would end immediately if they just once shouted Stop, Please Stop It. And they knew, also, that it would certainly end, sometime. Maybe in an hour or two; maybe longer. But they knew it would not go on indefinitely. And when it ended they would be free to boast that they got through it without any problem.

But real prisoners, held in filthy primitive conditions, beaten by vicious barbaric laughing guards and interrogated by demented sadists, have no idea when their torture is going to end. They can't hold up a hand and say "Stop." It is absurdly naive – or despicably pitiless – for Rice to claim that their treatment does not cause "significant physical or psychological harm;" but that's the way things are in psycholand.

Detention without charge, denial of access to a lawyer and refusal of trial have become normal in the US justice system as practiced by the US military. They arrested a Reuters' photographer, Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, in September, and the Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on 30 November that there was no evidence against him and that he should be released from US military custody. In a staggering display of contempt for democracy, decency and the constitutions of Iraq and America the military refused to comply. He's still in jail; without justice, without hope. So much for democracy, US-style, in Iraq.

And contempt for democracy doesn't stop with sadism in prisons. Afghanistan, like Iraq, is supposed to have an independent government. This means that foreign activity in these countries should be subject to domestic laws and that there should be total cooperation between foreign armed forces and those of the country on which they are inflicted. When military operations are mounted, the authorities of the 'host' countries, appointed by democratically-elected governments, should be informed. Does this happen? Almost never. In a recent display of ignorance and criminal arrogance, US special forces attacked a police station in the town of Qalat in south eastern Afghanistan on December 10, imagining it to be a "militant hideout." The policemen thought the special forces were militants and opened fire.

The police were in their own country ; they were in a police post whose location should be known to foreign troops operating in their country ; they were not told that there would be any foreign operations in their area. So of course they opened fire. And what did the gallant special forces do? Did they "close with and kill the enemy, in any terrain, in any weather, by day or by night"? (This used to be the way we were taught but it seems to have gone out of fashion a bit.) Don't be silly: they called in airstrikes that killed the police commander, five of his men, and, inevitably, a civilian whose house they destroyed. Oh; and wounded "at least 13 others."

119 Afghan civilians (including policemen) were killed by US airstrikes in January to July 2008, The figure for the whole year will be much higher. The effect on Afghans cannot be measured accurately, but it is unlikely that their regard for foreign troops will be high. In fact it is inevitable that there will be much hatred engendered by these cowboy catastrophes, concerning which the first option is to lie if it is considered the truth is unlikely to surface.

Take the case of the killing of 90 people by US airstrikes in August in the Afghan village of Azizabad. The immediate reaction by the US military was to flatly deny that any civilians had been killed. An inquiry by the UN which confirmed the scores of civilian deaths was scorned by the military. Unfortunately for them, a local doctor had taken photographs showing 40 bodies, mostly children and young women. Many of them had been his patients.

After the slaughter, the Afghan Women's Association recorded a 25 year-old woman as saying that when she regained consciousness "I was in hospital, and they told me that all of my family were dead and already buried. Was my two-year-old child a terrorist? Then am I not also a terrorist? Why did they let me live?" And "Ghulam Azrat, 50, director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies after the bombing. "We put the bodies in the main mosque. Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them" [he told Associated Press]."

But even then, even after they had been forced to hold an inquiry that eventually had to admit that civilians were killed, the US military stated "US and Afghan forces did not commit any violations of the law of war or rules of engagement." This was because there were supposedly "22 anti-coalition militants" killed. In fact, of the fifteen males killed, only seven were under 40; the others were ancients.

One survivor said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor's sons running across. "They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old." In the compound next to his, he said, four whole families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. "They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us," he said. "God will punish them."

Well, God might punish them, eventually. But they seem safe enough from justice while on earth. The sadistic torturers; the incompetent arrogant oafs who killed the policemen ; the gung-ho gangsters who murdered the children in Azizabad; the liars who tried to cover up – all will go unpunished.

Will there be change under Obama? Will he order a case review of the 15,000 people held without charge or trial, without legal advice, in hellish conditions, without hope, by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will he be able to release from captivity the unknown number of people kept in foreign jails by arrangement with US intelligence operatives? Will he make it his business to ensure that the demented out-of-control special forces be reined in? Will he order inquiries into torture? Will he, above all, insist on the truth being told? Watch this space.

Brian Cloughley's book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and will be published in the US in May by Skyhorse (New York).

Source: www.counterpunch.org/cloughley12242008.html

USA – Seyed Mahmood Mousavi is Mysteriously Transferred

On December 12, 2008 Seyed Mahmood Mousavi was suddenly transferred to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City.

There is no news of Seyed Mahmood Mousavi's conditions as he is not allowed to call his family or attorneys. No letters have arrived either.

Seyed Mahmood Mousavi will be held at the FTC for an undetermined time before he is sent to the next facility. We are greatly concerned for Seyed Mousavi's health as the prison has a record of mistreating him (see Prison Harassment [http://www.freeseyedmousavi.com/page.php?id=71]). It is feared that Seyed Mousavi will be transferred to CMU [Communication Management Unit] in Indiana.

CMU is a "medium security" terrorism unit, which the federal government established a few years ago. There are about 300 inmates in that unit, and all are Arab or Muslim. No phone calls will be allowed; only two 2-hour visitations from behind a glass will be given to immediate family members per month; and all communication must be conducted in English; mail is delayed and inmates are constantly monitored by cameras.

[visit here to read more: www.freeseyedmousavi.com/index.php?action=view&id=9]

Previous press releases and articles on Seyed Mousavi’s case may be viewed via links below:

www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=3638

www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=3662

www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=3667

Source: www.ihrc.org.uk

'Australian Taleban' Fully Free

An Australian former inmate of the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay is now a free man after strict control orders limiting his activities were lifted.

David Hicks spent more than five years at Guantanamo Bay without a trial before admitting to charges of providing material support to al-Qaeda. In return, he was allowed in May 2007 to serve out the last nine months of his sentence in an Australian prison.

Hicks, a convert to Islam, was captured by US troops in Afghanistan in 2001.

The former kangaroo wrangler was the first "enemy combatant" held at Guantanamo to be convicted by a US military commission.

'Still Recovering'

The control orders limiting his movements expired at midnight on Saturday.

Australian police said they would not ask the courts to extend the measures after Hicks made a public appeal to be allowed to "get on with my life".

He was subject to a strict curfew and restrictions on his travel and had to report regularly to police. His telephone and internet communications were also limited.

Hicks has admitted to training with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and meeting its leader, Osama Bin Laden.

The 33-year-old has said he is recovering still from his ordeal at Guantanamo Bay and is not ready yet to tell his story. But he has said he will do so.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7794228.stm

Cageprisoners Press Release:
British Detainee Reveals Location of 'Ghost' Detainee & British Complicity In Torture

Rangzieb Ahmed, a British citizen convicted last week of directing potential terrorism activities in the UK has given Cageprisoners permission to release the testimony of his unlawful detention and torture in Pakistan.

The testimony was used as part of a pre-trial session in his case where it was revealed that he was abused to the extent that his fingernails were torn out. Despite the significance of such testimony to his activities in Pakistan, the court refused to allow for the information to be made available to the jury when considering the case before them.

During his detention in Pakistan, Ahmed reveals that he was detained alongside Hassan Ghul, one of the many ‘ghost’ detainees kept in secret detention by the CIA. Ghul was detained in Iraq in 2004 and has been missing in US custody since the revelation by Ahmed.

The testimony of Ahmed further points to the complicity of the British security services in the unlawful detention and torture of British suspects abroad.

Cageprisoners has published the full testimony on its website and it can be downloaded at the following link:

www.cageprisoners.com/downloads/RangziebAhmed.pdf

Ahmed is not the only British citizen to have been treated in such a way. Cageprisoners also today publishes the testimony of Zeeshan Siddiqui, a man who was tortured in Pakistan before returning to the UK and placed under a control order. His testimony can be found at the following link:

www.cageprisoners.com/downloads/ZeeshanSiddiqui.pdf

_____

Cageprisoners is a human rights organisation that exists to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror. We aim to give a voice to the voiceless.

Media
Contact: Asim Qureshi
Email: asim.q@cageprisoners.com
Number: 0044 (0) 7973264197

Help Needed - 7th anniversary of GITMO!!

There are only three weeks left now until the world bears witness to the seventh anniversary of the opening of the "detention camp" at Guantánamo Bay. Join us and be a part of history as we mark this sad anniversary and call on the new American president to shut it down once and for all.

Below are the final details of the local stalls that are being held in various parts of London. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to join one and if you haven't, what are you waiting for? 11 January is a SUNDAY so most people should have a day off in any case...

Saturday 10 January: 10.30am: South London stall:meet at St. John's Road, Clapham Junction, London SW11 (opposite Starbucks) to hand out leaflets, collect signatures on our petition to the US Embassy, raise awareness about the worldwide regime of torture and arbitrary detention that has gone on for far too long. This action is organised by Wandsworth Stop The War and the London Guantánamo Campaign.

Sunday 11 January: North London - led by Aisha Maniar - 12-2pm Camden Market, NW1 (meet at Camden Town tube at 11.30am) NW London - led by Christine MacLeod - 12-2pm Kilburn Square, Kilburn High Road, NW6
West London - led by Abdul Jalil Bain - 12-2pm, Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park
East London - led by Aman Fida - 12-2pm, Whitechapel Road, E1 (meet outside Whitechapel tube at 11.30am)

If you would like to join a group, please reply to this email, so that you can be put in touch with the group leader. We will be holding a briefing, as no prior knowledge of the campaign, what is happening at Guantánamo Bay or the issues involved is expected. Tentatively this will be on Monday 5 January or Tuesday 6 January at 7-9pm either in central London (if anyone can suggest a suitable venue) or in Willesden Green (NW London, Jubilee line). If you are hoping to take part in the stalls, it would be good if you can attend and can let us know which day is best for you to attend the briefing.

Volunteers are also needed on Wednesday 7 January and Thursday 8 January in the evening (5-6pm) to help hand out leaflets advertising the demonstration. If you can leaflet in central London and/or Queen's Park/Ladbroke Grove tube stations at this time, please get in touch with Aisha by replying to this email or call/text 07809 757 176.

The final flyer including the names of most of the speakers (there might be a few surprises on the day) is attached. Speakers confirmed to address the demonstration outside the US Embassy include Andy Worthington, Jean Lambert MEP, Sarah Ludford MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Imam Shakeel Begg, Bruce Kent, Joy Hurcombe (Brighton Against Guantánamo) and hip hop artists Mohammed Yahya and Mecca II Medina. Also on Facebook www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16939923951#/event.php?eid=47236176873

The London Guantánamo Campaign
www.guantanamo.org.uk/
london.gtmo@googlemail.com

Guantanamo Closure Plan Ordered

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has ordered his staff to draw up plans to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Gates had asked for a plan on "what will be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, and at the same time protect the American people from dangerous terrorists".

Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has said he wants to close the Guantanamo Bay camp, which has been widely criticised by international human rights groups for treatment of its detainees.

"If this is one of the president-elect's first orders of business, the secretary wants to be prepared to help him as soon as possible," Morrell said.

The camp was opened in 2002 to hold prisoners captured during the Bush administrations so-called war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since then it has been criticised over reports of abuses, including the use of harsh interrogation practices such as waterboarding, which simulates the sensation of drowning, the military tribunals faced by detainees.

Among the issues to be settled before the prison closes are what to do about the military tribunals under way and the fate of about 60 detainees that US officials have approved for transfer to their home countries.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, and four others, pleaded guilty to war crimes charges at the tribunals earlier this month.

Closure Call

Appointed by George Bush, the US president, as defence secretary, Gates has agreed to stay on in the Obama administration.

Gates has also said Guantanamo should be closed. "I think we can provide alternatives to it," he said in an interview on Wednesday with PBS television in the US. "I would like to see it closed. And I think it will be a high priority for the new administration," he said.

But he also said that closing the prison will require passage of laws to prevent dangerous detainees from being released in the US.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/12/2008121822716620698.html

Cheney Faces 'Torture' Criticism

A senior US Democrat has condemned Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, for his defence of waterboarding "terror" suspects, saying the abuse amounted to torture and warning there could be prosecutions over the issue under a new administration.

Cheney on Monday told ABC News he was aware and had supported the use of waterboarding on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

But Carl Levin, senator for Michigan and chairman of senate armed services committee, told NBC when asked if Cheney had essentially admitted condoning torture that "as far as I'm concerned that's exactly what he admitted".

"He'll say that he doesn't admit supporting torture but facts are that [these are] the policies which were approved," he said. "I think every authority on waterboarding and torture will say that waterboarding constitutes torture."

Waterboarding is a controversial interrogation technique used to make a detainee feel as if he or she is drowning.

Last week, a report by the US senate armed services committee involving both Republicans and Democrats said the abuse of detainees in Guantanamo Bay "cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own".

'Clearing Process'

Cheney admitted on Monday he was aware that waterboarding was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

Asked if he thought, in hindsight, any of the tactics went too far, Cheney said: "I don't."

"I was aware of the programme, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," he said.

"And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

Legal Assertions

However, Levin also said he strongly disagreed with Cheney's assertions that the justice department had provided legal justification for waterboarding.

"You can't suddenly change something that's illegal into something that is legal by having a lawyer write an opinion saying it's legal," Levin said later. "It is not a defence and I was astounded, frankly, when I heard the vice-president of the US sort of just blandly and blithely saying he felt it was an appropriate thing and, yes, he was involved in discussions about it."

Levin also said he hoped that an independent commission appointed by the administration of Barack Obama, the US president-elect, would examine the possible role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and instigate investigations which "which may or may not lead to indictments or civil action".

More than 200 detainees remain at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, which has been widely condemned by international human rights groups.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/12/20081218155537836929.html

Guantanamo 'Worst Place On Earth'

An Algerian-born man who has just been freed from Guantanamo Bay has described the US "war on terror" camp as the worst place on Earth, in an interview published in a Bosnian newspaper.

"For almost seven years, I was at the end of the world, at the worst place in the world,'' Mustafa Ait Idir told the Dnevni Avaz a day after arriving back in his adopted homeland of Bosnia. "It would have been hard even if I had done something wrong (but) it is much harder if one is totally innocent,'' he said.

Mr Idir, along with two other detainees released from Guantanamo, Mohamed Nechla and Hadji Boudella, arrived in Bosnia yesterday.

The three, who were held at Guantanamo for almost seven years, were the first inmates to have been released by the US administration of President George W. Bush under a judge's orders.

"You can well imagine how happy I am now. We all cried together,'' Mr Idir said, referring to his wife and children.

On arrival at Sarajevo airport, the trio were questioned by police and then released to be reunited with their families.

The three were among six Algerians arrested in late 2001 on suspicion of plotting an attack on the US embassy in Sarajevo. They had been living in Bosnia where they had been given nationality.

In January 2002, although a Bosnian court released them due to lack of evidence, they were transferred to the US camp Bay in Cuba.

But on November 20, more than seven years after the opening of the Guantanamo prison, a US judge acknowledged that five of the six men had been illegally detained and ordered their release, in the first such ruling.

Bosnian Muslim politicians welcomed the trio's return. "The United States found strength to admit that these people were not guilty and it is a great thing,'' Sulejman Tihic, the head of Bosnia's strongest Muslim political grouping, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), told Dnevni Avaz.

SDA vice-president Bakir Izetbegovic told the daily that "their release is notably good for Bosnia-Hercegovina because it confirms that there are no terrorist cells here''.

Source: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24816310-12335,00.html

Shoe Protest

Date: Friday 19 December
Time: 1pm
Venue: US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

Muntadar Al-Zaidi, the journalist who hurled his shoes at George Bush in protest at the destruction of Iraq, has not been seen since his arrest. The international federation of Journalists and Journalists Sans Frontieres have called for his release.

Media Workers Against the War will be handing a letter of protest at the US embassy and we will be sending a farewell gift to Bush, a box of old shoes!

'I Was Still Holding My Grandson's Hand - The Rest Was Gone'

It was 7.30 on a hot July morning when the plane came swooping low over the remote ravine. Below, a bridal party was making its way to the groom's village in an area called Kamala, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, to prepare for the celebrations later that day.

The first bomb hit a large group of children who had run on ahead of the main procession. It killed most of them instantly.

A few minutes later, the plane returned and dropped another bomb, right in the centre of the group. This time the victims were almost all women. Somehow the bride and two girls survived but as they scrambled down the hillside, desperately trying to get away from the plane, a third bomb caught them. Hajj Khan was one of four elderly men escorting the bride's party that day.

"We were walking, I was holding my grandson's hand, then there was a loud noise and everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my grandson's hand but the rest of him was gone. I looked around and saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn't make out which part was which."

Relatives from the groom's village said it was impossible to identify the remains. They buried the 47 victims in 28 graves.

Stories like this are relatively common in today's Afghanistan. More than 600 civilians have died in Nato and US air strikes this year. The number of innocents killed this way has almost doubled from last year, and tripled from the year before that. These attacks are weakening support for the Afghan government and turning more and more people against the foreign occupation of the country.

"If things were going OK maybe we could accept the occasional mistake. But with the economy the way it is, the worsening security situation, and the lack of development - when they kill civilians on top of everything else, it's too much for people," says Jahid Mohseni who runs Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most popular television station, with his two brothers.

The US military initially denied any civilians had been killed in the Kamala bombing but later said they were investigating the incident. When asked this week for an explanation of events on that morning in July, the US military in Afghanistan said they were unfamiliar with the specifics but would look into it.

The latest figures from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, taken a month ago, suggest about 750 civilians have been killed by foreign forces this year. Most were killed in air strikes. The remainder were shot by jumpy soldiers, who often open fire in crowded public places after an attack on one of their convoys.

Humanitarian aid agencies say privately that they believe the figure is significantly higher, as many victims classed as "insurgents" are actually non-combatants.

As the situation deteriorates across the country, the killing of civilians is seen as a final affront in a litany of mistakes by the foreign forces in Afghanistan. Patience among ordinary Afghans has worn thin and anger grows with each attack.

In July this year hundreds of Afghans took to the street in Nangarhar province after the air strike on the wedding party. The riots turned violent as protesters raged against the foreign occupiers and the government they support. The army eventually had to be called in to quell the rioting.

Civilian casualties are not new to Nangarhar province - last year a convoy of US Marines hit by a bomb attack subsequently opened fire in a bazaar killing 16 people. The marines involved were sent home and their officers charged, but a subsequent ruling cleared them of responsibility for the deaths.

Nato and US spokesmen say their forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. But all too often after an air strike, they deny civilians are among the dead or claim far fewer were killed.

A recent Human Rights Watch report said US investigations, when launched, have been "unilateral, ponderous, and lacking in transparency, undercutting rather than improving relations with local populations and the Afghan government".

The routine denials and hands-off attitude are contributing to a growing sense among Afghans that their lives are cheap in the eyes of the foreigners.

"We know they don't intend to kill the civilians but we don't believe they care enough not to," said Ahmad Zia, a jeweller in Kabul's busy bazaar. "If it continues we will see a lot more people joining the fight against the foreigners. It's inevitable."

The accidental targeting of wedding parties in Afghanistan has only deepened resentment. Last month 27 people were killed when a wedding party was bombed near Kandahar. It was the third wedding party to be hit this year alone.

He says many of the incidents result when planes are brought in to protect forces coming under fire. "Their troops are in trouble so they call in the air strikes without considering that it is a civilian area."

Sharif Hassanyar, a former interpreter with US Special Forces who is now working as a journalist, described how decisions were taken to bomb areas based on flimsy intelligence. "I remember when I was working with a group of Rangers and a spy in the area told them the Taliban were training in a garden of a house so they bombed the house, without checking the information. Afterwards they found out that there had not been any Taliban there, only civilians were killed by the bombs," he said.

Informants for the foreign forces often give bad information either accidentally or because they are pursuing tribal or personal vendettas against individuals in neighbouring villages, he added.

"The Taliban grow very strong in the aftermath of each attack," said Hassanyar. Mullah Zubiallah Akhond, a Taliban commander in Oruzgan province, says the attacks are sending recruits his way daily. "The people who are fighting with the Taliban are the brothers, uncles and relatives of those killed by the Americans. They have joined the Taliban and are fighting the Americans because they want to avenge their brothers, fathers or cousins," he says.

"There are now Taliban in every village, many of them have rejoined the movement after the savage attacks carried out by the Americans."

He believes the attacks have helped turn their fight against the foreigners into a nationwide popular struggle. "When an American vehicle is blown up every day on the main road in Wardak, the order is not coming from the Taliban leadership. It is the people themselves who have turned against the foreigners. They have come together in their villages and do not allow the foreigners to pass through their areas."

It is not just the deaths from air strikes that are poisoning the hearts of Afghans. In the capital, Kabul, each day, terrified drivers swerve out of the way as foreign troops hurtle through the streets in their armoured convoys training their rifles on the drivers and pedestrians and shouting obscenities: "Stay the fuck back!"

The Afghans know to keep out of the way. Last year a US military convoy ploughed into several vehicles, killing seven people including a family. The incident sparked a riot involving thousands of angry Kabul residents. It was suppressed only after the security forces started shooting protesters on the streets. At least 15 people were killed.

"The anti-American feelings in Afghanistan are not just coming from conservative or religious elements," said Shukria Barakzai, a female MP. "These feelings stem from the actions and military operations of the foreign troops. The anti-western sentiment is directly because of the military actions, the civilian casualties, and the lack of respect by foreign troops for Afghan culture."

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/16/afghanistan-taliban-us-foreign-policy

Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

You've got to hand it to them. Torture aficionados at the White House and CIA have conned key congressional leaders into insisting not only that torture-lite would be a swell idea, but advocating also that the overseers of torture be kept on.

From change-you-can-believe-in we seem to be slipping back to fear-you-can-trade-on. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has publicly warned those in charge of the administration transition that "continuity is going to be pivotal in keeping us safe and secure." Thus, he argues, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden should stay in their posts.

If that were not enough, Reyes told Congress Daily's Chris Strohm, that he (Reyes) had advised the Obama team that some parts of what Strohm referred to as "CIA's controversial alternative interrogation program" should be allowed to continue. Using some of the same euphemisms and circumlocutions employed by the ersatz-lawyers hired by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Reyes fired this shot across the bow of Barack Obama's transition ship:

"It gets back to a world that is very dangerous...there are some options that need to be available...We don't want to be known for torturing people. At the same time, we don't want to limit our ability to get information that's vital and critical to our national security. That's where the new administration is going to have to decide what those parameters are, what those limitations are."

Background

Someone needs to tell Reyes what those parameters, what those limitations should be. They are set by the Geneva accords and the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. Those are the laws that President George W. Bush's overly clever lawyers told him he could safely-well, pretty safely-disregard, because of the "new paradigm" post 9/11.

Pretty safely? Even those Mafia-type lawyers felt it necessary to warn their clients that Section 2441 of the U.S. War Crimes Act, passed by a Republican-led Congress in 1996, could conceivably come back to haunt the president and others who approved or took part in torture. This is the best they could do by way of offering reassurance:

"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441. Your determination [that Geneva does not apply to al-Qaeda and Taliban] would create a reasonable basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution."

If that sounds like the kind of advice one would expect to get from lawyers for the Mob, that's because it is. The casuistry virtually drips from a Jan. 25, 2002 memorandum for the president drafted by then-counsel to the Vice President, David Addington and signed by then-counsel to the president, Alberto Gonzales. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell objected for a day or so but then saluted sharply, as is his wont.

As will be seen below, the lawyers' advice did come back to haunt the president, putting him in a cold sweat until he got Congress to grant him retroactive immunity.

To say President Bush was dumb to take their dubious advice is not the half of it. Really dumb was his decision to put it in writing. You see, the goons uncovered by CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were not about to torture without a signed authorization from the president. So Bush decided to go ahead on the basis of the Addington/Gonzales opinion and signed a presidential memorandum on Feb. 7, 2002 incorporating that advice.

The opinion is written verbatim, twice, into that short executive memorandum. Over the president's large felt-tip signature appears convoluted text depicting, despite itself, a circle that refuses to be squared. Bush orders that detainees be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva."

That was the official start of post-9/11 torture authorized from the top, although an American, John Walker Lindh, was the first to be actually tortured after his capture in Afghanistan in late Nov. 2001, when senior Justice Department officials deliberately chose not to prevent his mistreatment. In the wake of the smoking-gun presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, subsequent memos by the administration's Mob lawyers were mostly ex post facto attempts at CYA.

Shame

What incalculable shame this has brought on the U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency, in both of which I was privileged to serve. I am hardly the first to use a Mafia analogy.

Consider the case of Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who was the first to investigate the Abu Ghraib prison abuse-the most glaring result of the president's memo and Rumsfeld's implementing instructions. "Make sure this happens!" in Rumsfeld's handwriting appeared on a memo over Rumsfeld's signature that was prominently posted at Abu Ghraib.

Taguba issued a tough report, which was then leaked to the press-and thus was largely responsible for preventing the scandal from being swept entirely under the rug. Rather than thank Taguba for upholding the honor of the U.S. military, the Bush administration singled him out for ridicule, retribution, and forced retirement.

Taguba told Seymour Hersh of a chilling conversation he had with Gen. John Abizaid, then head of Central Command, a few weeks after Taguba's report became public in 2004. Sitting in the back of Abizaid's Mercedes sedan in Kuwait, Abizaid quietly told Taguba, "You and your report will be investigated."

"I'd been in the Army 32 years by then," Taguba told Hersh, "and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia."

Getting Squared Away

The Army, to its credit, was able to push brownnoses like Abizaid off to the margins and, more important, to keep Mafia-type lawyers out of the process of updating the Army Field Manual for interrogation. Such was not the case at CIA, where Mob lawyers continued to prosper-including the one who offered interrogators the following basic guidance: "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

I like to think that our nation's decisions are not totally bereft of moral considerations, and that a majority of Americans would agree that torture-like rape or slavery-is intrinsically evil. But it is also intrinsically dumb. And an Army general with guts said precisely that on the very day President Bush was extolling the merits of "alternative sets of procedures" for interrogation.
Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, a career intelligence officer and expert in interrogations, minced no words in describing the new Army Field Manual (FM 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collection Operations). He stressed that it is "consistent with the requirements of law, the Detainee Treatment Act, and the Geneva Conventions, and that it was endorsed by the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI, Kimmons said "coordinated laterally with the CIA."

Doesn't take a crackerjack intelligence analyst to figure out why the CIA would not "endorse" it.

As a former Army intelligence officer who had to commit the previous interrogation field manual virtually to memory, I was particularly proud that Kimmons had the guts to seize the bull by the horns:

Conceding past "transgressions and mistakes," Kimmons insisted: "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.

"Moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility. And additionally, it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can't go there.

"Some of our most significant successes on the battlefield have been-in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically all of them have accrued from expert interrogators using mixtures of authorized, humane interrogation practices in clever ways that you would hope Americans would use them, to push the envelope within the bookends of the legal, moral, and ethical-now as further defined by this field manual. So we don't need abusive practices in there. Nothing good will come from them."

Kimmons emphasized that the new manual is written in "straightforward language for use by soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines; it is not written for lawyers." He explained that the field manual explicitly prohibits torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment.

No-Torture Commandments

Among the specific prohibitions mentioned by Kimmons were:

"-Interrogators may not force a detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner;

-They cannot use hoods or place sacks over a detainee's head or use duct tape over his eyes;

-They cannot beat or electrically shock or burn them or inflict other forms of physical pain-any form of physical pain;

-They may not use water boarding, hypothermia, or treatment which will lead to heat injury;

-They will not perform mock executions;

-They may not deprive detainees of the necessary food, water, and medical care; and

-They may not use dogs in any aspect of interrogation."

Meanwhile, just across the Potomac at the White House an hour later that same day (Sept. 6, 2006), President Bush devoted half of a long speech to cops-and-robbers examples, none of them confirmed or persuasive, showing how "tough" interrogation techniques-he called them "an alternative set of procedures"-had yielded information preventing all manner of catastrophe.

He made clear that his government had "changed its policies," giving intelligence personnel "the tools they need" to fight terrorists, and that he wanted the "CIA program" to continue. Bush appealed for and, just before Congress changed hands in Nov. 2006, succeeded in getting legislation granting retroactive immunity to him and other practitioners of "alternative" procedures.

It had been sweaty-palms time for the president. Two months earlier, on June 29, 2006, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court had ruled that Geneva DOES apply to al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees, and rejected the artifice of "unitary executive power" used by the Bush administration to "justify" practices like torture.

One senior Bush official is reported to have gone quite pale when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy raised the ante, warning that "violations of Common Article 3 [of Geneva] are considered 'war crimes.'" That threw a scare into a whole bunch of what one might call "unitary executives," prompting the president on Sept. 6 to plead with Congress to give "top priority" to new legislation holding them harmless for violation of Geneva. This they got in the "Military Commissions Act" passed by Congress and signed into law just before the mid-term elections in 2006.

Back to the Future, Mr. Chairman

Chairman Reyes, you may have been told that when fellow Texan Rep. Charlie Wilson took the reins of a House oversight panel, he immediately wrote to the operations people at CIA, saying, "Well, gentlemen, the fox is in the hen house. Do whatever you like." Your predecessor as House Intelligence Committee chair, Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, also gave the CIA free rein as long as then-Director George Tenet did the White House's bidding-whatever that bidding happened to be.

Is that how you see your role, Mr. Congressman? Is that why you have been running interference for the Bush/Cheney administration? Specifically, why did you stiff-arm those of your colleagues who wanted to put language into the FY09 Intelligence Authorization Bill ordering CIA interrogators to adhere to the Army Field Manual for interrogation?

Have a look at the above list of practices expressly forbidden by the manual. Have the folks in the hen house told you that some are absolutely necessary? Which ones strike your fancy?

You served in Vietnam. Did you see "alternative techniques" in use there? Could you visualize them being used on you-or your grandsons?

Do you think former Air Force General and now CIA Director Michael Hayden or former Navy Admiral Mike McConnell know more about effective interrogation techniques than the head of Army intelligence? Do you really think they are being candid with you?

Getting Snowed

Are you not aware that many of those on the operations side of CIA ply their trade as con men? Such activities are supposed to be directed abroad. But all too often they are applied with consummate, smirking skill to the Hill.

Don't believe the tales they tell you about the "successes" of torture techniques. They are normally told by folks with zero experience or folks simply snowing you. Take former Deputy Director John McLaughlin, for example. I have known John for 40 years; he would not recognize an interrogation if he tripped over one.

And he and his boss Tenet were so duplicitous that the former head of State Department intelligence permitted himself the undiplomatic comment that the two should have been shot for their role in deliberately falsifying intelligence-especially the bogus reporting about those non-existent "mobile biological weapons laboratories" in Iraq.

Not long ago, McLaughlin made the mistake of purveying the myth about how effective harsh interrogation techniques have been, with the usual "If you saw the intelligence I have seen..." Trouble was, the senior intelligence officer he was talking to had seen it all, and more, and answered, "I have seen all of it John. Either you are hopelessly naïve, incredibly credulous, or you are lying."

How McLaughlin and John Brennan, both eager accomplices of George Tenet, got picked for the intelligence transition team boggles the minds of those of us who are familiar with their role in the saddest and most unconscionable chapters of U.S. intelligence-regarding both analysis and operations.

But there they are, whispering into the credulous ears of people like Silvestre Reyes.

Chairman Reyes, go talk to Gen. Kimmons.

Source: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21435.htm

What are YOU Doing About It???

Dear friends,

There is now less than a month to go until the world bears sad witness to seven years of Guantánamo Bay, a visible stain and symbol of the lawlessness, scorn and disregard for human dignity and life in our times. While politicians, philosophers and Obama's advisers sit and discuss "how best to close Guantánamo", it is a disgrace that it has taken almost seven years for the question even to be seriously raised. Guantánamo Bay and other secret torture and detention facilities will only close and detainees will only be released to countries where their safety will be guaranteed when we give our politicians, both domestic and international, the moral impetus to do so that they patently lack.

To help nudge them in the right direction, the London Guantánamo Campaign is holding two days of action in January 2009. The success of these actions and their contribution to closing down Guantánamo Bay depend largely on YOU. One or two days of action will not wash away seven years of insult and injury to humanity nor the personal devastation suffered by the detainees, their families and communities, however we put to you the same question we put to the politicians, what are you doing about it?

Our day of action on Sunday 11 January will kick off at around at around midday (with the exception of South London) with local actions to raise awareness and talk to the public about Guantánamo Bay and human rights. We will be holding local stalls in:

South London: Wandsworth at 10.30-12.30pm (meet outside Asda on Lavender Hill SW11 – organised jointly by Wandsworth STWC and the LGC)
East London: Whitechapel at 12-2pm
North London: Camden Market at 12-2pm (meet outside Camden Town tube station at 11.30am)
West London: Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park at 12-2pm (meet outside Marble Arch tube station at 11.30am)
Northwest London: Kilburn Square, Kilburn High Road at 12-2pm (meet in Kilburn Square at 12pm)

The stalls will consist of some individuals dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods and others handing out leaflets to and speaking to the public. We will be collecting signatures on a petition to hand in to the US Embassy at a later date. We also hope to collect filmed or written statements from the public on why Guantánamo Bay should close down. Other ideas, including street theatre, are at the discretion of those involved. You can join as an individual or as a group for part of or the entire time. All the stall organisers are very friendly people so there's no need to be afraid. Please get in touch to be put in contact with the person organising the local stall you are interested in.

If you would like to organise a stall in your own area, please get in touch.

We will then be holding a demonstration outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, W1A at 3-5pm. Confirmed speakers include Andy Worthington, Jean Lambert, Bruce Kent, Imam Shakeel Begg, and others. Join us and call for this to be the LAST anniversary.

In the evening, we invite you to attend the launch of Cageprisoners' National Speaking Tour featuring Moazzam Begg, Sami Al-Haj and Christopher Arendt, Two Sides – One Story: Guantánamo from Both Sides of the Wire at 7pm at the Friend's Meeting House on Euston Road, NW1 (opposite Euston Station): http://cageprisoners.com/campaigns.php?id=818

Join us for a part of or the whole day!

On Tuesday 20 January, as new president Barack Obama is inaugurated, the LGC is holding a demonstration at 6-8pm outside the US Embassy in international solidarity with campaigners in the US from Witness Against Torture, who will start a vigil opposite the White House calling for the closure of GTMO and other illegal prisons under the "war on terror" within the first 100 days of the new presidency.

To organise these events, the LGC will be holding a planning meeting on Thursday 18 December at 7-9pm in the South Wing Council Room, at University College London, Gower Street, WC1E. The room is through the main entrance on Gower Street in the block to the right. X marks the spot on the map attached.

To get involved, join a group, make a suggestion, get more information, etc., even if you cannot attend the planning meeting, please reply to this email or call Aisha on 07809 757 176. Our actions are ALWAYS family and child-friendly, so younger people are more than welcome to join stalls and in the demonstration.

Take part in history in the making: let's shut down Guantánamo Bay. No more torture. No more arbitrary detention. No more anniversaries. Freedom and justice for all.

Source: London Guantánamo Campaign

U.S. Keeps Silent as Afghan Ally Removes War Crime Evidence

Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.

When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were filled with corpses.. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had fired into the metal containers. Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.

Earlier this year, bulldozers and backhoes returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity to sites unknown. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e-Leili desert.

A U.N.-sponsored team of experts first spotted two large excavations on a visit in June, one of them about 100 feet long and more than 9 feet deep in places. A McClatchy reporter visited the site last month and found three additional smaller pits, which apparently had been dug since June.

Faqir Mohammed Jowzjani, a former Dostum ally and the deputy governor of Jowzjan province, where the graves were located, told McClatchy that it's common knowledge that Dostum sent in the bulldozers. He speculated that Dostum wanted to destroy the evidence because of local political trouble that could have made him more prone to prosecution for the killings.

Last year, Dostum and the then-Jowzjan governor became embroiled in a feud that killed seven people and wounded more than 40. This year, Dostum and his men kidnapped and reportedly beat a rival Afghan leader.

"Maybe General Dostum did it because of a fear of prosecution in the future," Jowzjani said.

Another local Afghan official said that Dostum had begun to worry that the 2001 killings could come back to haunt him. "Everyone in the city (Sheberghan) knows that the evidence has been removed," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of worries about being killed for talking about the subject.

"When the crime happened, (Dostum and his commanders) didn't think they would ever be prosecuted," the official said. "But later they began to worry . . . they have taken all the bones and thrown them into the river" that's about half a mile from the graves.

NATO — which has command authority over a team of troops less than three miles from the grave site — the United Nations and the United States have been silent about the destruction of evidence of Dostum's alleged war crimes.

"The truth is that General Dostum went out with bulldozers and dug up those graves," Jowzjani charged. "I don't know why UNAMA" — the U.N. mission in Afghanistan — "hasn't said anything in this regard . . . maybe because of fears about his power, or maybe they made a deal."

Gen. Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, the commander of Afghanistan's national police in the north, said that he knew that the graves had been emptied. He noted that "the digging was done very professionally" and said that U.N. and NATO-led teams in the area were also aware. (While provincial reconstruction teams are led by individual nations, their military components are under NATO command.)

"I don't understand why they didn't secure the area," Patang said in an interview. Perhaps, he said, Western officials "are nervous" about the power that Dostum has locally and don't want to upset local security by pushing him on the matter.

Dostum was unavailable for comment, and one of his senior aides, Gen. Ghani Karim Zada, declined several interview requests.

The Bush administration, too, has remained silent. U.S. officials claimed that they had no knowledge of the deaths of the prisoners in the convoy until the news media revealed them in 2002, and now the administration has remained silent about Dostum's reported effort to destroy the evidence of them, which also would be a major violation of international law.

American officials say that Dostum's alleged war crimes are a matter for the Afghan authorities. But the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is weak and depends on American and NATO troops to fight a growing Taliban insurgency that now operates in most of Afghanistan and all but surrounds Kabul, the capital. However, the fact that U.S. special forces and CIA operatives were working closely with Dostum in late 2001, when the killings took place, has fueled suspicions that the warlord got a free pass.

The U.S. Defense Department has said that it found no evidence of American involvement or presence during the 2001 incident. If there was an investigation, however, its findings have never been made public. "At the time, we had a handful of special forces and CIA, and there was no way we could have exercised any oversight" of the thousands of detainees under Afghan control, said Joseph Collins, who was then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations.

When he was asked about the detainees suffocating in metal shipping containers, Collins, who's now a professor at the National War College, said that "I think most people just took for granted what he (Dostum) said: that it was a horrible accident."

McClatchy interviewed eight Pakistani men last year who said that Dostum's gunmen had stuffed them in the containers. The men, mostly low-level Taliban volunteers, said they'd had to climb over dozens of dead bodies to get out of the containers. "We were all sitting on the dead bodies which were lying on the floor; they were lifeless," said Abdul Haleem, who said that many of the approximately 200 men in his container died. "An arm was sticking up in the air here, a leg was sticking up in the air there."

Another man who said he'd made the trip to Sheberghan in a container full of dead and dying men was Tariq Khan. He said that when Dostum's men shot into the metal box, "some people were shot in the eye; some were shot in the neck."

Dostum offered to take Pierre-Richard Prosper, who was then the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, on a tour of the grave site in late 2002, but Prosper declined. He was pressing a reluctant Afghan government and the U.N. to take the lead in investigating the killings.

"We felt the Afghans needed to play a role," Prosper said in a telephone interview. "If you're a new government, and you want to move forward, you have to deal with the past."

However, no investigation was likely without strong U.S. backing, and Prosper said that he couldn't recall whether Washington ever gave funding for a probe.

Farid Mutaqi, a senior investigator for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in the nearby city of Mazar-e-Sharif, said that it was almost impossible to visit the site because of Dostum's power in northern Afghanistan.

Mutaqi said there'd been threats on his life and those of his staff members from Dostum. There are rumors that the site was mined and that Dostum's men would torture or kill people if they were caught researching in the area. At least three Afghans who witnessed the original digging of the mass grave or who investigated it later reportedly were killed, and a handful of others were beaten. Mutaqi said that he told officials at the United Nations and the local provincial reconstruction team that Dostum's men had disturbed the mass graves this year. They did nothing, he said. Now, Mutaqi said, "You can see only a hole. In the area around it you can find a few bones or some clothes. The site is gone . . . as for evidence, there is nothing."

A spokesman for the United Nations in Afghanistan, Adrian Edwards, acknowledged in an e-mail statement that the U.N. had known that the graves had been dug up but had kept quiet.

"You're right that we don't always make public statements, but that's because we're in a conflict environment and have to weigh up whether doing so will stall chances of progress against impunity in other areas or put lives at risk," the statement said. "It's a judgment call we constantly strive to get right, and this is not the only instance where the choices we have to make can be extraordinarily tough ones." Edwards noted that the U.N. is awaiting a report about the site by a forensic specialist.

The spokesman for the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said that while he didn't know the details of the digging at the site, "there cannot be impunity for war crimes of this nature and scale . . . it's a real shame." Spokesmen for NATO and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul denied knowing that the remains of hundreds of men had been removed from the site, and had no further comment.

"We have no information about bulldozers or digging at the site," said Lt. Cmdr. James Gater, a spokesman for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The U.S. general who heads NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, wouldn't do an interview, Gater said. U.S. Embassy spokesman Mark Stroh said that he'd checked with several officials at the embassy and "nobody seemed to have any visibility on this." Stroh added that "We don't necessarily monitor all of Dostum's behavior."

A McClatchy reporter, traveling without official escort, took GPS readings of the open pits last month, and a forensic investigator with Physicians for Human Rights, a group contracted by the U.N. to examine the site, confirmed that they were in the same area where the grave site was found in early 2002.

In May 2002, the U.N. announced that a Physicians for Human Rights team had dug a test trench in the area and found 15 bodies, three of which had been exhumed and found to have died recently of asphyxiation. In November 2002, amid the Physicians for Human Rights findings and news reports, a top-secret cable from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said that the number of people killed during transport to Sheberghan "may approach 2,000."

The cable also said that while there was no security at Dasht-e Leili, U.N. personnel from Mazar-e-Sharif were monitoring the grave " 'every few days' for signs of tampering." There'd been plans for a detailed forensic investigation of the site in spring 2003.

"The hope had been to do a full exhumation in 2003," said Nathaniel Raymond, a senior investigator at Physicians for Human Rights. "It didn't happen."

The U.N. monitoring of the site stopped. Edwards, the U.N. spokesman, said that he was still trying to reach officials who'd been present to get an explanation. The U.N., NATO, U.S. forces and the Afghan government never took any formal responsibility for patrolling the grave site.

Physicians for Human Rights made several requests to top U.S. officials to secure the mass graves, including an August 2002 letter to then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld asking that he "reconsider the position of the Defense Department and assure security at the grave site." Four months later, the organization sent a letter to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz saying that it was crucial to provide a small security detachment.

"From the time we discovered the site in January 2002, we had been advocating privately and publicly to the United Nations, the U.S. and the Afghan government to ensure consistent site protection and protection of forensic evidence," Frank Donaghue, the chief executive officer of Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement to McClatchy. "And clearly that did not happen."

Dostum has long experience with mass graves being used in the Afghan political arena. In 1997, he revealed the discovery of mass graves of Taliban members killed by a former ally turned rival, Gen. Abdul Malik Pahlawan, in the Dasht-e Leili desert. The grave sites, which Dostum's men brought in international journalists to document, helped cement Pahlawan's exile from the area at the time.

Afghanistan's attorney general, its top law enforcement official, said that given the bad security conditions in the country it was hard to think about investigating possible war crimes.

"So for the time being, we have put these issues off for the future," Mohammed Ishaq Aloko said in an interview at his Kabul office.

Aloko, who's seen as being very close to President Karzai, didn't respond directly to repeated questions about Dostum. "I believe that those who committed crimes against humanity will be prosecuted one day," Aloko said. Just not anytime soon, he said.

Source: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21446.htm

Senators Accuse Rumsfeld Over Abuse Of Detainees

A US Senate committee has accused the former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, of being directly responsible for the abusive interrogations of detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

After an 18-month investigation, the Senate's armed services committee concluded that Rumsfeld's approval of aggressive interrogation methods in December 2002 was a direct cause of abuses that began in Guantánamo and spread to Afghanistan and Iraq. They culminated in the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2003, where Iraqi detainees were found to have been forced into naked pyramids, sexually humiliated and threatened by dogs.

The Bush administration insisted the abuses had been the result of a few "bad apples" and that those responsible would be held accountable. The committee found neither those statements to be true.

"The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo [Guantánamo] and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples," said the Democratic chair of the committee, Carl Levin. "Attempts by senior officials to portray that to be the case while shrugging off any responsibility are both unconscionable and false."

No other congressional report has pointed the finger of blame so squarely at Bush and his senior advisers.

In hearings in June and September, the committee heard testimony that allowed it to piece together the chronology of events leading up to the Abu Ghraib abuses. It focused its attentions on Sere, a training system used to prepare US soldiers for aggressive interrogations so that they might endure if captured overseas.

The techniques were never intended to be used by US interrogators against their detainees. But in February 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush determined that the Geneva Conventions should not apply to terror suspects.

Following that ruling, techniques used in Sere training were applied against US detainees, and Rumsfeld gave his approval that December.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/usa-usforeignpolicy

Reprieve Press Release:
Portugal Urges EU States to Take In Freed GTMO Detainees

Reprieve is delighted that Portugal has become the first European state to offer a home to prisoners currently stranded in Guantanamo Bay. These are men who cannot be sent back to their home countries for risk of persecution.

In a letter sent to his European Union counterparts, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said Portugal was willing to grant refugee status to detainees who could not return to their home countries.

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to close the prison in Cuba, currently holding around 250 men. With today's pledge, Portugal has taken the lead in European efforts to assist the new Obama administration in closing Guantanamo.

Portugal is the first EU Member State to offer such direct assistance, but Reprieve hopes that other European countries will match this offer.

Clive Stafford Smith, Director of Reprieve said: "There are many prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay who have long since been cleared to leave that terrible prison. Ironically, they had to fight to stay in Guantanamo, because the Bush Adminisration wanted to send them to countries that would torture them some more, and no other nation would offer them a home. Portugal has done the right thing by these prisoners, by justice, and by the new Obama administration, to start repairing the damage done in the past few years. We urge other European states to follow suit."

Ana Gomes, Portuguese MEP said: "I hope other European states will appreciate the importance of this move by Portugal. I urge those governments to take similar steps in order to close this shameful chapter in transatlantic relations and to start assuming responsibility on a European level for the cooperation provided to the outgoing Administration in the framework of the so-called 'extraordinary renditions programme'"

Sarah Ludford, British MEP and member of the European Parliament Temporary Committee on Illegal Detentions, said: "I welcome the fact that at last an EU member state has had the integrity to take a lead in assisting the resettlement of Guantanamo prisoners cleared for release after their long illegal detention. MEPs including me have been urging such a move for a long time. It is some recompense for past collusion in the abuses of CIA rendition. Other EU states including the UK must now follow suit, to help Barack Obama remove this stain on America's reputation."

For further information please contact: Clare Algar - Clare.algar@reprieve.org.uk / 0207 427 1099

Reprieve is engaged in a joint effort with CCR, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and FIDH calling on European countries to reach out to the new administration and accept refugees.

Reprieve is a legal action charity, founded by Clive Stafford Smith in 1999. Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. We investigate, litigate and educate. Working on the frontline, we provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves, promoting the rule of law around the world, and securing each person's right to a fair trial. In doing so, we save lives.

Ex-Minister Slates UK Policy on Afghanistan

The former Foreign Office minister with responsibility for Afghanistan yesterday accused the country of being corrupt "from top to bottom", and said the international community had wrongly treated President Hamid Karzai with kid gloves.

The criticism came from Kim Howells, who was in charge of the Afghanistan brief for three-and-a-half years until he stepped down as a foreign affairs minister in the October government reshuffle. The remarks reflect his considered judgment on what has been described as the most difficult foreign policy challenge facing the UK government and its armed forces.

Breaking his silence on the issue, he told MPs: "Institutionally, Afghanistan is corrupt from top to bottom. There are few signs that the chaotic hegemony of warlords, gangsters, presidential placemen, incompetent and under-resourced provincial governors and self-serving government ministers has been challenged in any effective way by President Karzai.

"On the contrary, those individuals appear to be thriving, not least because Hamid Karzai has convinced himself that he cannot afford to sack or challenge the strongmen who, through corruption, brutality, power of arms or tribal status are capable of controlling their territories and fiefdoms."

Howells told the Guardian that Karzai had repeatedly put pressure on the Foreign Office not to back the dismissal of corrupt and brutal provincial governors.

He told MPs that British public support for the war in Afghanistan was fragile. The government, he said, "will be asked, quite properly, why the lives of our service personnel should be risked ... We will be asked why we are fighting to preserve what looks remarkably like a regime that is being undermined by corrupt cliques that have access to the highest levels."

He said the government had to change its "daft" rhetoric on the war. "Forget the nonsense about being prepared to fight on the mountains and plains of Afghanistan for 30 years. People will not accept the notion that British families should send their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters to risk their lives fighting religious fanatics, tribal nationalists, corrupt warlords and heroin traffickers in one of the most godforsaken terrains on the face of the earth. The notion is daft, however much we may try to rationalise it by arguing that it is better to fight al-Qaeda over there than over here."

He said the only hope of peace lay in Nato countries being more willing to fight, especially the Germans, and in persuading Karzai to tackle corruption and start a proper process of reconciliation.

Howells' remarks come as Gordon Brown conducts a review of Britain's Afghan policy in light of Barack Obama's decision to make Afghanistan his main priority. Howells is chairman of the intelligence and security committee responsible for overseeing the security services, an appointment that reflects the high standing he is still held in by Downing Street.

He was joined by another former foreign office minister, Derek Twigg, who said he had been constantly frustrated by the failure of Britain's Nato partners to commit themselves to fighting in Afghanistan.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/11/afghanistan-kim-howells-corruption-karzai

CCR Update

Today, CCR argued the case of innocent Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar in federal court. Maher was changing planes at JFK on his way home when he was sent to Syria to be tortured, interrogated and kept in a tiny underground cell for a year - the U.S. officials responsible, including John Ashcroft and FBI head Robert Mueller, want to keep his case out of court.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Jamal Iqbal, one of hundreds of Muslim, Arab and South Asian men rounded up in the New York area after 9/11 based on their religion and race. Ashcroft v. Iqbal is a companion case to CCR's class action, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, on behalf of the men swept up on minor immigration charges and kept in abusive conditions until they were cleared of any connection to terrorism. Muslim immigrants were treated as guilty of terrorism until proven innocent, and again, the U.S. officials responsible want to keep the case out of court.

It is fitting then, that this Wednesday, December 10, marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document championed by Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations in 1948 that still provides the finest guide to the most important rights inherent to all human beings.

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the UN General Assembly, it was the first time that the fundamental freedoms and rights of all people were set forth in detail by the international community. As World War II ended, the 58 Member States of the UN, despite wide variations in ideological, cultural, and political contexts, laid out a common vision for a world where every person is entitled to equal justice, opportunity and dignity without discrimination. Its principles continue to inspire national legislation and the constitutions of many new countries. Embodied within the UDHR are the right to life, liberty, and security of person, the right to be free from torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, the right to a fair and public hearing, the right to an adequate standard of living for health and well-being, the right to work, education, medical care and other essential social services and the right to freedom of opinion, expression and peaceful assembly and association. These are inherent rights belonging to all people and cannot be granted or withdrawn by anyone or any government.

CCR recognizes this anniversary by renewing the call for accountability to these critical universal standards. Accountability must be a cornerstone to any human rights agenda. Although a majority of states are legally bound to uphold their commitment to human rights and the UDHR, the reality is shockingly different. As a country, we do not guarantee shelter, medical care, or jobs to our citizens and residents. Racial profiling of Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities after 9/11, detention without trial, torture, the use of coerced evidence and other abhorrent practices that have come to define the current administration's "war on terror" show the United States consistently violating the human rights standards it is bound by. Through litigation and organizing, CCR is fighting to establish accountability for these standards at all levels of government and to achieve justice for the victims of human rights violations.

If you would like to help us continue our mission to protect and expand these rights through our ground-breaking litigation and advocacy, please consider making a gift this season.

Source: www.ccrjustice.org

Reprieve Press Release:
Guantanamo Guilty Pleas‏

Five men -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who are charged with plotting the September 11 attacks -- have told a military judge today that they wish to plead guilty and confess their crimes. This will avoid their being tried, and set up their execution.

"This serves to reinforce the US Attorney General Michael C. Mukasey's position that seeking the death penalty against these people makes little sense," said Reprieve Executive Director, Clare Algar. "If the five want to become martyrs, what is the point of handing them their wish rather than a sentence of life in prison?"

By entering a guilty plea, they are seeking to obtain a death penalty verdict before President-elect Obama takes office and makes good on his promises to close Guantánamo Bay and regularise the judicial proceedings.

"Pressing forward with this is a last ditch effort by the Bush Administration to make the catastrophic Guantánamo experiment seem to have achieved something," said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve. "It is another poisoned chalice Bush is leaving for Barack Obama, who will have to reverse the death sentences to fulfil his promise to dissolve the Guantánamo legacy."

After the years of isolation and torture, Reprieve reports that at least one of the prisoners, Ramzi bin al Shibh, is so mentally ill that his military lawyers have found him to be mentally unfit to proceed. "Pressing forward with an execution under these circumstances would see Guantánamo plumb yet another depth of lawlessness," said Stafford Smith.

Back story:

The five prisoners are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Walid bin Attash; Ramzi bin al Shibh; Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (Ammar al-Baluchi).

"U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday he is 'kind of hoping' the prisoners facing military trials in connection with the September 11 attacks do not receive the death penalty, which would fulfill their desire to be martyrs." (March 14, 2008, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/14/mukasey.911/)

For further information, please contact Clive Stafford Smith (07940 347125; clivess@mac.com); or Reprieve's Press Office on 020 7427 1099.

Note for Editors:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person's right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 25 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve's current casework involves representing 33 prisoners in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, working on behalf of prisoners facing the death penalty, and conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of 'ghost prisoners' in the so-called 'war on terror.'

Reprieve, PO Box 52742, London EC4P 4WS / Tel: 020 7353 4640 / Fax: 020 7353 4641 / Email: info@reprieve.org.uk / Website: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/

Top 9/11 Suspects To Plead Guilty

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants have said they want to plead guilty at a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo Bay. But Mr Mohammed said he would postpone entering his plea until an investigation into the mental state of two of his co-defendants was complete.

Military Judge Col Stephen Henley had ordered the probe into whether the two were mentally competent to stand trial.

The five men face death sentences if convicted of roles in the 2001 attacks.

Correspondents say no trial date has been set and there seems little chance that one will begin before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

He has said he is opposed to the military tribunal and has pledged to close down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

'No Intimidation'

For the first time, nine relatives of the 9/11 victims were flown to Cuba by the US military to watch Monday's pre-trial hearing.

Amid heavy military security, they sat in court behind a glass screen only yards from Mr Mohammed and his four co-defendants, shielded from the media by a blue curtain.

At the opening of the proceedings, the military judge read aloud a letter in which the men said they wanted to withdraw all pending defence motions filed by their court-appointed lawyers and requested "an immediate hearing session to announce our confessions."

The five said they had made their decision "without being under any kind of pressure, threat, intimidations or promise from any party," Col Henley told the court. When asked by the judge if he was prepared to enter a plea of guilty to all the charges should he be allowed to, Mr Mohammed said "yes". "We don't want to waste time," he added, according to the AFP news agency.

But he later refused to enter his plea, telling the court he wanted to stand trial alongside all of his co-accused. "We want everyone to plead together," he said.

Two of the defendants, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ramzi Binalshibh, have been precluded from immediately filing pleas as the judge has ordered mental competency hearings for them. He must also determine whether the defendants have come under any pressure to plead guilty from anyone, including each other.

Mr Mohammed, believed to have been al-Qaeda's third-in-command, has already admitted being responsible "from A to Z" for the 9/11 attacks and confessed to being involved in more than 30 terrorist plots around the world, according to the Pentagon.

At a previous hearing in June, when told he faced the death penalty, Mr Mohammed said he had been looking to "be a martyr for long time".

His co-defendants, three of whom have also said they wish to become martyrs, are:

- Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni described by the US as the co-ordinator of the 9/11 attacks who, according to intelligence officials, was supposed to be have been one of the hijackers, but was unable to get a US visa

- Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi man said by US intelligence officials to be one of two key financial people used by Mr Mohammed to arrange the funding for the 11 September hijackings

- Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Amar al-Balochi, who is accused of serving as a key lieutenant to Mr Mohammed, his uncle

- Walid Bin Attash, a Yemeni national who, according to the Pentagon, has admitted masterminding the bombing of the American destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and is also accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks

Appearing before the court on Monday with a long grey beard and dressed in white, Mr Mohammed also said he wanted to dispense with the services of his US military lawyer.

He said the officer assigned to him had served six months in Iraq and that he could not accept someone responsible for "killing our brothers and sisters in Iraq". He later added in English: "I'm not differentiating between the judge, [US President George W] Bush and the CIA, who tortured me. I am not trusting any Americans."

Following his capture in Pakistan in 2003, Mr Mohammed was held at a CIA secret prison, where he was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and a practice known as "waterboarding", which simulates drowning, until he was moved to Guantanamo Bay two years ago.

Controversial Trial

Clive Stafford Smith, of the legal rights charity, Reprieve, which represents several Guantanamo detainees, told the BBC the men were not fit to plead, accusing the US and its allies of using torture.

If the men's requests to plead guilty are eventually granted by the military commission, they will be permitted to enter pleas at a future hearing. However, the process could take days as the charge sheet is 88 pages long.

The charges, which include 2,973 individual counts of murder - one for each person killed on 9/11 - are the first directly related to the attacks to be brought against any Guantanamo Bay inmates.

The BBC's Jonathan Beale, at Guantanamo Bay, says the trial process has proved highly controversial and with the election of Mr Obama, its future is uncertain.

The president-elect has said he wants to close down the detention centre, where some 250 terrorism suspects are currently being held, but he is yet to set out what will happen instead.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7770856.stm

US: Bush Should Not Issue Preemptive Pardons for Detainee Abuse

President George W. Bush should not issue a preemptive pardon of past or present officials implicated in torture or other abuses related to the "war on terror," said Human Rights Watch and eight other organizations in a letter sent to the president today.

Although the US Constitution gives the president the power to pardon federal crimes, a broad pardon covering torture and other serious crimes would be an unprecedented misuse of the pardon power.

"The Bush administration's approval of abusive interrogation techniques, renditions to torture, and CIA-run black sites has already significantly damaged America's reputation around the world," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. "President Bush should not make matters worse by foreclosing criminal investigations before they begin."

After September 11, 2001, the Bush administration approved the use of what it called "enhanced interrogation techniques" - including "waterboarding," exposure to extreme cold, and sleep deprivation - for use against persons detained in the "global war on terror." More than 100 detainees were "disappeared" into CIA-run prisons, and dozens rendered to countries such as Jordan and Syria where they were subject to torture and other abuses.

Investigations into these and other abuse of detainees have been fragmentary and limited. The actions of administration officials - including the president himself - have not been credibly examined. By issuing a preemptive pardon, President Bush would effectively block critical Department of Justice investigations before they have even begun, and deprive the public of an important investigatory tool to know what was done in its name.

Broad "preemptive pardons" or amnesties have been issued in the past, but issuing pardons for detainee abuse would differ fundamentally from previous amnesties.

Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers as a step toward the unity and reconstruction of the nation after the Civil War. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft resisters in an attempt to unify the nation after a divisive conflict. Neither of these broad preemptive pardons was for members of the president's own administration.

"President Bush would be the first president to pardon himself, something even Richard Nixon did not do," Daskal said. "Issuing pardons for abuses in the ‘war on terror' would be viewed around the world as an admission of guilt."

Pardons for serious abuses related to US counterterrorism efforts would also violate the United States' obligations under international law. Treaties ratified by the United States, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, require that all states investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute those responsible for serious international crimes such as torture. A pardon would put the US at odds with global trends toward greater accountability and interfere with necessary efforts of the new administration to reclaim its position as an international advocate for human rights. It would also increase the likelihood that foreign nations would try to fill the gap in accountability by initiating legal proceedings abroad against administration officials.

The organizations signing the letter include the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Center for Victims of Torture, Evangelicals for Human Rights, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, International Center for Transitional Justice, Open Society Policy Center, and Physicians for Human Rights.

Source: www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/02/us-bush-should-not-issue-preemptive-pardons-detainee-abuse

On International Human Rights Day 2008, After 60 Years.. Why Human Rights?

Date: Wednesday 10th December
Time:6pm
Venue: New Theatre, LSE Houghton St WC2 (nearest tube Holborn/Temple)

*"Men are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it*" Nelson Mandela(First Court Statement, 1962)

On the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) creating a global framework for the protection of the rights of veryone, and in this climate of multiple crises, we invite you to consider: do we really have human rights? What's right and wrong with them?

Can 'rights' help us respond to the challenge of reconstructing society; so that justice, mutual respect and equality prevail? And if so, what concrete actions must we now take?

Speaker/panel: AC Grayling, Asad Rehman, Andy Worthington (author of the Guantanamo Files), Hicham Yezza, Teresa Hoskyns (London Social Forum) Peter Tatchell and Vivienne Westwood. Q&A with panellists, followed by discussion on where to take the UK civil rights movement.

Also: *informal pre-meeting from 3pm* Room H102, Connaught House building (LSE, on Aldwych) to discuss background info, action proposals and any other issues of concern. This will include two brief presentations: (1) on the politics of prison and detention and (2) on the notion of Henri Lefebvre's Right to the City as a tool of liberation.

Event organised by CAMPACC, the London Guantánamo Campaign, London Against Injustice and others.

Kindly hosted by LSE Students' Union.

For more details, email humanrights2012@gmail.com

A Toxic Legacy

Ever since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration's neck.

The defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the "least worst place" to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that "enemy combatants" could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America's standing in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses, have taken a daily toll. The camp's existence has angered and embarrassed Washington's closest allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies.

Nearly six years on, there is no debate over whether "Gitmo" should be closed - only how. As it approaches the end of its term, the Bush administration is anxiously attempting to dispose of its own toxic legacy. John Bellinger, the state department's top lawyer, has been trying to persuade other governments to accept detainees cleared for release. More than 500 have already been sent back to their homelands or to third countries, but there are still 250 prisoners left who cannot go home for fear of persecution and who no one else will accept. They are now Barack Obama's problem.

The president-elect has frequently stated his intention to close Guantánamo. In an interview since the election, he repeated that pledge, saying it was "part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world". But the question of what to do with the remaining inmates still divides his ideologically diverse national security and justice teams.

Obama's inaugural speech on January 20 will be closely scrutinised around the world for signs of how bold or cautious he decides to be. His policy on Guantánamo will be widely seen as a benchmark for his intentions as president.

A report by a non-partisan panel of US security and human rights experts, entitled Closing Guantánamo: From Bumper Sticker to Blueprint, estimates that the camp could be emptied within a year if the Obama administration decided on a clean break from Bush policies and devoted enough resources to the job. The report advocates the establishment of an independent commission to review the cases of all the detainees, to assess the evidence against them and order the immediate release of the innocent.

The first task will be to complete the Bush administration's effort to find homes for the 150-200 prisoners who, according to lawyers familiar with their stories, have no case to answer but who cannot be sent back to their native countries for fear they would be victimised, tortured or killed.

The clearest example of inmates stuck in this limbo are the 17 Uighurs, separatists from a Muslim minority in China who were seized in Pakistan during the Afghan war. They have all been cleared for release by the US authorities, most as long ago as 2003, but have so far not been accepted by any third countries. Albania agreed to take in five other Uighur detainees in 2006, but has refused to take any more.

Bellinger's efforts to find any other government to receive the Uighurs have been undermined by the adamant refusal of the US authorities to allow them to live in America because of the presumed threat they pose to the US, in part because of presumed animosity caused by six years of detention without charge. Obama's envoys may find they have better luck than Bellinger.

"I don't think anyone is inclined to do this administration any favours, but Obama will find he has a lot of goodwill to draw on," a European diplomat says. But that goodwill will be greatly enhanced if the new administration stops fighting the resettlement of inmates in the US.

A second category of prisoners will be referred for prosecution outside Guantánamo, but that raises the question of whether that prosecution should be conducted by military courts martial in the US or the civilian legal system. That will be a decision that goes to the philosophical heart of the issue - should the US approach terrorism as a military threat or as a criminal enterprise, or some hybrid of the two? Obama has refrained from using the phrase "war on terror", but he is said to be under pressure from the more conservative national security experts on his team to leave his options open and not bind himself with the procedural constraints of the civilian judiciary.

On the other side of the debate is a "rule of law" camp within the embryonic administration which argues that anything short of a complete return to constitutional normality would rob Obama of the international goodwill he might otherwise gain by scrapping Guantánamo.

That debate underlies the toughest dilemma the new administration is likely to face on closing the offshore camp: whether there should be a third category of prisoners, deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute. The evidence against them may be in the form of intelligence material that cannot be disclosed in court, or that falls short of legal proof. Confessions would also be ineligible if they were obtained under torture, as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was "waterboarded" (subjected to simulated drowning) by the CIA. And few if any of the inmates of Guantánamo were reminded of their right not to incriminate themselves, which is standard police practice.

The Bush administration has been seeking international agreement for a new form of preventative detention that would allow inmates in this third category to be held in the US and abroad. "The problem is you've got 200-plus very dangerous people, and the question is what do you do with them. And these are people who say regularly: 'If I'm let out of here, I will go immediately and start killing Americans again,'" Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing secretary of state, said during a visit to London this week. She argued that "even though you know that this person is a future threat, we don't really have a legal framework for that, which is why it's been done within a war framework. But if you don't hold a person who you know is a future threat, then you risk the deaths of thousands of innocents. So I do think that this is something for the international community to take up."

There is little sign, however, that the international community has any appetite for such a departure from established human rights law. The decision on preventative detention will be Obama's alone. Several of his advisers and allies, liberals included, think that terrorism is such a pernicious threat, and the security risks of releasing suspects are so great, that new legislation allowing for preventative detention is unavoidable. The political risk of a released inmate carrying out an attack are also enormous. Such an event could prove crippling to a new administration.

On the other hand, any new system of preventative detention would be seen around the world as Guantánamo redux, human rights lawyers say. It would be every bit as effective as an al-Qaida recruiting tool, and would perpetuate the extremists' self-image as warriors rather than mere criminals. Within the internal debate under way in the transition team, liberal activists want foreign governments to lobby Obama against creating a new legal limbo.

It is one of the toughest decisions the new president has in his in-tray. What Obama decides will say a lot about his presidency. Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and author of the Closing Guantánamo report, says it is uncertain which way Obama would lean. But she adds: "My sense is the president-elect has taught courses in the constitution in one of the most reputable law schools in country. He ran on opting back into the international system. The idea of going for a new legal regime that will result in more years in litigation is not going to appeal. It will not be the clean break he needs to make."

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/guantanamo-obama-white-house

Urgent Action Needed: Lloyds TSB Plc & British Charities

Please contact your MP and ask them to sign the following motion: EDM 98

LLOYDS TSB PLC AND BRITISH CHARITIES 03.12.2008

That this House notes the excellent work of the British charity Interpal in helping the Palestinians with £40 million worth of humanitarian aid development since 1994; acknowledges that Lloyds TSB Group Plc has served notice to the Islamic Bank of Britain to discontinue its services to Interpal or subsequently to face closure itself without offering any reason; further notes the wide distress that this has the potential to cause, in both the local Muslim community and the wider Arab world, since both hold the charity in particularly high regard; further notes that Interpal has withstood three previous investigations by the Charity Commission; and calls upon the Government to note the precedent this will lay down regarding any other charities Lloyds may choose to target and to ensure that this bank which is in receipt of enormous state benefit be pressurised to behave in a socially responsible manner.

Guantanamo 'A Stain On US Military'

The tribunals used for putting suspects on trial at Guantanamo Bay are a "stain on America's military", a former military prosecutor has told the BBC in his first interview since resigning.

For Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, a devout Catholic, the twin responsibilities of religious faith and military duty led to a profound moral crisis.

His resignation has led to charges against six inmates being dropped, at least for now, and called into question the possibility of a fair legal process at Guantanamo.

"I know so many fighting men and women who are stained by the taint of Guantanamo, so I'm here to tell the truth about Guantanamo and how a few people have sullied the American military and the constitution," he told me during an interview in his home town of Erie, Pennsylvania.

A reservist, Darrel Vandeveld was called up as a military lawyer after 9/11 and served in Iraq, Bosnia and Africa. In 2007, he became a prosecutor for the military commissions which tried terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, a role he took enthusiastically.

"I went down there on a mission and my mission was to convict as many of these detainees as possible and put them in prison for as long as I possibly could," he told the BBC. "I had zero doubts. I was a true believer."

But his zeal did not last long.

When he arrived, he says he found the prosecutor's office in chaos, with boxes scattered around the floor, files disorganised, evidence scattered in different places and no clear chain of command.

And more seriously, he soon discovered that defence lawyers were not receiving information which could help clear their clients, including evidence that suspects had been "mistreated" in order to secure confessions.

Accused Of Attack

It was one case in particular, that of a young Afghan called Mohammed Jawad, which caused most concern. Mr Jawad was accused of throwing a grenade at a US military vehicle.

Col Vandeveld says that in a locker he found indisputable evidence that Mr Jawad had been mistreated.

After Mr Jawad had tried to commit suicide by banging his head against a wall at Guantanamo, Col Vandeveld says that psychologists who assisted interrogators advised taking advantage of Mr Jawad's vulnerability by subjecting him to specialist interrogation techniques known as "fear up".

He was also placed, Col Vandeveld says, into what was known as the "frequent flyer" programme in which he was moved from cell to cell every few hours, with the aim of preventing him sleeping properly, and securing a confession.

A devout Catholic, Col Vandeveld found himself deeply troubled by what he discovered. But the classified nature of his work meant he was unable to share his growing doubts with friends and family.

As a result, he took the unusual step of emailing a Jesuit priest called Father John Dear, who is a well known peace activist.

In his email, Col Vandeveld talked of having "grave misgivings". Father Dear was initially unsure if the email was serious and fashioned a quick reply. "I sort of didn't believe it. But on the off chance he was a military prosecutor I wrote back and said 'quit'."

Col Vandeveld says his jaw dropped when he read the email, adding: "I lived in dread of that answer." But eventually he did resign and has chosen to speak out about what he saw, giving the BBC his first interview. "I never suffered such anguish in my life about anything," he says, looking back over the period. "It took me too long to recognise that we had abandoned our American values and defiled our constitution."

Cases Dropped

Col Vandeveld was prosecuting six cases, including that of Binyam Mohamed, the last British resident held at Guantanamo.

After his resignation, charges in these cases were dropped but with the possibility they may be re-filed at any point. Col Vandeveld declined to discuss details of Mr Mohamed's case and others which remain classified. But Binyam Mohamed's lawyers say he was tortured as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme and are hopeful that he may not be charged again, on the grounds that this might reveal too many details of the rendition programme.

Col Vandeveld was forced to undergo a mental status evaluation after expressing his concerns and his military career is over. But he has returned to his community in Erie where local newspapers have praised the stand he took. He has no regrets.

In response to his claims, a Pentagon spokesman told the BBC: "We dispute Darrel Vandeveld's assertions and maintain the military commission process provides full and fair trials to accused unlawful enemy combatants who are charged with a variety of war crimes."

President-elect Barack Obama has said he wants to shut Guantanamo but no-one thinks it will be easy.

Col Vandeveld believes that it is possible though. "No justice will be obtained at Guantanamo," he said. "And if that entails moving them (the suspects) temporarily to the US for trial: so be it."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7761315.stm

How Many Americans Died Because of Bush’s Torture Program?

According to a special operations intelligence officer, the answer is a number north of three thousand–not counting the tens of thousands maimed or seriously wounded, the destruction of the nation’s reputation as a moral leader, or the damage done to our Constitution. In a stunning op-ed published in Sunday’s Washington Post, a special operations intelligence officer details his direct experience with torture practices put into effect in Iraq in 2006—long after the Pentagon had forsworn them, but while Donald Rumsfeld was still running the shop.

Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators’ bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules — and often break them. I don’t have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

The Pentagon’s claims that it had returned to interrogations based on the venerable Field Manual, was, it seems, conscious disinformation. But the officer offers an assessment. The torture techniques consistently failed to produce actionable intelligence, he said. But the old techniques—which rest on confidence building—consistently worked and gave the interrogators access to information that saved lives. Moreover, the strategies employed to effect later were used as a much broader tactic, accentuating differences between native Iraqi Sunnis and foreign fighters, in what came to be known as the “Sunni Awakening.”

But then we come to the most chilling part of the op-ed, which the writer discloses the Bush Administration struggled to suppress:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for Al Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me–unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

The torture techniques developed by the Bush torture team were the most effective recruitment tool we could ever have given terrorists. They cost thousands of American lives. And that’s a key element of the legacy of the forty-third president.

Source: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21372.htm

Donate An Eid Gift This Eid

Assalaamu alaikum

Why not put a smile on the face of those children whose fathers are imprisoned by donating a gift or gifts to HHUGS? Some children will even be spending Eid without their mothers. It doesnt take much effort. When you're out buying gifts for your own kids or loved ones, buy an extra gift and earn extra reward inshallah. And remember all the good deeds performed in the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah will be multiplied.

"Who is he that will lend a goodly loan so that He may multiply it to him many times? And it is Allah that decreases or increases (your provisions), and unto Him you shall return." 2:245 Holy Quran.

If you can donate a gift then please contact HHUGS on volunteers@hhugs.org.uk or alternatively call the HHUGS line on: 07931833980. Deadline is Friday 12th December.

If you are unable to donate a gift then please donate money so HHUGS can buy these gifts for the children.

To donate online go to: www.hhugs.org.uk/index.php?state=10&cat=3

To donate at a bank:
Account Name: Hhugs
Bank: Lloyds TSB
Account Number: 00418137
Sort code: 30-94-77

May Allah reward you for all your efforts and multiply them tenfold.

As we spend Eid with our loved ones, please take time out to make a du'aa for these families to be united with their loved ones. It costs nothing but means so much.

Jazaak Allah Khair
Wassalaam
www.hhugs.org.uk