California Becomes First State to Condemn Use of Torture in ‘War on Terror’

An encouraging article from California Progress Report about the State of California's strong stance against torture and initiative in challenging the interrogation policies of the federal government.

On Thursday, the California Legislature adopted SJR 19, a resolution to prevent the state’s licensed health professionals from engaging in torture.

As a result of SJR 19, state medical boards will inform health professionals of their obligations under both domestic and international law regarding treatment of prisoners and detainees. They will be warned that if they participate in interrogations that do not conform to these standards, they risk future prosecution. The state will also request the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency to remove California doctors and psychologists from settings that fall short of international standards of treatment.

The myth that the U.S. does not torture is coming apart at the seams. Every week there are new revelations of misconduct. The abuses are not the result of “a few bad apples,” but rather stem from a short-sighted and reckless policy that has damaged the lives of countless people held in U.S. custody, attacked the emotional and spiritual well-being of American soldiers who have witnessed it and undermined the moral authority of America in the world community.

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Two Women Sentenced to ‘Re-education’ in China

An interesting and revealing article in The New York Times about disturbing human rights violations and the suppression of freedom of speech in China.

Two elderly Chinese women have been sentenced to a year of “re-education
through labor” after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of
the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights
advocates.

The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to
the police this month in an effort to get permission to protest what they
contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in
Beijing.

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Nobel nominee in torture ban call

Brief blurb in the BBC about a call for an international ban on torture during the 12th World Congress on Pain.

A several-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize has led calls at a
conference in Glasgow, for an international ban on torture.
Dr Inge Genefke
urged more than 45 countries to sign the United Nations Convention Against
Torture.
The Danish activist was speaking at the 12th World Congress on Pain
on Tuesday.
About 5,000 delegates are expected to attend between 17 and 22
August. The congress will also discuss the latest research and treatment of
pain.

link to article here

Detainee Death

The New York Times has created an excellent video relating the story of Boubacar Bah who died in the at an Immigration Detention Center:

Word spread quickly inside the windowless walls of the Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey: A detainee had fallen, injured his head and become incoherent. Guards had put him in solitary confinement, and late that night, an ambulance had taken him away more dead than alive.

But outside, for five days, no official notified the family of the detainee, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in a coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why.

Mr. Bah’s name is one of 66 on a government list of deaths that occurred in immigration custody from January 2004 to November 2007, when nearly a million people passed through.

Watch the video.

Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands

This New York Times article describes some of the inadequate care and shameful neglect that detainees often suffer in detention facilities throughout the United States. Diseases are left undiagnosed and detainees often endure great pain without any relief or concern shown to them.

But when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

...

In federal court affidavits, Mr. Ng’s lawyers contend that when he complained of severe pain that did not respond to analgesics, and grew too weak to walk or even stand to call his family from a detention pay phone, officials accused him of faking his condition. They denied him a wheelchair and refused pleas for an independent medical evaluation.

Instead, the affidavits say, guards at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., dragged him from his bed on July 30, carried him in shackles to a car, bruising his arms and legs, and drove him two hours to a federal lockup in Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to withdraw all pending appeals of his case and accept deportation.

“For this desperately sick, vulnerable person, this was torture,” said Theodore N. Cox, one of Mr. Ng’s lawyers, adding that they want to see a videotape of the transport made by guards.

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Detention at Guantanamo

The BBC recently published an informative article that deals with the legality of the detainees at Guantanamo and the various processes that defendants are subjected to.

What about evidence obtained by torture or coercion?

Evidence obtained under torture will not be permitted, but evidence obtained by coercion could be.

One problem is that "waterboarding" is not classified as torture by the Bush administration.

If evidence was obtained before 30 December 2005 (that is, the date when the Detainee Treatment Act came into force, outlawing "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment"), the military judge can allow the evidence if "the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable" and "the interests of justice would best be served".

This suggests that some evidence obtained in the so-called "secret prisons" operated by the CIA might be admissible. If it was obtained after 30 December 2005, then the judge would also have to be satisfied that no "cruel, degrading or inhumane treatment" had been used.

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American Purgatory

A new project has been launched to take a detailed look at the political asylum system since 9/11. This website offers commentary from all sides, an audio of interviews, and a list of credible resources:

American Purgatory is a rare look into the asylum process from start to finish through the eyes of an asylum applicant. The documentary takes listeners into the process of applying for asylum through the eyes of "H", an asylum seeker from a former Soviet country who came to New York in 2005.

H was represented by lawyers from a large New York law firm that took on his case pro bono (free of charge). Very few asylum seekers are lucky enough to have lawyers. H goes through the process with their help, but throughout, he struggles to pay his rent and support himself without financial assistance or the legal right to work.

H's journey is surrounded by stories from others who have been through the asylum process—some without lawyers, some who were in detention—along with people involved in the system, including asylum officers, lawyers, advocates and critics, as well as the US immigration service and Homeland Security.

Through the voices of asylum seekers, asylum advocates and those responsible for enforcing U.S. asylum laws, American Purgatory explores the contradictions of a process that is there to protect people in distress, but also has to vet fraudulent applications and infiltration by terrorists.

Visit the website.

Activist Sentenced to Egyptian Prison

The Jurist is reporting that a dual US and Egyptian professor is accused of defaming Egypt:

A judge in an Egyptian court Saturday convicted a prominent human rights activist and outspoken critic of President Hosni Mubarak in absentia of defaming Egypt and sentenced him to two years in prison. Saad Eddin Ibrahim [profile], a dual US and Egyptian citizen who is a professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo and who founded the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies [academic websites] in Egypt, had been accused of defaming Egypt by criticizing its human rights practices and politics. Following the accusations, he decided to leave Egypt in 2007, writing [text] in the Washington Post:

Sadly, this regime has strayed so far from the rule of law that, for my own safety, I have been warned not to return to Egypt. Regime insiders and those in Cairo's diplomatic circles have said that I will be arrested or worse. My family is worried, knowing that Egypt's jails contain some 80,000 political prisoners and that disappearances are routinely ignored or chalked up to accidents. My fear is that these abuses will spread if Egypt's allies and friends continue to stand by silently while this regime suppresses the country's democratic reformers.

Ibrahim reportedly agreed to return to Egypt if he received assurances that he would not be immediately arrested. The judge Saturday said that Ibrahim could pay 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,890 USD) for bail, and that he would have the opportunity to appeal. Reuters has more. AFP has additional coverage.

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