Saturday, July 17, 2010

Racial Profiling/ Renditions/ Rule of Law/ July 17

Image from ACLU December 9, 2005

"Our greatest tool in advancing democracy is our own example."
— Barack Obama (3/2/2008) Oops!


Democracy Now's Amy Goodman interviews ADC American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Founder, former senator James G. Abourezk about Helen Thomas and The ADC Welcomes Introduction of End Racial Profiling Act Washington, DC | GO to ADC Home here | July 16, 2010 - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) welcomes the introduction of H.R. 5748, End Racial Profiling Act of 2010 (ERPA). House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced the bill on July 15, the bill currently has nearly 60 co-sponsors. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee work includes hate crimes hotline, incident reporting, advice for educators and Arab-American parents, educational resources, and statements of support. For this specific ADC release, GO here

Photo at The Miami Herald
Just in - Supreme Court clears way for repatriation of Algerian detainees from Guantanamo here - Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:59 PM ET



Photo of Maher Arar with his children found at Slate dot com here

MAHER ARAR, | McGill Alumni Portal Jul 14, 2010 - McGill alumnus Maher here

Maher Arar: Justice Denied « P U L S E VIDEO here Maher was awarded 10 million $ by Canada and was denied his innocence by US courts

Items today and earlier on Maher Arar and related here from War Is A Crime .org | formerly AfterDowningStreet- Jul 17, 2010

And by the way, there's now a strong call to say Bye, Bye, Bybee - a key torture lawyer in the Bush administration plz to to the above site and also here to take ACTION

Find the following items: UK sought rendition of British nationals to Guantánamo; Tony Blair directly involved; Various items on Omar Khadr, and Andy Worthington's "Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List" (Updated for Summer 2010)*** here as well as here

Clare Hanrahan: Confronting Rendition to Torture in North Carolina
Jul 9, 2010 ... Clare Hanrahan is a contributing editor to War Crimes Times, an associate member of Veterans For Peace Chapter 099, member of the National ...
here

Also see another North Carolinian's account of the same conference attended by Clare Hanrahan ... scroll down to July 12th a few posts below on this site:
Who Stands to Account for These Crimes by Patrick O'Neill

For those already receiving/familiar with No More Guantanomos, simply scroll below the following...

About No More Guantanomos here

Newsroom specifically about Resolutions and nogitmos dot org here

July Newsletter for No More Gitmos dot org here

Town Resolutions at No More Gitmos dot org here

To receive free & state of the art info regarding Gitmo/Rights/Related GO here

▼ See earlier related items on this oneheartforpeace blog for July - July (9)
BAGRAM: US should not implement a policy that damages... Also find
"Call Torture by its Real Name" at this same site.

Find the following and related at bordc.org/news here
Jul 16, 2010, Sahar Aziz, ACS Blog, Delegitimizing Civil Society: Why the Supreme Court Got it Wrong in Humanitarian Law Project

Jul 15, 2010, Judiciary Committee, Conyers Releases Committee Interview of Torture Memo Author Bybee and Sends to Justice Department

Jul 14, 2010, Max Schoening, Matt Sledge, Huffington Post, Hollman Morris, Colombian Journalist, Says Patriot Act Visa Rejection for "Terrorist" Activities "Puts My Life in Danger"

Jul 13, 2010, Saleyha Ahsan, Guardian (UK), Guantánamo: holding the 'healers who harm' accountable

And many more Including Jul 8, 2010, Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, Former Top CIA Spy on How US Intelligence Became Big Business and Jul 6, 2010, Sherwood Ross, The New Nation (Bangladesh), US Doctors forced to approve torture - Find all the above and more with live links at bordc.org/news here from © 2002-2010 Bill of Rights Defense Committee · All Rights Reserved · info@bordc.org 8 Bridge St., Suite A · Northampton, MA 01060 · (413) 582-0110 · fax (413) 582-0116 www.bordc.org - Privacy Policy · Last Updated: July 16, 2010 4:13 pm EDT

STATS on GITMO (By the Numbers at Miami Herald)as of 07/14/2010 (To find out more on the Stats below GO here Which has evidently been Updated July 14, 2010 - The Miami Herald

• Current detainee census: 180, from 24 countries.

• Youngest: 23, Omar Khadr of Canada.

• Oldest captive: 62, Saifullah Paracha of Pakistan.

• Detainees who have won their habeas corpus petitions whom federal judges have ordered set free: 37.

• Detainees who have lost their habeas corpus petitions: 14.

• Size of Navy base: 45 square miles, straddling Guantánamo Bay, from prison camp to air strip.

• Prison camp commanders over eight years: 10 admirals and generals.

• Captives who have died in the camps: Six. Two Saudis and a Yemeni were found hanging simultaneously in June 2006 in a suspected coordinated suicide; another Saudi, was found hanging in May 2007; an Afghan man died of colon cancer in December 2007; and a Yemeni man was found dead of suspected suicide June 1, 2009.

• Captives who arrived Jan. 11, 2002, to inaugurate Camp X-Ray: 20

• Last known arrival: Muhammed Rahim al Afghani, described as a high-level al Qaeda captive, on March 14, 2008.

• Last departure: Mohammed Odaini, 26, also called Mohammed Hassen, back to his native Yemen in compliance with a federal court order on July 12, 2010.

• International Committee of the Red Cross visits to the detention center since it opened Jan. 11, 2002: 75.

• Nations that have resettled cleared detainees who are not their citizens: 11: Albania, Bermuda, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Ireland, Palau, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland.

• Nations that has resettled the largest number of non-citizen freed detainees: : Albania has taken 11 to include Uighurs, Egyptians, an Algerian, Libyan, Tunisian and Uzbek.

• Captives convicted by Military Commission: Four. David Hicks under a plea agreement, now free in his native Australian. Salim Hamdan of Yemen, now free in his homeland. Ali Hamza al Bahlul, also of Yemen, sentenced to life. Ibrahim al Qosi under a plea agreement. Sentencing hearing begins Aug. 9.

• Cases involving detainee rights that have gone before the U.S. Supreme Court during the War on Terror: Four.

• Times the justices have sided with detainees against the Bush administration: Four.

• Largest captive population since detention center opened: About 660 in November 2003.

• Smallest: 20 on Jan. 11, 2002.

Read more - GO here Which has evidently been Updated July 14, 2010 - The Miami Herald

North Carolina's Price & Watt are Co-sponsors of H.R.5748 To eliminate racial profiling by law enforcement - Let's hope more NC representatives sign onto HR 5748 soon! We need to stop more counties from supporting AZ Bill SB 1070!

As a follow-up on the Physicians for Human Rights reports in June on complicity of US Doctors not only in torture of detainees yet also complicity in experimentation,
here are several ways we can all support the cause of accountability (and we don't have to be in the health profession to do so nor do those who sign on and write letters to Obama and others need to be a US citizen ) Go here and here and here

8 comments:

CN said...

Plz check back as I may update this post soon.

CN said...

See also The Torture Report on European Complicity

http://archive.wn.com/2010/07/15/1400/torturereport/

CN said...

More on the ACTION being called for July 17th and Ongoing...

Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was the primary author of "legal" memos purporting to justify torture, including memos long known to the public and two memos recently released by the Department of Justice from March 13, 2002, and June 8, 2002. The June 8th memo claims to justify depriving an American citizen of the right to a trial, claiming the power to imprison him without charge on the grounds that he was already guilty in the eyes of the memo's author, Jay Bybee.

We have learned, through a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross and other sources, of the brutal torture techniques employed in our name over the last several years. Bybee's signature is on the August 1, 2002, memo listing the supposedly "legal" illegal techniques.

He is now serving as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A man who abuses his power to facilitate violation of laws and treaties banning torture has no business reversing the decisions of honest judges and juries.

Please introduce right away either articles of impeachment or a bill requiring the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation into Jay Bybee.

(From Progressive Democrats and David Swanson of War Is a Crime (former After Downing Street)

CN said...

Last Sunday I saw the extraordinary new play (see www.alternativemethodstheplay.com) and I recommend a visit to the site. I talked with the playwright Patricia Davis about the possibility of bringing the play to NC, and she seemed quite interested.

There is an ad hoc group planning to bring the accountability issue to the Albany Peace Conference next weekend. Any recommendations ...would be most appreciated.

email from friend/colleague

CN said...

Bybee Desposition Transcripts: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2010/7/15/144812/064

CN said...

Center for Constitutional Rights Applauds New Law in New York:

http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-applauds-new-law-removing-personal-information-stop-and-frisk-database-cautions-nypd

CN said...

WarIsACrime.org More on Impeach Jay Bybee Now

In May the House Judiciary Committee secretly "interviewed"
Bybee about torture. He admitted to authorizing torture. He admitted that torture was conducted without authorization. And he admitted the central
role played by his sidekick John Yoo.

It's time to ImpeachBybee.org

This is the full text of the resolution that drove Alberto Gonzales out of office. We need the same thing for Jay Bybee:

Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of representatives to impeach
Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Already on record supporting Bybee's impeachment or resignation are:

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Senator Russ Feingold,
The New York Times,
Center for Constitutional Rights,
The Courage Campaign,
Progressive Democrats of America, Bruce Fein,
Common Cause,
Democrats.com,
People for the American Way,
The World Can't Wait, ThinkProgress,
Crooks and Liars,
Digby,
Scott Horton,
After Downing Street, ImpeachBybee.org,
Jeremy Scahill,
Dave Lindorff,
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Senator Patrick Leahy,
American Freedom Campaign, National Lawyers Guild,
John Podesta,
MoveOn,
Veterans for Peace,
National Accountability Network, Code Pink,
Velvet Revolution, and
The Salt Lake Tribune.

CN said...

Just me again with a few more related references:

Judge Rules CIA Can Suppress Information About Torture Tapes and Memos: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/judge-rules-cia-can-suppress-information-about-torture-tapes-and-memos
==
According to a key Justice official, Bybee, the CIA exceeded his outline of interrogation limits:
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15527755?source=rss&nclick_check=1
===
Torture and the UK: 2002-10:
Timeline of these cases (simple to use) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2009/jun/18/torture-uk-interactive
===
UK: The torture files: key passages:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2010/jul/14/toture-files-key-passages