An End of Year Catch-Up on Torture-Related Rights

Please spread the word:

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION in Washington DC USA January 11, 2012 (Hear Andy Worthington and many many others) GO here

Year's End:

Year of 2011 Torture News here

Torture Flight Profits from Autumn & recent history here

ACTIONS we can do from HOME: speak up for Omar Khadr -- READ Andy Worthington's latest: Christmas Thoughts for Child Prisoner Omar Khadr (PLZ send letters of outrage) GO here

We can do more internationally to help stop or prevent carelessness and use nuclear energy worldwide. Plz, GO to this NEW US - Japan Medical Study Estimates 14,000 Dead US Infants from Fukushima Fallout. here For one instance of neglect worldwide now often becomes EVERYONE's problem worldwide.

And remember the USA needs help worldwide to force our leaders to seek peace, negotiations & alternatives to the bully pulpit, drones galore, use of groups like Blackwater turned Xe now become after many other face-changes Academi.

MORE We Can Do together -- Support Professional Efforts to Heal Torture and Scars of War - GO here -- here -- here -- also --psychiatrists and torture here

Last but not least: Help END and PREVENT more abuses! Support all the groups giving us the facts such as No More Gitmos and Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the ACLU(along with their suggested actions)-- wherever you have time and can agree with these.

Support all the journalists and others calling for an end to DRONES such as the Nonviolent Christian Peacemakers, War is a Crime, World Without Hate dot org, World Cant Wait and longtime efforts such as Amnesty, Reprieve, Human Rights Watch and Center for Constitutional Rights CCRJUSTICE dot org -- all the lawyers, staff and activists who seek to end or prevent torture and other abuses to human respect, dignity and the right to a just trial.

Help existing democracies return to a day when innocence until proven guilty is the norm not the exception.

Right now, the CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights) is asking: Do Private Military Contractors Have Impunity to Torture? GO here There are many other such groups I've hightlighted on this site - just take a quick skim or cruise...

Here's to a torture and rights-abuse FREE 2012. Here's to a fulfilling year with healing for us all. Let's all do our part....

Serenity

A Karachi Sunset

The original full version of the Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference;

Living one day at a time.
Enjoying one moment at a time.
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as he (the one we follow) did, this (imperfect) world as it is --
not as I would have it.

Trusting that He, Allah, the God of my understanding, will make all things right
as I surrender to His Will --
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

Ameen, Amin, Amen, So Be It.

Where the Mind is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

*
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Tagore, Rabindranath (1861-1941), poet, philosopher, teacher, founder of schools and Nobel laureate, was born in Calcutta. He began to write poetry very young; his first book appeared when he was 17 years old. After a brief stay in England (1878) to study law, he returned to India, where he composed hundreds of songs. In 1929 he began painting.

Tagore wrote primarily in Bengali, but translated many of his works into English himself. In 1915 he was knighted by the British king George V. yet he renounced his
knighthood in 1919 following the Amritsar massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators
by British troops.

He believed in a world based on transnational values. He willingly allowed his composition of songs to be used by three nations for their national anthem: India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In 1901 Rabindranath Tagore founded a school at Santiniketan, West Bengal, India, which later developed into an international institution called Visva Bharati, where he tried to revive the famed "Gurukula" system: in which students spent much time at their teacher's house and studied there. Later, he utilized nature as a place for students to study.

* The copy of the painting above is "The Boy" found in Gitanjali - find this and other paintings with poems here

Aafia Siddiqui: Notice of Events and Newsletter

First, from a coalition of various political and social groups:

An emergency mobilization for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, and all other female prisoners suffering abuse in a federal institution that has a long, shameful record of violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

While ALL ARE INVITED to join this urgently needed mobilization, we feel it is a special obligation on Muslim Men!

PLEASE SUPPORT THIS URGENTLY NEEDED MOBILIZATION

BY

1. HELPING US SPREAD THE WORD

2. PLANNING TO ATTEND

3. DONATE

You can mail a donation to:

The Peace Thru Justice Foundation
11006 Viers Mill Road
STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902

The event notices are provided as information and do not necessarily imply sponsorship or endorsement by the family or the FreeAafia campaign.

SEASON'S GREETINGS
From the Family of Dr. Aafia
December, 2011

Update on Aafia this Year End Season (2011)

In September, 2011 Aafia was finally allowed a family visit after almost 2-1/2 years. Then another one in early November. She was also finally allowed to meet with a lawyer of her choice. But almost immediately following her interaction with a non-government appointed lawyer, Aafia has now had her "privileges" suspended indefinitely.

What this means is that she is effectively not allowed any visitation from anyone except US or Pakistani government officials. No contact with family and a confiscation of all her meager "possessions" including all religious books and materials. She is also subjected to solitary confinement. Her health is deteriorating with serious concerns about her physical treatment based on last accounts. She is not allowed visits from independent physicians.

Yet, despite all of this, Aafia remains an inspiration and lives on in the hearts of those who have faith. We believe that even when everything looks bleak and one could be excused for feeling helpless, the help of God is nearer than we realize. We also believe that success will be the ultimate destiny for those who who have maintained the trust. The efforts of our supporters who believe in justice will not be in vain.

This holiday season we are thankful for Ahmad and Maryam. We pray for those at Carswell to be guided and have mercy. We wish for the happiness and safety of all our supporters. We pray for peace, justice and freedom to prevail throughout the world.

Family of Aafia Siddiqui

A Christmas Gift
by Andrew Purcell

Dec 21, 2011

Okay. I got my Christmas gift seven weeks early. A complete surprise considering it came directly from Aafia.

How did this happen?

She is too dangerous for me to be allowed to visit. Certainly doesn't have a lot of opportunity to go to the mall and shop.

During the first weekend of November I drove to Fort Worth with Aafia's brother. The prison officials would not confirm the visit. Come up and maybe, we'll see. He made the five hundred plus mile round trip expecting to be turned away. He was surprised that after some discussion they were allowed a four hour visit.

A good visit has a much different definition at Carswell Prison than it does in the real world, and this was not a good visit. When he got back to the hotel he proceeded to tell me about it.

In the middle of this he paused and said that Aafia had a question for me. She asked me to read books about Islam because she wanted to make sure that I go to Heaven.

This is the woman we are fighting for. Living through nearly nine years of hell and she is concerned about my soul.

As Christmas greetings go, this is not the traditional carols and a light snowfall on Christmas Eve, but I can't imagine many gifts that I will cherish more.

For more news and other items GO here

==============

Quiet Immensity

A BLESSING

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(Anam Cara)

UPDATES on the NDAA

Be sure to read or skim the comments under each article as well and skim pertinent posts on oneheartforpeace:

Examiner.com Human Rights:
here

Verdict.justia.com NDAA Explained:
here

Daily Kos (difference taken with some of Greenwald's work - yet here the comments may be helpful as well -- I'm leaving this as URL for easy cut and past to your contacts):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/20/1047407/-Greenwalds-3-NDAA-myths-is-moony-and-wrong

If any of you follow Marjorie Cohn, Prof. at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, Calif and former president of the National Lawyer's Guild and author or many books -- her most recent, "Torture and the US", will soon be out in paperback and full of pertinent info. If you happen upon a new article or radio show on the NDAA, plz let me know!

Glenn Greenwald's NDAA Summary on Democracy Now! December 19, 2011

(Here's) what this bill will do, and it will be signed into law now by President Obama...it will be the first time that the United States Congress has codified the power of indefinite detention into the law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s. The 1950 Congress passed a bill saying that communists and subversives could be imprisoned without a trial, without full due process, based on the allegation that they presented a national threat, an emergency, a threat to the national security of the United States.

President Truman, knowing that the bill would—the veto would be overridden, nonetheless vetoed it and said that it made a mockery of the Bill of Rights. That law was repealed in 1971 with the Non-Detention Act, that said you cannot hold people in prison without charging them with a crime.

The war on terror has eroded that principle, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, but Congress is now, with the Democrats in control of the Senate and a Democratic president, is about to enact into law the first bill that will say that the military and the United States government do have this power. It’s muddled whether it applies to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but it’s clearly indefinite detention, and there’s a very strong case to make that it includes U.S. citizens, as well, which, as we know, the Obama administration already claims anyway, and that’s what makes it so dangerous.
===
Read more on Democracy Now! for 19 December, 2011:

Including this condensation by Democracy Now!

Obama Prepares to Authorize Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens for First Time Since McCarthy Era–Glenn Greenwald on NDAA

The $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress last week includes controversial provisions that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government by authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial.

Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com.