The Asian Human Rights Commission appreciates and welcomes the announcement by the new government of Pakistan to commute death sentences to life imprisonment. The AHRC hopes that the government of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani will abolish the law which allows capital punishment by hanging...
Marking World Refugee Day on Friday 20 June, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said that providing protection for refugees today is vastly more challenging than when his office began work in 1951 trying to find solutions for Europeans uprooted in the aftermath of World War II.
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On the 12 June 2008 the US Supreme Court recognized, in the case of Boumediene v.Bush, the right of those detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to challenge their detention in US civilian courts. Amnesty International described the ruling as an essential step towards restoring the rule of law to the USA’...
By Gore Vidal
On June 10, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberti...
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the kidnapping of leading cyber-dissident Huang Qi, the founder of the human rights website 64Tianwang (http://www.64tianwang.com). He and two other activists were forced to get into a car by three unidentified men at around 7 p.m. on 10 June in Chengdu, th...
Thonglin was 13 years old when she was sold into prostitution. "My aunt asked if I would like to come with her to Thailand to find a job so that I could earn money for her family, and I agreed,"...
“I've been living away from home for three years," says Alfredo, a boy in prostitution who was working as a dancer in a club in Acapulco, Mexico. "I had many problems because my dad drank a lot...
Two guys were taking chemistry at the University of Louisville. They did pretty well on all of the quizzes, midterms, and labs, and had a solid "A" going into the final. They were so confident...
By Pat Buchanan
Freedom of the press is on trial in Canada.
The trial is before a court with the Orwellian title of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The accused are Maclean's magazine...
In its effort to fight terrorism, France routinely arrests and prosecutes people for being associated with possible terror suspects, undermining international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said...
We have put together the most awesome video about Canada. We show the world what kind of country we have become and you will love the stunning color.
Please take 1 minutes and 30 seonds to have...
As a person who has spent his lifetime in advocating peace and civil rights it is time to write. The subject of Iran needs to be addressed in a definitive way.
In order to put this in some order,...
German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung confirmed on Tuesday that Germany is planning on increasing the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan by 1,000, later this year.
The Asian Human Rights Commission appreciates and welcomes the announcement by the new government of Pakistan to commute death sentences to life imprisonment. The AHRC hopes that the government of Prime...
Marking World Refugee Day on Friday 20 June, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said that providing protection for refugees today is vastly more challenging than when his office began work...
On the 12 June 2008 the US Supreme Court recognized, in the case of Boumediene v.Bush, the right of those detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to challenge their detention in US civilian courts. Amnesty International...
By Gore Vidal
On June 10, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution...
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the kidnapping of leading cyber-dissident Huang Qi, the founder of the human rights website 64Tianwang (http://www.64tianwang.com). He and two other activists...
The Cuban National Assembly has named longtime Minister of Defense, Raúl Castro, President of Cuba. As second-in-command of a 49-year old dictatorship, he is directly responsible for crimes against humanity on countless thousands in Cuba and worldwide.
Raúl Castro, as longtime member of Cuba’s Council of State, has been signing execution orders for years. But, his killing career began early on. In 1956, while in exile in Mexico, he murdered a former comrade. During the revolutionary struggle in the mountains, he executed deserters and informants. In the early days of the Revolution, while in charge of the Oriente province, he had hundreds of men killed. In one day alone, he ordered at least 72 men executed without trial in the city of Santiago. All throughout the night of January 12, 1959 and into the following day, successive groups of men were lined up in front of ditches at San Juan Hill and shot by firing squads. Raúl is reported to have gleefully delivered the coup d’grace on a few. Afterwards, a bulldozer was brought in to cover the mass graves. Among the victims was policeman Benito Cortés, an American citizen born in Puerto Rico and father of five. In 1966, Raúl had the bodies exhumed, encased in concrete, and dumped into deep waters off the coast of Cuba.
Cuba Archive has documented dozens of people, including many children, killed attempting to escape Cuba with Raúl in a leading role. His Air Force carried out the Canimar River Massacre of July 6, 1980, when dozens were murdered. Many more unarmed civilians are believed to have suffered similar fate at the hand of special Air Force units dedicated to spotting and sinking rafts. Like countless others, on January 19, 1994, two young men -Iskander Maleras and Luis Angel Valverde- were killed by Cuban border guards stationed around the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo operating under Raúl’s direct orders to shoot. He rewarded their deed with medals and promotions.
As Defense Minister, Raúl Castro is responsible for war crimes in and out of Cuba. During the rural uprising of the sixties, his armed forces set fire and executed hundreds of prisoners on the spot. During the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, five prisoners were executed shortly after their capture; nine were deliberately asphyxiated in a trailer truck. The toll of victims multiplies over the course of decades with Cuba’s international military incursions in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Intentional attacks on civilian populations in Angola are part of his legacy.
That Raúl’s promotion happens on the anniversary of one of his noteworthy crimes is not without significance. On February 24, 1996, as dozens of members of Cuba’s peaceful opposition were rounded up, Cuban MIGs shot down two unarmed civilian airplanes in international airspace while flying a humanitarian search and rescue mission for the non-profit group “Brothers to the Rescue.” Three U.S. citizens, including a Vietnam War veteran, and a young man formerly rescued by the group perished. The incident was condemned by the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal and the Cuban government was found by a U.S. Superior Court to have committed premeditated murder.