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...
Several hundred persons captured by the US army during “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan were transferred to Guantanamo Bay on 11 January 2002, thereby turning the naval base into a prison camp where at one point 770 people were held without any of the legal guarantees envisaged by the US constitution or by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war.
Al-Haj is one of the roughly 300 people still being held at the camp, which Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard visited without being allowed to see him.. Sami Al-Haj, a Sudanese cameraman with the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera who has been held there without charge since June 2002
“We appeal for Al-Haj’s release or his transfer to his home country,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Negotiations on his transfer are currently under way. We went to Guantanamo in the hope of meeting him but we not allowed to do this. However, we were able to visit the detention centers inside the camp and to talk to guards, hospital staff, military officers in charge of the Annual Administrative Reviews and Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby, the head of the Guantanamo Joint Task Force.
“Guantanamo is a legal and humanitarian scandal that has now dragged on for six years. What has been achieved? In the absence of charges, 500 of its detainees have been removed and in most cases sent back to their country of origin. It is hard to understand why around 300 are still being held there, especially as the authorities plan to try only 60-80 of them. The US supreme court rightly ruled on 30 June 2006 that the special military tribunals set up to try these “enemy combatants” were unconstitutional, and the US senate judiciary committee said on 7 June 2007 that they should be restored their right to habeas corpus.
“This is not enough,” Reporters Without Borders added. “The winner of the 7 November presidential election, who will take office in January 2009, must put an end to a situation that is humanely intolerable and legally untenable. We call on all the candidates competing for their party’s nomination in the primaries to undertake to close Guantanamo.”
Arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001, Al-Haj was handed over to the US military a month later and was transferred to Guantanamo on 13 June 2002. The US military claimed that he secretly interviewed Osama Bin Laden, trafficked in arms for Al-Qaeda and ran an Islamist website but no evidence was ever produced to support these allegations and he was never formally charged.
Regularly tortured and interrogated about 200 times by his guards, Al-Haj began a hunger strike on 7 January 2007 to protest against his detention and to demand respect for his rights. In reprisal, he was force-fed several times. His lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited him in July, said he had lost 18 kilos and had serious intestinal problems. He also has paranoia attacks and has more and more difficulty in communicating normally.
Two of the nine Sudanese prisoners in Guantanamo were released last month. In a recent memo to the Sudanese government, the US authorities said they would return Al-Haj to Sudan only if he were banned from leaving the country and were banned from working as journalist.
The CIA announced on 15 December that it destroyed videos of detainees being interrogated in Guantanamo and in its secret prisons, despite a court order to preserve them. A criminal investigation into their destruction began on 2 January, but federal judge Henry H. Kennedy said a week later that he would not insist on questioning José Rodríguez, the former CIA officer who reportedly ordered their destruction. In response to congressional protests, Kennedy said he would await the results of a justice department internal probe. The New York Times reported last month that four White House legal advisers endorsed their destruction.
Reporters Without Borders established a system of sponsorship 18 years ago in which international media are encouraged to adopt imprisoned journalists. More than 200 news organizations, journalists’ associations, press clubs and other entities throughout the world are currently supporting journalists by regularly calling on the authorities to release them and by publicizing their cases.