Newsroom

Update

First they came after dissenting newspapers such as Realni Azerbaijan. Then they came after foreign broadcasts such as BBC and Radio Free Europe. Now, just weeks before the March 18, 2009 constitutional referendum that would institute unlimited presidency, the government of Azerbaijan is allegedly censoring the content of a popular and semi-independent website, www.day.az. In the words of Global Voices Online: “[…] the content of a leading news site considered more independent than most in Azerbaijan was replaced on Thursday with a message informing readers that the “project is closed. A day later, after the authorities denied allegations that they…

February 22, 2009

Update

Days after Egyptian authorities went after one blogger critical of the government's policy on Gaza and human rights, they're now going after another. Dia’ el Din Gad, a student blogger is believed to have been held incommunicado in the custody of State Security Investigations (SSI) services and at risk of torture since his Feb. 6.  (Click here for more) As bloggers have emerged as an active and important voice in promoting democracy and human rights, the government has responded, including Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Karim Amer. It's part of a larger effort to shut down all public criticism of…

February 21, 2009

Update

Yesterday a coalition of 18 leading human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Institute launched a call for the establishment of a non-partisan commission of eminent persons to investigate and examine the detention, treatment, and transfer of detainees following the 9/11 attacks. The call was backed by former FBI Director William Sessions, Major General Antonio Taguba who headed the military investigations into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering, Juan Mendez, President of the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the President of the United Church…

February 20, 2009

Update

“I am not asking to be taken at my word and to be released, although I very much want to go home to my family. All I am asking for is to be treated like every other person in the United States who is accused of a crime, including terrorism, and to be given a fair trial in an American court.” These are the words of Ali al-Marri, a U.S. resident who continues to be held without trial since December, 2001, in the United States. He was arrested in Illinois and is currently held in a military facility in Charleston,…

February 19, 2009

Update

Israeli army 'using white phosphorus' - 12 January 2008 White phosphorus, often supplied by the US, has accounted for approximately 100 deaths and injuries in Gaza, as of February 3.  The pain of the burns alone frequently leads to death.   The questions remain, did Israel use white phosphorus on civilians in violation of international law and if so, who supplied them with it? According to many eye-witness accounts and investigations, for example, the Israeli military systematically fired White Phosphorus munitions, including those made by the United States, over or near heavily populated areas of Gaza, killing and injuring scores of…

February 19, 2009

Update

In the first congressional visit since Hamas was elected in 2006, Representative Brian Baird from Washington, Rep. Keith Ellison from Minnesota and Senator John Kerry visited Gaza yesterday.  They witnessed and reported the devastation of the population and the dire need of humanitarian assistance.  Rep.  Ellison, Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee member and the first Muslim congress member, stated that: People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in – Rep. Ellison. None of the…

February 19, 2009

Update

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that…

February 19, 2009

Update

In the Afterword to her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer states: "The number of patriotic critics inside the administration and out who threw themselves into trying to head off what they saw as a terrible departure from America's ideals, often at an enormous price to their own careers, is both humbling and reassuring." One such person is Jack Goldsmith, a Bush appointee who became chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003. That position had previously been held by Jay…

February 18, 2009

Update

Unexpectedly, good news from Egypt.  The government has released Ayman Nour, one of the country’s most prominent dissidents who came in second to President Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections. The BBC report can be found here; The Associated Press story here. The stated reason for his release was his poor health, although some speculate it is a gesture toward the new Obama administration. Nour’s conviction and detention despite his poor health has been taken both as an example of the Egyptian government’s determination to muzzle all of civic society and the West’s inability to move the government on human…

February 18, 2009

Update

Palestinian land was declared 'state lands' recently by Israel to expand the settlement of Efrat, near Bethlehem. This announcement was made just two weeks before Secretary of State is due to meet with newly elected government officials in Israel. Settlements are illegal under international law and Amnesty International condemns their presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories based on their illegality and believes the existence of these settlements has led to mass human rights violations against the local Palestinian population. Settlements aren’t only illegal under international law, but are at odds with American policy. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly made trips to…

February 17, 2009

Update

On Monday the International Commission of Jurists released the results of a three-year global study "Assessing Damage, Urging Action" into the adverse impact the Bush administration's prosecution of the Global War on Terror has had on international human rights. The panel of eminent lawyers and judges drawn from countries as diverse as Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Ireland and the United States found that the existing framework of national and international laws that had existed prior to the September 11th attacks were both "robust and effective" and "well-equipped" to counter terrorist threats. The experts lamented that, instead of better protecting the public, the…

February 17, 2009

Update

On February 12, 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced that a UN Board of Inquiry had begun its work "to review and investigate a number of specific incidents that occurred in the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 19 January 2009 and in which death or injuries occurred at, and/or damage was done to, United Nations premises or in the course of United Nations operations." While the UN has legitimate reason to be concerned about attacks on UN sites--including the Israeli attack on a UN school, the UN should expand its investigation to examine a broader range of possible…

February 16, 2009