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The Pain Merchants: Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment  pop

Amnesty International, 2 December 2003. Manufacturing, trading and promoting equipment which is used to torture people is a money-making business. Across the world, companies and individuals send equipment they say is designed for security or crime control purposes into the hands of government security personnel who often use them to commit human rights abuses. This report shows why the manufacture, use and transfer of security and police technologies needs more than ever before to be strictly regulated by governments using common criteria based on international human rights and humanitarian standards.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT400082003

(Added: Mon Dec 22 2003   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 1541)

Offside!: labour rights and sportswear production in Asia

This report considers 12 international sports brands - Adidas, ASICS, FILA, Kappa, Lotto, Mizuno, New Balance, Nike, Puma, Reebok, Speedo and Umbro - and examines the steps they take to ensure their suppliers in Asia allow workers to organise trade unions and bargain collectively for better wages and conditions. It gives a detailed description of each of the companies corporate social responsibility approaches and behaviour. (T Connor, K Dent, Oxfam, 2006)

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/downloads/offside_sportswear.pdf

(Added: Thu Jun 22 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 260)

The Battle to Close Guantánamo

President Bush clearly wants out of a program that brought international scorn, but shutting the camp poses legal and practical problems. And according to some, the move has little to do with human rights, but rather a sensible political move towards creating hundreds of small Guantánamo Bays that will not attract attention or serve as such a symbol. (Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, 24 June 2006)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0624-04.htm

(Added: Mon Jun 26 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 174)

The children of Guantanamo Bay

The notorious US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay has been hit by fresh allegations of human rights abuses, with claims that dozens of children were sent there - some as young as 14 years old. One child prisoner, Mohamed el Gharani, is accused of involvement in a 1998 al-Qa'ida plot in London led by the alleged al-Qa'ida leader in Europe, Abu Qatada. But he was 12 years old at the time and living with his parents in Saudi Arabia. The disclosures threaten to plunge the Bush administration into a fresh row with Britain, its closest ally in the war on terror, only days after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, repeated his demands for the closure of the detention facility. It was, he said, a "symbol of injustice". (Severin Carrell, The Independent, 28 May 2006)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article620704.ece

(Added: Mon May 29 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 193)

U.S. Union, Business Group Slam Jordan Sweatshops

A leading U.S. labour coalition and an industry group have filed a complaint with the U.S. Trade Representative asking that it formally sanction the government of Jordan for "gross workers' rights violations" under a controversial free trade agreement with the United States and Israel. (Emad Mekay, IPS News, 27 September 2006)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34904

(Added: Thu Oct 05 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 177)

"Essential actors of our time": Human rights defenders in the Americas

Amnesty International, 10 November 2003. In the context of persistent human rights violations against human rights defenders, the first section of this report outlines the international framework for the protection of human rights defenders and their work and highlights some developments since the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998. The second section of this report examines recent cases of attacks and intimidation of human rights activists from the USA to Argentina. The case studies are not an exhaustive account of the difficulties and dangers facing human rights defenders, rather they illustrate how current political and economic trends in the Americas region have aggravated and compounded insecurity for many defenders. Within the confines of this report priority has been given to cases of human rights defenders from civil society, although Amnesty International has also documented many cases of human rights violations against state agents working for the promotion and protection of human rights. Finally, five years on since the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, a set of principles issued to ensure states guarantee the rights of those defending human rights, Amnesty International challenges governments in the Americas to convert human rights rhetoric into real commitments by establishing protection of human rights defenders as a priority on both national and regional human rights agendas.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR010092003?open&of=ENG-CAN

(Added: Thu Nov 13 2003   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 348)

A Policy for the Neighbors

Relations between Latin America and the United States are increasingly marked by irritation and distrust. Yet this tension has passed almost unnoticed by the United States press and unaddressed by the United States government. Such indifference has grave consequences not only for diplomacy but also for human rights.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/cuba/826.html

(Added: Fri Aug 22 2003   Modified: Fri Jan 19 2007   Hits: 363)

Amnesty International USA's supplementary briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture

The briefing updates Amnesty International's concerns with regard to US "war on terror" detention, interrogation and related policies, as outlined in its preliminary briefing of August 2005, and provides additional information on domestic policies and practice. It is intended for the UN Committee Against Torture, who will be examining the US compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on 5 and 8 May in Geneva. (Amnesty International, 3 May 2006)

http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maaeLo8abqhbbckuuzKb/

(Added: Wed May 17 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 92)

Anti-terrorism Measures, Security and Human Rights: Developments in Europe, Central Asia and North America in the Aftermath of September 11 (PDF)

Report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF).- "In the months that have passed since the tragedy, states have inter alia increased the powers of law enforcement and intelligence institutions, including to interrogate and detain persons, to intercept private communications and to conduct searches of private homes and personal property without the normal procedural safeguards; have tightened border controls that impede access to their territory and adopted new, restrictive asylum and immigration measures that may limit access for bona fide asylum seekers; and have authorized various registration and profiling schemes that appear to target certain groups solely because of their race, ethnicity or religion."

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/anti-terrorism.pdf

(Added: Mon Sep 22 2003   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 228)

Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance'

Amnesty International's new report exposes a covert operation whereby people have been arrested or abducted, transferred and held in secret or handed over to countries where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment. The report describes, using records of more than 1500 flights, how the CIA has used private aircraft operators and front companies to preserve the secrecy of "rendition" flights. Rendition is the illegal transfer of people from one country to another in ways that bypass all judicial and administrative oversight - of late used to facilitate interrogation of suspects outside the reach of the law in the "war on terror". The report shows that the CIA has exploited aviation practices that would otherwise require their flights to be declared to aviation authorities. AI cautions that states that tolerate these flights landing on their territory and companies that carry them out, may find themselves complicit in serious human rights abuses, and must act now to halt this practice. (Amnesty International, April 5 2006)

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510512006

(Added: Mon Apr 10 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 97)

Bush: Guantanamo's future up to Supreme Court

President Bush said Wednesday that he'd like to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where three detainees committed suicide Saturday. He said he was awaiting a Supreme Court decision about how terrorism suspects there could be tried. (Laura Parker, USA Today, 14 June 2006)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-14-bush-gitmo_x.htm

(Added: Fri Jun 16 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 103)

By the Numbers: Findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project

This 27-page report presents findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project. The project is the first comprehensive accounting of credible allegations of torture and abuse in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. (New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, APril 2006)

http://hrw.org/reports/2006/ct0406/

(Added: Tue May 02 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 80)

Close Guantánamo now!

You want Guantánamo closed? Say/sing/act it on camera in a 5 to 10 seconds video clip! You're welcome to comment further on why Guantánamo should be closed, as long as it is not offensive. If you can, shoot your video at a recognisable landmark from your city or your country (the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Zocalo in Mexico City...). Collected material will be compiled and edited into one big Make Some Noise video, to spearhead Amnesty International's "Close Guantánamo" campaign around the world.

http://noise.amnesty.org/site/c.adKIIVNsEkG/b.2141873/k.2B98/Make_an_impact_Close_Guantanamo/apps/ka/ct/contactcustom.asp

(Added: Mon Dec 04 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 176)

Courting Disaster

Since at least ancient Roman times, Western legal systems have recognized that where there is a right, there also must be a remedy. Western law now dominates the globe and underpins international human rights law. All national legal systems recognize the right to a remedy for general wrongs suffered, and international human rights law extends this by providing a right to reparations for human rights violations. Unfortunately, despite the long history of the concept and the ubiquity of the legal influence, the notion of remedy for wrongs has rarely been applied to indigenous peoples (Ellen Lutz, Cultural Survival, 1 October 2007).

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/csq/csq-article.cfm?id=1978

(Added: Fri Oct 26 2007   Hits: 40)

Critics condemn U.S. torture by proxy

Rights group alarmed by deportations `Renditions' considered useful tool Nov. 8, 2003. OLIVIA WARD FEATURE WRITER When Ottawa computer expert Maher Arar arrived back in Canada this week after a year of captivity, his account of torture in Syria and Jordan shocked many. Arar, who was seized by American officials in New York during a flight back from a family visit, has called for a full investigation of Canada's role in his ill-treatment, which he said included confinement in a dark, filthy cell, beating and psychological abuse. Arar also encountered another Syrian-born Canadian, Abdullah Almalki, in the Syrian jail, and reported he had received even more severe treatment. For Canada, accusations of complicity in offshore torture and abuse of people suspected of political crimes are unprecedented. And they are directly linked to the worldwide anti-terrorism crackdown following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But for the U.S., deportation of suspects to countries where torture is conducted by proxy - "rendition" as it is known in American intelligence circles - is part of a larger pattern that is causing alarm, and critics say it's damaging America's image in the international community.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1068246608055

(Added: Fri Nov 14 2003   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 151)

Guantanamo Canadian case dropped

A US military judge has dropped charges against a Canadian held at Guantanamo Bay, saying he could not be tried under new laws governing military tribunals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6720315.stm

(Added: Tue Jun 05 2007   Hits: 63)

Human rights: Where is the U.S.?

In this article, the former U.S. representative to the UN Commission for Human Rights, argues that the United States, despite not being a member of the Human Rights Council, must send a high-level envoy to engage in influencing and establishing procedures as the new Council takes form, as it ought not to turn our back on any opportunity to advance human rights throughout the world, having regressed their progress in its so-called 'war on terror'. (Nancy Rubin, International Herald Tribune, 20 June 2006)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/20/opinion/edrubin.php

(Added: Thu Jun 22 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 187)

Meet the New Interrogators: Lockheed Martin

By Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch November 4th, 2005. Apart from the monoply on war-related contracts to one single corporation, the increased outsourcing of interrogation to private contractors raises questions of accountability and of enforcement of regulations designed for the military.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12757

(Added: Fri Nov 11 2005   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 100)

No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse

This report is based largely on firsthand accounts by U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq, and describes abuses that took place in three separate locations in Iraq in 2003-2005. Many of the accounts are from soldiers who witnessed and in some cases participated in the abuses. First, the report discusses incidents involving a special military and CIA task force based at Camp Nama, near Baghdad, in 2003-2004, and near Balad in 2004-2005. Second, the report describes abuses in 2003-2004 at a Forward Operating Base on the Syrian border, called FOB Tiger. Third, the report details abuses in 2004 at detention facilities at the Mosul airport. The military's own investigations and reports by journalists and other observers support many of the accounts, and provide further details from soldiers about abuses at these facilities, including abuses in 2005. (Human Rights Watch, July 2006)

http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0706/

(Added: Tue Jul 25 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 141)

No More Deaths

Campaigning organsation working on the US/Mexico border to prevent deaths of migrants.

http://www.nomoredeaths.org/

(Added: Fri Oct 26 2007   Hits: 65)

Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay [PDF]

This joint report is submitted by five holders of mandates of special procedures of the Commission on Human Rights who have been jointly following the situation of detainees held at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay since June, 2004. United Nations Economic and Social Council, 15 February 2006.

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/62chr/E.CN.4.2006.120_.pdf

(Added: Mon Feb 20 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 121)

Slaves in Amazon Forced to Make Materials Used by GM

In this article labour inspectors visit Peru and Brazil, where slave labour is used to make products for export to the United States and Europe. Workers suffer severe health problems. The authors speak to human rights groups, the corporations and the authorities to find where the blame lies. (Michael Smith and David Voreacos, Bloomberg, 2 November 2006)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aMwWoD6G0Z9w&refer=latin_america

(Added: Fri Nov 03 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 173)

So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances. But until the thirty-eight death penalty states and the federal government abolish the death penalty, international human rights law requires them to use execution methods that will produce the least possible physical and mental suffering. However, corrections agencies continue to display a remarkable lack of due diligence with regard to ascertaining the most "humane" way to kill their prisoners. There is mounting evidence, including execution records and eyewitness testimony, of botched executions. Prisoners have been insufficiently anesthetized during their executions, experiencing pain but unable to signal their distress, because they were paralyzed. (Human Rights Watch, April 2006)

http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0406/

(Added: Wed Jun 14 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 79)

The Green Light : politics and power

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantanamo detainee wouldn't talk, the Bush administration's highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army's own Field Manual.(Phillippe Sands, Vanity Fair, April 2008)

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/guantanamo200805?printable=true¤tPage=all

(Added: Mon Apr 07 2008   Hits: 15)

The Guantanamo Testimonials Project

The University of California Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) has launched a long term research project to assess the effects of the U.S. war on terror on human rights in the Americas. The goal of this Project is to gather testimonies of prisoner abuse in Guantanamo, organize them by the source of the testimonies given and by the type of the abuse alleged, and post these testimonies on this site. The testimonials are organized into categories that include prisoners, FBI agents, prosecution lawyers, the Red Cross, and interrogators. The strength of these testimonies is considerable. Based on them, a number of distinguished individuals and organizations have called for the closure of Guantanamo. This Project and website, is valuable for those interested in human rights and various aspects of the law.

http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/index

(Added: Mon Oct 08 2007   Modified: Mon Nov 19 2007   Hits: 45)

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