Roberto Abraham Scaruffi: We were subjected to ‘meticulous, daily torture’freed Gitmo detainee

Saturday, 21 December 2013

We were subjected to ‘meticulous, daily torture’
freed Gitmo detainee

The European Union Times


Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:40 PM PST

After years of being held at the US Naval Base in Cuba without trial, Ibrahim Idris, one of two Sudanese detainees released on Thursday, said US prison officials had “systematically tortured” him in the course of his 11-year imprisonment at Gitmo.
Idris, who has been described by US officials as mentally ill, delivered his comments in a news conference in Khartoum, just hours after returning home courtesy of a US military plane.
Appearing weak and speaking with apparent difficultly, Idris gave a brief account of his lengthy imprisonment at Gitmo.
“We have been subjected to meticulous, daily torture,” he said. “We were helpless…on an isolated island, surrounded by weapons.”
He praised the Sudanese government and human rights organizations for working to secure the release of prisoners at Gitmo, which has been called “the GULAG of our times” by Amnesty International. Closed-door military tribunals, for example, have been riddled with problems, including courtroom speakers that have a mysterious tendency for being blocked during key testimony.
Another released detainee, Noor Othman Muhammed, was unable to attend the conference because he was recovering in the hospital, Idris said.
On Feb. 18, 2011, Muhammed pleaded guilty in a military tribunal to offenses under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, and was sentenced to 14 years confinement, according to a Defense Department news release. In exchange for his guilty plea and Muhammed’s cooperation with prosecutors, the military court agreed through a pre-trial agreement to suspend all confinement in excess of 34 months.
Idris, who had been designated for transfer since 2009, said some of the former prisoners had pled guilty in a bid to secure their freedom.
As Barack Obama wins congressional approval to transfer some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to their home countries, a released Sudanese inmate spoke of the torture he and others endured at the hands of their American jailers. Approval for a partial detainee release is contained in the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate by an 84-15 vote on Thursday night.
“While the bill does not address all of the administration’s concerns, its provisions … will provide the administration additional flexibility to transfer detainees abroad consistent with our national security interests,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier Thursday.
Of those still held in the prison, five individuals stand accused of participating in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. At the same time, some four dozen detainees are considered “too dangerous” to be released.
About half of Gitmo’s 158 detainees have been cleared to be released since 2009, yet congressional restrictions prevented that from happening.
‘Special’ treatment for hunger strikers
A new outbreak of hunger strikes happened in early 2013. By July, 106 of the 166 detainees were on hunger strike, with 45 of them being force-fed.
According to Idris, those inmates who participated in these protests were “doubly tortured.”
In November, a 19-member task force concluded in a 269-page report, entitled ‘Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the ‘War on Terror’, that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA ordered medical professionals to assist in intelligence gathering, as well as forced-feeding of hunger strikers, in a way that inflicted “severe harm.”
Gitmo officials announced earlier this month that the US military will no longer disclose to the media and public whether prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike, explaining that “the release of this information serves no operational purpose.”
This decision has deprived detainees of an effective means of protesting the conditions of their detention.
As Obama moves to release more detainees, he can expect strong opposition from many Republican lawmakers, including not least of all former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has argued strongly that Guantanamo should be kept open.
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Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:33 PM PST

A federal appeals court in New York City has revived litigation against Saudi Arabia on behalf of families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
More than twelve years after the 9/11 attacks and eight years after a lower federal court ruled Saudi Arabia had immunity from prosecution, a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that families of 9/11 victims can get their day in court against Saudi Arabia.
According to the families of 9/11 victims, the kingdom provided support to al-Qaeda prior to the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.
“This opinion is eminently correct and will give 9/11 victims their day in court,” said Stephen Cozen, a partner at the Pennsylvania-based law firm Cozen O’Connor representing the plaintiffs.
“The parties will start over, and we are very, very satisfied that we will meet any defenses, both legal and factual, that are raised,” Cozen added.
The litigation began in 2002, just one year after the 9/11 attacks, when families of the victims said that Saudi Arabia and a charity affiliated with the Saudi government knowingly provided al-Qaeda with funds and other material support to help them carry out the attacks.
However, in 2005, US District Judge Richard Casey dismissed the case ruling that the kingdom was immune from prosecution under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
In 2008, a 2nd Circuit Court panel upheld the ruling on different grounds but the same interpretation of sovereign immunity law did not apply to Afghanistan against which a 2011 decision allowed similar claims to proceed.
It would be “especially anomalous” to treat the two cases differently, Circuit Judge Chester Straub wrote for the three-judge panel on Thursday, Reuters reported.
“I’m ecstatic, because we have a lot of information and evidence,” William Doyle, who lost his 25-year-old son in the attacks, told the New York Daily News.
Fifteen of the 19 September 11 attackers were Saudi nationals who flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and into a field in Pennsylvania.
Moreover, many Americans and families of the attacks’ victims say there is more to the tragic event than just planes hijacked by Saudi nationals, talking about the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, Israeli complicity in the events, and many other issues.
Critics have indicated, among other things, to bombs and explosives planted at the World Trade Center that demolished the buildings, jubilant Israeli intelligence agents photographing the attacks, made-up phone calls from the planes, and a warning by the Mossad (the Israeli spy agency) one day before the attacks to Israeli Tower workers and occupants to stay away from the buildings.
A former CIA agent, Susan Lindauer, has also indicated to the role of the US intelligence apparatus in the attacks.
Lindauer talks about the CIA’s detailed knowledge of the time, target, and means of the 9/11 attacks over the months prior to the events, saying the “lies are so much bigger than what you know.”
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Posted: 20 Dec 2013 02:12 PM PST

Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s views on homosexuality have been condemned by many as “hate speech,” yet his words were infinitely less savage than those contained in the Old Testament.
If we are to accept that Robertson’s rhetoric represents hate speech, then the Bible should immediately be banned because it openly incites violence against gays.
Compare what Robertson told GQ Magazine to what appears in Leviticus 20:13.
Robertson: “It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical…Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”
Leviticus 20:13: “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.” (NASB)
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (ESV)
Robertson also paraphrased another part of the Bible – Corinthians – when he stated, “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
Robertson expresses his disagreement with the homosexual lifestyle and characterizes it as a sin. The Bible characterizes homosexuality not only as a sin but as an abomination punishable by death.
According to the Supreme Court, hate speech is permissible under the First Amendment unless it is likely to lead to imminent hate violence.
Since the Bible openly and aggressively advocates that homosexuals be put to death, it can easily be argued that such rhetoric is likely to lead to imminent hate-driven violence.
Indeed, there have been numerous cases around the world of pastors being arrested under hate speech laws for quoting Bible passages which relate to homosexuality.
Given that conclusion, the characterization of Robertson’s words as “hate speech” must automatically mean that the Bible – to an even greater degree – also represents “hate speech” and should immediately be withdrawn from 37 million Christian churches worldwide and treated in future only as a historical relic.
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Posted: 20 Dec 2013 01:58 PM PST
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (L) and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel criticizes the Chinese Navy as “irresponsible,” saying its actions risk escalating tensions with the United States.
In the highest-level rebuke of Beijing since a Chinese warship nearly collided with an American guided missile cruiser in the South China Sea earlier in December, Secretary of Defense Hagel laid the blame squarely on China for the naval incident.
“That action by the Chinese, cutting in front …100 yards out in front of the Cowpens, was not a responsible action,” Hagel told a news conference on Thursday. “It was unhelpful, it was irresponsible.”
US officials have said that the USS Cowpens had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a Chinese vessel on December 5. The incident did not become public until last weekend.
The Pentagon chief stressed that the standoff, the first of its kind in several years, underscored the need for clear protocols between the two militaries to avoid a potential confrontation in the Pacific.
“That’s the kind of thing that’s very incendiary, that could be a trigger or a spark that could set off some eventual miscalculation,” Hagel said. The two sides needed to work “to have a mechanism to be able to defuse some of these issues as they occur,” he added.
Critics charge that President Barack Obama’s “pivot” strategy towards Asia and the US military buildup in the Pacific could lead to a potential clash between the two rivals.
“The US needs to recognize that China will not tolerate US military presence in its waters just as the United States will not tolerate Chinese naval ships off the coast of Atlantic City in New Jersey,” investigative journalist Wayne Madsen told Press TV on Wednesday.
“With President Obama’s ‘pivot’ to Asia where he has redirected a lot of US military assets to East Asia, we’re going to see a lot more confrontations like the one we recently saw between a US Navy cruiser and a Chinese aircraft carrier,” Madsen said.
China’s recent declaration of an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, including air space previously monitored mainly by Japan and South Korea has also put further strain on US-Sino relations.
Beijing has warned Washington to be cautious in its words and actions with regard to China’s territorial disputes with its smaller neighbors.
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Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:44 AM PST

The Ugandan parliament has ratified a bill that will see homosexuals imprisoned for life, if the person is caught in the act more than once, according to activists and reports on Friday.
One gay activist speaking to AFP following the vote said that now he is “officially illegal.”
This is the toughest measure to have been accepted in the country yet, although there was an even more severe version of the bill, which involved a controversial death penalty clause, something that was excluded from the final draft, said the politician behind the bill, David Bahati.
The document has now been sent to the office of President Yoweri Musevini for final approval.
Uganda has considered tough anti-gay laws before. The country saw its first official proposal in 2009, but it was stifled then following an international outcry, with US President Barack Obama calling the bill “odious.”
The reason for this is that the 2009 version proposed that repeat offenders get the death sentence, while also including an article that proposed the same for acts in which one partner was a minor, or if one were sick with HIV.
As well as much tougher penalties for homosexuality and a prohibition of any kind of public promotion of homosexuality, the new bill reportedly includes any public discussion of the matter by rights groups or NGOs.
The situation with LGBT rights in Africa is particularly difficult. According to the International Gay and Lesbian Association’s assessment in 2008, a total of 38 African countries had laws under which homosexuality was illegal.
The international community in 2011 threatened African states with reducing aid if they continued to toughen anti-gay laws. But that did not achieve the desired effects: some countries simply doubled down on the prohibition.
For the majority of countries on the continent, homosexuality is not a question of rights, but of culture and values. For instance, so much as recognizing that a same-sex relationship even exists is outlawed in the majority of countries, excluding only Senegal, Ethiopia and Saint Helena (UK territory) – who appear to have no opinion on the matter.
However, in the French territories of Mayotte and Reunion, there has been no prohibition of homosexuality for more than 200 years.
South Africa’s constitution is very liberal on LGBT rights, guaranteeing rights to same-sex couples and allowing same-sex marriage. Its anti-discrimination laws apply to both straight and same-sex couples, including the right to change one’s gender if desired.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 10:59