detention

Yemen: Houthi authorities round up opposition

Houthi authorities in Yemen have detained dozens of political opponents since July, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. The rights group said that at least 70 people associated with the opposition party Yemeni Congregation for Reform, or Islah, were detained in Dhamar governorate. HRW noted that 21 of these individuals have been subject to an "unfair trial" on "dubious accusations of espionage," with 17 sentenced to death by firing squad, and two sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. HRW emphasized that it is illegal under Yemeni law to make arrests without a warrant, and that detention without a legal basis or prompt charges and criminal proceedings violates both domestic and international law. (Map via PCL)

Trump vows ‘reverse migration’ —after CIA blowback?

President Trump called for "reverse migration" and a "major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations" in a racist late-night online rant. In the bizarre Thanksgiving message, Trump vowed to "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries" and revisit immigration decisions made under his predecessor, Joe Biden. He said deportations will target "anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country" or "non-compatible with Western Civilization." Trump's message followed the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC, apparently by an Afghan refugee, Rahmanullah Lakanwal. In Afghanistan, Lakanwal reportedly served in the Zero Units: paramilitary forces backed by the CIA—notorious for conducting night raids on the homes of suspected Taliban collaborators. Rights groups have accused them of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, indiscriminate airstrikes, and attacks on medical facilities. According to the New York Times, the brutality of the Zero Unit tactics took a toll on Lakanwal's mental health, with a childhood friend recalling how he was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused.

Deportees in El Salvador were tortured: report

Venezuelan nationals deported to El Salvador by the US government earlier this year were tortured and ill-treated, advocacy groups reported. According to a report jointly released by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, a Salvadoran advocacy organization, members of a group of 252 Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador's notorious Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) were subjected to torture, arbitrary detention, and in some instances sexual abuse, while held incommunicado in inhumane conditions. The organizations found a pattern of coordinated abuse rather than isolated incidents. One former detainee told investigators: "I'm on alert all the time because every time I heard the sound of keys and handcuffs, it meant they were coming to beat us." (Photo: Casa Presidencial El Salvador via Wikimedia Commons)

Suit challenges ‘inhumane’ conditions at ICE facility

Advocacy groups in Illinois filed a class action lawsuit against US federal authorities over "inhumane" conditions at a Chicago-area Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, claiming violations of detainees' constitutional rights as well as federal regulations. The plaintiffs' lawyers—from the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU of Illinois and Chicago law firm Eimer Stahl—charge that federal authorities have violated the Fifth Amendment Due Process clause by imposing unreasonable conditions of confinement at the Broadview facility. They also allege violations of an administrative regulation prohibiting coercion to induce a waiver of rights. They further allege a violation of the Sixth Amendment in denial of detainees' right to counsel. (Photo: Paul Goyette/Flickr)

Italy urged to revoke migration pact with Libya

Human Rights Watch called on Italy to revoke its migration cooperation agreement with Libya, saying the arrangement "has proven to be a framework for violence and suffering, and should be revoked, not renewed." The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the countries, first signed in February 2017, was part of Italy's strategy to tighten border control. Under the agreement, Italy has provided technical, logistical and financial support the Libyan Coast Guard, enabling the force to intercept tens of thousands of people at sea and return them to Libya. However, NGOs have documented how intercepted refugees and asylum seekers are routinely detained in inhumane conditions, where they face torture and other degrading treatment. The MoU is up for renewal next month. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

West Africans deported by US sue Ghana government

Eleven individuals deported from the US to Ghana filed a lawsuit against the Ghana government, charging that they were illegally held in a military detention camp. The legal action reflects the chaotic fallout following the deportations, which have resulted in deportees being scattered and "dumped" into neighboring African countries. The deportees are of multiple West African nationalities, none of which is Ghanaian. The deportations arose from a "third country deportation" agreement between the US and Ghana earlier this year. Ghana's parliamentary minority bloc has now called for its suspension, as leaders claim the government entered into the agreement without proper legislative approval. (Photo: Venezuelan deportees in Honduras. Credit: ICE via Wikimedia Commons)

Podcast: The Twenty-Fifth Hour revisited

The case of Kilmar Abrego García, shunted from detention in one country to another, with no end in sight, recalls the World War II-era classic of dystopian fiction The Twenty-Fifth Hour by Romanian writer C. Virgil Gheorghiu. The wartime transnational detention system, harrowingly depicted in the novel, was seen by Gheorghiu as an inevitable manifestation of our technocratic civilization that exalts the machine above humanity, ultimately resulting in the treatment of human beings as mere cogs in the state-industrial apparatus. This process is more advanced today with the current hypertrophy of the technosphere, which is related to the re-emergence of abuses approaching those of the fascist era, and ultimately bodes poorly for humanity's future. In Episode 294 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unsparing look at this grim juncture for the human race. (Image via Cocosse)

White House plans mass displacement of Gazans

Future plans for the Gaza Strip currently circulating among United States government officials call for for the relocation of the entire population to make way for construction of tourist resorts and tech industry hubs under a decade of US administrative control, according to a Washington Post exclusive. The 38-page document obtained by the newspaper includes full-color artist renderings of the envisioned "Riviera of the Middle East." The prospectus, yet to be officially approved, would see the US take the Strip under trusteeship for at least 10 years, overseeing "voluntary departures" of the residents to third countries or into "restricted" zones within the territory. A "Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration & Transformation Trust" (GREAT Trust) would be established to coordinate the effort. (Image via Mada Masr)

MAGA-fascism and the struggle in El Salvador II

Kilmar Abrego García, released from extrajudicial detention in El Salvador, now fights deportation to Uganda. Hundreds of the Venezuelans sent by the US to the Salvadoran prison gulag have now been returned to Venezuela in a prisoner swap. But El Salvador remains on the growing list of human rights offendors cultivated by the Trump regime as surrogate detention states. The Trump State Department's farcical "Human Rights Report" seeks to sanitize dictator Nayib Bukele's anti-crime police state. And adding to the Orwellian nature of the Trump-Bukele axis, the US Justice Department has dropped charges against MS-13 leaders who collaborated in the consolidation of the new Salvadoran dictatorship. In Episode 293 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg exposes the perverse charade. (Photo: Policía Nacional Civil de El Salvador via InfoDefensa)

Still no accountability for China’s crimes against Uyghurs

Amnesty International condemned the lack of accountability for the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghur Muslims in western Xinjiang region, noting that nearly three years have passed since a groundbreaking UN report detailed gross violations of international law against the ethnic group. In interviews with Amnesty, distraught family members recounted being prohibited from any form of contact with their loved ones, many of whom were suddenly taken away and imprisoned without due process or formal charges. They spoke of how they have remained in the dark for years about whether their relatives are alive, and how lack of transparency has meant fear and anguish, with one family member describing the uncertainty as a "wound that never heals." (Photo: Amnesty International)

Nebraska gets fed-funded migrant detention center

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced the opening of a new immigration detention center in the southwest corner of the state. The National Guard said called the move a step in supporting "the president's initiatives for homeland security." The present McCook "Work Ethic Camp," run by the state Corrections Department, will be transformed from a minimum-security facility, and its holding capacity will be expanded to approximately 300. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the new center, dubbed "Cornhusker Clink," is to be a partnership between Nebraska and the DHS. Secretary Kristi Noem remarked that the partnership aims "to remove the worst of the worst out of our country." The new detention center mirrors Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz," from which deportations have already started to occur. (Image: Change.org)

US-Ecuador security pact amid deepening crisis

At least 17 people were killed in an armed attack on a bar in El Empalme, a small town north of Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil—days before US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neom visited the country and signed a deal to fight organized crime and illegal migration. The deal includes training for Ecuadoran security forces in the US and collaboration on border security. Once one of South America’s safest countries, Ecuador has registered a vertiginous uptick in violent crime in the past few years. In response, President Daniel Noboa has adopted a series of hardline security policies that have raised concern over human rights abuses. The policies range from the repeated declaration of states of emergency, the construction of El Salvador-style prisons, and a "strategic alliance" with private US military contractor Erik Prince. Noboa has also replicated some of US President Donald Trump's deportation tactics, returning more than 600 Colombian prisoners to their country in late July with no official notice. (Photo: Presidencia Ecuador via Peoples Dispatch)