Tag: detention

Watching the Shadows

Guards fire on Gitmo hunger-strikers

Military guards at Guantanámo Bay fired “non-lethal” rounds at hunger-striking detainees as a federal judge turned down a petition for emergency relief.

Iran

Did Iran shelter Sulaiman Abu Ghaith?

Reports that Obama bin Laden’s co-conspirator and brother-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was sheltered in Iran could lubricate the war drive—but how credible are they?

Watching the Shadows

John Kiriakou: CIA whistle-blower?

Ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou gets five years for blowing the cover of a fellow agent, and claims that he is a “whistleblower” on CIA torture—despite having justified the practice.

North America

Somali men in new ‘terrorism’ cases

A Somali-American accused of planning a Christmas bomb attack in Oregon appears to be the latest victim of an FBI-generated bogus "terrorism" plot.

Watching the Shadows

2013 NDAA: Feinstein amendment hurts, not helps

Civil and human rights groups are protesting Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposed amendment to the 2013 NDAA, saying it paradoxically loans legal cover to indefinite detention.

The Andes

Assange and Ecuador: no monopoly on hypocrisy

Julian Assange’s supporters accuse the media of hypocrisy in pointing to Ecuador’s sketchy record on press freedom—but come dangerously close to apologizing for repression.

Afghanistan

Taliban attack Bagram, skateboarders

Insurgents attacked Bagram Air Base outside Kabul—and a skateboarding program run by a nonprofit for Kabul youth, killing four kids.

Watching the Shadows
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Amnesty International called the Guantánamo Bay prison camp a "stain on human rights" on the eve of the facility's seventeenth anniversary. Guantánamo currently holds 40 detainees, many of whom were tortured by the CIA before being transferred to the facility. Some of the detainees have been cleared for transfer for years, but still remain at the facility. Some have been waiting for transfer as far back as 2010. Since its opening, the Guantánamo facility has housed around 800 prisoners, many without formal charges or due process. (Photo via Jurist)

Inner Asia
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With China accused of detaining hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims without trial in its western province of Xinjiang, a BBC investigation analyzed satellite data to determine that the detention camp system in the region is rapidly expanding. Reviewing images from the European Space Agency's Sentinel satellite service, the BBC finds at least 40 such facilities across Xinjiang, half built within last two years—with a big thrust of construction just in the past six months. Among the largest is a "massive, highly secure compound" still being built at Dabancheng, about an hour's drive from the provincial capital, Urumqi. It is enclosed within a two kilometer-long exterior wall punctuated by 16 guard towers. (Photo via UNPO)

North America
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Isamu (Art) Shibayama, a rights advocate for Latin Americans of Japanese descent who were detained in prison camps in the United States during World War II, died July 31 at his home in San Jose, Calif. Born in Lima, Peru, in 1930, Shibayama was 13 when his family was detained and forcibly shipped to the United States. They were among some 2,000 Japanese-Peruvians who were rounded up and turned over to the US military for detention after the Pearl Harbor attack. Upon their arrival in New Orleans, the family was transported to the "internment camp" for Japanese-Americans at Crystal City, Texas. The family would remain in detention until 1946. Shibayama eventually won US citizenship, but was denied restitution for his wartime detention on the basis that he had not at the time been a US citizen or legal resident. He was still seeking justice from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the time of his death. (Photo via the New York Times)