The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging a law that treats human rights advocates as criminal terrorists, and threatens them with 15 years in prison for advocating nonviolent means to resolve disputes. The case is known as Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, and is the first case to challenge a portion of the Patriot Act before the Supreme Court. The case, originally brought in 1998, challenges the constitutionality of the law that makes it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the administration has designated as “terrorist.”
November 30, 2009 | Filed under
Law |
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I once wrote an article about former President George W. Bush saying that he was a perfect Manchurian candidate. That is, if his missing year when he was supposed to have been flying fighter jets with the Texas Air National Guard was actually spent in the former Soviet Union being reprogrammed as a covert KGB agent whose job it was to go back to America, win election to the White House, and proceed to destroy the US, he couldn’t have done a better job than he actually did.
November 30, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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While most U.S. war veterans tend to be supportive of their country’s military operations abroad, some have been voicing their opposition to any escalation.
For weeks, Washington has been debating whether to send more troops to Afghanistan but a growing number of veterans are lobbying U.S. politicians against a new war strategy for Afghanistan that Barack [...]
November 29, 2009 | Filed under
TPRvideo |
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One of the best features of a visit to Los Angeles is the opportunity to hang out with the guy who put Charles Manson in prison, the most successful criminal prosecutor we’re ever likely to see, Vince Bugliosi (105 convictions in 106 felony jury trials, 21 convictions in 21 murder trials). I spoke with him on Tuesday about his forthcoming documentary film.
November 29, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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Amid the near-constant speculation over President Barack Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan, there appears to be virtually universal consensus that rooting out corruption has to be a top priority if the US and its NATO allies are to have a “credible partner” in the Afghan government. But corruption takes many forms and is found at many levels. To the lawyers of Human Rights First (HRF), understanding the relationship between corruption, how prisoners are treated and the rule of law is “critical to the success of any strategy” the Obama administration may decide to pursue.
November 27, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the release from Guantánamo of Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, a 48-year old Algerian, after granting his habeas corpus petition. Her ruling has not yet been unclassified, so the reasons for her decision are not yet clear, but it is significant that the ruling now brings to 31 the number of prisoners who have successfully challenged the basis of their detention in US courts. In contrast, just eight prisoners have lost their habeas petitions, meaning that the success rate in the prisoners’ legal challenges now stands at 80 percent.
November 25, 2009 | Filed under
Law |
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Most Americans are blissfully in the dark about it, but across the Atlantic in the UK, a commission reluctantly established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown under pressure from anti-war activists in Britain is beginning hearings into the actions and statements of British leaders that led to the country’s joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
November 24, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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Al Jazeera reports:
Yemen is struggling with the possible release of the largest group of detainees at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The release of more than 90 Yemenis still being held at the facility may be delayed due to US fears that Yemen does not have the capacity to ensure the men will [...]
November 22, 2009 | Filed under
TPRvideo |
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One of the saddest stories in Guantánamo is that of Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan married to an Afghan woman and with a newly-born baby daughter, who was running a small bakery in Jalalabad, Afghanistan at the time of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Fearing that he would be seized in the widespread anti-Arab sentiment that followed the collapse of the Taliban, he traveled with his family to the house of his wife’s parents, but instead of finding safety he was seized by bounty hunters and sold to US forces.
November 22, 2009 | Filed under
Law |
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Back in May 2007, while researching the activities of the American Psychological Association (APA) in support of the U.S. government’s interrogation program, I came across evidence that the APA had engaged in a discussion of torture techniques during a workshop organized by APA and the RAND Corporation, “with generous funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).”
November 21, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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