Human Rights Watch is charging that, despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a “budding police state” — cracking down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating, and detaining activists, demonstrators, and journalists. The organization’s Middle East and North [...]
This exclusive report was originally published by Truthout on March 30, 2010. It was written by investigative reporter Jason Leopold. The Justice Department has quietly recanted nearly every major claim the Bush administration made about Abu Zubaydah the alleged al-Qaeda leader who was the first suspected terrorist subjected to the torture of waterboarding and other [...]
The Spanish Judge whose work triggered the investigation that nabbed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1998 believes that Spain could bring charges against six Bush Jr. administration officials for clearing the way for the use of torture during the Iraq war – but he is being blocked by charges making him the culprit. On [...]
This report was written by investigative reporter Jason Leopold and originally published on Truthout. Early last month, Air Force Capt. Michael Schwartz was summoned into the office of Rear Adm. David Woods, the new commander of Guantanamo, and was accused of “smuggling” into the detention facility an anti-Guantanamo pamphlet that featured the photographs of two [...]
While unarmed civilians die on Bahrain’s streets, the king of the tiny oil-rich nation continues to tell his people he is eager for dialogue and refuses entry to a prominent human rights champion from the U.S. Denied a visa was Richard Sollom, deputy president of the US-Based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), who was hoping [...]
Question: How does a charter school whose multiple applications have been riddled with lies and misrepresentations and has been rejected three times by a state education department get approved for a $600,000 grant from the federal government? Answer: The federal government admittedly does not routinely fact-check grant applications for charter schools, and does not allow [...]
After months of performing like Egypt’s Cinderella leader, jet-setting between Cairo and his old home in Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei has finally reached the limits of his frustration. At a press conference last week, ElBaradei said the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took over from Mubarak, had governed “as if no revolution took place [...]
This exclusive report was written by Jason Leopold and originally publishedon Truthout Have you ever filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and received a written response from the agency stating that it could not locate records responsive to your request? If so, there’s a chance the FBI may have found [...]
The Occupy movement has been instrumental in not only changing our national conversation on issues such as poverty and massive income inequality, but on shedding an unwavering light on the corporate criminal class too. The movement has these moneyed thugs shaking, and one need look no further for evidence of this than in the violent, [...]
President Obama is on record promising to close Guantanamo Bay. Three years into his presidency, however, the controversial prison is still detaining individuals accused of being terrorists. In addition President Obama has signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the indefinite detention and torture of anyone suspected of a belligerent act, including US [...]
