By James D. Long. Published 2-22-2024 by The Conversation
The death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, announced on Feb. 16, 2024, lays bare to the world the costs of political persecutions. Although his cause of death remains unknown, the 47-year-old died while serving a 19-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony.
“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in a Feb. 19 video.
Continue reading
By Brett Wilkins. Published 1-11-2024 by Common Dreams
Human rights defenders marked 22 years since the opening of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba with renewed calls for President Joe Biden to fulfill his stated intention to close the notorious torture camp, where 30 men—16 of them cleared for release—remain behind bars.
Like most of the roughly 750 prisoners released from Guantánamo, the majority of remaining detainees have never been charged with any crime. Only one—Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul, a Yemeni national—has ever been convicted of terrorism-related charges under the highly controversial military commission regime established by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Continue readingBy Brett Wilkins. Published 12-30-2021 by Common Dreams
Witness Against Torture demonstrates for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay offshore prison. (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)
Human rights advocates and attorneys representing Guantánamo Bay detainees on Thursday decried a secret new courtroom reportedly being built by the Pentagon at the notorious offshore U.S. prison.
The New York Times reports Gitmo’s new second courtroom—which will cost $4 million—will not allow members of the public to witness proceedings against detainees to be tried for alleged terrorism-related offenses. People wishing to view those trials will have the option of watching delayed video footage in a separate building. Continue reading
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-29-2021
Demonstrators protest United States immigration policy in Washington, D.C. in 2017. Photo: Ted Eytan/CC BY-SA 2.0
In a decision called “horrifying” by human rights advocates, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the government may indefinitely detain previously deported immigrants who claim they will be tortured or persecuted if returned to their countries of origin.
The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Johnson v. Guzman Chavez that a group of previously removed immigrants who were apprehended again after reentering the United States could not be released on bond while the government evaluates their claims of “reasonable fear” of torture or persecution. The decision reverses a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the immigrants’ favor. Continue reading
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-12-2021
Witness Against Torture demonstrates for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay offshore prison. (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)
Human rights advocates on Friday welcomed reporting, confirmed by the White House, that President Joe Biden intends to close the Guantánamo Bay offshore military prison, which has long drawn global condemnation for torture and detention conditions.
“We are pleased to hear that the Biden administration wants to review the U.S. policy of almost 20 years of indefinite detention without charge of Muslim men at an offshore prison,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security With Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, in a statement. Continue reading
By Whitney Webb. Published 6-29-2018 by MintPress News
Phpto: WoW! Magazine
Though the recent Supreme Court ruling on Trump vs. Hawaii, which upholds President Trump’s “Muslim ban,” has been widely covered by the press, very few outlets – if any – have explored some truly unnerving implications hidden within the court’s majority opinion. In order to explore these implications further, MintPress spoke to Ryan Alford, Associate Professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law and author of Permanent State of Emergency: Unchecked Executive Power and the Demise of the Rule of Law.
MPN: Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, talks a lot about whether the judicial branch even has the authority to rule over executive orders like Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban.” Is he accurate in asserting that the Supreme Court has limited authority in this matter or is this another power giveaway to the executive branch? Continue reading
By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 2-27-2018
Photo: toluimmigration
In a decision that could be devastating for thousands who have been swept up by President Donald Trump’s deportation dragnet and immensely profitable for the private prison industry, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that immigrants—including those with permanent legal status—do not have the right to bond hearings and can be detained indefinitely.
The 5-3 ruling tosses out a 2015 lower court decision that stated immigrant detainees are entitled to a bond hearing every six months. The Obama administration appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, and the Trump administration continued the case. Continue reading
By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-16-2017
Photo: Screenshot
With just days until Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a new trove of documents is raising additional questions about the federal judge’s time at the Department of Justice (DOJ), where he “played a key role in defending the torture and detention policies that have been rejected by the courts and by our country,” according to one group.
From June 2005 to August 2006, Gorsuch served as the principal deputy to the associate attorney general under former President George W. Bush. Continue reading
By Lauren McCauley, staff-writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-23-16
![Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. Photo by Kathleen T. Rhem [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://occupyworldwrites.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/512px-Camp_Delta_Guantanamo_Bay_Cuba.jpg)
Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. Photo by Kathleen T. Rhem [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
After 14 years of being held without charge, Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah, who was subject to brutal torture and is known as the “guinea pig” for the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) “enhanced interrogation program,” made his first appearance on Tuesday before the Periodic Review Board and requested to be set free.
In a statement (pdf) read by his personal representative, he explained how he “initially believe that he did not have any chance or hope to be released” but has “come to believe that he might have a chance to leave Guantánamo.” Continue reading
By Claire Bernish. Published 7-4-2016 by The Anti-Media
Photo via Pinterest
United States — What if people, sickened by tyrannical control, threw off the shackles of bloated governance in favor of leading themselves? What if the erosion of fundamental freedoms — guaranteed not by a document, but by being human — were actually intolerable as so much grumbling intimated? What if government intrusion into people’s bedrooms, communications, sovereign corporeal decisions — of vice, health, and more — means of subsistence, financial choices, business, education, and innumerable other aspects, were utterly unacceptable?
What if even the revolutionary roots, the foundation, of the nation were soaked in the blood of countless individuals and peoples — a likely sign no tangible freedom would last beyond lip service? Continue reading