torture

Report: Torture evidence found in Syrian prisons

BEIRUT (AP) — Rights activists visiting abandoned government prisons in the first Syrian city to come under rebel control have found torture devices and other evidence that detainees were abused there, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday.

By Barbara Surk, Associated Press , May 17, 2013

Torturer’s overdue day in court

Abu Ghraib has nothing over Chicago. Forty years ago, Jon Burge returned from Vietnam, joined the Chicago Police Department and allegedly began torturing people. He rose in the ranks to become a commander in Chicago’s South Side, called Area 2.

By Amy Goodman, Hearst Newspapers , May 28, 2010

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Was Rumsfeld a torturer?

Despite the repeated calls for an independent bipartisan investigation of those at the highest level of our government responsible for authorizing the torture policy that provided al-Qaida with an effective recruiting instrument, the stubborn fact now is the same as reported by Jane Mayer in “The Dark Side” (an indispensable book based on Dick Cheney’s forecast five days after 9/11 on how the U.S. war on terrorism would be waged).

By Nat Henthoff, First Amendment , March 31, 2010

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Torture under Obama

Some of the increasing number of critics, from the left and the right, of President Barack Obama’s abuses of civil liberties and human rights make an exception by praising his executive order in the first month of his term banning torture as a form of interrogation on matters of national security. There is credible reason, however, to dispute the credibility of that presidential pledge.

By Nat Henthoff, First Amendment , February 17, 2010

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Man convicted of torturing 76-year-old Calif. woman

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — A man has been convicted of torture and attempted murder for beating and kidnapping a 76-year-old California woman and holding her in a car trunk for 26 hours.

December 14, 2009

CIA torture doctors and psychologists

The fearlessly independent Physicians for Human Rights — founded in 1986 and sharer of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 — has once again exposed the shameful role of doctors and psychologists throughout the CIA’s torture interrogations, banned by the international Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as in the Geneva Conventions and our own statues.

By Nat Henthoff, First Amendment , September 23, 2009

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Cheney opposes an inquiry into CIA torture

It’s no surprise that former Vice President Dick Cheney is opposed to the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the torture of prisoners during the Bush-Cheney administration. After all, Cheney has acknowledged that he was “aware” of waterboarding (simulated drowning) of detainees to get them to talk.

By Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers , September 10, 2009

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U.S. loses moral high ground with torture

Secrecy is endemic in all governments. It goes with the turf, especially if their leaders hope to hide illegal or immoral behavior, such as torture of foreign prisoners. Many Americans heaved a sigh of relief this past January when President Barack Obama banned the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Imagewise, it made the administration look more humane than the Bush-Cheney team. But that is not the whole story.

By Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers , July 30, 2009

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Mr. President, are we still torturing?

On Dec. 26, 2002, Dana Priest and Barton Gellman broke, in the Washington Post, the first undeniable story of American torturing of suspected terrorists. In a CIA secret prison at our Bagram air base detention center in Afghanistan, prisoners were being subjected to the by now all-too-familiar ways of “breaking” suspects during the Bush-Cheney “terror presidency.”

By Nat Henthoff, First Amendment , July 22, 2009

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Torture debate prompts soul-searching

Among evangelical leaders, debate over the use of harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists has prompted introspection about faith, ethics, the Golden Rule, just wars, Jack Bauer and Jesus. A number of evangelical leaders have made opposition to torture without exceptions a moral cause over the past three years, part of a broadening of the movement’s agenda beyond traditional culture war issues. Others in the movement, including many Christian right leaders, have largely resisted or stayed silent.

By By Eric Gorski, The Associated Press , May 15, 2009

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Pakistan presses on with offensive

Pakistani paramilitary forces destroyed a handful of militant centers and uncovered alleged torture cells as they pressed ahead Sunday with an offensive against extremists near the Afghan border, officials said.

By By Riaz Khan, The Associated Press , June 30, 2008

Letter to the editor: Torture should never be allowed to occur

In the June 13 edition we read the headline, “Court says detainees have rights, bucking Bush.” And further, President Bush disagrees with ruling. This concerns the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, which said Guantanamo Bay detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution to appeal their apparently endless detention as so-called terrorists.

By Allen Osmundson, Binford, N.D. , June 25, 2008

Congregations displaying anti-torture banners

About 300 houses of worship are displaying anti-torture banners this month in an initiative by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

June 13, 2008

Wanted: Independent torture probe

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a widely respected 25-year veteran of the Justice Department, John Durham, to conduct a criminal investigation into the CIA’s destruction of videos showing the waterboarding and other harshly “coercive” abuses of a key terrorist. Durham will report to a deputy attorney general who then reports to Mukasey — and thereby will not be autonomous (equivalent in authority to an attorney general).

By Nat Hentoff , January 23, 2008