The Torture of Abdallah Higazy– By Michael Ratner on Justleft.org.Two weeks ago the struggle against the use of torture in the U.S. got a boost, by accident. A federal court in New York City published an opinion in a civil suit that includes a graphic description of the FBI extracting a false confession from a completely innocent man by threatening to have his family tortured. Making such a threat is considered torture. View redacted opinion here.
Ousted Arabic School Principal Debbie Almontaser plans to sue the city for violating her freedom of speech after reapplying for her position last month as principal of Kahlil Gibran International Academy. The ousted principal of the city’s first public Arabic-language school was forced to resign after she was quoted explaining that the word “intifada†literally means “shaking off†in Arabic. This was in reference to a controversy arising over a t-shirt that read “intifada NYC†created and worn by a group called Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media.
Debbie Almontaser says she was forced out under pressure from Mayor Bloomberg and calls the offense a serious injustice to Arab and Muslim communities of New York City. Communities in Support of KGIA
Guests – Donna Nevel and Mona Eldahry who are involved in organizing Debbie Almontaser’s defense.
“This has been a painful book to write,” he said, “and if I have done any justice to the subject, it will be a painful book to read. There is no way around this, nor should there be.” says Marcus Rediker author and history professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Rediker has scoured through letters, diaries, memoirs, captain’s logbooks, shipping company records to piece together the intimate realities of these 18th-century sailing vessel carrying enslaved Africans. Rediker draws startling parallels to global economy structures then and now, tracing back as New England timber was used to build Slave Ships yet nails and ropes were purchased from Liverpool at discounts, ship captain stock options and more. In his book, Marcus also documents revolts among underpaid sailors and the solidarity that evolves amid slaves and servants.
One review describes Slave Ship as “ a tale of tragedy and terror, but also an epic of resilience, survival, and the creation of something entirely new. Marcus Rediker restores the slave ship to its rightful place alongside the plantation as a formative institution of slavery, a place where a profound and still haunting history of race, class, and modern economy was made.â€
Vote down the Attorney General Nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey.
“Michael Mukasey professes ignorance as to whether water-boarding is a form of torture unless he knows “the actual facts and circumstances” of its use. The “facts and circumstances” of water-boarding are quite straightforward. When a person is water-boarded, their head is held under water until the person begins to involuntarily “inhale” water. At that point, the victim is certain they will drown if not allowed to get air. It is a technique from the Spanish Inquisition and illegal under international and domestic law. Instilling fear of imminent death as an interrogation technique is the very essence of torture, and no amount of legal analysis can come to any other conclusion.” Read full CCR Press Release.
Recently, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives took a major step toward ending U.S. complicity in Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. Despite an intense campaign of threats and intimidation by the Turkish government and its lobbyists in Washington, DC the Committee adopted HR 106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution.
Introduced on January 30, the resolution calls on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide.
One day after the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution, 27-21, Turkey withdrew its ambassador for consultations, and Turkish legislators on October 17 authorized the use of military force against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a step that may further destabilize Iraq and disrupt oil supplies. Despite overwhelming evidence documenting the Genocide, the Republic of Turkey continues to pursue a well-funded campaign – in Washington, DC and throughout the world – to deny and ultimately erase from world history the 1.5 million victims of Ottoman Turkey’s and later the Republic of Turkey’s systematic and deliberate massacres and deportations of Armenians between 1915 and 1923. According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the historical record on the Armenian genocide is quote – unambiguous.
Since 1982, successive U.S. Administrations, fearful of offending Turkey, have effectively supported the Turkish government’s revisionism by opposing passage of Congressional Armenian Genocide resolutions and objecting to the use of the word “genocide” to describe the systematic destruction of the Armenian people.
Hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith interview Henri Alleg for the first half hour. Alleg, a French journalist living in Paris, supported Algerian independence during the French Algerian War (1954-1962). He was arrested by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers in June 1957 and interrogated.
Henri Alleg describes to Law and Disorder hosts in this exclusive interview how he was questioned hung from his feet and tortured with a similar brutality and sadism often described by prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Alleg’s republished book The Question is a moving account of that month of interrogation and his triumpj over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre has written the preface that remains a relevant commentary on the moral and political effects of torture on the both the victim and perpetrator.
Guest – Henri Alleg, a French-Algerian journalist, director of the “Alger républicain” newspaper, and a member of the French Communist Party. After Editions de Minuit, a French publishing house, released his memoir La Question in 1958, Alleg gained international recognition for his stance against torture, specifically within the context of the Algerian War.
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith discuss how Judge Michael Mukasey claims he’s unfamiliar with “water boarding” as a form of torture.
Echoing Michael Mukasey, his friend and associate who likely will soon be the next attorney general, Republican presidential front-runner Rudolph Giuliani claimed Wednesday that he doesn’t know whether waterboarding is torture. Read more by Joe Conason
Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian speak with CCR attorney Jen Nessel about the launch of Beyond Guantanamo Rescue the Constitution Campaign. Find out more here – CCRJustice.org
A recent Amnesty International study on the sexual violence against indigenous women in the United States exposes a disturbing trend in human rights abuse. The reasons why indigenous women are at particular risk of sexual violence are complex. According to the report, more than one in three Native American and Alaska Native women are survivors of rape. Most of the abused women have not followed through in their cases to seek justice because of a general inaction within the tribal government authority and its chronic under-resourced law enforcement agencies which should protect indigenous women. As one support worker said, “Women don’t report because it doesn’t make a difference. Why report when you are just going to be re-victimized?” Too many times, as the Amnesty Report identifies, those responsible for the violence are able to get away with it.
Guest – Michael Heflin, the Amnesty International USA Campaign Director.
Here on Law and Disorder we continue to look at the issue of Iraq war resisters and conscientious objectors. We’ve interviewed war resistors – their families and discussed conscientious objection. We also look at how legislation has changed for soldiers applying for CO status.
Since the Vietnam War more than 170,000 men were officially recognized as conscientious objectors. But, in 1971 the Supreme Court refused to allow objection to a particular war, a decision affecting thousands of objectors to the Vietnam War. Some 50,000–100,000 men are estimated to have left the United States to avoid being drafted. Now, the US military is all-volunteer. We talk with Citizen Soldiers’ Tod Ensign about what’s changed for Conscientious Objectors since the Vietnam War and compare what it means to be a CO in today’s United States military.
A legal team including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sued the “Shadow Army” Blackwater USA, the private military contractor whose heavily armed personnel allegedly opened fire on innocent Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. The suit was filed on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed in the incident, according to the legal team representing the civilians. The case was brought be the Center for Constitutional Rights and the firms of Burke O’Neil LLC and Akeel & Valentine, P.C.
During WBAI’s fall fund raiser for the Pacifica station 99.5 FM in New York City, Law and Disorder hosts were live in the studio with Naomi Wolf. Naomi Wolf is a feminist, social critic and political activist. The New York Times called her book, The Beauty Myth, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Wolf is the co-founder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, teaching young women to become leaders and agents of change. Naomi Wolf blog in the Huffington Post
Her latest book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is a call to return to the beliefs of our founding fathers. Wolf’s new book illustrates ten steps historically taken by leaders who are attempting to dismantle a democracy. Wolf jokingly called it the The Greatest Hits of Facism.
In The End of America, Wolf gives voice to the cause of every American patriot: the preservation of the Constitution and the liberties it embodies and protects.
“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,” stated Wolf.
His speech is titled Imperialism in the American Century. Viveck describes what “progressives can expect in the near future in terms of basic principles of justice. Viveck also references how the (PNAC) Project for the New American Century draft is shaping foreign policy.
—
Co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith discuss the recent news – The military is accusing two attorneys for Guantanamo detainees of smuggling underwear to their clients. Michael and Heidi also read the two letters detailing the dispute. Read Shane Kadidal’s blog post here: Underwear Gnomes Infest Guantanamo
—
Michael Ratner’s letter published in the New York Times Oct. 10, 2007 – Torture and the Shame of a Nation.Responding to this New York Times Editorial: On Torture and American Values.To the Editor:“On Torture and American Values†lets Congress off the hook too easily regarding the torture and secret detention program. As with the Iraq war, many Republicans and Democrats were and still are willing to be misled (or claim to have been so) rather than appear to be perceived as weak on terrorism. Sadly, Congress by its actions and inactions is the handmaiden of the torture program. Despite the publicly revealed memos authorizing torture and the testimony of its widespread use, Congress, even under the Democrats, has yet to hold even one hearing regarding the responsibility of high administration officials. Perhaps had it done so, the administration would not have felt emboldened to continue the program.Instead, Congress affirmatively aided the torture program. Examples abound: removing habeas corpus from detainees and failing in its restoration (habeas is key to protecting against torture — lawyers and courts have access to detainees); granting amnesty to officials who may have violated the torture and war crimes provisions of our law; allowing a defense for future abusers if they relied upon legal advice; authorizing the president to redefine cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and permitting the use of evidence derived from torture and coercion.Now with the nomination of a new attorney general, Congress again has an opportunity to make its voice heard: no attorney general who does not clearly and unequivocally repudiate the new torture memos and the secret sites at which torture is carried out should even be considered for the job. Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Are we the only ones who are ready to retch at the constant stream of praise for the president’s choice for attorney general? asks attorney Shane Kadidal in his latest Huffington Post blog Mukasey Will Suck (And He Hates Us) Shane goes on to list how US attorney general nominee Judge Michael Mukasey wrongly describes the role of the Center for Constitutional Rights defending Guantanamo detainees and other mis-characterizations.
Guest – Shane Kadidal, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and has been at CCR since 2001. He works on the Center’s major case on the illegal NSA domestic spying program, CCR v. Bush, as well as the Center’s Patriot Act case, and testified before Congress this past spring on the material witness statute. He also works on Turkmen v. Ashcroft, representing people swept up on immigration charges after 9/11 and unlawfully detained and abused; with the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters challenging discriminatory hiring policies of the New York City Fire Department; and with the Sikh Coalition against religious discrimination by New York’s Transit Authority, among other cases.
Guest – attorney Jesse Berman. Berman was an attorney for Osama Awadallah, a US citizen, Palestinian and Muslim. Awadallah was a student at a San Diego college when he was arrested as a material witness shortly after 9/11. Berman describes how federal Judge Mukasey responded to an attorney claiming Awadallah had been beaten while in jail. Mukasey says “he looks fine to me.”
Recently the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case charging Caterpillar, Inc with aiding and abetting war crimes. Caterpillar is the company that provided bulldozers to Israel knowing that would be used to demolish homes and endanger civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The case, Corrie, et al. v. Caterpillar Inc. was brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie and four Palestinian families whose family members were killed or injured when Caterpillar bulldozers demolished their homes. Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist and student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, was killed March 2003, in the Gaza Strip by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer while protecting a home from illegal demolition. [Click here to download the Decision] from a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals found that it did not have jurisdiction to decide the case because Caterpillar’s bulldozers were ultimately paid for with money from the United States. For years, Caterpillar has had notice that the IDF was using its D9 bulldozers for human rights violations; despite this, the company has continued to provide them to the Israeli government.
Today on Law and Disorder we talk with the Executive Director and Legal Director of the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice. They’re a national, non-profit organization, that provides legal support and advocacy for working people and their communities.
Basically holding corporations and goverments accountable to their legal and moral responsibilities regarding illegal and abusive working conditions. Recently the Sugar Law Center has handled cases involving Wal-Mart and Wackenhut, the private prison corporation.
