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In Libya its a case of "meet the new boss; same as the old boss." The UN's top human rights official said Friday that Libya's transitional government must take control of its prisons and prevent further atrocities against detainees. “There's torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the Associated Press. Pillay says she is particularly concerned about sub-Saharan African detainees whom the brigades automatically brand as fighters for the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Pillay, who briefed the UN Security Council about Libya on Wednesday demanded action from the...

KABUL, Afghanistan — A 15-year-old Afghan girl severely tortured for months by her in-laws in an attempt to force her into prostitution will be sent to India for medical treatment, an Afghan official said Monday. Sahar Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law were arrested and her husband was being sought, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi. The case has shocked Afghanistan, though rights activists say serious abuses against women and girls in the conservative society are common. President Hamid Karzai has said that whoever used violence against Gul will be punished. According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, the in-laws kept Gul...

Sudan is a kind of diabolical Groundhog Day. In the film by that name, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) re-lives the same day over and over again until he learns the lessons needed to change his life and save the lives of others. In Sudan today, people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State are re-living the horrific nightmare from which they thought they had finally awakened after the signing of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But in this case, it is the United States government that has failed to learn the lessons needed to change conditions and save the...

Jerusalem, 15 December 2011 -- R. David Weisskopf filed a $20 million lawsuit against the United Jewish Appeal yesterday in U.S. Federal Court. (Case No. 6:11-CV-668) The lawsuit alleges the United Jewish Appeal donated over one billion dollars to anti-father lobbyists such as Bar Ilan University’s “Rackman Institute” which aggressively pressures the Israeli Knesset to revive Social Darwinian laws against fathers. Bar Ilan’s “Rackman Institute” sponsors conferences in which judges and social workers get "educated" about the benefits of visitation refusals, and encouraged to tear children away from fathers and break up family units. According to the Coalition for Children...

Every so often I want to watch some TV program in my PC. Ok, it usually is football! When I google "this game lifestream" I usually get lots of sites from where I can download something for free that will allow me to watch the game. But I don't know anything about that site, how safe it is... Does any body have any recommendations? At least, does someone know how I can watch the Denver-New England game tomorrow? Thanks

Somebody takes a snapshot of the donor plaque recently posted at a notorious supervised visitation center in Israel where the father of a small child committed suicide. The plaque states that the Jewish Federation of a major American city donated to this facility to empower women and children. The photographer was a friend of the father who committed suicide and is himself a divorced father who is only allowed a couple hours per month with his child under supervision. “He never harmed anyone,” the photographer says about his friend. Another photographer in different part of Israel photographs a donor plaque....

...“We’ll reject torture — without exception or equivocation.” During his first month in office, [Obama] made good on his pledge, signing an executive order prohibiting torture or inhumane treatment. There is no reason to doubt that the order has been followed. This was a huge step forward for the United States. But if he loses the presidency next year, Obama’s failure to deal with the legacy of torture that he inherited may turn out to be a huge problem. He has left the door open for state-sanctioned torture to be part of the next administration’s tool kit for dealing with...

The Arizona lawmaker—who was tortured himself while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — said the controversial practice was both illegal and ineffective. BY ALIYAH SHAHID Republican Sen. John McCain is ripping presidential candidates in his party who insist waterboarding is an effective technique for interrogating suspected terrorists. The Arizona lawmaker—who was tortured himself while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — said the controversial practice was both illegal and ineffective on Monday evening. “Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding,” he tweeted. “Waterboarding is torture.” McCain, who ran for President in 2008, elaborated on CNN later,...

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential standard-bearer, has taken pains to avoid weighing in on the 2012 GOP primary. But on Sunday, McCain said he was "very disappointed" that some Republicans defended waterboarding at Saturday’s National Journal/CBS debate in South Carolina. “Waterboarding is torture,” McCain, who was a prisoner of war and tortured during the Vietnam War, said via Twitter. On Saturday, Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota both endorsed waterboarding as an interrogation technique. President Obama banned its use at the beginning of his term, calling it cruel and counterproductive.

Two drug-related police scandals inadvertently have helped The City prepare for an influx of inmates under the state’s recently implemented prison realignment plan. The inmate population at San Francisco’s jails dropped sharply in early 2010 after the Police Department’s drug lab scandal came to light and again this year after allegations began surfacing about police misconduct during drug raids at residential hotels, Sheriff’s Department statistics show. By Oct. 3, when courts began redirecting prisoners convicted of minor offenses to county jails instead of state prisons, San Francisco jails were running at just 60 percent of capacity. “The crime lab fiasco,...

BREAKING NEWS: Gaddafi 'captured' as rebel forces take control of Sirte Leader wounded in both legs prior to capture By DAILY MAIL REPORTER Last updated at 12:27 PM on 20th October 2011 Comments (0) Add to My Stories Share Muammar Gaddafi has been captured by revolutionary forces in Libya, it has been reported today. Gaddafi and his family have been on the run since Nato and rebel forces started closing the net on Tripoli in mid-August. The reports of Gaddafi's capture came on the same day that revolutionary forces said that they had taken control of Sirte - the leader's...

Shalit Interview ....jockeying for the rights to conduct the first interview with Gilad after he returned home. But they were all trumped by Egypt's state-controlled media – which conducted its own interview with Shalit, minutes after he was handed over to Egypt by his Hamas captors. Israeli officials are up in arms over that interview, with a government spokesperson saying that Israel had expressed its “shock” to the Egyptian government for forcing Gilad to go through what was clearly a very difficult experience. The interview was conducted by veteran Egyptian TV personality Shahira Amin on behalf of the government-owned Nile...

Here is what the Iran-Hezbollah Islamo-fascistic entity has been contributing to humanity, since the Islamic Revolution. Religious apartheid and ethnic apartheid: Since the revolution, a total Islamic oppression has been in place, yet, there was always a "special" place for oppression on non-Muslim, racism on non-Ethnic Iranians like; Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs, etc. - Hijacking Americans for 144 days in 1979. - Bombing US and French barracks in 1983. - Multiple kidnapping and torturing of Westerners in the 1980s. - Bombing shopping malls in France 1985-6 - Torturing Lebanese Jews in the 1980s. - Bombing Israeli embassy in Argentina 1992...

Sen. John McCain said Monday he disagreed with former vice president Dick Cheney's assertion that the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki could be equated with enhanced interrogation techniques. "They're two entirely different things," McCain said Monday on CNN's "American Morning." "One is that this was specifically authorized by Congress after 9/11. And it's action that is taken against a declared enemy of the United States of America. I'm glad they did it. I'm glad that they will continue." On Sunday, Cheney said on CNN's "State of the Union" that President Barack Obama owed the Bush administration an apology for criticizing enhanced...

MASSACRE IN MEXICO MORE GRAPHIC PHOTOS SHOWING VICTIMS OF VICIOUS, EVIL, RUTHLESS MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS! GRAPHIC, DISTURBING CONTENT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. Grapic images from MexicoMEXICO CITY – The scene was shocking. Masked gunmen blocked a busy road in the once-quiet port city of Veracruz, abandoning two trucks with 35 bodies inside, near a big shopping center. It was Tuesday at 5 p.m., broad daylight. People on the streets watched the corpses being left at an underpass. Some of the victims had their hands tied and showed signs of having been tortured. The picture could have been extracted from a horror...

Sen. John McCain, a critic of President George W. Bush's use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war on terror, reflected on the “issue of torture” a decade after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners hurt us a great deal and did provide a propaganda tool for our enemies including Al Qaeda,” the Arizona Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." Noting that on the 10th anniversary of those attacks he did not want to dwell on his differences with the current and previous administration, McCain applauded both Bush and President Barack Obama for...

CHICAGO — A court says two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm can move forward with a lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of being responsible for U.S. forces allegedly torturing them. The ruling Monday from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago a rejects arguments that Rumsfeld should be immune from such lawsuits for work performed as a Cabinet secretary.

A doctor involved in horrific torture by Saddam Hussein’s henchmen is working in British hospitals. In an astonishing immigration scandal, border officials have allowed the suspected war criminal to treat thousands of British patients. Dr Mohammed Kassim Al-Byati was given a permit to work as a doctor in the NHS by the Labour government in 2004. Checks failed to uncover his history of working for the notorious Iraqi Intelligence Agency, which ran the country in a reign of terror during the Saddam years. His job was to patch up torture victims so that they could be subjected to more appalling...

CLIFTON HEIGHTS, Pa. (AP) -- A southeastern Pennsylvania woman is accused of beating her 9-year-old grandson and blasting him in the face with a garden hose because he ate too much bacon. The Delaware County Daily Times reports Marilee Ann Kolynych was arrested Tuesday.

Seven years after the release of shocking images of tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the Supreme Court has turned back the appeal of 26 inmates from that infamous facility who wanted to sue two military contractors for damages. The military's official investigation revealed "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" committed by military personnel and civilian contractors who provided support services at the prison. More than two dozen soldiers were reprimanded or court-martialed for their conduct. But those who were tortured want to sue two firms that hired the civilians who helped the military with...

'77 children killed' in Syria unrest Thursday 09 June 2011 Amnesty International reveals to Channel 4 News that it has the names of 77 children killed in the recent violence, plus reports of a third child tortured to death.

Dear Angelina Jolie, I am writing to you about Syria and the ongoing bloodshed we are watching across the country every day. You may have seen the consistent coverage in the news recently about the latest country in the Middle East to join the “Arab Spring.” Despite excitement over pro-democracy movements successfully removing dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, Western leaders have largely remained silent on Syria. They stayed silent when the bullet-ridden, tortured corpse of 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, who was arrested at a pro-democracy protest in a village in southern Syria in April, was returned to his family one...

Islamists believe themselves to be doing the will of Allah. They believe that their faith is the one true faith and that they are destined to win over all infidels (nonMuslims). Victory is inevitable, a historical certainty. EIT exploits this faith. Jihadists believe it is their duty to carry out their mission, and if captured, they are to resist interrogation for as long as possible. However, they also believe that they do not have to hold out indefinitely. Once they reach a threshold, they are allowed by their faith to capitulate and release information. A good jihadist will resist for...

At least 1100 civilians killed in Syria uprising: group | Reuters May 24, 2011 ... AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops and security forces have killed at least 1100 civilians in their two-month campaign to crush pro-democracy ...

DEXTER, Minn. - The Dexter parents who pleaded guilty to chaining one of their sons to his bed have been denied visitation rights. Thirty-three-year-old Brian Dale Miller and 26-year-old Charity Lynn Miller requested visitation with the younger of their two sons Friday. They both pleaded guilty earlier this month to gross misdemeanor false imprisonment. They were accused of chaining their 5-year-old son to his crib and withholding food and access to the bathroom from him and his 8-year-old brother.

Shortly after Osama bin Laden met his demise at the hands of U.S. special forces, Michael Mukasey opined in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that harsh interrogation tactics had been key to identifying a courier, which, in turn, led to locating bin Laden’s compound. Such an assessment, from a highly respected former attorney general, was bound to be influential. Indeed, the CIA’s enhanced-interrogation program, used on a select few high-level al-Qaeda detainees following the 9/11 attacks, had figured prominently in Mukasey’s confirmation hearings. He had, at the behest of Congress, thoroughly reviewed the program upon taking the reins...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. The Republican presidential contender insisted the tactics led the United States to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech last week that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. McCain said he asked CIA...

"KSM figured out waterboarding. He figured out the limits," Marc Theissen, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said during a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. KSM "actually mocked his interrogators by holding out his arm and counting off the seconds with his hand. He knew exactly how far we could go and when the terrorists know how far you can go it's very very hard to break them." Justice Department memos released by President Barack Obama indicate that the maximum duration for a single application of water to a terror suspect in the program authorized...

No one really knows how bad it is, but it’s much worse than I thought possible. Piecing together information from satellite images and eye witness accounts, Amnesty International suspects that the horrific concentration camps in North Korea are growing. Some 200,000 people live as slaves – enduring starvation, torture, and rape while performing hard labor. Many die every year, only to be replaced by fresh bodies. Of those that survive, few will ever be released. Deemed ‘prisoners’, the victims of North Korea’s political pogroms are interned for the smallest criticisms of the regime of Kim Jong-Il, and when they are...

This is getting really good. As noted below, John McCain in an Op ed this morning skewered the claim that the killing of Bin Laden vindicates torture. But just now, on the Senate floor, he uncorked a new broadside that is quite remarkable, taking direct aim at Bush apologists who are reviving this debate in order to claim Bin Laden’s death as part of the Bush legacy. McCain amplified his case, and called on former Bush attorney general Michael Mukasey — whose recent op ed claiming torture led to Bin Laden has been widely cited by the right — to...

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, has rejected the argument that torture was necessary to successfully combat terrorism - and denied claims that waterboarding detainees provided intelligence that helped end the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. (snip) On CBS' "The Early Show" Friday, McCain denied claims made by Rep. Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who said earlier this week that through the use of such tactics, a courier for the al Qaeda leader was identified. (snip) "Through normal, conventional...

ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 15: (L-R) US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, US President George W. Bush and US Vice President Dick Cheney attend the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute toRumsfeld at the Pentagon December 15, 2006 in Arlington, Virginia. Praise was heaped on the outgoing secretary by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld used his farewell speech to call for an increase in military spending. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) "The history of the United States military is clear: Torture doesn't work"- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld“We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.”- Vice President Dick Cheney“This country doesn’t torture,...

Attorney General Reopened Investigation Two Years Ago In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, with Barack Obama fresh off his “I killed bin Laden” victory tour, Attorney General Eric Holder’s criminal investigation into the interrogation techniques utilized by CIA officers against captured terrorists is front page news again. Holder reopened the previously reviewed case after assuring Republicans that he would not do so. In January of 2009, Republican opposition to Holder’s appointment as Attorney General subsided following his “private assurances” that he did not intend to pursue CIA officers who acted in “good faith” when conducting harsh...

Dick Cheney bemoans end of harsh interrogation tactics By Fox News From: NewsCore May 08, 2011 9:45AM FORMER Vice President Dick Cheney has tipped his hat to Barack Obama for authorising the military operation that led to the killing of Oama bin Laden last weekend. But, in an interview with Fox News Sunday, he also lamented the end of controversial Bush-era interrogations that many conservatives believe contributed to America's greatest counterterrorism success. "Well, I think you've got to give him (Obama) a lot of credit for making the decision to have the SEAL team 6 conduct the raid that got...

While Britons celebrated the royal wedding last Friday, one of Iran’s greatest intellectuals willingly fell to his death from the sixth-floor balcony of his Tehran apartment. Siamak Pourzand, aged 80, had held out long enough against the Islamic Republic..... Pourzand was an already prominent cultural commentator and foreign correspondent long before Ayatollah Khomeini boarded a plane from Paris, full of big ideas, in 1979.... Secular and cosmopolitan to the core, Pourzand had no time for the guardianship of the sadists and made a point of saying so, especially in the late 1990s when he began writing for various opposition newspapers...

Could anything be more predictable than the euphoria with which the national media reported the death of Osama bin Laden? After all, their guy–the fellow America-hater whose election journalists secured with years of dutiful worship and diligent concealment–succeeded where George Bush had failed. The war on terror was now officially over, won by the first black President.

"But policies put in place by the very administration that presided over this splendid success promise fewer such successes in the future. Those policies make it unlikely that we'll be able to get information from those whose identities are disclosed by the material seized from bin Laden. The administration also hounds our intelligence gatherers in ways that can only demoralize them. Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed...

Wasn’t Sen. Obama against President Bush’s policies on “the war on terror” and enhanced interrogation techniques before, as President, he was for them and began to use those policies himself? By no means, I’m I condemning the decisions and actions that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. What I am is shocked. I’m shocked at the blatant hypocrisy of the Liberal Left. The Left excoriated president George W. Bush starting at the war on terror and going through to the Abu Ghraib prison photographs that showed the sophomoric antics of a few military prison guards engaged in largely...

The unity and pride inspired by the killing of Osama Bin Laden has quickly deteriorated into a nasty debate over the effectiveness of torture. The administration is reportedly upset by this diversion. But President Barack Obama has nobody to blame but himself. While President George W. Bush took the nation down the dark path to torture, Obama ensured that it remained part of our national debate by failing to investigate and hold to account those who tortured. His failure to do so means that we now debate publicly whether or not to torture based on assessments of whether or not...

May 05, 2011 Debra Burlingame: Obama Says He Will Not Intervene With AG Holder Over Indictments of CIA Interrogators Just over FoxNews now. As the wife sister of one of the victims of 9/11 -- and a persistent critic of Obama's policies -- she used the meet-and-greet as a chance to ask Obama about an issue that concerns her. Holder's holding indictments over the heads of CIA interrogators -- the same ones who delivered bin Ladin to the SEALs. Burlingame asked him about that, and said "I know you can't tell him what to do" (which isn't really true), and...

Osama bin Laden was (a) killed by a unit overseen by Dick Cheney's "executive assassination ring," (b) sent into action based on intel derived from now-outlawed "enhanced interrogation techniques" (c) used on detainees captured during Bush's term, who were (d) held in now-outlawed "secret prisons" or Gitmo. President Obama's deputy national security advisor, John Brennan, confirmed that the death of bin Laden resulted from "a mosaic (of intelligence) appearing over time and by ... people who have been following bin Laden for many, many years." This explains why 81% of Republicans give George W. Bush "at least some of the...

WASHINGTON - Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden's most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed's successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania. The news is sure to reignite debate over whether the now-closed interrogation and detention program was successful....

Seattle police have released a photo of John Hauff Jr., the man charged with kidnapping, raping and assaulting a woman in what they describe as a torture room at his Tacoma property. Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said photos of Hauff's property, his dark green Mercury Sable station wagon and Hauff himself were released Tuesday afternoon to try to reach possible victims. A spokesman for King County Prosecutor Dan Donohoe said police had referred no additional cases. "We are not interested in asking any potential victim or victims if they were involved in crimes of prostitution or drug offenses when they encountered...

ur Democrat friends think they may have found a strong candidate to compete for the U.S.Senate seat to be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is retiring at the end of her term next year. According to the Star-Telegram, He’s retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of Rio Grande City. A graduate of what was then Texas A&I (now Texas A&M University, Kingsville), Sanchez has been earning his living as business consultant and speaker since his 33-year career in the U.S. Army ended in 2006. The man has impressive credentials, but he carries some heavy baggage. Maria Recio reports: Former Texas...

Her name was Dorothy Dixon, and she was betrayed by a person the state told her she could trust. The person, Michelle Riley, worked as a coordinator for a regional center that helps developmentally disabled people get food, clothing, and a place to live. Dorothy had the mind of a child, so she needed all the help she could get to survive in a world of adults who usually have very little time for the mentally disabled. In her capacity of helping Dorothy, Michelle would eventually strike up a good friendship with her. It wasn't long before Michelle decided that...

A Hidden History of Evil Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives? In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains...

President Obama is feeling the heat over the treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama took unseemly advantage of the accusation that George W. Bush's administration tortured terrorist detainees. Now even an O Force insider is strongly hinting that the administration’s conduct toward the individual thought to have leaked thousands of classified documents amounts to torture. Pfc. Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, last week released a letter in which Pfc. Manning purportedly described the “ordeal” he suffered in January during a three-day suicide watch at the brig where he is being held...

Liberals have found another reason to be angry with President Obama: the ouster of P.J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman who announced his resignation Sunday after criticizing the Pentagon for its treatment of the WikiLeaks case suspect Private Bradley Manning. Jane Hamsher, one of Obama’s consistent antagonists at the liberal blog FireDogLake, which probably most epitomizes former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’s epithet “the professional left,” is leading the charge. She wrote Monday in support of a protest against Manning’s treatment and Crowley’s firing with a march from the State Department to the White House. “With his firing...

An imprisoned Afghan citizen, Said Musa, reportedly faces a possible death sentence for the "crime" of converting to Christianity. His plight represents an appalling human rights violation -- and a potentially serious threat to the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy. Musa's case has thus far not received much attention in the U.S., beyond a few media reports and the valiant alarms raised by religious freedom scholar Paul Marshall. But that may soon be changing, as more and more media, NGOs, and religious groups are learning of his precarious situation. Imprisoned since last summer, Musa has reportedly suffered heinous physical and sexual...

George W. Bush canceled a trip to Switzerland after human rights groups pressed for the former president’s arrest on torture charges, the Guardian reports.The Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization pressing for Bush’s arrest, says they “have no doubt he cancelled his trip to avoid our case.� Amnesty International says “an investigation would be mandatory under Switzerland’s international obligations if President Bush entered the country.� The United Israel Appeal, the group that was planning to host Bush in Geneva, says that the calls for an arrest warrant were not a factor in the former president’s decision to stay away.More at The Daily...