Amnesty slams flawed US penal system

Amnesty International has called attention to the US and its failing human rights record due to its use of flawed detention and execution systems.

On Friday, Amnesty International slammed the US for its indefinite detentions in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, as well as its flawed capital punishment system, AFP reported.

"Scores of men remained in indefinite military detention in Guantanamo as [US] President [Barack] Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the facility there came and went," the report recently released by the body said.

The organization's annual global human rights report points to the execution of 46 people over the past year, in which the guilt of several of the defendants remained questionable. Some cases also included unclear proof of legal representation and mental impairment.

According to Amnesty International, of the 173 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, only three had been convicted under a military commission system, "which failed to meet international fair trial standards."

"Military commission proceedings were conducted in a handful of cases, and the only Guantanamo detainee so far transferred to the US mainland for prosecution in a federal court was tried and convicted,” the report added.

Upon taking office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to stop military commissions in order to close down the facility by 2010; however, this has not happened yet.

The organization accuses US authorities of also blocking efforts to “secure accountability and remedy for crimes under international law committed against detainees previously subjected to the USA's secret detention and rendition program.”

As for Afghanistan, the reports criticizes the US for holding “hundreds” at the US airbase in Bagram without due process and for subjecting some to “torture and ill-treatment, including prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures.”

The report further voiced concern over the “excessive force” used by US law enforcement. The use of Taser guns by police officers led to the death of some 45 people last year.

The country's health care system was also among the matters mentioned in the report. “Hundreds of women continue to die from preventable pregnancy-related complications,” as a result of a lack of proper health care coverage, the report added.

SZH/HGH/MMN

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179692.html

Israel's shame as Holocaust victims die in poverty

About 80,000 Holocaust survivors emigrated to Israel after WW2. Instead of finding ease and opportunity, many discovered only loneliness and grinding poverty. They accuse Israel of failing to give them the compensation paid by Germany. They say millions of dollars that was meant for them has been used to build the country instead.

Activist from Spain file suit against Israel in flotilla attacks

Two Spanish activists and a journalist arrested in a raid by Israel on a Gaza-bound flotilla are filing charges against Israel's prime minister.

The three accuse Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, six cabinet ministers and the navy commander of illegal detention, torture and deportation.

The UN has meanwhile named a team of experts to investigate the raid.
Gaza Flotilla Clash

* Q&A: Israeli deadly flotilla raid
* Guide: Eased Gaza blockade
* Israeli raid: What went wrong?
* Focus on Gaza blockade

Earlier, Israel said it would return the three Turkish vessels it had seized during the interception on 31 May.

Nine Turkish activists died when Israeli marines attacked the flotilla, sparking an international outcry.

The pro-Palestinian convoy was carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's blockade of the territory.

Laura Arau, Manuel Tapial and David Segarra, who were on the Mavi Marmara ship, say they were held illegally in international waters by Israeli forces, tortured and forcibly deported to Turkey.

They claim the move contravened international law.

Spanish courts are yet to accept the case.
'No conditions'

The UN Human Rights Council has appointed three independent experts to investigate whether the raid violated international law, after the 47-member forum voted last month for an inquiry.

These include Sir Desmond de Silva from Britain, Karl Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago, and Mary Shanthi Dairiam from Malaysia.

Israel has said it is undertaking its own investigation, but critics say it will not be impartial.

Israel announced earlier on Friday that it will return three ships that were part of the convoy to Turkey, Israeli public radio has reported.

Turkey had already been informed of the decision by the inner cabinet in Jerusalem, the report said.

BBC Reports - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10741416

Why the settlements under pressure

Why are we asking this now?

Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.

How did the settlements come about?

Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
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In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.

Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.


Source

Israeli army embarrassed by video - Watch, see Why

JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on a Palestinian home in which a mother of five children died.

When CBC News spoke with Ismail Hawarjeh at Bethlehem's hospital earlier this month, there was no way to verify the story he told about how his wife had died, until Israel's Channel 2 broacast the tape last weekend"

Bluefin tuna loses out simply because scarce fish make a profit

Idiots. Morons. Blockheads. Numbskulls. Nothing quite captures the mind-withering stupidity of what has just happened in Doha. Swayed by Japan and a number of other countries, some of them doubtless bought off in traditional fashion, the members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) have decided not to protect the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Those who opposed suspending trade in the species argued that the temporary ban proposed by Monaco would devastate their fishing industries. There is some truth in this: for the years in which bluefin stocks would have been allowed to recover, the export ban would have put people out of work and reduced the output of their industry. But the absence of a ban ensures that, after one or two more seasons of fishing at current levels, all the jobs and the entire industry are finished forever, along with the magnificent species that supported them. The insistence that the fishing can continue without consequences betrays Olympic-class denial, a flat refusal to look reality in the face.

One of the commenters on a Guardian thread this week, who lives in Japan and uses the tag Kimpatsu, related his experiences of trying to discuss these issues.

"the Japanese policy towards both Bluefin tuna and whales has two engines of motivation. The first is the fact that the average Japanese is in denial about the imminent extinction of these creatures; the thought runs that as they have always eaten these animals (and many Japanese mistakenly think that the whale is a fish) since time immemorial, they will be able to continue doing so indefinitely into the future. When pressed on the subject of hunting to extinction, they grow aggressive. (I know from personal experience.) The second reason is the low-grade paranoia that informs all Japanese interaction with the outside world; the notion of Nihon tataki (Japan-bashing) is omnipresent. If you protest against whaling or tuna fishing, you're a cultural imperialist. If you point out that some Japanese are members of Greenpeace or oppose whaling (my GP is one), then "you don't understand Japanese mind so much". Remember: all your actions against whaling and overfishing are driven by a deep-seated, irrational hatred of Japan. Consequently, when you push, they push back."

I have no idea how representative this is, but the attitudes Kimpatsu describes were powerfully represented in The Cove, the film about the secret dolphin slaughter in Japan which won the 2010 Oscar for best documentary. The massacre it exposed is pointless, counter-productive and profoundly damaging to Japan's international image, but it was fiercely defended by what seemed to be the entire political establishment. Denial is evident everywhere on earth, but in the Japanese fishing and whaling industries it seems to have been raised to an art-form.

Source 1

Tories criticise UK for failing to support 20-year ban on African ivory sales

The Conservatives today criticised the government for failing to support proposals from a number of African countries to impose a 20-year ban on any legal sales of ivory.

The plan, led by Kenya, is being discussed at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in a bid to tackle the poaching of elephants and rhino.

It counters a bid by Tanzania and Zambia to hold one-off sales of their legally held ivory and "downlist" their elephants from the highest level of protection.

The UK government said it was initially "sympathetic" to the Kenyan proposals, subject to a review after 10 years of the scheme, but the EU, which votes as a bloc at Cites, decided not to back it. But on a Cites vote this week on whether to ban the international trade in bluefin tuna, the UK acted alone rather than as a bloc with Europe and chose to support the Monaco proposal of opposing the ban.

There are concerns that, if the one-off sales of ivory from four African countries in 2008 results in a lower demand for illegal ivory, a 20-year moratorium would not be a positive step.

But conservationists have raised fears over a rise in illegal trade and poaching following the sales, which they believe stimulate the market and provide a cover for traders to offload illegal stocks.

Shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert said the government had "shamefully" refused to support the Kenyan proposal for a ban on sales and continued to back stockpiling of legal ivory - for example from animals which had died naturally.

"Instead of flooding the market with more ivory and legitimising the trade, these stockpiles should be destroyed. We should be choking demand for ivory, not stoking it," he said.

Game Called Muslim Massacre

Computer games in which players aim to kill as many people as possible are, sadly, pretty common. But what sets "Muslim Massacre - the game of modern religious genocide" - apart from the others is that an American soldier sets out to "wipe out" the entire Muslim race. Worse still, the game is available free on the internet, with no restrictions to prevent children and the vulnerable from accessing it.

The world wide web is one area that the law still struggles to regulate.

Some may see the game as a parody of American foreign policy and point out that it is aimed at adults, rather than children. After all, the average US video game player is a 35-year-old man.

But the game reaches a new low in bad taste and contains a blatantly destructive message. The game's premise is that the US has declared war on Islam and invites players to take control of the American "hero" who will wipe out the Muslim race with "an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons".

The "hero" uses machine guns and rocket launchers to kill as many Muslims as possible - ranging from terrorists and what appear to be civilians to Osama bin Laden, Muhammad and Allah.

The game's creator, a freelance programmer called Sigvatr, describes the game as "fun and funny" and says to his critics: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."

He says: "Ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (slang for a common swear word) out of Arabs…I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. The bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play."

Later he adds: "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims.

"If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim."

That's not the way some Muslim groups see it. The Ramadhan Foundation says the game is "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/sep/11/technologygames


The Ramadhan responce

The Ramadhan Foundation expresses its deep condemnation and anger at the computer game released called Muslim massacre. This game is glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East and we urge ISP providers to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence towards Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims.

We have written to the British Government today to urge an inquiry into this game and take action to shut down the site; this is not satire but a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims.

Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Foundation comments:

“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.

'There is an increase in violence in this country and some of it comes from video games.

'When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence.

'If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so.

I would urge ISPs to take action against sites like this and there can be no justification for this sort of video game, I hope the person who made this game thinks again.

http://www.ramadhanfoundation.com/muslimmassacre.htm