Human Rights

CIA has Distributed 400 Million Dollars Inside Iran to Evoke a Revolution | PakAlert

Former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig claims the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has distributed 400 million dollars inside Iran to evoke a revolution.

In a phone interview with the Pashto Radio on Monday, General Beig said that there is undisputed intelligence proving the US interference in Iran.

“The documents prove that the CIA spent 400 million dollars inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election,” he added. Read more.

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, The Weeks of Living Dangerously

Last week, Iran's Islamic revolutionary regime, like so many rigidified revolutionary movements before it, has used brute force to postpone its date with destiny. Demonstrators can often be beaten and chased off the streets, but no one has yet discovered a baton that can beat a set of ideas about how life should be led out of the minds of large numbers of people. This is, in essence, the story that Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch regular and expert on Iran, has to tell -- with a look back at a history about which most of us know all too little. Tom

The Clash of Islam and Democracy in Iran: The Islamic Revolution Faces the Classic Dilemma of All Revolutions
The Islamic Revolution Faces the Classic Dilemma of All Revolutions
By Dilip Hiro

By marshalling the regime's coercive instruments, Iran's 70-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, has, for now, succeeded in curbing the popular, peaceful challenge to the authenticity of Iran's fateful June 12th presidential election. But he has paid a heavy political price.

Before his June 19th hard-line speech at a Friday prayer congregation, Khamanei had the mystique of a just arbiter of authority, perched on a lofty platform far above the contentiousness of day-to-day politics. In his sermon, he asserted the validity of the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while the Guardian Council, the constitutional body charged with validating any national election, was still dealing with 646 complaints about possible election misbehavior and fraud. As a result, he damaged his status as a just ruler, a matter of grave importance since justice is a vital element in Islamic values.

Furthermore, by boycotting the June 19th congregation, former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami, as well as Mahdi Karrubi, former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament -- all of them respected mullahs -- exposed a deep rift in the ruling religious establishment. That bodes ill for the future of the Islamic Republic.

Khamanei has won the immediate battle, but the conflict between hard-liners and reformists is far from over. Taking a long-term view, Khamanei and his hard line cohorts face a superhuman task of countering an inexorably rising trend. Quite simply, the demographic make-up of Iran favors their reformist adversaries.

Activists say California judge approved torture and mistreatment of terror suspects - Listen here.

Dahr Jamail writes:

It is important to draw our attention to this article by my co-recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer. Please find call to action at the end of this article.-DJ

A Journalist Beaten -- One Year Later
by Mohammed Omer | Agence Global

June 26, 2008 is a day I will never forget. For the events of that day irrevocably changed my life. That day I was detained, interrogated, strip searched, and tortured while attempting to return home from a European speaking tour, which culminated in independent American journalist Dahr Jamil and I sharing the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize in London -- an award given to journalists who expose propaganda which often masks egregious human rights abuses.

I want to address the denials from Israel and the inaccurate reporting by a few journalists in addition to requesting state of Israel to acknowledge what it did to me, prosecute the members of the Shin Bet responsible for it and put in place procedures that protect other journalists from such treatment.

Since 2003, I’ve been the voice to the voiceless in the besieged Gaza Strip for a number of publications and news programs ranging from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to the BBC and, Morgenbladet in Norway as well as Democracy Now! These stories exposed a carefully-crafted fiction continuing control and exploitation of five-million people. Their impact, coupled with the reporting of others served to change public opinion in the United States and Europe concerning the dynamics of Israel and its occupation of Palestine .

After receiving the Martha Gellhorn prize I returned home through the Allenby Bridge Crossing in the Occupied West Bank between Jordan and Israel. It was here I was detained, interrogated, and tortured for several hours by Shin Bet and border officers. When it appeared I may be close to death an ambulance was called to transport me to a hospital. From that day my life has been a year of continued medical treatments, pain -- and a search for justice. Read more.

Over 100 State Bar Complaints Filed This Week Against Torture Lawyer William Haynes | Press Release
Hundreds More Expected Demanding Accountability From Cal Bar

SAN FRANCISCO - June 26 - The National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) delivered over 100 complaints against former Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes to the California State Bar offices Thursday in San Francisco. The complaints came from ordinary Americans demanding that the state bar "conduct a thorough investigation of Mr. Haynes' actions and omissions while General Counsel at the Department of Defense. The complaints further demand a written formal decision on the outcome of the investigation.

The complaints were a response to a campaign launched by the NLGSF empowering people to petition the state bar for disciplinary action against Haynes who, while with the Department of Defense during the Bush administration, legally advocated for and even championed policies of torture at Guantanamo Bay and beyond. Complaints came mostly from California residents but also from as far away as Maine and Washington D.C. They continue to arrive by mail to NLGSF offices in San Francisco, all to eventually be forwarded to the state bar.

"This campaign is appropriate because William Haynes was one of the lawyers shaping policy that harmed so many prisoners and put all of us in greater danger," said Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director of the NLGSF. "Anyone can file a complaint against a California lawyer, and while the process should never be abused, the process ought to be available to anyone and everyone when a lawyer commits wrongdoing from a position of power in our government resulting in such a devastating and widespread effect."

Rae Rae Abileah reported on the San Francisco Torture Accountability Day:

Check out photos from our San Francisco Bye Bye Bybee rally on Flickr.

This coalition effort was in protest of "Torture Judge" Bybee who has a lifetime appointment to the 9th Circuit Court (The building we are standing outside of in the photos). We are calling for Bybee's resignation, impeachment, disbarment, and prosecution, and after the rally activists delivered an over 60 page document with incriminating info to the courts.

Many thanks to Cynthia and Susan for a phenomenal job coordinating three events on the same day (a press conference at the state bar office where a ethics complaints on Jim Hayes were filed, the Bybee rally and report delivery, and an evening speaking event with Ray McGovern)!!! And many thanks to our intern Kristy for painting a fantastic new banner. It was very moving to hear speakers from Amnesty International, Veterans for Peace, and CODEPINK speak about the need to pursue justice, to preserve our Constitution, to right the wrongs of the past 8 years so that we can move forward with integrity.

Iranian Cleric Urges Executing Some Protesters
Cleric's call for executing some protesters signals harsh new turn in Iran
By William J. Kole, Associated Press Writer | ABCNews

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

A senior cleric on Friday urged Iran's protest leaders to be punished "without mercy" and said some should face execution — harsh calls that signal a nasty new turn in the regime's crackdown on demonstrators two weeks after its disputed election.

Hard-liners have ordered long sentences and hangings before, and some fear those awaiting trial by a judiciary whose verdicts reflect the will of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the most severe punishments the Islamic system can dish out.

"Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution," Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking cleric, said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.

Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were "at war with God" and should be "dealt with without mercy." Read more.

Daytona Beach, FL - On Thursday evening, June 25th, 2009, at the CODEPINK of East Central Florida weekly antiwar demonstration, members of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace, the Florida chapter of Military Families Speak Out, and the Orlando chapter of WeAreChange Florida took to the streets in Daytona Beach to participate in the National Torture Accountability Action Day.

The action in Daytona Beach coincided with similar events taking place in cities and towns all across the United States, along with an all-day rally in Washington, DC sponsored by AfterDowningStreet.org and many other peace and social justice groups in the AfterDowningStreet.org Coalition, as a public call from the people of America for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the U.S. government's practice of illegal torture. See photos under the fold.

Proposal Offers Specifics On Preventive Detention
by Ari Shapiro | NPR

Ever since President Obama proposed holding terrorism detainees without trial, the debate over preventive detention has been growing. Now, NPR has the first look at a detailed legislative proposal to hold detainees indefinitely. The document comes from two experts outside of government, and it is already being discussed in the Obama administration.

In a speech last month at the National Archives, President Obama opened the door to the possibility that some terrorism detainees will neither be tried nor released.

"If and when we determine the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war," he said, "we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight."

Attorney General Eric Holder was not much more specific last week when he testified before a Senate committee that a preventive detention program "would be some kind of review with regard to the initial determination [that the detainee should be held], and then a periodic review with regard to whether or not that person should continue to be detained."

Although the controversy has been hazy until now, it is about to come into sharp focus. Read more.

National Coalition to file formal complaints and call for dismissal of ‘Torture Architect’ and current top CIA lawyer, John Rizzo, and other current and former CIA counsel | Press Release

Washington, D.C. – On Monday, June 29th at 9:30AM in the Murrow Room of the National Press Club, ( Map ) three prominent D.C. lawyers, including a former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan, will discuss the legal case against the lawyer architects of a program of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees held in the custody of the U.S. government since shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

The sponsoring coalition, Velvet Revolution, has called for the disbarment of over a dozen lawyers filing formal complaints in five states as part of a national campaign described at disbartorturelawyers.com.

Academics' Declaration of Support for Iranian Demonstrators | Press Release

*NEW YORK, June 24, 2009 - *Today the New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy circulated the open letter below from academics in support of the demonstrators in Iran. The statement was initiated by two scholars in the United Kingdom, Peter Hallward and Alberto Toscano. I has been signed by individuals from several countries; the initial signers include Etienne Balibar, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine; Jacques Rancière, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis); Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley; Noam Chomsky, MIT, Cambridge MA USA; Rada Ivekovic, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne; and Slavoj ?i?ek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School. The full list of signers is below.

More than embarrassing scandal: torture a war crime requiring accountability
By Deborah Dupre' | LA Examiner

A 4-Part report in recognition of tortured survivors and in memory of those murdered by torture. Torture Accountability Day: this Thursday, June 25th.

Disappearing citizens a la "School Of Assassins" (SOA) mode, torturing them, including children (even sexually), hanging people from ceilings, water boarding, sleep deprivation, slicing genitals, and raping are more than an embarrassing scandal. These are war crimes.

These war crimes can be perpetrated against anyone anywhere, overseas and in the US, as reflected in the Irish video banned by U.S. mainstream media, “Bush: Torture is Good for USA.”

Increasingly, Americans and American based organizations are standing for the U.S. Constitution and against the U.S. kidnap and torture treatment.

This Thursday, Torture Accountability Day, in at least ten cities across America including Pasadena, California, people are publicly gathering to help ensure high-ranking U.S. officials who authorized torture are held accountable.

American patriots are steadfastly countering the petro-military industrial complex backed media that applied the war weapon, Disinformation for a successful campaign that helped lead 70% of Americans to justify U.S. torture by believing it keeps them safer, as highlighted in the recent article by Psychologists for Social Responsibility President, Roy Eidelson. Read more.

Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space wrote the following to the Times Record in Brunswick, Maine.

Dear Editor:

The national media made a big deal about President Obama killing a fly. His "I got the sucker" was even compared to a similar moment by honest Abe Lincoln.

But sadly little time in the national media is spent describing the tragic consequences to hundreds of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been killed by United States unmanned aerial vehicles, or "drones" as they are popularly called.

Commentary -- Recognize torture day by punishing the torturers
By James Bovard | Morris Sun Tribune

Since 1997, every June 26 has been formally recognized as the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture. Political leaders around the globe take the occasion to proclaim their opposition to barbarism.

On June 26, 2003, President George W. Bush proudly declared: “The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”

This was one of the most fraudulent assertions since 1936, when the new Soviet constitution guaranteed Soviet citizens complete freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. But this “perfect constitution” did nothing to prevent Stalin from sending millions of people to their deaths in the Gulag and in front of firing squads.

Similarly, Bush’s anti-torture proclamation did nothing to stop his administration from formalizing perhaps the most brutal abuses in modern American history. Top Bush administration officials created twisted rationales to authorize simulated drowning, “walling” (throwing detainees up against a wall, repeated ad nauseam), sleep deprivation (as long as it did not last more than 11 days), head slappings, and other methods to shatter people’s will and resistance.

The fact that the Bush administration engaged in torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and secret prison sites around the world is now no longer in dispute. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is rapidly become complicit in Bush torture crimes. Read more.

Opinion: Torture eats away at the soul of this nation
By Diana Gibson and Ray McGovern | Special to the Mercury News

Anniversaries can be important. This Friday marks the 22nd anniversary of the U.N. Convention against Torture, ratified and signed under President Reagan. Last Friday marked the 150th day of the presidency of Barack Obama, who is trying to put a definitive end to the torture approved by the Bush-Cheney administration.

That Obama has not been able to do so is our collective shame. Worse still, the president has apparently concluded that he lacks the support to deter future abominations of this sort by launching a proper investigation and holding to account those responsible.

Something evil has seeped into the soul of our nation. Those many years when we looked the other way, choosing to ignore the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, eroded our morality.

Americans who claim to believe in human dignity and the law do not seem scandalized by this inhumane and illegal activity. Many people of faith appear willing to tolerate unspeakable cruelty. Christians who follow one who himself was tortured by the powers of his time evidently are now ready to justify our own government's use of torture. Read more.

Security forces attack Iran protesters | UPI

Iranian security forces clashed with hundreds of protesters in Tehran Wednesday, badly beating some and killing others, sources said.

"They were waiting for us," a source told CNN. "They all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap."

Witnesses reached outside the national Parliament building told The New York Times the confrontation was bloody and police used live ammunition. The protesters had defied government warnings and hundreds, perhaps thousands, descended on the square in front of parliament, the Times said.

A source told CNN about "500 thugs" with clubs came out of a mosque and attacked people, and the security forces were "beating women madly" and "killing people like hell." Read more.

By Linda Milazzo

As a critic of media, in particular of cable/satellite "news," I'm troubled by American corporate-media, specifically CNN's near non-stop coverage of the turmoil in Iran. Not because the story isn't important. It's critically important and warrants the personal coverage it's getting from the Iranian people as they bypass corporate channels to tell their stories on facebook, youtube, flickr and twitter.

Thanks to Iran's tech-savvy society, old-time corporate media is now relegated to the position of new-media aggregator, whoring its visibility to co-opt the Iranian people's new-media messages to America and the world. Old-media, and specifically CNN, are learning the difficult lesson that with or without their vast resources and state of the art studios, the Iranians' stories will be told. And they'll be told to tens of millions more viewers than cable and satellite programs tend to reach.

Doonesbury on Waterboarding and Torture

Watch Sen. Bernie Sanders: Exorbitant Pay for Health Insurance CEOs

Sign The Petition for Single-Payer Health Care

Medical Conflicts of Interest and the Glass Houses
Health Care Overhaul Must Start With Doctors, One Physician Notes
Opinion by Dr. Nortin Hadler | ABCNews.com

Health care reform is focused on the quality of care, its accessibility and its cost. The debate is heated and likely to intensify in the months to come. It is also loud, so as to drown out debate on a focus for reform far more critical than impending fiscal bankruptcy.

There is debate on the degree to which health care in the United States is ethically bankrupt, and what to do about it. The Institute of Medicine and nearly every other professional organization in the health arena has chimed in. Academic health centers and unaffiliated hospitals are racing to write or expand policy statements on conflicts of interest in regard to clinical activities. Read more.

Lipstick Revolution: Iranian Women Take To The Streets
Women Opposing Ahmadinejad Demand Equal Rights, Economic Opportunities
By Martha Raddatz and Susan Rucci | ABCNews.com

The huge rallies this week in Iran, the largest seen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, have included thousands of women, who have taken to the streets to oppose the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some have dubbed itthe "lipstick revolution."

A week after the contested election that declared incumbent President Ahmadinejad the winner, protests over alleged voting fraud still continue strong.

Women, old and young, are visible at every rally -- chanting, shouting, defiantly flashing V for Victory signs, carrying placards protesting the election results, defying the police and, in some cases, facing brutal retaliation.

Others say the presence of so many woman is only the tip of the iceberg. "This movement is not about wearing lipstick and throwing their veil off," Kelly Nikinejad, editor of Tehranbureau.com, told ABC News. "It's so much deeper than that." Read more.

Taliban defectors: US, Israel funding militants | Press TV

Two militants' leaders who defected from notorious Taliban chief in Pakistan have revealed that their comrade was pursuing a US-Israeli agenda across the country.

A prominent militant leader, Turkistan Bittani, who broke away from Baitullah Mehsud, called him "an American agent".

Mehsud, a warlord in his late 30s, has claimed responsibility for dozens of devastating string attacks on both civilians and security forces throughout the feared region.

Moreover, Baetani emphasized that Mehsud was being funded by US and Israeli intelligence services for brainwashing innocent youths.

The insurgents' chief has recruited several teenagers who have carried out dozens of suicide attacks on Pakistani mosques and educational institutes over some past months. Read more.

Bush Assails Those Who Offer Terrorists 'Therapy' -- Though His Administration Sent Detainees to Saudi Counseling Center
By Jake Tapper | Political Punch | ABCNews

At a speaking engagement last night, former President George W. Bush defended his administration's counterterrorism policies, including Guantanamo Bay, the Washington Times reports.

"The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again," Mr. Bush said.

Refraining from directly criticizing President Obama, Mr. Bush said, "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind." Read more.

CIA Destroyed Torture Tapes After CIA IG Report Concluded U.S. Violated Laws
Posted by Jason Leopold | My News Junkie

The CIA destroyed videotapes that showed its agents subjecting high-level al-Qaeda detainees to waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods after the agency’s inspector general issued a classified report in the spring of 2004 that concluded the techniques used on the prisoners “appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture.”

In a little known Jan. 10, 2008 declaration in response to a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying the videotapes, the CIA provided insight into CIA Inspector General John Helgerson’s report and revealed that he viewed the torture tapes.

“In January 2003, [Office of Inspector General] OIG initiated a special review of the CIA terrorist detention and interrogation program. This review was intended to evaluate CIA detention and interrogation activities, and was not initiated in response to an allegation of wrongdoing,” the declaration says. “During the course of the special review, OIG was notified of the existence of videotapes of the interrogations of detainees. OIG arranged with the NCS to review the videotapes at the overseas location where they were stored. Read more.