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Landmark European court of human rights judgment says CIA tortured wrongly detained German citizen

The European court of human rights has ruled German citizen Khaled el-Masri was tortured by CIA agents, the first time the court has described treatment meted out by the CIA as torture. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/AP

- CIA ‘tortured and sodomised’ terror suspect, human rights court rules (Guardian, Dec 13, 2012):

CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday.

In a unanimous ruling, it also found Macedonia guilty of torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese origin allegedly linked to terrorist organisations.

Masri was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and handed over to a CIA “rendition team” at Skopje airport and secretly flown to Afghanistan.

It is the first time the court has described CIA treatment meted out to terror suspects as torture.

“The grand chamber of the European court of human rights unanimously found that Mr el-Masri was subjected to forced disappearance, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition outside any judicial process, and inhuman and degrading treatment,” said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.

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Tags: Commercial, Europe, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Khaled el-Masri, Politics, Terrorism, Torture, U.S.

Start watching from 03:50 into the video.

For my German speaking readers: The translation is terrible, but still better than nothing.

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Tags: Air Force, Alaska, Alzheimer, Assassination, Brain, Cancer, Cell Phone, Children, CIA, Computer, Consciousness, Conspiracy, Crime, Dementia, Dictatorship, Environment, EU, Europe, Fascism, FBI, Finnland, Global News, Government, HAARP, Herbert Clark Hoover, Homosexuality, Human Rights, Hypnosis, Iceland, Illuminati, Ionosphere, Laser, Meditation, MI6, Microchip, Microwave, Military, Mind-Control, Mobile Phone, national security, Navy, New World Order, Norway, oslo, Out of Body, Physics, Police State, Politics, propaganda, Rauni Kilde, Religion, Robots, Science, Sex, Society, Space Shuttle, Subconscious Mind, Subliminals, Surveillance, Technology, U.S.

- Torture Continues to be Legitimized by U.S. Legal System (Activist Post, Nov 9, 2012):

In another blow to human rights, freedom, the law, and morality, the 7th Circuit Court has exonerated Donald Rumsfeld from prosecution for allegations of being a primary architect of U.S. torture policy.

At issue are two Americans, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, who worked for a private Iraqi security firm named Shield Group Security. Courthouse News reports the harrowing experience the two men encountered after attempting to blow the whistle to the U.S. government about their employer potentially being involved in illegal arms trades and bribery: Continue reading »

Tags: Civil liberties, Constitution, Donald Rumsfeld, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Law, Politics, Society, Torture, U.S.

Protesters clash with riot policemen during a demonstration in Madrid. (AFP Photo / AFP Photo / Pierre-Philippe Marcou)

- Police protection or citizen censorship? Spain to ban photos and videos of cops (RT, Oct 19, 2012):

Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of law enforcement officers.

­The draft legislation follows waves of protests throughout the country against uncompromising austerity cuts to public healthcare and education.

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Tags: Dictatorship, EU, Europe, Fascism, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Internet, Law, New World Order, Police, Police State, Politics, Society, Spain

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

- The Western Onslaught Against International Law (Paul Craig Roberts, Aug 28, 2012):

A new film, “Compliance,” examines “the human desire to follow and obey authority.” Liberal institutions, such as the media, universities, federal courts, and human rights organizations, which have traditionally functioned as checks on the blind obedience to authority, have in our day gone over to power’s side. The subversion of these institutions has transformed them from checks on power into servants of power. The result is the transformation of culture from the rule of law to unaccountable authority resting on power maintained by propaganda.

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Tags: Amnesty International, Barack Obama, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Obama administration, paul, Paul Craig Roberts, Politics, propaganda, Society, U.K.

From the article:

Obama is a despicable patsy, a front man for powerful private interests, and Democrats should be totally ashamed to have elevated such a cowardly lowlife. But as awful as Obama is, a vote for Republicans is a vote for Hitler or Stalin. Indeed, the election of Romney and Ryan would be worse than either.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

- Putin Is Demonized While Democracy Fails In Amerika (Paul Craig Roberts, Aug 30, 2012):

The latest “rights group” to jump on Russia’s President Putin about Pussy Riot is RootsAction. Following the propaganda line that Washington has established, RootsAction’s appeal for money and petition signers states that the three Russian women were sentenced to two years in prison “for the ‘crime’ of performing a song against Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in a Moscow church.”

This statement is a propagandistic misrepresentation of the offense for which the women were tried and convicted.

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Tags: ACLU, Amnesty International, Barack Obama, Bradley Manning, Constitution, Democrats, Dictatorship, Fascism, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Law, Mitt Romney, New World Order, Obama administration, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Ryan, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, Russia, U.S., Vladimir Putin

- Pentagon, CIA Sued for Lethal Drone Attacks on U.S. Citizens (Wired, July 18, 2012):

Survivors of three Americans killed by targeted drone attacks in Yemen last year sued top-ranking members of the United States government, alleging Wednesday they illegally killed the three, including a 16-year-old boy, in violation of international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution.

“The government has killed three Americans. It should account for its actions. This case gives us an opportunity to do that,” Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a press call.

The suit, (.pdf) being litigated by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, seeks unspecified damages and highlights the government’s so-called unmanned drone “targeted killing” program that the ACLU and the center maintain have killed thousands, including hundreds of innocent bystanders overseas.

The suit, the first of its kind, alleges the United States was not engaged in an armed conflict with or within Yemen, prohibiting the use of lethal force unless “at the time it is applied, lethal force is a last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury.” The case directly challenges the government’s decision to kill Americans without judicial scrutiny.

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Tags: ACLU, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Barack Obama, CIA, Constitution, David Petraeus, Drones, Government, Human Rights, Justice Department, Leon Panetta, Military, Obama administration, Politics, U.S.

- Osaka Mayor Hashimoto: ‘You have no fundamental human rights’ (Japan Today, July 4, 2012):

OSAKA – Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who recently clashed with city employees and human rights lawyers over his “tattoo inquisition,” has disturbed commentators again this week with his comments about human rights and personal privacy.

At a meeting attended by 22 newly appointed ward mayors in Osaka on Monday, Hashimoto reportedly told attendees, “I want you to consider your lifestyle and behavior differently now than before you became a public servant,” TV Asahi reported.

“I want each of you to see yourself as a person who now has no personal privacy and no fundamental human rights. I won’t investigate what you did before you became a public servant; the battle begins once you take on the position,” he told the successful applicants, TV Asahi reported.

The ward mayors are due to take office in August.

Tags: Dictatorship, Fascism, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Japan, New World Order, Osaka, Politics, Privacy, Society

- China downplays risk to children from lead poisoning: report (Reuters, June 15, 2012):

Chinese children suffering lead poisoning from polluting smelters and factories have been denied testing, effective treatment and even basic information by officials who downplayed health threats, a human rights advocacy group said on Wednesday.

The report from Human Rights Watch comes after China’s latest lead pollution outbreak, when 103 children and scores of adults were poisoned by tinfoil-making workshops in eastern Zhejiang province.

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Tags: Children, China, Economy, Global News, Government, Health, Human Rights, Politics, Society

More from Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

- Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: Silencing The Critics

- Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: 44 US Military Bases Surrounding Iran: Will Iran Be Attacked?

Flashback:

- Interview With US General Wesley Clark (Ret.): US Government Planned To ‘Take Out 7 Countries In 5 Years’: ‘Starting With Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan And Finishing Off Iran’ (Video)

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

By Paul Craig Roberts:

Is Obama a hypocrite or merely insouciant? Or is he an idiot?

According to news reports Obama’s White House meeting on Valentine ’s Day with China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, provided an opportunity for Obama to raise “a sensitive human rights issue with the Chinese leader-in-waiting.” The brave and forthright Obama didn’t let etiquette or decorum get in his way. Afterwards, Obama declared that Washington would “continue to emphasize what we believe is the importance of realizing the aspirations and rights of all people.”

Think about that for a minute. Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people. You see, bombing liberates Muslim women from having to wear the burka and from male domination.

One hundred thousand, or one million, dead Iraqis; four million displaced Iraqis; a country with destroyed infrastructure and entire cities, such as Fallujah, bombed and burnt with white phosphorus into cinders is the proper way to show concern for human rights.

Ditto for Afghanistan. And Libya.

In Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, Washington’s drones bring human rights to the people.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA prison sites are other places to which Washington brings human rights. Obama, who has the power to murder American citizens without due process of law, is too powerless to close Guantanamo Prison.

He is powerless to prevent himself from supplying Israel with weapons with which to murder Palestinians and Lebanese citizens to whom Obama brings human rights by vetoing every UN resolution passed against Israel for its crimes against humanity.

Instead of following Washington’s human rights lead, the evil Chinese invest in other countries, buy things from them, and sell them goods.

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Tags: Abu Ghraib, airstrike, Bradley Manning, China, CIA, Constitution, Global News, Government, Guantánamo, Human Rights, Libya, Military, New World Order, Obama administration, Pakistan, Paul Craig Roberts, Politics, Somalia, U.S., Yemen