Ridenhour award to Matthew Diaz

Click on the title to go to the webpage and sign up to attend the award luncheon in DC on April 3rd
from noon to 2.
One of the awards goes to Matthew Diaz a Jag officer who tried to get the list of the names of detainees to attorneys when the government refused to release the names to protect the "privacy" of the prisoners...

The Nation Institute and The Fertel Foundation are pleased to honor the winners of the 2008 Ridenhour Prizes: Bill Moyers is awarded the 2008 Ridenhour Courage Prize in recognition of his fierce embrace of the public interest and his advocacy of media pluralism, and for contributing an unyielding moral voice to our national discourse. Learn More... James D. Scurlock is awarded the 2008 Ridenhour Book Prize honoring an outstanding work of social significance from the prior publishing year. Scurlock’s book, Maxed Out: Hard Times in the Age of Easy Credit is a disturbing account of America’s unsustainable relationship with debt, revealing the vulnerability of the average person to the predatory and unethical lending methods of banks and credit card companies. Learn More... Matthew Diaz has been awarded the 2008 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling. Diaz is a former JAG officer who, while stationed at Guantánamo Bay, was the first person to release the names of the prisoners at the detention camp. In early January 2005, on the last night of his tour, he mailed a list—with the names and corresponding serial numbers of the 551 prisoners—in a Valentine’s Day card to a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Diaz hoped that his actions would help lawyers file habeas corpus petitions on the prisoners’ behalf. Learn More... The prizes will be presented at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 3, 2008. The Ridenhour Prizes seek to recognize and encourage those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society. The prizes memorialize the spirit of fearless truth-telling that one-time whistleblower and lifetime investigative journalist Ron Ridenhour reflected throughout his extraordinary life and career. Each award carries a $10,000 stipend.

Soldier Speaks Out About Guantanamo Torture

The link below (or you can click on the title) is to a video of a brief but telling testimony given by Chris Arendt at the Winter Soldier Hearings in Washington, D.C., on March 15. Arendt joined the military at age 17 and soon found himself guarding detainees at the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/79980/

American War Crimes....

--(hats off to Robert for sending me this....)

The latest is that the torturer of Khadr (the canadian kid who was 15 when we picked him up and sent him to Guantanamo) is being offered immunity in order to be a witness for the prosecution http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/20/news/Guantanamo-Canadian-Detainee.php.

Lets hope some of the media will connect the dots as to what that means: that perhaps there was something irregular about his questioning if the interrogator had to get immunity from criminal prosecution in order to talk about it.

At least the officer freely admitted he was considering committing murder and a war crime, which may prove helpful for pattern behaviour testimony in some other extrajudicial military murder case...and it seems the lawyers for Khadr are now going to argue that it was the American soldiers who should be charged with war crimes http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-20-guantanamo-canadian_N.htm.

And then there is this astonishing story http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jHVIsuOkdrLZ1ZL7ERUNzbxJE1iA

No wonder that the Canadian Supreme Court is about to get involved http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN20415669

Begging the European Community

For those of you who have been wondering what else I have been doing to help secure the release of Mr. Al-Ghizzawi you can listen to this interview.


http://download.omroep.nl/rnw/smac/cms/tswi_080315_rendition1_mp3_en_080315_44_1kHz.mp3