Musical Interlude

Voted the Number One Protest Song by Rolling Stone magazine... the unofficial U.S. anthem.

More details emerge regarding tortue of CIA detainee Majid Khan.

June 2, 2015, New York – Today, unclassified information detailing the CIA’s torture of Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan was made public for the first time by Reuters, including the fact that he was waterboarded on two separate occasions. Khan’s attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), J. Wells Dixon, commented:

“Majid Khan’s personal experiences, notes of which were cleared by the government for release, confirm that the CIA has repeatedly and continuously lied about the torture program. As layers of secrecy have been peeled away throughout the Obama administration, we see more and more evidence of CIA savagery and treachery. 

Read the rest here.

Don't ask for Justice-- demand it!

Those are the words of Shaker Aamer as he thanks British members of parliament and others for championing his cause:

Britain's last Guantanamo Bay detainee pleaded his innocence last night as he thanked campaigners who have highlighted the scandal of his ongoing captivity.

Shaker Aamer remains in legal limbo having spent 13 years in military prison without charge or trial. 

In declassified extracts from the 48-year-old’s letters, shown to the Daily Mail, he told his campaigners: ‘Don’t ask for justice – demand it.

Read the rest here.

Omar Khadr....In His Own Words....

Open a window. Open a bank account. Get a driver's license. Get a library card. There are so many small skills to be learned by a man who has loomed large since he was shot and captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15 - a man who has never been allowed to speak publicly.
read the rest here.

The story of Muhammad Rahim

... one of the so-called high value detainees...

And since this sorry man is considered "high value" his story should make you shudder about the so called "low-value" detainees.....
read about him here.

Happy Memorial Day..... a day late

Meanwhile--- Abu Zubaydah continues to be ignored....

Abu Zubaydah is one of those names that many people recognize-- they recognize it because the Bush government claimed he was the number 3 in al- Qaeda and they water boarded him over 100 times...Oops on that one-- turns out he was not connected to A-Qaeda or the Taliban. So what happens to Abu Zubayda--- we ignore him.... and I guess hope that he just disappears from the world conscience. There is a good chance of that since the judge in his habeas corpus petition has been ignoring that petition for years.... Read more about that particular forgotten detainee here.

British Members of Parliament head to DC to demand return of Shaker Aamer

The ongoing battle to get Shaker Aamer back to Britain continues today with the help of some members of parliament... Read more here

Poor Poland....

Seems the Poles do not want to pay for their sins....
Can't blame them as the US has never been held accountable.... but still?
Read more here.

Pete Townshend sings new song "Guantanamo" UPDATED

You can hear it here..

Rolling Stone has more here.

United Nations looks at the U.S. Human Rights Record...

And it is not a pretty picture!
The periodic review was last monday and the report has not been issued yet but from all accounts the U.S. received a scathing review... Police violence and racism were some of the issues but there is also the ongoing problem of the U.S. not allowing a full investigation of Guantanamo. Which is not too surprising since even our politicians are not allowed access to the place...
You can look at some of the concerns here.... and some of the questions here...
I will post the report when it is released.

CIA investigates its use of drugs in interrogation....not

Two interesting reports on the so-called investigation by the CIA into its use of drugs in the interrogation of detainees. One from Jeff Kaye here. The other from Jason Leopold here. Not surprising but the investigation by the CIA was quite limited......

A Little Bit of Good News...

It is actually a sorry state of things when what passes for good news is that a nurse who refused to force feed the detainees will NOT be discharged from the military. I am not suggesting this is not good news but WTF- it never should have been an issue.
Anyway you can read more about this nurse who refused to violate medical ethics by force feeding detainees here.

Omar Khadr speaks after his release on bail.......

Center for Constitutional Rights is Reading the Summary of the Torture Report to the Department of Justice--- because the Justice Department refuses to read it....

If DOJ won’t read the torture report, CCR will read it to them

Five months after the release of the executive summary of the Senate CIA Torture Report, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to open an investigation of the government officials who authorized and covered up the heinous crimes detailed in it. This is not surprising given that, apparently, they haven’t even read the full report as doing so would make it subject to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking its declassification. The DOJ is abdicating its duty to investigate and prosecute these crimes, and we must not stand for it. To prevent future state-sponsored torture, it is imperative that the DOJ prosecute government torturers. Last week, CCR joined Amnesty International and other allies to demand that the DOJ read the report as a first step towards justice. The report shows unequivocally that the CIA tortured men like our client Majid Khan, whose name is mentioned hundreds of times, and lied repeatedly to Congress about the effectiveness of the program. If the DOJ won’t read the report, we'll read it to them, one page at a time, as a reminder of the state crimes they are willfully ignoring. In this video, CCR's Wells Dixon reads page 115, which concerns the rape of Majid Khan.