Britain's spy agencies MI5 and MI6 were authorised to participate in interrogations on foreign soil and permit torture in 'proportion' to the presumed importance of the information sought. The Blair government's secret policy was in use for nearly a decade, reports the Guardian, until it was revoked by the coalition government last year. This, in […]
The US is denying the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture unfettered access to detainee Bradley Manning. Private first class Manning was arrested in May 2010 on suspicion of leaking incriminating military documents to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. He remains in US custody awaiting court marshall. The conditions of his detention have been widely criticised […]
Was the lethal shooting of Osama Bin Laden on 2 May legal? Not was it legal under US or Pakistani law, but was it legal under international human rights law? Were his and others' human rights violated? Does it really matter? For answers to these questions I refer readers to this top-notch analysis by Sarah […]
A spokesman for US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been forced to resign after criticising the way US serviceman Bradley Manning (pictured right) is being treated while in pre-trial detention. Describing Manning's conditions as "mistreatment," then-assistant secretary of state for public affairs, Philip 'P.J.' Crowley, said: "What is being done to Bradley Manning […]
Shannonwatch is a non-governmental organisation established to monitor the use of an Irish civilian airport by foreign military. These plane-spotting peace and human rights activists conduct "continuous monitoring of all military flights and rendition-linked flights in and out of Shannon [Airport] and through Irish airspace," many of them occurring in the dead of night. Shannonwatch […]
US psychologists concerned about the treatment of alleged Wikileaker 23 year-old Bradley Manning have written an open letter to the US Secretary of Defense. They describe the conditions in which he has been held since July 2010: "in solitary confinement … in his cell for approximately 23 hours a day, a cell approximately 6 feet […]
When people like Desmond Tutu describe the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as apartheid, it's not mere hyperbole. Israel's self-proclaimed 'policy of separation' seeks to segregate Palestinians and Jews in the West Bank, writes Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning literally, separateness. It's hard to see how Israel's policy […]
Alberto Fujimori has been sentenced to 25 years' gaol for 'human rights crimes'. The former President of Peru was yesterday found guilty of ordering 2 massacres of civilians in 1991 and 1992, during the 'dirty war' with violent Maoist rebel movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) that saw more than 70,000 Peruvians disappeared or killed. A […]
The "villains' charter" debate has reached Australia, it would seem. Reviewing Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities 12 months after it came into effect, the Sunday Herald-Sun's 'star political reporter' Ellen Whinnett wrote last month that the Charter had been "hijacked by criminals." Her view echoes Britain's Daily Mail which attacks the UK's 'disastrous' […]
Amnesty International called it "shocking and preventable." On 27 January 2008, Australian indigenous leader and land rights activist Ian Ward — "one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert" — died in custody. The Warburton man was being driven 915km from Laverton in the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie for a mention in relation […]
Follow rightsbase on 