Disappeared

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Injustices do not become any less unjust the longer they are not addressed, and when it comes to the “war on terror” launched by President Bush following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, those injustices continue to fester, and to poison America’s soul.

One of those injustices is Guantánamo, where 166 men are still imprisoned, even though 86 of them were cleared for release by a task force established by the President four years ago, and another is Bagram in Afghanistan (renamed and rebranded the Parwan Detention Facility), where the Geneva Conventions were torn up by George W. Bush, and have not been reinstated, and where foreign prisoners seized elsewhere and rendered to US custody in Afghanistan remain imprisoned. Some of these men have been held for as long as the men in Guantánamo, but without being allowed the rights to be visited by civilian lawyers, which the men in Cuba were twice granted by the Supreme Court  — in 2004 and 2008 — even if those rights have now been taken away by judges in the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., demonstrating a susceptibility to the general hysteria regarding the “war on terror,” rather than a desire to bring justice to the men in Guantánamo.

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Dozens of families in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are awaiting the fate of their missing sons. This is according to information received from former prisoners who were themselves held by Israel in secret prisons under fake names and symbols like the Australian Agent X.

Although the actual number of secret prisoners is unknown, information obtained by the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper from multiple sources suggests that they exceed 130. They include Arab and Palestinian nationalities, coming primarily from the West Bank. A small number disappeared more than a quarter of a century ago, while others disappeared 30 or 40 years ago.

A simple calculation reveals results that the families of these prisoners wouldn’t like to contemplate: that a number of prisoners died in the secret prisons, the most famous of which is prison No 1391. It is reportedly a cement building in the middle of a kibbutz (cooperative village) and surrounded by dense trees, high walls and bordered by military surveillance towers. Israel has declared it a closed military area.

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On the International Day of the Disappeared, the human rights organisation Odhikar urges the Government of Bangladesh to accede to the International Convention of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance that has been signed by 88 countries and ratified by 29. The Convention was adopted in 2006 by the United Nations General Assembly and came into force on 23 December 2010. This is regarded as one of the major achievements for the protection of the human rights of people around the world. Odhikar also calls upon all other States to join this important international mechanism.

‘Enforced disappearance’ is particularly a heinous violation of human rights and an international crime. It affects victims in many different ways, including constant fear for their lives and their near and dear ones go through an emotional roller coaster of hope and despair, hoping and waiting for news that might never come. The disappeared person is removed from the protection of law, a fundamental right.

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With the news of Aafia’s daughter finally being found I wanted to remind everyone that this disappearing of children that I call legalized child abuse has gone on many times before.  In fact, these children are still missing – and there never seems to be a whisper about it.  Often when I mention it on email groups – people are shocked to learn it.  Since this man’s case is considered “high profile” perhaps we can use it as an opportunity to demand answers on the whereabouts of these children.  In the right bar of this web page there are two links, one to contact the media, and one to contact your congresspeople.  Please take a moment to send them a note asking about this case.  All the work is done with these links, all you have to do is write a simple letter.  Short is best, please use a calm manner without insults – though I’m sure we are all absolutely appalled.  An angry letter probably won’t be taken as seriously as a polite request. 


By Al Pessin – Pentagon
First published 12 March 2007

The U.S. Defense Department says it held hearings on Friday and Saturday at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for three of the most notorious terrorism suspects it is holding, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks. VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

Spokesman Bryan Whitman says Saturday’s hearing reviewed the status of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who U.S. officials say planned the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. Whitman could not say whether Mohammed chose to participate in the hearing, which is called a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

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  • International NGOs stumble upon a dozen incarcerated non-Afghan girls
  • DNA tests fail to turn up missing Mariam
  • Pak govt asks Afghan, US authorities to aid search
  • Govt trying to ensure Aafia serves out sentence back home

By Saeed Minhas

ISLAMABAD: During efforts to trace Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s missing 11-year-old daughter Mariam, international organisations have stumbled upon nearly a dozen juvenile girls who have been languishing in several Afghan jails, sources privy to the search told Daily Times on Tuesday.

Not much is known about these girls, and most are referred to by the numbers allotted to them, just like Dr Aafia was. Sources said that during their visits to some of the jails, they requested the authorities to transfer these girls out of captivity to a safer place because the harsh environment in these prisons might “ruin their lives”.

Daily Times also learnt that DNA tests of three girls aged between 11 and 12 – who did not appear to be Afghans – were conducted in an attempt to find Mariam, but the tests came back negative.

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By JOANNE MARINER

My last column began to sketch out the global human rights impact of the U.S. “war on terror.” It described how U.S. abuses such as torture, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention, were, in many instances, carried out in collaboration with other governments.

Indeed, without foreign support and assistance, the human rights violations of the past eight years would not have been possible.

Today’s column gives some examples of this abusive collaboration. Among the dozens of countries that supported abusive U.S. counterterrorism efforts are Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Indonesia and Jordan.

 

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Israel is still withholding information about the destiny of hundreds people that disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). On March 16, the Beirut-based Horiah Foundation launched a $5 million campaign to find out more about what has happened to the remains of the dead or missing. MENASSAT spoke with Horiah Foundation co-founder, Bassam Kontar, about the campaign.

 

By RANDA ABU SHAKRA

missing.jpg
A screenshot of the $5 Million Campaign’s website. © Horiah Foundation

BEIRUT, (MENASSAT) – There are several lingering wounds that have been left unhealed since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War in Lebanon. Among the more significant national issues is the issue of the missing resistance fighters that were either captured or killed in Israel.

 

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The authorities claim he planned a suicide bombing in parliament. His allies insist the Iraqi MP is a respected human rights campaigner. But no one knows what has happened to him.

By Robert Fisk

Where is Mohamed al-Dainy? In prison in Baghdad? On the run? Or is this Sunni Muslim Iraqi member of parliament and human rights defender facing torture or even death in his own country? Certainly that is what his brother Ahmed fears. “We are afraid for his life and the lives of our family members in Baghdad,” he says from the safety of Damascus. “The whole family fears they are in direct threat from the Iraqi government.”

 

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by Raymond Bonner

Matthew Alexander and John Bruning, How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq (New York: Free Press, 2008), 304 pp., $26.00.

David Cole, Justice at War: The Men and Ideas that Shaped America’s War on Terror (New York: New York Review of Books, 2008), 176 pp., $14.95.

Karen Greenberg, The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 288 pp., $27.95.

Eric Lichtblau, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice (New York: Pantheon, 2008), 384 pp., $26.95.

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 400 pp., $27.50.

 WITH AN order to close Guantánamo, the Obama administration has acted quickly to move away from the Bush administration’s policies in what it called the “war on terror.” But much more needs to be done to undo the damage to America’s reputation abroad—not just in the Muslim world—and to lessen the chances of starting another chapter in the erosion of America’s civil liberties. And not all measures will be difficult. For starters, President Barack Obama should follow the lead of Britain’s Gordon Brown, who, upon becoming prime minister, stopped using the phrase “war on terror.”

 

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As predictably as night follows day, the Obama regime defended the CIA’s practice of “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping) of suspected “terrorists” to third countries where they are subject to “enhanced interrogation” (torture) by allied security services.

Binyam Mohamed and four other victims have charged that they were brutalized after being “disappeared” by CIA operatives and secretly flown to Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan and eastern European CIA “black sites.”

On Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas N. Letter argued before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the “change” administration would press ahead with the Bush regime’s odious invocation of the state secrets privilege to suppress a lawsuit brought by torture victims against Boeing subsidiary, San Jose, California-based Jeppesen DataPlan.

In a thinly-veiled threat to the Ninth Circuit, Letter told the Court according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Judges shouldn’t play with fire.”

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