Posted on April 24th, 2009 by Marian Houk
I overlooked this story, about a month ago, by Bradley Burston in Haaretz on Friday, 17 March, entitled: “Who remembers the name Rachel Corrie?” Burston answers his own question: “In Israel, hardly anyone. But to many a pro-Palestinian American or Briton – and to many of their pro-Israeli antagonists – the mere mention of the [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on April 23rd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Israeli officials and certain think-tank types continue to question the number of Palestinians who were killed — and over how were civiilian vs. how many were in some way affiliated with Hamas — during the IDF’s 22-day offensive against Gaza. Here is a new piece of propagandistic argumentation — Palestinians die anyway in Gaza, this [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on April 22nd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Released yesterday, a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Report states that “The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Afghanistan, Guantanamo, International Humanitarian Law, Iraq, Torture, USA
Posted on April 22nd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Time.com is covering a number of aspects of the horrifying reports that two detainees were tortured by various techniques, including waterboarding. One of the Time reports states that “Defenders of waterboarding say that the procedure, while awful for the prisoner, is relatively safe and has few long-term effects. But doctors and psychologists who work with [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: International Humanitarian Law, Torture, USA
Posted on April 21st, 2009 by Marian Houk
The title of the NYTimes story was sickening, and compelling. It was difficult to click on the link. It said that “The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Blogging, Guantanamo, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, Torture
Posted on April 20th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Abu Zubaydah “suffered an injury during capture” — he “sustained a wound during capture which is being treated”, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Jay Bybee, wrote in a memo dated 1 August 2002, yet authorization was given to torture him anyway. One torture contemplated — but apparently not used — was placing [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Humanitarian Aid, International Court of Justice - ICJ, Iraq, UN History
Posted on April 20th, 2009 by Marian Houk
(1.)”One focus of scrutiny could be the period from April to August of 2002, when C.I.A. officers interrogated Abu Zubaydah before the Justice Department gave its official written endorsement of the interrogation program. According to a Justice Department inspector general’s report, F.B.I. officials who watched some of the interrogation sessions in a Thailand safe house [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, Torture
Posted on April 19th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Dr. Zvi Sela, a kibbutznik, teacher, psychologist, police interrogator, participant in torture [see his own account, below], and writer, makes some riveting revelations in an interview with Kobi Ben-Shimon published in Haaretz this weekend. The interview was about his recently-published third novel, which doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this posting, and which is [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on April 18th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The annual Holy Fire ceremony – Sept an-nur – celebrated as part of the Orthodox Easter weekend, took place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City today. It is fervently believed, by the Orthodox faithful, to be a miracle — though other Christians are not so convinced. [...]
1 Comment »
Filed under: International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Three months since the last day of Israel’s war on Gaza in the context of the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead, there has still been no reconstruction. Gazans who were sitting on the rubble of their homes last January waiting for help to arrive are now sitting in small, cold [in the winter and in the [...]
No Comments »
Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
