Friday, Apr 19th
Last update07:17:01 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that some inmates held at a US military base in Afghanistan have the legal right to challenge their detention in US courts.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that detainees held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have the right to challenge their detention. But the government had argued that inmates at the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan did not have such a constitutional right.
A second US soldier was convicted of murder in the summary executions of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees in 2007 after entering a guilty plea at his court-martial.
Sgt Joseph Mayo, 27, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, along with a reduction in rank to private, forfeiture of all pay and a dishonourable discharge.
He pleaded guilty to charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder at the proceeding at the US army's Rose Barracks in Vilseck, southern Germany. His lawyer said Mayo would testify against another soldier involved in the incident and could be eligible for parole in about 10 years.
On last 28 March 2009 I went to a charity event in solidarity with the Palestinian victims in Gaza and which had the purpose of raising money to finance a Physical Therapy Center in Gaza, according to Dr. Tariq Afifi, who headed the event. Dr. Hassan Najjar, the Chairman of the Association of Arab Doctors in Europe, said in his address, that “three months after the barbaric Israeli aggression on the Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip, it is necessary to work together to establish a museum which documents all the past and current Israeli war crimes, genocide and the blockade in Gaza”. This bold and strong proposal, to open a museum documenting the Israeli war crimes proposed by Dr. Najjar was widely welcomed attendants to the event, among them many doctors, diplomats ambassadors and intellectuals and artists.
The Obama administration decided Tuesday to seek a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the United Nations' premier rights body to protest the influence of repressive states.
"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system. . . . We believe every nation must live by and help shape global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and participate fully in their societies."
Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.
After a former Bush official responded to a lawyer who's suing him for alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, the lawyer has fired back in kind.
Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense under President George W. Bush, is accused by Spanish human rights lawyers of providing legal cover to Bush policies under which detainees were tortured. The lawyers want to try a number of Bush officials -- among them former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- in Spanish court.
An American activist who participated in a Palestinian solidarity demonstration is in serious condition Saturday after an Israeli soldier shot him in the face with a high-velocity tear gas canister. He underwent surgery early Saturday.
Even as the rescue operation commenced, more tear gas rained down on the demonstrators as soldiers allegedly delayed ambulance access.
Tristan Anderson, 38, of Oakland, Calif., was wounded Friday in the West Bank village of Naalin, during a protest against Israels separation barrier, reported the Associated Press. In the past year, four Palestinians have been killed and scores injured by Israeli troops putting down weekly stone-throwing protests against the barrier, which cuts off Naalin from 300 acres of olive groves.
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