Human Rights Glance
It was 1946, and Ms. Orellana was one of thousands of Guatemalans who were unwittingly subjected to secret human experiments led by US doctors.
The experiments were brought to light by a US researcher in 2009, and a legal battle on behalf of victims and their families ensued. But now, nearly three years after beginning the legal battle in US courts, attorneys representing an estimated 5,000 Guatemalan victims used as guinea pigs and infected with sexually transmitted diseases in the 1940s by US public health researchers withdrew their appeal earlier this week, virtually ending the case against the US government.
Guatemalan syphilis victims lose hope in legal battle against US
Guantánamo doctors must refuse to force-feed hunger strikers – physicians
A group of senior American doctors has called on military physicians at Guantánamo Bay to refuse to work in a mass force-feeding programme that is being used to keep hunger-striking detainees alive.
Writing in the prestigious and influential New England Journal of Medicine, the three doctors called Guantánamo "a medical ethics free zone" and said that medical staff had a moral duty to allow the prisoners to go on hunger strike without coercing them into treatment. They also called on doctors to refuse to take part in force-feeding.
Russia passes law banning gay 'propaganda'
Russia's parliament has unanimously passed a federal law banning gay "propaganda" amid a Kremlin push to enshrine deeply conservative values that critics say has already led to a sharp increase in anti-gay violence.
The law passed 436-0 on Tuesday, with just one deputy abstaining from voting on the bill, which bans the spreading of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors.
Supreme Court Ends Torture Lawsuit Against Donald Rumsfeld
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from two American whistleblowers who claim U.S. forces tortured them in Iraq and who want to sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The justices' action Monday leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that found Rumsfeld cannot be held liable for actions taken by subordinates that may have crossed legal bounds.
One of the Darkest Periods in the History of American Prisons
It has been an extraordinary three weeks in the history of the American penal system, perhaps one of the darkest on record. In four states, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, the systemic abuse and neglect of inmates, and especially mentally ill inmates, has been investigated, chronicled and disclosed in grim detail to the world by lawyers, government investigators and one federal judge.
The conclusions are inescapable: In our zeal to dehumanize criminals we have allowed our prisons to become medieval places of unspeakable cruelty so far beyond constitutional norms that they are barely recognizable.
White House chief of staff, Feinstein, McCain visit prison, say end Guantánamo detention
President Barack Obama’s chief of staff toured the Guantánamo detention center on Friday with Senators Dianne Feinstein and John McCain — and all three promptly issued a joint statement supporting closure of the controversial prison camps in southeast Cuba.
“We continue to believe that it is in our national interest to end detention at Guantánamo, with a safe and orderly transition of the detainees to other locations,” the trio said in a release Friday evening.
Address Afghanistan human rights, Amnesty International tells NATO
Rights gained in the past 12 years in Afghanistan must be protected, the human rights organization Amnesty International said in a statement Monday.
The statement came in advance of a meeting in Brussels this week by NATO defense ministers who will discuss the progress of transition of Afghanistan's security responsibilities from NATO and coalition forces to the national Afghan army.
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