Archive for July 9th, 2009
Found on Infowars
Steve Fainaru and William Booth
The Washington Post
The Mexican army has carried out forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers, according to documents and interviews with victims, their families, political leaders and human rights monitors.
From the violent border cities where drugs are brought into the United States to the remote highland regions where poppies and marijuana are harvested, residents and human rights groups describe an increasingly brutal war in which the government, led by the army, is using harsh measures to battle the cartels that continue to terrorize much of the country.
In Puerto Las Ollas, a mountain village of 50 people in the southern state of Guerrero, residents recounted how soldiers seeking information last month stuck needles under the fingernails of a disabled 37-year-old farmer, jabbed a knife into the back of his 13-year-old nephew, fired on a pastor, and stole food, milk, clothing and medication.
The Wall Street Journal writes
The Obama administration said Tuesday it may continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.
Many writers have said the real reason that the government wishes to indefinitely detain certain prisoners is that they have suffered horrible, disfiguring torture, which the U.S. is trying to hide.
We must assume this is true unless the government lets independent doctors from the Red Cross examine all of the prisoners and publicly release their findings.
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and ALAN COWELL
New York Times
CAIRO — Security forces began clashing with protesters shortly after they began massing in the streets of Tehran on Thursday evening, as an initially festive demonstration quickly turned grim, witnesses said.
Tear gas was fired into Lelah Park, they said, and a woman whose coat was covered in blood ran from Revolution Square, one of the main gathering spots during the initial weeks of protests over the June 12 election. She said that police officers were beating protesters.
It was the first protest in 11 days, and was called to commemorate the 10th anniversary of violent confrontations at Tehran University when protesting students were beaten and jailed. Iranian authorities had announced earlier that the demonstration was illegal and would be met with a “crushing response.”
But at the end of the work day, hundreds of protesters began packing the streets of one area of Tehran, chanting, clapping and sitting in jammed traffic as drivers honked their horns, witnesses said. Families brought their children. Many held a hand in the air in the defiant V for victory.
The security forces quickly moved in.
Reuters, citing witnesses, reported that the police used tear gas to disperse a group of about 250 protesters as they headed toward Tehran University, shouting support for a defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.
Iranian officials said Wednesday that they had released 2,000 people who had been arrested for participating in the earlier demonstrations but that they were still holding 500 prisoners who would be put on trial, according to the state-run Press TV news service.
Morteza Tamaddon, governor-general of Tehran, said there had been no request for a permit to hold Thursday’s rally.
Like other officials, he blamed outside interference by foreign broadcasters as a source of the unrest that tore through Iran after the disputed June 12 presidential election, provoking a sweeping official crackdown.
“The enemies of the Iranian nation are angry with the post-election calm in Iran and try to damage it through their TV channels,” he said, according to Press TV.
Those who “follow the statements by the enemies’ TV” would receive a “crushing response” from the people, he said.
The warnings coincided with other steps to prevent protests, The A.P. said. Cellphone messaging was down Thursday for a third straight day, apparently to prevent communication between protesters, while the government closed universities and declared an official holiday Tuesday and Wednesday, ostensibly because Tehran has been shrouded in a heavy dust and pollution cloud, The A.P. said.
Thursday’s demonstration came against a backdrop of rising anxiety and continued arrests. According to Press TV, a reformist member of Parliament, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, said the government’s approach — holding prisoners incommunicado — had left families of the accused frightened. And the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a group based in New York, said the government was continuing to make arrests.
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