Eric Umansky

Our Friends in Saudi

A young woman in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to death for.....witchcraft.

  Human Rights Watch points out it's not a one-time thing:

On November 2, Saudi Arabia executed Mustafa Ibrahim for sorcery in Riyadh. Ibrahim, an Egyptian working as a pharmacist in the northern town of `Ar’ar, was found guilty of having tried “through sorcery” to separate a married couple, according to a Ministry of Interior statement.

The White House's Silence on Uzbekistan

David Corn wonders why the White House hasn't spoken up about the latest from Uzbekistan, where hundreds of protestors were massacred in May. Corn links to this from the Independent:

Uzbek authorities have jailed hundreds of people and forced them to confess to links to radical Islamists to justify the army crackdown on peaceful demonstrators last May that left 500 people dead, The Independent has learnt.

Human Rights Watch reports that witnesses of the massacre in the eastern city of Andizhan and relatives of the victims, have been rounded up and jailed for between 10 to 15 days on fabricated charges. "They are severely beaten and tortured until they sign statements confessing to being members of radical Islamic groups," a researcher for the group who has just visited the central Asian region said.

                                                

We've already lost future rights to the  airbase there.  But I understand. Sticking to a real policy  of "speading freedom and liberty" vs.  possibly a few extra months at a base. Must be a hard call.

The Coming Abu Ghraib Blowback

As you might recall, the apparently worst photos from Abu Ghraib still haven't been released. A judge has ordered the military to give them up, but the administration is still fighting:

Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement put forth to support the Pentagon's case that he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released.

Now, of course he's got a stake in portaying the photos in the worst light before they're released. But they do appear to be quite nasty. When senators looks at them last year, Bill Frist
said that compared  to the released Abu Ghraib photos,  "They go beyond that in many ways in terms of the various activities that are depicted." Mark Pryor, a Democrat, called them "almost overwhelming."

So maybe Myers is right. Maybe there will be riots. But apart from the argument about what to do now, it raises a question: Why didn't the government just release photos back when the scandal  broke?  It would have been the photo equivalent of a document dump. Instead, we have a second-wave scenario: Time has passed, Abu Ghraib has receded a bit into memory... and now thanks to the administration's genious P.R. strategy, there's a good chance it will be landing on Page One again.

P.S. As somebody who has frequently argued  that the torture scandal has been underplayed, I support it landing on Page One again. The issue is in what form. And the photos are just about the most inflammatory form  out there. Let me put this another way: In a slightly better world, the administration would have  come clean  from the beginning. That would have included, among other things:  1) quickly releasing  the photos 2) an independent commission to dig into the widespread detainee scandal. The latter would have generated countless headlines, but I doubt any riots.

Beyond Gitmo

From the Associated Press a few days ago:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.

Amnesty and human rights lawyers argued that the report added to long-standing claims that the United States has held "secret detainees" in its war on terror...

Navy Lt. Commander Flex Plexico, noting that it was difficult to respond to a report he hasn't seen said, "We have said many times that the Department of Defense does not engage in the practice of renditions" --the transfer of terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

What struck me is the non-denial denial:  "The Department of Defense does not engage in the practice of renditions." Nobody has ever said it did. The CIA is in charge of renditions. And it's the  CIA that in charge of the secret prisons.

It's worth recalling that as the administration embarks on an effort to  downsize Gitmo and remove it as a lightening rod for criticism. The administration certainly doesn't like to chat about it , but the worst parts of the detainee system aren't Gitmo but the ones we know the least about--CIA secret prisons included. 

 

Torture 'R' Us

Law Prof. Marty Lederman nails the larger  point about the relevations in the Wash Post that an Iraqi general was tortured by a series of interrogators, including GIs as well as a CIA-led unit of Iraqi exiles:

[T]his was a concerted, planned, systematic and extended series of brutal interrogations, carried out by numerous persons and entities, within the military and the CIA, in a manner that they all considered to be authorized. No rotten apples.  No nightshift.

Lederman wonders how soldiers could have possibly thought torture was OK. One likely explanation: The Pentagon--following the White House--redefined torture downward, such that "abusive and "degrading" treatment could be OK, so long as it wasn't "unhumane." Get it? Abusive treatment is not neccesarily inhumane and thus A-OK.

The  White House--and later the Pentagon--obviously seems to have followed a  policy of strategic ambiguity, not explicitly ruling out torturous tactics and leaving it to local commanders to 'get the job done.'  The exact details of who ordered what, when, and where are still murky. But one thing that's clear is that the U.S. needs to uncover those details. That's what a democracy does, or at least should do. Which is why for me the most depressing part of the whole torture scandal is that the White House--aided by  top Republicans--have succesfully opposed an independent commission to investigate abuses.

"No President has ever done more for human rights than I have," Bush once told the NYer. I'm sure he thinks that.  

Are 'Mines' Always Bad?

Human Rights Watch just put out a press release saying that the Pentagon is about to start making mines again--and shipping some to Iraq. That may be a  bad thing, since  mines   are historically among the most indiscriminate weapons around, killing kids and farmers  years after they were planted.

But, it's worth noting that the mine being shipped to Iraq, known as the Matrix system, may not be in the same category. While most mines are detonated by the target itself--"victim-activated"--the new-fangled Matrix apparently is command-detonated. That is, it will only blow when somebody pushes a button.

I just spoke to the folks at HRW, who said they have no problem with such a device. Their objection is that the Matrix may have an override that turns the thing back into a traditional mine. (The Pentagon has refused to say one way or the other but the Matrix replacement already on the drawing board does have such an override.)  Apparently, the feature is meant to only be used in only one circumstance: When your base is about to be overrun. Human Rights Watch objects to such an override button. But I'm not inclined to agree with them.

Yes, an override button would turn the Matrix weapon back into a regular old indescriminate mine. But the question is  whether such an override would become common-place rather than an extraordinary measure used in only desperate circumstances. I suspect it would stay the latter.

The Matrix--as it's described here--isn't the kind of thing you drop by the thousands in the countryside. They're large, complex and designed to do things like protect bases. That's what it's mission will be in Iraq. They'll be placed around bases in an attempt to head off the mortar fire-type attacks  that insurgents have been able to constantly launch.  Which is good by me--even if they do have "Alamo" buttons.

Freedom on the March (Saudi Arabia edition)

So a Saudi court has upheld the convinctions of three Saudi Arabian citizens who had the temerity to call for a constitutional monarchy, rather than the absolute rule currently enjoyed by the royal Saudi family.

For what it's worth, Condi has praised the jailed men, calling them "brave citizens." (Rice actually seems to be making a habit of smart/honest rhetoric--(toning down the North Korean tension, playing nice to Abbas, etc.)

This is disgusting (and near-sighted)

From (deep inside) Tuesday's Washington Post:

U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings
Officials Feared Losing Air Base Access
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Glenn Kessler

Defense officials from Russia and the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.

The outcome obscured an internal U.S. dispute over whether NATO ministers should raise the May 13 shootings in Andijan at the risk of provoking Uzbekistan to cut off U.S. access to a military air base on its territory.

The communique's wording was worked out after what several knowledgeable sources called a vigorous debate in Brussels between U.S. defense officials, who emphasized the importance of the base, and others, including State Department representatives at NATO headquarters, who favored language calling for a transparent, independent and international probe into the killings of Uzbekistan civilians by police and soldiers.

'It would be a falsehood to say I want to continue living'

A special Mother's Day tribute...

I spent some time in Cuba last summer, including an afternoon with the Ladies in White, an informal group  whose husbands have been tossed in jail for bogus reasons (such as for, you know, trying to express themselves). They went on a moving, silent protest march outside the  church, whose patron saint, Santa Rita, is  the Saint of Lost Causes. Then we sat down and  they got good and pissed off that their husbands are unjustly rotting in jail.  One woman followed me around the room, repeating "Castro es el Diablo! Entiende?"

Entiendo.

Here are some of their Mother's Day thoughts:

Mother's Day for the Ladies in White

By Roberto Santana Rodríguez

HAVANA- May 6 (www.cubanet.org) - Mother's Day for the Ladies in White - the wives of imprisoned dissidents - is a different kind of day, sad but filled with hope and dreams and confidence in the future.

The Ladies in White have undertaken a campaign that has transcended our borders in its goal of obtaining freedom for their loved ones.

Says Dolia Leal Francisco, wife of Nelson Aguiar Ramírez, president of the Orthodox Party of Cuba who is serving a 13-year sentence, says: "We, the Ladies in White, are a kind of association or movement of women and relatives of political prisoners arrested, tried and sentenced during the repressive wave that the Cuban government carried out in March of 2003. We got together at that time to fight for the freedom of those men who have been unjustly jailed."

Q: Why do you dress in white and what have you done?

A: We don't have any political agenda, just a humanitarian spirit that guides us to rectify a bad act of the Cuban government, which was to jail our husbands who had not committed any crime. We dress in white as a sign of purity and peace. We are the eyes, ears and voices of our imprisoned relatives. We've undertaken many activities. We've walked the streets of Havana, especially Sundays after Mass in the Santa Rita church. We haven't missed a Sunday in two years. We've also sent letters to international personalities stating our case for the freedom of our husbands. We've also asked Cuban government dependencies for amnesty for them.

Clara Lourdes Prieto Llorente is the sister pf independent journalists Fabio Prieto Llorente, serving a 20-year sentence. She says: "Everything changed radically in 2003. We no longer have Mother's Day because we're all uncertain whether my brother will be freed or not. My 70-year-old mother, Ramona Llorente, hasn't seen Fabio in a year. She's suffering from leukemia and is unable to go to Camagüey for a visit. Mother's Day has become a day of sadness for us."

Gloria Amaya González is the mother of two prisoners of conscience: Guido and Ariel belong to the Alternative Option Movement and are serving sentences of 20 years. She says: "As the mother of two prisoners, how can I feel with them absent? It would be a falsehood to say that I want to continue living. It's difficult to say what I feel when they've torn from my soul what I most want in my life, my two sons."

Berta Bueno Fuentes is the wife of Alejandro González Raga of the Varela Project who is serving a 14-year sentence. She says: "Mother's Day was very special before 2003. My husband is a joker and used to play all kinds of tricks with my son. They used to write pretty poems and gave me nice gifts. Sadness overcomes us on this day, but we're sure everything will return to normal when Alejandro comes back."

Elsa América González Padrón is the wife of Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, independent journalist sentenced to 26 years. She says: "Mother's Day Hill be a happy one for me because I have my two sons with me, Rainer and Miguel Angel, and my husband, although imprisoned, is alive, strong and courageous. But it will also be sad because it will be another Mother's Day when we're separated."

Laura Pollán Toledo is the wife of Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, independent journalist and president of the Liberal Party of Cuba. She says: "I was not thinking of going to the Santa Rita church last year until a state security agent came by the house two days before and told me not to go, that we were being manipulated, that is wasn't convenient, that I was in the wrong group. I told him to get out of the house and never return. Since then, I've not stopped going."

"Hanging gestures" at Gitmo

The Gitmo translator's book has gotten a bunch of attention for its claims of Potemkin interrogations and the  dumb sexual tactics of some interrogators. And I heard before about attempted prisoner suicides at the base. But what I didn't know--and what the military has kept  hush-hush--is that the attempts seem to be really damn common. Here's a excerpt from the translator's book:

The International Committee of the Red Cross broke its customary public silence in October 2003, pushed to do so, it said, by a spate of suicide attempts. "One cannot keep these detainees in this pattern, this situation, indefinitely," a senior official said. By then, the official number of suicide attempts was 32, though I knew it was actually far higher. The military kept the number low by labeling most attempted suicides as "manipulative self-injurious behavior" or "self-harm" incidents, a practice that became more frequent as time went on. In January 2005, the Pentagon disclosed that 350 "self-harm" incidents had occurred in 2003, including 120 "hanging gestures."

According to CNN, the military has of earlier this year logged all of 34  "suicide attempts" since the base opened. Afterall, what are a few hundred  "hanging gestures" among friends. And let's keep in mind, that Gitmo has never held more than about 600 detainees in total.

P.S. That CNN report also mentions the number of "self-injurious incidents" declining recently. That makes sense given that detainees have reason for hope now since many others have been sent home. What it doesn't mean is that the problem has gone away or that the U.S. doesn't have some obligation to be honest about the numbers, whatever they are.