February, 23 2009, 04:00pm EDT
CCR Releases Independent Report on Current Conditions at Guantanamo, Calls for Closure of Camps 5, 6, and Echo
Center for Constitutional Rights Experts Dispute Government Assertion That Guantánamo Complies With Geneva Conventions
NEW YORK
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released
a report on the current conditions in Camps 5, 6, and Echo following
the press conference today of Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of
naval operations, who delivered his own report on conditions to the
White House on Friday. Adm. Walsh determined in his report that
conditions at the base meet the standards of the Geneva Conventions, an
assertion the attorneys dispute.
CCR's report, "Conditions of Confinement at Guantanamo: Still in
Violation of the Law," covers conditions at Guantanamo in January and
February 2009 and includes new eyewitness accounts from attorneys and
detainees. The authors address continuing abusive conditions at the
prison camp, including conditions of confinement that violate U.S.
obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution and
international human rights law.
"The men at Guantanamo are deteriorating at a rapid rate due to the
harsh conditions that continue to this day, despite a few cosmetic
changes to their routines," said CCR Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei.
"They are caught in a vicious cycle where their isolation causes
psychological damage, which causes them to act out, which brings more
abuse and keeps them in isolation. If they are going to be there
another year, or even another day, this has to end."
Despite President Obama's executive order of January 22, 2009,
requiring humane standards of confinement at Guantanamo and conformity
with "all applicable laws governing the conditions of such
confinement," including the Geneva Conventions, attorneys assert that
detainees at Guantanamo have continued to suffer from solitary
confinement, psychological abuse, abusive force-feeding of hunger
strikers, religious abuse, and physical abuse and threats of violence
from guards and Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) teams.
The majority of the men being detained are in isolation. They go weeks
without seeing the sun. Fluorescent lights, however, remain on 24 hours
a day in Camp 5. According to the report, "improvements" cited by the
military are, by and large, public relations activities rather than
meaningful improvements in detainees' conditions.
In a declaration made February 13, 2009, Col. Bruce Vargo, commander of
the Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, stated that, "There are no
solitary confinement detention areas at JTF-GTMO...Detainees typically
are able to communicate with other detainees either face-to-face or by
spoken word from their cells throughout the day." By this, say
attorneys, he means that the men can yell through the metal food slot
in the solid steel doors of their cells when it is left open and
through the crack between the door and the floor.
The report details multiple cases of abuse occurring in the last month
and a half. For example, "On the afternoon of January 7, 2009, Yasin
Ismael was in one of the outdoor cages of Camp 6 for "recreation" time.
The cage was entirely in the shade. Mr. Ismael asked to be moved to
the adjoining empty cage because it had sunlight entering from the top.
The guards, who were outside the cages, refused. One guard told Mr.
Ismael that he was "not allowed to see the sun." Angered, Mr. Ismael
threw a shoe against the inner mesh side of the cage; which bounced
harmlessly back onto the cage floor. The guards, however, accused Mr.
Ismael of attacking them and left him in the cage as punishment. He
eventually fell asleep on the floor of the cage, but hours later he was
awakened by the sound of an IRF team entering the cage in the dark. The
team shackled him, and he put up no resistance. They then beat him.
They blocked his nose and mouth until he felt that he would suffocate,
and hit him repeatedly in the ribs and head. They then took him back to
his cell. As he was being taken back, a guard urinated on his head. Mr.
Ismael was badly injured and his ear started to bleed, leaving a large
stain on his pillow. The attack on Mr. Ismael was confirmed by at least
one other detainee."
One detainee in Camp 6 wrote to his attorney in January 2009, "As I
told you, we are in very bad condition, suffering from aggression,
beating and IRF teams, as well as the inability to sleep except for a
few hours. Soldiers here are on a high alert state and if one of us
dares to leave his cell and comes back without any harm, he is
considered as a man who survived an inevitable danger.
Hunger strikes continue among a large number of men at Guantanamo.
Hunger strikers are brutally force-fed using a restraint chair and
often unsanitary feeding tubes, and are beaten for refusing food, a
practice that continued within the last month and a half. Force-feeding
hunger strikers is considered by the World Medical Association to be a
violation of medical ethics and has continued unabated since President
Obama's Executive Order.
Detainees are still denied access to communal prayer: military
officials continue to classify hearing a call to prayer through a food
slot as communal prayer, which does not comport with the requirements
of Islam. There has been no Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo since 2003,
despite repeated requests. In addition, the report found that then men
are also subject to body search procedures that require the men to
subject themselves to a scanner that visually strips the men naked each
time they leave their cells for attorney meetings or recreation. This
humiliating and degrading experience, particularly given the men's
strong religious background, has led them to stay in their cells all
day, refusing attorney meetings and recreation entirely.
The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a series of recommendations
to ensure the conditions at Guantanamo satisfy legal standards for the
humane treatment of the detainees during the interim period while its
closure is being implemented. They are, in brief,
- Close Camps 5, 6 and Echo immediately, end solitary
confinement, and move the men there to facilities with lawful and
humane conditions of confinement. - End religious abuse of
detainees, including the violations of detainees' right to practice
their religion freely and the use of routine strip scanning and strip
searching. - Cease the use of IRF teams and all other
physical abuse of detainees immediately, including ending temperature
manipulation and sleep deprivation. - End the feeding of individuals against their will or under coercive circumstances.
- Allow
detainees immediate access to independent medical and psychological
professionals and cease the practice of forcible medication of
detainees.
"If President Obama is going to uphold the law and enforce his own
Executive Order, he must close Camps 5, 6, and Echo and improve
conditions immediately," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren.
"He should quickly remedy and end the Guantanamo created by his
predecessor, not embrace a whitewash of it. I hope Attorney General
Eric Holder has a freer hand to report the true conditions at the base
from his visit there today than did Adm. Walsh, whose boss has overseen
Guantanamo for the last two years."
To read the full report, click here.
CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years
- sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the
first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee" there. CCR
has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro
bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at
Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal
representation. In addition, CCR has been working to resettle the
approximately 60 men who remain at Guantanamo because they cannot
return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
(212) 614-6464LATEST NEWS
'Unhinged' Israeli Ambassador Literally Shreds UN Charter Ahead of Palestine Vote
"Shame on you," said Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan shortly before the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution supporting full membership for Palestine.
May 10, 2024
Shortly before the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution Friday supporting full U.N. membership for Palestine, Israel's ambassador took to the podium and put a prop copy of the U.N.'s founding document through a handheld paper shredder.
In a speech that one journalist described as "unhinged," Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan described Palestinians as "modern-day Nazis" and condemned the U.N. General Assembly for choosing to "reward" them with "rights and privileges."
"You are shredding the U.N. Charter with your own hands," Erdan said as he fed a small copy of the document through a miniature paper shredder. "Shame on you."
Watch:
Watch: Israeli ambassador to the UN @giladerdan1 used a paper shredder to shred the UN charter on the podium of the UN general assembly ahead of a vote that will give new privileges to the Palestinians at the UN pic.twitter.com/mWQ85c8uwK
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 10, 2024
Erdan's bizarre performance came just before the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution urging the Security Council to reconsider Palestine's request to become a full U.N. member following a U.S. veto last month. Palestine is currently a nonmember observer state of the U.N.
The General Assembly voted by a margin of 143 to 9—with 25 abstentions—in support of the resolution. The nine countries that voted no were the United States, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Papua New Guinea.
In addition to backing its bid for full U.N. membership, the resolution gives Palestine "the right to introduce and co-sponsor proposals as well as amendments within the assembly," The Guardianreported.
Riyad Mansour, Palestine's permanent observer at the U.N., said ahead of Friday's vote that support for the resolution "is a vote for Palestinian existence."
"I stand before you as lives continue falling apart in the Gaza Strip," said Mansour, noting that "more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, 80,000 have been maimed, 2 million have been displaced, and everything has been destroyed" by Israeli forces over the past seven months.
"No words can capture what such loss and trauma signifies for Palestinians," Mansour added.
"The U.S. and Israel are isolated and the world is on the side of Palestine."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, called the U.N. General Assembly's passage of the resolution "an unprecedented move that shows once again how unbelievably isolated [U.S. President Joe] Biden has made the U.S."
In anticipation of Friday's vote, a group of Republican U.S. senators led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced legislation that would halt U.S. funding for any entity—including the U.N.—that gives Palestine "any status, rights, or privileges beyond observer status."
Current law requires the U.S. to "cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state—which could mean a cutoff in dues and voluntary contributions to the U.N. from its largest contributor," The Associated Pressreported Friday.
Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. official who resigned in October over the body's failure to act in the face of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, wrote that Friday's vote further shows that "the U.S. and Israel are isolated and the world is on the side of Palestine."
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"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," said Bill McKibben. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
May 10, 2024
The average monthly concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by a record 4.7 parts per million between March 2023 and March 2024, according to new data from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
The spike, reported by the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography on Wednesday, reveals "the increasing pace of CO2 addition to the atmosphere by human activities," the university said.
"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," author and long-time climate activist Bill McKibbenwrote on social media in response to the news. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
"Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Scientists have been tracking rising CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa since 1958, and their upward trajectory has come to be known as the "Keeling Curve," named for Charles Keeling, who began the measurements. The curve has become an important symbol of the climate crisis—making visible how the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of vegetation has released more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, where it traps heat from escaping into space and raises global temperatures.
For most of human history, concentrations have hovered around 280ppm, and the curve's first measurement put them at 313. Sixty-five years later, C02 concentrations averaged 419.3 ppm in 2023, a level not seen since 4.3 million years ago when sea levels were around 75 feet higher and parts of today's Arctic tundra were forests. As of Wednesday, the Keeling Curve reported a daily concentration of 426.72 ppm.
The record jump from March 2023 to March 2024 surpasses the last record jump of 4.1 ppm from June 2015 to June 2016.
"We sadly continue to break records in the CO2 rise rate," Ralph Keeling, Charles' son who now directs the Scripps CO2 Program, said. "The ultimate reason is continued global growth in the consumption of fossil fuels."
The record leaps from both 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 were also influenced by active El Niño events. The El Niño phenomenon increases atmospheric carbon dioxide because it leads to warmer, drier temperatures in the tropics, which decrease vegetation and encourage fires. Atmospheric CO2 levels tend to rise especially quickly toward the end of an El Niño cycle, and last March's CO2 levels were unusually low, leading to a larger gap in the 12-month period.
This year's rate of increase during the current El Niño is significantly larger than the one that took place in 2016. As Scripps explained:
The increase from February 2023 to February of this year was 4.0 ppm, compared to 3.7 for the 2016 El Niño. The increase from January 2023 to January of this year was 3.4 ppm, compared to 2.6 for the 2016 El Niño.
The growth rate from April 2023 to April 2024 dropped to 3.6 ppm, but taking into account the first four months of 2024, the growth rate is well above that for 2016. If this El Niño follows the pattern of the last El Niño, the world might experience a very high growth rate for several more months, Keeling said.
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"The rate of rise will almost certainly come down, but it is still rising and in order to stabilize the climate, you need CO2 level to be falling," Keeling toldThe Guardian. "Clearly, that isn't happening. Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, wrote in response, "We're riding the Venus Express."
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"If someone is speaking more about 'violent encampments' than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases," said one supporter.
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Just over a week after U.S. President Joe Biden defended police crackdowns on dozens of anti-war protests on college campuses by declaring that students don't have "the right to cause chaos," a new analysis on Friday showed that nearly all the campus demonstrations have not been violent at all—and many that have descended into violence did so due to police interventions or aggressive counter-protests.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) examined 553 campus protests that took place across the U.S. between April 18-May 3 and found that fewer than 20 resulted in serious violence or property damage—meaning that 97% of the protests remained non-violent.
The group categorizes demonstrations as violent only when "physical violence that rises above pushing or shoving" takes place or when property damage includes protesters "breaking a window or worse."
ACLED's latest analysis comes after a previous study released May 2, which found 99% of campus protests in the first days of the burgeoning student-led movement against Israel's assault on Gaza had remained peaceful.
In the latest report, analyzing the 3% of protests that became violent, ACLED found that at half of those students clashed with police who had been sent in to clear the peaceful student encampments—which should have been allowed to proceed unimpeded according to Biden's speech about the protests on May 2, in which he said, "Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to controversial issues."
At one protest at Washington University in St. Louis, three police officers were injured, and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison on May 1, a state trooper was reportedly injured after being hit with a skateboard.
ACLED found two instances of serious property damage: a protest at Portland State University where students shattered glass and damaged computers and other furniture while occupying a library, and the occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, where students broke windows.
But examining the campus protests as a whole, ACLED did not find evidence of the "disorder" Biden spoke of when he said earlier this month that "vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations... threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not a peaceful protest."
The most significant violence that's erupted at a campus protest so far, according to ACLED's data, was an attack by a pro-Israel mob on an encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, which went on for hours as police stood by.
"If someone is speaking more about 'violent encampments' than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases," said Tanya Zakrison, a surgeon at University of Chicago Medical Center, close to the college campus where students on Thursday said police shoved and hit them as they removed an encampment this week.
ACLED documented at least 70 examples of violent police crackdowns, including the use of chemical agents and batons to disperse crowds.
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