April, 27 2010, 09:50am EDT
Leading U.S. Rights Group Seeks to Intervene in Spanish Court's Investigations into Bush Administrations Torture Program
Today, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed
a motion with Spain's national court (Audencia Nacional) seeking to
intervene as a party (Acusacion Popular) in the criminal investigation
currently pending in Spain into the torture program conducted by the United
States during the Bush Administration. Initiated in April of 2009 by
Judge Baltasar Garzon, the investigation focuses on the torture and abuse of
four former Guantanamo detainees, Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Ikassrien Lahcen,
Jamiel Abdul Latif Al Banna and Omar Deghaye, each with strong ties to Spa
WASHINGTON
Today, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed
a motion with Spain's national court (Audencia Nacional) seeking to
intervene as a party (Acusacion Popular) in the criminal investigation
currently pending in Spain into the torture program conducted by the United
States during the Bush Administration. Initiated in April of 2009 by
Judge Baltasar Garzon, the investigation focuses on the torture and abuse of
four former Guantanamo detainees, Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Ikassrien Lahcen,
Jamiel Abdul Latif Al Banna and Omar Deghaye, each with strong ties to Spain.
The investigation will examine what Judge Garzon described as "an
approved systematic plan of torture and ill-treatment" and thus can
encompass the torture that took place in Iraq, Afghanistan and U.S. run black
sites around the world. Mr. Ahmed is a Spanish citizen and Mr. Ikassrien
had been a Spanish resident for more than 13 years.
CCR
has led the legal battle over Guantanamo and has represented plaintiffs who
have been subjected to every facet of the United States' torture program,
from Guantanamo detainees to Abu Ghraib torture survivors, and victims of extraordinary
rendition and CIA ghost detention. CCR has represented former detainees in U.S.
federal courts in habeas corpus proceedings and civil actions, seeking habeas
relief, injunctions or damages. It bases its motion to intervene on vast
experience working on these issues on behalf of its clients
"For
eight long years we have fought to redress the brutal, inhumane and illegal
acts perpetrated against our clients but have been blocked at every turn by
both the Bush and Obama administrations," said CCR President Michael
Ratner, who filed the first habeas corpus petition brought on behalf of a
Guantanamo detainee in 2002. "We come to Spain in pursuit of nothing less
than justice, which, sadly, is not available in the United States."
CCR
staff attorney and lead counsel in the action, Katherine Gallagher,
added: "The purpose of the intervention is multi-fold: to pursue justice
and accountability for egregious international law violations in a forum that
is willing to exercise jurisdiction over the case, and to press the message
that no one is above the law and that impunity cannot stand, even if the U.S.
is unwilling to prosecute the crimes."
Judge
Garzon's investigation is parallel to a separate case in which a fellow
magistrate, Judge Eloy Velasco, must decide whether the National Court can
pursue a criminal investigation against six senior U.S. officials, including
attorneys John Yoo, Jay Bybee and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, for
allegedly approving the use of torture. Separately CCR, jointly with the
Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), is
filing an expert opinion today with Judge Velasco urging him to retain
jurisdiction over the investigation due to the failure of the United States to
conduct independent, thorough or impartial investigations into the torture
program and the ongoing failure of the Obama administration to prosecute those
responsible for the torture program. The opinion states:
"the
U.S. has utterly failed in its obligations to initiate an effective
investigation or prosecution against the specific defendants in this case or on
behalf of the named plaintiffs or other victims of the U.S. interrogation,
detention and torture policies. This unfortunately remains the case under the
Obama Administration. Furthermore, both the Obama and Bush
Administrations have actively sought to block all efforts on behalf of victims
of the detention, interrogation and torture policies from having their day in
court, when in the context of habeas proceedings or civil actions. Spain,
therefore, can and indeed, must, exercise its jurisdiction over the named
defendants for the violations alleged in this case."
The
expert opinion also examines the scope of universal jurisdiction, and
determines that because of the nature of the crimes alleged and Spain's
obligations as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against
Torture, in particular, it should retain jurisdiction over this case.
In
his decision opening the investigation, Judge Garzon called the torture program
"an authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill-treatment on
persons deprived of their freedom without any charge and without the basic
rights of any detainee, set out and required by applicable international
conventions..." On January 27, 2010, Judge Garzon
issued a decision in which he ruled that Spain had jurisdiction and the
investigation into complaints filed could proceed. Judge Garzon based this
finding in part on the Spanish citizenship and residency in Spain of two of the
victims, and also cited the previous relationship between the victims and Spain
due to the request for their extradition issued by Spain. Judge Garzon
also found that opening an investigation was proper given the nature of the
crimes - including torture - under universal jurisdiction
principles, despite the amendment to the Spanish law in November 2009. His
decision also takes note of the Letters Rogatory that were sent to the United
States and United Kingdom on May 15, 2009, inquiring about possible investigations
into these cases as well as into the possibility that the victims could
initiate criminal proceedings themselves. Neither country responded.
The
Center for Constitutional Rights will be represented in these proceedings by
Spanish lawyers, including Gonzalo Boye of Boye-Elbal y Asociados.
For
more information on the investigations of U.S. torture pending in Spain, see: www.ccrjustice.org/spain-us-torture-case.
For
more information on CCR's work to hold U.S. officials accountable using
universal jurisdiction, see: https://www.ccrjustice.org/case-against-rumsfeld
CCR
has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last eight 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 50 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
Biden Condemned for Ahistorical and 'Politically Suicidal' Attack on Campus Protests
"Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
May 02, 2024
President Joe Biden faced immediate backlash Thursday for characterizing pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have erupted on university campuses across the country as lawless and violent, a narrative likely to further alienate the thousands of students who have joined peaceful protests against Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza in recent weeks.
In brief, unscheduled remarks delivered from the White House, Biden acknowledged that "peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues."
But he then proceeded to cast recent campus demonstrations as abhorrent, using instances of property damage to broadly paint student protesters as out of control—giving a pass to police forces and pro-Israel mobs that have brutally attacked peaceful encampments.
Biden, who has armed Israel's military to the hilt, also conflated trespassing and disruptions of day-to-day campus activities—including classes and graduations—with violence, saying, "None of this is a peaceful protest."
"Dissent must never lead to disorder," the president said, ignoring the long history of disruptive civil rights and anti-war protests in the U.S. "There's the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos."
Watch Biden's remarks in full:
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Thursday that "President Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
"And if President Biden is truly concerned about the conflict on college campuses, he should specifically condemn law enforcement and pro-Israel mobs for attacking students, and stop enabling the genocide in Gaza that has triggered the protests," Mitchell added.
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote following the president's remarks that "the best speech of Biden's campaign was in June 2020, amid the nationwide protests against the murder of George Floyd."
"He could've given a very similar speech today, if only he thought the same rights and principles applied to Palestinians," Duss added. "In June 2020, Biden criticized violence but also refused to paint the protests with that broad brush. He acknowledged the root causes, the pain driving them. He could've made some effort to do the same today, instead he chose to amplify a right-wing caricature."
Countering suggestions that criticism of Biden could harm his reelection chances against former President Donald Trump, Duss pointed to an old social media post in which he explained: "One of my concerns here is that Biden is undermining his re-election. In addition to being morally and strategically awful, I think his Gaza policy is alienating and demobilizing constituencies he will need."
At the end of his speech, a reporter asked Biden whether the mass demonstrations on college campuses have led him to reconsider his approach to Israel's assault on Gaza, which to date has been unconditionally supportive even in the face of horrific Israeli war crimes.
"No," Biden said in response to the reporter's question.
"Apparently Biden is not swayed by the mass killing of children, international law, or an election as a growing number of Americans are appalled by his policies," Assal Rad, an author and Middle East analyst, wrote in reply to the president.
Biden to young people: go fuck yourselves, I’m sticking with Israel and its genocide.
Absolutely surreal, sad, politically suicidal, grotesque. https://t.co/96RIQE2ZO5
— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) May 2, 2024
Biden's address came hours after Los Angeles police launched a violent attack on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a pro-Israel mob brutally assaulted student protesters just a day earlier.
In a statement earlier this week, College Democrats of America endorsed the Gaza solidarity protests that have swept the nation and warned Democratic leaders that each day they "fail to stand united for a permanent cease-fire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party."
"We condemn those politicians, like MAGA Republicans and many other lawmakers, for smearing all protesters as hateful when, according to reports, the overwhelming majority of protests are peaceful," said the College Democrats.
In a floor speech on Wednesday, Sanders called out his colleagues who "are spending their time attacking the protesters rather than the Netanyahu government, which has caused and has created this horrific situation."
Sanders noted that the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) "was arrested 45 times for sit-ins and protests, 45 times for protesting segregation and racism."
"Protesting injustice and expressing our opinions is part of our American tradition," said the Vermont senator. "And when you talk about America being a free country, well, you know what, whether you like it or not, the right to protest is what American freedom is all about."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Fossil Fuel Companies Use Enclosures to Hide Planet-Heating Methane Flares
"If you enclose the flare, people don't see it, so they don't complain about it," said one expert. "But it also means it's not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volume."
May 02, 2024
Fossil fuel companies are using a technology known as enclosed flaring to conceal dangerous methane emitted during the production of fossil gas, a report published Thursday revealed.
The Guardian's Tom Brown and Christina Last reported that fossil fuel producers in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway "appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions, and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas."
As the World Bank, European Union, and others have been using satellites to track flaring—the burning of unwanted fossil gas—in an effort to reduce the harmful practice, fossil fuel producers have been adopting enclosed combustion technology to eliminate unwanted methane.
While the industry promotes enclosed combustors as a clean, safe, and efficient solution for eliminating unwanted emissions and ensuring regulatory compliance, critics claim they're a way for gas producers to conceal flaring—which releases five times more methane than previously believed, as Common Dreamsreported in 2022.
"Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don't see."
"Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don't see," Tim Doty, a former regulator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told The Guardian. "Enclosed flaring is still flaring. It's just different infrastructure that they're allowing."
"Enclosed flaring is, in truth, probably less efficient than a typical flare," Doty added. "It's better than venting, but going from a flare to an enclosed flare... is not an improvement in reducing emissions."
Eric Kort, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, told The Guardianthat "if you enclose the flare, people don't see it, so they don't complain about it."
"But it also means it's not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volumes," he added.
According to a March 2023 report published by the World Bank and Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, an estimated 140 billion cubic meters of gas was flared globally in 2022, a 3% decrease from the previous year. The top 10 countries by flare volume that year were Russia, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela, the United States, Mexico, Libya, Nigeria, and China.
Flaring releases carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants including carcinogenic chemicals. Despite these dangers, energy and environmental regulators allow the venting of fossil gas, which is up to 90% methane, into the atmosphere.
Methane—which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere—is emitted during the production and transportation of oil, gas, and coal, as well as from municipal landfills and livestock.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report last October warning that immediate cuts to methane gas pollution caused by fossil fuel production are critical for limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C, the more ambitious objective of the Paris agreement.
The need is urgent. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the three most critical heat-trapping gases in Earth's atmosphere—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—once again reached record levels last year, with methane increasing by 10 parts per billion to 1,922.6 ppb.
Responding to The Guardian's reporting, U.K. Green parliamentary candidate Catherine Read said that "oil and gas companies are hiding their 'flaring' operations because laws are being brought in to reduce emissions of [greenhouse gases] from waste gas that can't be sold at a profit."
"They don't care about us, our children, or nature," she added, "only profit above all else."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'An Affront to the World': Shell Posts Billions in Profits as Planet Burns
"The grotesque wealth that this Earth-wrecking company continues to accumulate is something we cannot allow ourselves to accept as normal," one campaigner said.
May 02, 2024
Oil major Shell announced $7.7 billion in profits during the first quarter of 2024 on Thursday, as well as a $3.5 billion share buyback program.
The news comes as every month covered by the period was the hottest of its kind on record. The three-month period also saw the second-largest wildfire in Texas history, extreme heat in West Africa and the Sahel, and the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef's fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. Scientists have clearly linked global heating, and the weather disasters it exacerbates, to the climate crisis driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
"As extreme weather accelerates and the cost-of-living crisis rumbles on, Shell's latest billion-pound profits are an affront to the world," Izzie McIntosh, climate campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said in a statement. "The grotesque wealth that this Earth-wrecking company continues to accumulate is something we cannot allow ourselves to accept as normal."
"This is the sad irony of the global energy system in which those causing chaos are the ones getting rich."
Shell's profits for the first three months of 2024 were around 20% lower than for the same time in 2023, CNBC reported. However, the company brought in $1.2 billion more than analysts had predicted. The world's largest oil firms, including Shell, saw record profits in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed.
"Shell has beaten expectations by a reasonable margin, despite the impact of lower gas prices during the first quarter," Stuart Lamont, an investment manager at RBC Brewin Dolphin, said in a statement shared by CNBC.
Global Witness pointed out that Shell's earnings to date amounted to over $58,000 a minute, more than the average U.K. nurse makes in a year.
"Shell continuing to rake in huge sums of money shows us that huge polluter profits were not a one-off but are the twisted reality of an energy system that benefits climate-wrecking companies to the cost of everyone else," Global Witness fossil fuel campaigner Alexander Kirk said in a statement.
Shell announced its profits one day after the U.S. Senate held a hearing on how large oil and gas companies, including Shell, have continued to deceive the public about the dangers of their products, moving from outright climate denial into making commitments they don't intend to keep or touting false solutions like carbon capture and storage that they then fail to develop. Shell, according to the testimony of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), spent only 11% of its capital on low-carbon technologies between 2009 and 2023.
The hearing sparked calls for accountability from the fossil fuel industry—such as mechanisms to make climate polluters pay for the transition to renewable energy—and the news of Shell's profits generated more.
In the U.K., Labor Shadow Energy and Climate Minister Ed Miliband proposed increasing the tax on energy company profits. Shell paid the U.K. government around $1.4 billion in taxes in 2023, of which around $300 million went to the Energy Profits Levy, according toThe Guardian. Also last year, it paid its shareholders $23 billion, nine times more than it invested in its "Renewables and Energy Solutions" program.
"These results show yet again why it is so damning [that Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak refuses to bring in a proper windfall tax on the oil and gas giants," Miliband said. "These are companies that have made record profits at the expense of working people. Labor says tax these companies fairly so we can invest in clean homegrown energy that will end the cost of living crisis and make Britain energy independent."
Greenpeace U.K. called Shell's latest profits "shameless."
"Their reckless hunt for profits needs to end," the environmental advocacy group wrote on social media. "When will world leaders find their backbone and make polluters pay?"
When one commenter suggested governments held back out of desire to keep collecting Big Oil's taxes, Greenpeace fired back, "What taxes?" and noted that Shell avoided paying U.K. taxes for years.
"At the end of the day we want clean, cheap renewable energy not to face the worst impacts of climate change," Greenpeace continued. "Solutions exist, we just need the political and industrial will to get them in place."
Global Witness and Global Justice Now also took the opportunity to call for an energy transition.
"This is the sad irony of the global energy system in which those causing chaos are the ones getting rich," Kirk said. "This spiral won't stop until we make the urgent switch to a fairer renewable energy system that puts both people and planet first."
McIntosh concluded: "We urgently need to bring a fair and organised end to the fossil fuel era, and that means companies like Shell must stop trying to extract new oil and gas, and start paying what they owe for the loss and damage they've caused. Profit announcements like this for a corporate dinosaur like Shell need to become a thing of the past."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular