May, 16 2014, 04:08pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Reprieve’s press office: katherine.oshea@reprieve.org / +1 (917) 855 8064 or alice.gillham@reprieve.org.uk / +44 (0) 207 553 8160
Obama Administration Resists Efforts to Preserve Videos of Guantanamo Force-Feeding
Lawyers for the Obama administration have described as "frivolous" attempts to ensure that videos of force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay are not destroyed, in response to a case brought by a detainee over his mistreatment.
Legal charity Reprieve, acting on behalf of Abu Wa'el Dhiab - who has been cleared since 2009 but continues to be held without charge or trial - had sought to ensure that videos showing his force-feeding cannot be destroyed by the military.
LONDON
Lawyers for the Obama administration have described as "frivolous" attempts to ensure that videos of force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay are not destroyed, in response to a case brought by a detainee over his mistreatment.
Legal charity Reprieve, acting on behalf of Abu Wa'el Dhiab - who has been cleared since 2009 but continues to be held without charge or trial - had sought to ensure that videos showing his force-feeding cannot be destroyed by the military.
However, the US Government is strongly resisting efforts to secure a court order preserving the videos, which could be crucial evidence for Mr Dhiab's efforts to stop his force-feeding.
Government lawyers did however admit that "there are approximately 140 to 150 FCE videos of [Mr Dhiab] between April 9, 2013 and February 19, 2014 [and] it appears that the vast majority of these videos are of FCEs in connection with enteral feeding or otherwise arguably related to enteral feeding." An FCE, or 'Forcible Cell Extraction,' is the process by which detainees who do not wish to be force-fed are restrained, often violently, and taken to the force-feeding chair.
Government lawyers also confirmed that Mr Dhiab is currently on the list for force-feeding - a rare insight into the ongoing hunger-strike at Guantanamo Bay, where authorities introduced a black-out on information regarding the number of hunger-strikers and their treatment in December last year.
In documents filed today, lawyers from Reprieve, together with Jon B. Eisenberg and Eric Lewis, have argued that the replies given by the military concerning the preservation of the video tapes are equivocal, and leave open the possibility that the DoD does not know and has made no effort to determine whether they have in fact been destroyed.
Commenting, Cori Crider, one of Mr Dhiab's attorneys and Strategic Director at Reprieve said: "Despite Gitmo's media blackout on information about force-feeding and brutal 'forcible cell extractions', we've managed to get some key information out. Everything we've learned is highly disturbing. JTF-GTMO also has a history of losing inconvenient evidence, including similar tapes of the Gitmo riot squad, so let's hope that these recordings don't go the way of the waterboarding tapes before them."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe of 'Indiscriminate' Israeli Attacks on Lebanon
"The latest evidence of unlawful airstrikes during Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers," said one campaigner.
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Amnesty International on Thursday called for a war crimes investigation into recent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed dozens of civilians, as well as a suspension of arms transfers to Israel as it attacks Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria.
In a briefing paper titled The Sky Rained Missiles, Amnesty "documented four illustrative cases in which unlawful Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians" in Lebanon in September and October amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign of invasion and bombardment that Lebanese officials say has killed or wounded more than 20,000 people.
"Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21," the rights group said. "Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on October 16."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
"This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever," village mukhtar, or leader, Youssef Jaafar told Amnesty. "It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town."
On October 16, Israel bombed the Nabatieh municipal complex, killing Mayor Ahmad Khalil and 10 other people.
"The airstrike took place without warning, just as the municipality's crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water, and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon," Amnesty said, adding that there was no apparent military target in the immediate area.
In the deadliest single strike detailed in the Amnesty report, IDF bombardment believed to be targeting a suspected Hezbollah member killed 23 civilians forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon in Aitou on October 14.
"The youngest casualty was Aline, a 5-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pickup truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike," Amnesty said.
Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
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The October 21 strike destroyed a building housing 13 members of the Othman family, killing two women and four children and wounding seven others.
"My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother," survivor Fatima Drai—who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack—told Amnesty.
"When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I'll tell his father how our son is when he comes back," she added. "I went to pray, and then everything around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within seconds, it consumed my kids' room."
Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians."
Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
The tribunal also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes committed during and after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and over 240 others were kidnapped.
Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice is weighing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. Last week, Amnesty published a report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The United States—which provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—has also been accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians," Guevara Rosas said. "The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes during Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law."
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Echoing recent warnings from economists, business leaders, news reporting, and immigrant rights groups, Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee detailed Thursday how President-elect Donald Trump's planned mass deportations "would deliver a catastrophic blow to the U.S. economy."
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Citing recent research by the American Immigration Council and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the JEC report warns that depending on how many immigrants are forced out of the country, Trump's deportations could:
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One advocate called the CFPB's new rule "a major milestone in its effort to level the playing field between regular people and big banks."
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"The CFPB is cracking down on these excessive junk fees and requiring big banks to come clean about the interest rate they're charging on overdraft loans."
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Accountable.US noted that Republican Reps. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina and Andy Barr of Kentucky have appeared to lift their criticisms of the rule straight from industry talking points, claiming that reforming overdraft fee rules would "limit consumer choice, stifle innovation, and ultimately raise the cost of banking for all consumers."
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