SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
October, 03 2014, 04:15pm EDT
Contact:
Katherine O'Shea in Reprieve's US Press Office on katherine.oshea@reprieve.org or (001) 917 855 8064
Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Force-Feeding Footage
District Judge Gladys Kessler has today ordered that videotapes of Reprieve client Abu Wa'el Dhiab being force-fed in Guantanamo Bay are to be made public.
Around eleven hours of previously secret video is to be redacted for "all identifiers of individuals" other than Mr. Dhiab, and then released to the public. The footage is known to show Mr. Dhiab being hauled from his cell by Guantanamo's 'Forcible Cell Extraction' team - a group of military police in riot gear - and being force-fed.
LONDON
District Judge Gladys Kessler has today ordered that videotapes of Reprieve client Abu Wa'el Dhiab being force-fed in Guantanamo Bay are to be made public.
Around eleven hours of previously secret video is to be redacted for "all identifiers of individuals" other than Mr. Dhiab, and then released to the public. The footage is known to show Mr. Dhiab being hauled from his cell by Guantanamo's 'Forcible Cell Extraction' team - a group of military police in riot gear - and being force-fed.
The decision comes after 16 major US media organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, AP, and others, intervened in the litigation seeking to unseal the video tapes. Mr. Dhiab supported the media's intervention and has specifically stated he wishes as many Americans as possible to see the reality of force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay.
Mr Dhiab said in a statement that is quoted in Judge Kessler's decision today: "I want Americans to see what is going on at the prison today, so they will understand why we are hunger-striking, and why the prison should be closed. If the American people stand for freedom, they should watch these tapes. If they truly believe in human rights, they need to see these tapes."
Judge Kessler, in her decision, stated: "In short, it is our responsibility, as judges, as part of our obligation under the Constitution, to ensure that any efforts to limit our FirstAmendment protections are scrutinized with the greatest of care. That responsibility can not be ignored or abdicated."
She described the Government's justifications for keeping the video evidence sealed in its entirety as "unacceptably vague, speculative, lack[ing specificity, or... just plain implausible." She added: "It strains credulity to conclude that release of these videos has a substantial probability of causing the harm the Government predicts."
Judge Kessler also dismissed out of hand the Government's claim that release of the videos, because it would impact Mr. Dhiab's right not to be held up to "public curiosity", would violate the Geneva Conventions, stating: "The Government's claim, if accepted, would turn the Third Geneva Convention on its head. Rather than a source of rights to humane treatment, Article 13 would become a means to shield from public view treatment that Mr. Dhiab (and undoubtedly other detainees) believe to be inhumane."
The Judge's order requires identifying individuals to be redacted, and orders the Government and Petitioner's counsel to work together to achieve this. The process is likely to take some days; while the redactions are made, Judge Kessler has ordered that the tapes shall remain under seal.
Mr. Dhiab has been waging a high-profile challenge to his abusive force-feeding at Guantanamo since June 2013, represented by attorneys at the human rights organization Reprieve.
His trial, which challenges the government's current force-feeding practices as cruel and unethical, is due to begin this Monday, October 6, at 10 A.M. in Washington, D.C.
Cori Crider, Reprieve attorney to Mr. Dhiab, stated: "It is high time the bright light of the truth was shone on Guantanamo's force-feeding practices. It has always been the height of hypocrisy for the Guantanamo authorities to take media groups on 'show tours', while forbidding them from talking to prisoners or seeing evidence like this, which shows the grim reality of life at the prison. I look forward to the day when this evidence is made public, and I believe the outcry that results will hasten the close of Guantanamo Bay."
Alka Pradhan, Reprieve attorney to Mr Dhiab, said: "This may well be the most significant court decision on Guantanamo Bay in years. No longer does the American public have to rely on propaganda and misinformation, but can finally watch the videotapes and judge for themselves whether this terrible prison should continue to be the image America projects to the world, or whether we should reclaim our values and shut it down for good."
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.
LATEST NEWS
Trump CIA Intervention in Venezuela Risks Another US War of Choice, Experts Warn
“Using covert or military measures to destabilize or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy," said a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Oct 17, 2025
President Donald Trump's authorization this week of Central Intelligence Agency operations aimed at toppling Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prompted warnings from foreign policy experts of yet another US war of choice and the introduction of a bipartisan Senate resolution aimed at blocking unauthorized military action against the South American country.
“Reports that the Trump administration has authorized covert efforts seeking to foment regime change in Venezuela are deeply concerning," Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said Thursday in a statement.
"These reports follow on the administration’s unlawful and unauthorized use of military force against vessels and their crews in the Caribbean—which constitute extrajudicial killings," added Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
🚨New Statement by @mattduss.bsky.social in response to reports that the Trump Administration has authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela. internationalpolicy.org/publications...
[image or embed]
— Center for International Policy (@cipolicy.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Trump said Wednesday that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the South American nation "for two reasons"—at least the first of which is a lie.
“Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”
There is no credible evidence that the Venezuelan government has systematically or deliberately released prisoners and sent them to the United States. The claim—which has been popularized by Trump and some Republicans—has been repeatedly debunked by experts and US officials.
As for drugs, while Venezuela is a transit point for cocaine—mostly produced in neighboring Colombia—the amount of narcotics entering the United States via the country is relatively insignificant compared with routes via Mexico, Central America, and the Pacific coast.
Approximately 90% of US-bound cocaine enters the country via Mexico, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration and other government agencies. Venezuela is also not a significant source of fentanyl, which is the leading cause of overdoses in the US and is also trafficked primarily through Mexico.
“Using covert or military measures to destabilize or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy, which undermined the human rights and sovereignty of countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean," said Duss.
According to John Coatsworth, a historian specializing in Latin America, the US has launched at least 41 interventions that successfully overthrew governments in the hemisphere since 1898. The number of US military interventions in the region is much higher.
The US has been meddling in Venezuelan affairs since the 19th century, going back to an 1895 boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain and possibly earlier. Since then, Washington has helped install and prop up brutal dictators and assisted in the subversion of democratic movements, including by training Venezuelan forces in torture and repression at the notorious US Army School of the Americas.
This century, successive US administrations beginning with George W. Bush have worked to thwart the Bolivarian Revolution launched by former President Hugo Chávez and continued under Maduro. Under Trump, the US has deployed a small armada of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of Venezuela, a rattling of proverbial sabers familiar to students of US imperialism in Latin America.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have also died as a result of US economic sanctions on Venezuela, according to research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“The CIA has been sent to Venezuela for regime change," Maduro said Thursday in Caracas. "Since its creation, no US government has so openly ordered this agency to kill, overthrow, or destroy other countries."
“If Venezuela did not possess oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water, the imperialists wouldn’t even look at our country," he added.
Duss noted that the United States is "still dealing with many of the harmful consequences of these disastrous interventions in today’s challenges with migration and the drug trade."
"Such interventions rarely lead to democratic or peaceful outcomes," he stressed. "Instead, they exacerbate internal divisions, reinforce authoritarianism, and destabilize societies for generations."
As Tim Weiner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of multiple histories of the CIA, said in a Friday interview with CNN senior politics writer Zachary Wolf, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro "survived covert action under presidents from [Dwight] Eisenhower onward and outlived them all."
Weiner said that even operations considered successes created tremendous problems.
“The successes, for example, in Guatemala, ushered in dictatorships and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,” he said, referring to the 1954 CIA overthrow of reformist Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz—codenamed PBSUCCESS—which led to decades of bloody repression and a US-backed genocide against Indigenous Mayan peoples.
Writing for Responsible Statecraft on Thursday, Joseph Addington, associate editor and Latin America columnist at The American Conservative, asserted that any US invasion of Venezuela "comes with a number of costs and risks American policymakers should bear in mind and carefully weigh against the potential benefits of intervention."
"There is no free lunch in geopolitics," he argued.
Addington cited an example of the US ousting a drug trafficking leader, who was an erstwhile ally and CIA asset:
The most obvious costs are those of the initial invasion. The American invasion of Panama in 1989, to overthrow the government of Gen. Manuel Noriega, was carried out by a force of some 27,000 US troops, 23 of which were killed and hundreds more wounded. Venezuela is vastly larger than Panama, and while its military is very poorly equipped, it likewise dwarfs the forces that were available to Noriega. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates an invasion of Venezuela would require nearly 50,000 troops, some of which will not return home. Any American government should be extremely conscientious about the causes on which it spends the lives of American soldiers.
"The real risks of such an operation, however, come after the invasion," Addington said. "Toppling Maduro’s government is one thing; there is no real chance that the impoverished and corrupt Venezuelan armed forces can put up a serious fight against the American military. But occupying and rebuilding the country is another, as the US learned to its chagrin in the Middle East."
Duss noted that “Trump ran as an anti-war candidate and casts himself as a Nobel Prize-worthy peacemaker," and that "a majority of Americans oppose US military involvement in Venezuela."
"Lawmakers must make clear that Trump does not have the American people’s support or Congress’ authorization for the use of force against Venezuela or anywhere else in the region," he said.
On Friday, a bipartisan group of US senators—Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)—introduced a war powers resolution that would bar US military action within or against Venezuela.
“I’m extremely troubled that the Trump administration is considering launching illegal military strikes inside Venezuela without a specific authorization by Congress," Kaine said in a statement. "Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere."
"If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea," he added, "they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an authorization for use of military force."
It's the second time Kaine and Schiff have tried to introduce such a measure. Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joined his GOP colleagues in voting down a Venezuela war powers resolution. Paul joined Democrats independent Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King (Maine) in voting for the legislation.
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Planet Burns, US Banking Agencies Ditch Climate Risk Rules
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently warned that due to climate disasters, "there will be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage, there won’t be ATMs, banks won’t have branches."
Oct 17, 2025
Federal regulators have rescinded a set of guidelines for large banking institutions to consider the financial dangers of the climate crisis when making decisions about business strategy, risk management, and strategic planning.
On Thursday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Reserve Board announced that they would immediately withdraw their interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions, a framework that required financial institutions with $100 billion or more in assets to consider climate risks.
The guidelines were first issued in 2023, which was, at the time, the hottest year on record. That year, the US experienced a record number of weather and climate-related disasters—including a massive drought across the south and Midwest, historic wildfires in Hawaii, and major flooding events across the country—that caused at least $92 billion worth of damage.
In October of that year, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said: "Banks need to understand, and appropriately manage, their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change."
The OCC, meanwhile, explained that "financial institutions are likely to be affected by both the physical risks and transition risks associated with climate change." This included both the risks to the safety of people and property "from acute, climate-related events, such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and heatwaves, and chronic shifts in climate," as well as changes due to "shifts in policy... that would be part of a transition to a lower carbon economy."
But these concerns have not carried over to the administration of President Donald Trump, who recently referred to climate change as a "con" and has sought to purge the federal government of any acknowledgement of the scientific consensus that it is being caused by human fossil fuel usage, which he has moved to aggressively expand.
In a joint release Thursday, the agencies said they "do not believe principles for managing climate-related financial risk are necessary because the agencies' existing safety and soundness standards require all supervised institutions to have effective risk management commensurate with their size, complexity, and activities," adding that "all supervised institutions are expected to consider and appropriately address all material financial risks and should be resilient to a range of risks, including emerging risks."
Elyse Schupak, policy advocate with Public Citizen's climate program, criticized the withdrawal of the guidelines, calling it "an irresponsible and politically motivated move in the wrong direction."
"The increase in the frequency and severity of climate disasters and the rapidly escalating property insurance crisis mean the agencies should be working harder to understand and mitigate climate-related financial risks faced by banks and the financial system—not backtracking," she said. "Effective bank regulation requires looking squarely at all risks to supervised institutions, including climate risks, and addressing them before they have destabilizing effects. This approach, rather than politics, should guide regulator action."
The move comes as the globe is reaching the point of no return for the climate crisis. Global temperatures have already soared to between 1.3°C and 1.4°C above preindustrial levels and are expected to pass the 1.5°C threshold within the next five years, at which point many of the worst effects will become unavoidable. These effects include more frequent heatwaves, sea level increases, more frequent severe storms, and aggressive droughts.
In addition to the human toll, these entail considerable financial damage. In December 2024, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that if the Earth continues to warm at current rates, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) will be 4% lower than if temperatures had remained stable.
It predicted that sea level rise—projected 1 to 4 feet by the turn of the century—would cause anywhere from $250 billion to $930 billion worth of losses to property owners, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and the federal government. Other untold costs, it said, would be borne as a result of heightened mortality from heat, declines in available food and water, increased rates of illness, and forced migration due to unlivable conditions.
Testifying before Congress earlier this year, Powell noted that banks and insurance companies have been pulling out of coastal areas at risk of flooding and places prone to wildfires due to the financial risk.
State Farm had recently canceled thousands of policies in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles shortly before it was hit with massive wildfires in January. He warned that as climate change worsens, financial institutions will deem it too risky to serve large portions of the country.
"If you fast forward 10 or 15 years," Powell said, "there will be regions of the country where you can't get a mortgage, there won't be ATMs, banks won't have branches, and things like that."
Schupak said: "For the Federal Reserve, capitulation to the politics of climate denial championed by the Trump administration is a threat to both its legitimacy and efficacy, which will be hard to repair."
"Powell has admitted that the Federal Reserve has done the 'bare minimum' on climate," she continued. "Now it will do even less, putting the banks it supervises and the broader financial system at risk."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Body Cam Footage Shows Alleged ICE Officer Pulled Over for Drunk Driving Racially Profiling Arresting Officer
The man has been charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
Oct 17, 2025
Newly released body camera footage shows a Florida man claiming to be a federal immigration enforcement official racially profiling a police officer who pulled him over on the highway for drunk driving.
The footage, which was published on Thursday by YouTube account "The CrimePiece," shows the arrest of 42-year-old Miami resident Scott Thomas Deiseroth, who was pulled over by officers from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office on August 13.
The footage begins with the officer who pulled Deiseroth over asking him for his identification and asking him if he knew his current location.
Deiseroth reacted belligerently to the officer's questions and told him that he was a federal agent who worked for the Department of Homeland Security. As reported by local news station CBS 12, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office website at one point listed his occupation as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
Deiseroth also told the officer that he was simply trying to get home and informed him that he had his two young sons with him riding in the backseat.
The officer then asked Deiseroth to step out of his car, to which Deiseroth replied, "Are you fucking serious right now?"
After exiting the vehicle, Deiseroth continued to exhibit hostility to the officer's questions, and he repeatedly demanded to know, "Are we really doing this right now?"
The officer then asked him how much he'd had to drink, and Deiseroth replied that he'd had four drinks, without specifying the nature of those drinks.
"Are you guys really trying to fuck me right now?" Deiseroth asked.
The officer informed Deiseroth that he could smell alcohol on him and he wanted to ensure that he was capable of safely driving his vehicle home.
The officer proceeded to administer field sobriety tests. During the tests, another officer came over to ensure that Deiseroth did not stumble while trying to walk a straight line along the side of a busy highway.
Deiseroth then questioned why the second officer, who was Black, was there, and the officer informed him that it was to prevent him from getting hit by oncoming traffic.
Deiseroth responded by repeatedly asking the officer, "Are you Haitian?"
Deiseroth was then informed by the officer administering the sobriety test that "it doesn't matter" where the other officer was from or his heritage.
"Yes it does," Deiseroth replied.
After failing the sobriety tests, Deiseroth was placed in handcuffs and informed that he was being placed under arrest. He then pleaded with the officers to not take him to prison and asked what they were going to do with his two children.
Later, after Deiseroth had been placed in the back of a police car, the officers informed him that his sons' mother—with whom Deiseroth had said earlier he was going through a divorce—would pick up the two children at the police station.
He repeatedly demanded that he be allowed to see his children before being taken to the police station, but the officers did not grant his request.
"Let me see my kids!" he demanded at one point.
"Brother, I really do not want them to see you in the way you're in right now," the officer replied.
Records at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office show that Deiseroth was subsequently charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
A request to the Florida State Attorney's Office in Monroe County to confirm Deiseroth's employment status at the time of the arrest was not returned by press time. The criminal case is pending.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular