Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and Human Rights Watch have called on the US to end arbitrary detention in Afghanistan and to fully align US detention practices with international law.
The organizations noted that the US has made some recent changes in its detention policy in Afghanistan. These include providing detainees with “notice of the basis [...]

Tags: Afghanistan, USA

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An Italian court’s conviction of 23 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for kidnapping is an historic repudiation of the CIA’s crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The Milan court also found that two Italian officials illegally collaborated in CIA abuses.
Link to HRW

Tags: Italy, USA

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After nearly four and a half years in Guantánamo Bay and a long battle with the US authorities, Binyam Mohamed has finally been released, and landed at RAF Northholt airbase in the UK earlier today.
Binyam was met by a doctor and his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Gareth Pierce and is to go somewhere quiet [...]

Tags: UK, USA

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Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan today said President Obama’s Executive Orders on interrogations and the end of CIA’s secret detention programme is an “historic decision” and “one of the major steps needed towards bringing the USA back in line with international human rights standards.”
“The importance of President Obama’s executive orders should not be underestimated,” [...]

Tags: USA

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US President Barack Obama’s executive order to end the use of torture sets a new course for US counter-terrorism policy, Human Rights Watch said today. Obama’s decision to issue this order within two days of becoming president signals the high priority the new president places on establishing legal and effective counter-terrorism policies.
An executive order on [...]

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A coalition of human rights organizations, Amnesty International, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, La Federation internationale des ligues droits de l’Homme (FIDH), and Reprieve today called on EU foreign ministers attending the General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting on January 26, 2009, in Brussels next week to help close the Guantánamo [...]

Tags: EU, USA

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New US President Barack Obama is expected to issue an executive order on January 22, 2009 to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Obama’s decision to order Guantanamo’s closure so soon after taking office shows the high priority the president places on changing the United States’ approach to countering terrorism.
A draft copy of [...]

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Amnesty International welcomed the new US administration’s moves to suspend military commission proceedings at Guantánamo as a “positive sign” and said that it hoped it was a “clear signal of this administration’s intention to move away from unlawful practices of the past.”
“Yesterday, in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama underscored the need for a break [...]

Tags: USA

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Equality is a basic value underlying human rights standards and cannot be retracted at the whim of a simple majority, Human Rights Watch said in an amicus brief submitted to the California Supreme Court. Human Rights Watch called on the court to overturn Proposition 8, a referendum narrowly passed last November that withdrew the right [...]

Tags: LGBT, USA

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US President George W. Bush’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia is a disturbing example of the Bush administration’s disregard for serious human rights concerns out of zeal to show unconditional support to governments that it views as strategic allies, seven leading nongovernmental organizations said today.
The organizations [...]

Tags: Colombia, USA

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