Groups list 39 "disappeared" in U.S. war on terror

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared."

The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."

~snip~

The report said suspects' relatives, including children as young as seven, had been held in secret detention on occasion.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano dismissed the report, saying the CIA acts in "strict accord with American law" and its counter-terrorist initiatives are "subject to careful review and oversight."

"The United States does not conduct or condone torture," he said.





Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070607/ts_nm/security_usa_detentions_dc

[Selatius]

1. I'm sure this will receive wide coverage in Europe but not here in the US.

In the US, right-leaning corporations control the news outlets and anesthetize the masses.

[dipsydoodle]

15. You're probably right - BBC link for you

Human rights groups have asked the US to reveal the whereabouts of 39 people who have allegedly been held in secret CIA-run prisons.
A report compiled by six human rights groups listed the names of people who remain unaccounted for after having passed through US custody.

The groups urged the US to stop using secret prisons for terror suspects.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6728675.stm

[Solly Mack]

2. "The United States does not conduct or condone torture,"

sigh

[Orsino]

3. Funny how that sentence comes out of nowhere.

The first mention of torture is the CIA quote. Presumably, the report alleges torture, but previously, the Yahoo! story refers only to the disappearing.

The Agency doth protest too much, methinks.

[originalpckelly]

11. The agency doth committech wareth crimeth....

If the reporting of ABC is correct about their activities.

[annabanana]

4. THIS is why impeachment must be on the table.

We are disgraced as a Nation. We have to show the world that the PEOPLE of the United States repudiate this maladminstration and its poison fruits.

[zippy890]

12. Absolutely right

We have to reject these war criminals

[UpInArms]

5. Groups list 39 "disappeared" in U.S. war on terror

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared."

<snip>

In September, U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged the CIA had interrogated dozens of suspects at secret overseas locations and said 14 of those held had been sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bush strongly defended the secret detention and questioning of terrorism suspects and said the CIA treated them humanely. The program has drawn international outcry and questions about the cooperation of European governments.

Tens of thousands of people "disappeared" during Latin America's so-called dirty wars in Chile, Argentina and several other countries where right-wing dictators used extra-judicial detentions to crush armed Marxist opposition.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0644490320070607

[Demeter]

6. AP ARticle Has More Details

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070607/ap_on_re_eu/britain_us_detainees;_ylt=AirIRSbzOf60AURYbfwMOlqs0NUE

Others were identified only by their first or last names, like "al-Rubaia," who was added to the list after a fellow inmate reported seeing the name scribbled onto the wall of his cell.

But information for at least 21 of the detainees had been confirmed by two or more independent sources, said Anne Fitzgerald, a senior adviser for Amnesty International.

President Bush acknowledged the existence of secret detention centers in September 2006, but said that the prisons were then empty.

Bush said 14 terrorism suspects that the CIA had been holding, including a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, had been transferred to military custody at Guantanamo Bay for trials.

Fitzgerald said she wasn't convinced that the sites were ever emptied, and claimed a program of secret detentions was ongoing.

"We wanted (the detainees') names in the public eye because of the impression that this is over, this is finished, and they're not doing this anymore," Fitzgerald said. "That's clearly not the case."

Detainees on the list include Hassan Ghul and Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, who were both named in the 9-11 Commission report as al-Qaida operatives.

Another is Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a jihadist ideologue named as one of the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists." U.S. officials have confirmed that Nasar was seized in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta in November 2005, and the activists' report said that he was taken into U.S. custody after his arrest, citing unnamed Pakistani officials. His current location is unknown.

Also missing is Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman, the son of the Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheik" behind the first plot against the World Trade Center in New York, the report said.

Most of the 35 other detainees mentioned in the report have been previously identified, with the exception of four Libyans, alleged members of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

The report says they were handed to U.S. authorities and have not been heard from since.

The four other groups involved in drafting the report were the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law, and Reprieve and Cageprisoners — both London-based rights groups.

[Doctor_J]

7. * boasted about this in the 2004 SOTU

"Let's just say they won't be a problem any more".

[SpiralHawk]

8. "Smirk, smirk, smirk" - Commander AWOL

"That sounds like the kind of perverted amoral shit you'd get from an darkside occult cabal of corrupt cronies"

- Commander AWOL

[The Stranger]

9. Los Desaparecidos -- now in good ol' America.

And to think that it now criticizes Russia for human rights to deflect its treaty-violating missle shield program.

[sonias]

10. I thought the same thing - Chile

George Bush meets a new low in moving into the same in-country war criminal crimes plane as Augusto Pinochet.

We demand answers for the missing.

Sonia

[MGKrebs]

13. You're damn right the Untied States does not conduct or

condone torture...


but our government does.

[Peace Patriot]

14. I am very glad these groups have been investigating the 'disappeared' because

I have long doubted that the Bush Junta is torturing and 'disappearing' people to "keep us safe." I suspect them of other motives--of covering the tracks of their even bigger crimes, of silencing witnesses to their collusion with Al Qaeda and in arms dealings, of terrorizing individuals for business purposes, and other such motives. The obsessive secretiveness of their vile program of detention without charge, torture, and rendition, is a red flag. Further, it looks like they rounded up a lot of completely innocent people as cover for these multiple crimes. The cases of both the Al Qaeda operatives who were tortured and/or 'disappeared,' AND all the OTHER missing or still detained people need to be thoroughly investigated not just for the crimes of torture and murder, but also for the MISUSE of these illegal powers for OTHER purposes than "stopping terrorism."

[Greyskye]

16. we are the old Russia

Fresh Air on NPR the other morning was talking about how our current 'enhanced interrogation' techniques came straight from the Russian cold-war play book. Stress positions, lack of sleep, constant light and sound, temperature extremes, waterboarding - all of it.

Of course we have disappeared people. It's on page 95.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." - Pogo

:cry:

[springhill]

17. Oh yes..........

and we all know their definition of torture:

The memo defines torture so narrowly that only activities resulting in "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" qualify.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050114.html