The Salvation Army: It Gets Worse December 21, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Human Rights, Religion.Tags: roger hollander, human rights, religion, gay rights, christmas, homophobia, glbt, charity, mary shaw, salvation army, soup kitchens, charitable dontations, charitable organizations
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By Mary Shaw (about the author)
www.opednews.com, December 21, 2009
It’s that time of year again. At shopping centers everywhere, representatives from the Salvation Army, dressed in their paramilitary attire, ring their bells and aggressively invite your holiday donations. And I always see people eagerly throwing money into their big red kettles. I suspect that most of these generous individuals aren’t aware of what their dollars are actually funding.
Last year I wrote a column titled “The Salvation Army’s red kettle of trouble”, in which I outlined the Salvation Army’s long and disturbing history of religious coercion, abuse, and intolerance. An excerpt:
I have spoken with a number of people who have sought assistance from the Salvation Army in the past, particularly for disaster relief. I was told of how these people were preached to and forced into praying with the Salvation Army folks to their Christian God as a prerequisite for receiving services. If you’re Jewish, tough. If you’re Hindu, tough. Gotta pray their way, to their God, or else you’re not worthy of assistance. It’s quid pro quo. Gotta take advantage of people when they’re most vulnerable. Contrast this with the secular Red Cross, which just wants to help disaster victims, not save their souls. (In the interest of full disclosure, I personally received help from the Red Cross when my apartment building burned down in 2001. They were extremely helpful and compassionate, and expected nothing in return.) As if the religious coercion isn’t enough, the Salvation Army has also been implicated in a number of cases of alleged sexual abuse, ranging from molestation of child members of the Salvation Army’s Red Shield swim team in Seattle to pedophile rings that operated out of Salvation Army-run orphanages in Australia and New Zealand. (Yes, they like to “spread the love” worldwide.)
The Salvation Army is also homophobic — so much so that they would stop helping the poor if it meant they had to respect equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 2004, they threatened to close their soup kitchens in New York City rather than comply with the city’s legislation requiring firms to offer domestic partnership benefits to gay employees.
In the year since I wrote that piece, I have heard from several people who have shared their own negative experiences with the Salvation Army. Their stories have reinforced — and even worsened — my own impressions of the organization. A retired U.S. military officer contacted me after considering the Salvation Army for his charitable donations. He wrote:
“I’m glad I came upon your article about the Salvation Army. I have been considering leaving my worldly goods to them because I thought they did nothing but good. I had second thoughts when I was late in answering their charitable request. I have since found many disturbing facts about the Salvation Army.”
A former Salvation Army volunteer from Canada shared his experience with some ethical issues:
“Everyone [at the Salvation Army] liked me, because I also went to the service on Sundays. I am a believer in God. After 4 weeks [as a Salvation Army volunteer], I noticed whatever came in the back door for donation, for the poor, also left through the back door, and never reached the vulnerable or needy. All the good stuff the volunteers took. “I complained to one of the Salvation Army workers, That this should not be happening so close to Christmas. I was told to keep quiet, because the Major and some of the volunteers had an understanding. I was told to look the other way. I tried to ignore it, but it became very hard, especially when a local business donated six big boxes of clothes and shoes for children. All went missing.
“I complained again, and now I was labeled a troublemaker. In the end, I was told to leave.”
But by far the most compelling response I got was from an anonymous emailer who contacted me through a Yahoo account, probably accessed via a public library or other community Internet resource. This woman, who signed the email message simply as “Feeling helpless”, wrote:
“I am a homeless woman living at the Salvation Army women’s shelter. Can you help me expose the Salvation Army? I have so much to tell you but I can not do it by email.”
Unfortunately, no other contact information was included, and my attempts at follow-up seem to have fallen through, but hopefully she received my suggestion that she contact the appropriate authorities and the local media for immediate help in exposing and addressing whatever issues she was facing. This woman clearly needed more help than I alone can provide through my own writing and activism. I hope that her situation has since improved. The bottom line is this: While the Salvation Army may have done some good work over the years in providing assistance to the poor, the addicted, and the marginalized, their methods and practices are not ones that I approve of. There are many other nonprofit organizations out there that provide similar services in a more ethical manner.
And, if you’re a Christian, consider this: The ironic thing about the Salvation Army’s practices is that they do all that while labeling themselves as “Christian”. But think about it: If Jesus were here today, he surely would not approve of their methods.
So please think twice before tossing your spare change into their red kettles of trouble. Think about what you would be supporting with your hard-earned cash.
Happy holidays.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views (more…)
Afghan Affair More Than ‘Nitpicking’ December 15, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: War Crimes, Stephen Harper, Afghanistan, Canada, roger hollander, torture, International law, cheney, linda mcquaig, aclu, conservative, waterboarding, obama administration, afghnaistan war, convention against torture, canada war, afghan detainees, peter mackay, pew research
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The irritation of members of the Harper government has been palpable in recent weeks as they tap their toes impatiently, wondering when they can return to the serious business of waging war without all these rude interruptions about torture.
Last Friday on CBC Radio’s The Current, Laurie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, complained about all the “nitpicking” and insisted that the Afghan detainee issue is not one that concerns Canadians.
This dismissive attitude – which permeates the Harper government – is puzzling.
At stake is whether Ottawa knowingly allowed prisoners to be transferred to situations where they would likely be tortured.
If true, this could amount to a war crime. Given the gravity of what’s involved, how can any attempt to ferret out the truth be derided as mere “nitpicking?”
Recent U.S. history shows the danger of a too-casual approach to torture.
Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney had admitted he approved “waterboarding” on at least three detainees, and the “enhanced interrogation” of 33 others. George W. Bush also acknowledged authorizing these practices, explaining that “we had legal opinions that enabled us to do it.”
The American Civil Liberties Union pronounced these admissions tantamount to confessions of war crimes.
Yet Cheney and Bush wander about freely; Cheney even still fancies himself a useful contributor to public debate.
This has some serious implications. This month, for the first time since Pew Research began polling on this question five years ago, a majority of Americans – 54 per cent – said torture could be justified against terrorist suspects, either sometimes or often.
This growing tolerance of torture may have something to do with the way the Obama administration – in its keenness to curry elusive Republican support – has declined to go after Bush and Cheney, even though the Convention Against Torture, signed by the U.S. in 1988, requires the prosecution or extradition of torturers.
Vowing to “look forward,” the Obama administration has inadvertently sent a message to Americans that torture isn’t really such a heinous crime.
If it was, surely the United States would go after its perpetrators – just like U.S. authorities (appropriately) are going after filmmaker Roman Polanski for a brutal rape he committed three decades ago. Truly serious crimes aren’t forgotten or papered over in the interests of all getting along. They require punishment, partly to send a message that society condemns them.
Despite condemnation of torture in his Nobel Peace Prize speech last week, an accommodating Barack Obama has signalled his willingness to turn a blind eye to torture authorized by the White House, thereby bestowing on disgraced Republican practices the mantle of bipartisanship.
For that matter, much of Obama’s Nobel speech was disturbingly Bushian. His defence of decades of U.S. military interventions was certainly more elegant and artful than anything that ever came out of Bush’s mouth. But putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t give her inner beauty.
The bipartisan consensus in the U.S. has effectively silenced public debate about torture.
To their credit, Canadian opposition parties have refused to be silent about torture – surely one of the clearest markers dividing the civilized world from the barbaric.
With admirable tenacity, opposition parliamentarians have sent a message that no amount of lipstick will pretty up this pig.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2009
This Holocaust survivor stands with Gaza–Will you? December 11, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Human Rights, Israel, Gaza & Middle East.Tags: auschwitz, gaza, gaza freedom, gaza occupation, gaza siege, hedy epstein, holocaust surviror, israel, obama nobel, peace, roger hollander
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It’s strange to see President Obama accepting a Peace Prize as he escalates a war. As a Holocaust survivor whose parents perished at Auschwitz in 1942, I know all too well what war looks like. I also know what peace looks like and I can tell you this: Sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to fight in one of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan, is not making peace.
As President Obama accepts a Peace Prize he does not deserve, it’s a good time to model what real peacemaking looks like. That’s why-at the ripe age of 85-I’ll be joining the Gaza Freedom March on December 31. Over 1,000 peacemakers from around the world will join hands with 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza as we walk together to the Israeli border. As Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, and members of many faiths we will come together as one humanity to condemn the brutal invasion of Gaza one year ago and demand that Israel lift the siege that has brought 1.5 million people to the brink of disaster.
You can show your support for real peacemaking by endorsing the Gaza Freedom March and telling your friends and community about this historic event!
Around the globe, solidarity actions are already being planned for the week of December 27th–find one near you and join in the action!
You can also make a peace prayer flag. Send them to us and we will carry them on the march. The peace prayer flags are an easy and powerful way to make sure your voice is present at this historic event.
Peace is not just making nice speeches, as President Obama did in Cairo when he told the Arab world that “we understand that the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable” and that America would not turn its back on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for justice and dignity.
That is why I am asking you to help us “walk the talk” by supporting the Gaza Freedom March.
With love for all humanity,
Hedy Epstein
and the CODEPINK team
Nuremberg Revisited: Obama Administration Files To Dismiss Case Against John YooPublished December 11, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: War Crimes, roger hollander, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, International law, cia, eric holder, congress, justice, bush administration, justice department, nuremberg, hitler, john yoo, geneva conventions, obama administration, nazi germany, holocuast, bagram, politics, jose padilla, constitutional law, Bizarre, Courts, Criminal law, International, Lawyering, Society
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(Roger’s Note: a couple of points to mention: that the Bush Administration torture policy and the Obama Administration complicity do not begin to match the scope of the Nazi holocaust does not make them any less guilty of serious crimes against human nature. And of course, it was not Nazi German justice that brought war criminals to account at Nuremberg but rather that of the victorious Allies. For the government of the very same nation that committed war crimes to bring its own officials to justice for such crimes would set a new precedent. In the world of realpolitik we don’t really expect that to happen. Why then, do we press for justice? I leave it to the reader to answer that important question for her or himself.)
1, December 9, 2009
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/09/obama-administration-files-to-dismiss-case-against-john-yoo/
John Yoo is being defended in court this month by the Administration. Not the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration. As with the lawsuits over electronic surveillance and torture, the Obama administration wants the lawsuit against Yoo dismissed and is defending the right of Justice Department officials to help establish a torture program — an established war crime. I will be discussing the issue on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.
The Obama Administration has filed a brief that brushes over the war crimes aspects of Yoo’s work at the Justice Department. Instead, it insists that attorneys must be free to give advice — even if it is to establish a torture program.
In its filing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department insists that there is “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict.” Instead it argues that the Justice Department has other means to punish lawyers like the Office of Professional Responsibility. Of course, the Bush Administration effectively blocked such investigations and Yoo is no longer with the Justice Department. The OPR has been dismissed as ineffectual, including in an ABA Journal, as the Justice Department’s “roach motel”—“the cases go in, but nothing ever comes out.”
The Justice Department first defended Yoo as counsel and then paid for private counsel to represent him (here). His public-funded private counsel is Miguel Estrada, who was forced to withdraw his nomination by George Bush for the Court of Appeals after strong opposition from the Democrats.
Yoo is being sued by Jose Padilla, who was effectively blocked in contesting his abusive confinement and mistreatment as part of this criminal case and in a habeas action. The Bush Administration brought new charges to moot a case before the Supreme Court could rule. The Court previously sent his case back on a technicality.
It is important to note that the Administration did not have to file this brief since it had withdrawn as counsel and paid for Yoo’s private counsel. It has decided that it wants to establish the law claimed by the Bush Administration protecting Justice officials who support alleged war crimes. They are effectively doubling down by withdrawing as counsel and then reappearing as a non-party amicus.
The Obama Administration has gutted the hard-fought victories in Nuremberg where lawyers and judges were often guilty of war crimes in their legal advice and opinions. The third of the twelve trials for war crimes involved 16 German jurists and lawyers. Nine had been officials of the Reich Ministry of Justice, the others were prosecutors and judges of the Special Courts and People’s Courts of Nazi Germany. It would have been a larger group but two lawyers committed suicide before trial: Adolf Georg Thierack, former minister of justice, and Carl Westphal, a ministerial counsellor.
They included Herbert Klemm, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and served as minister of justice, director of the Ministry’s Legal Education and Training Division, and deputy director of the National Socialist Lawyer’s League.
Oswald Rothaug received life imprisonment for his role as a prosecutor and later a judge.
Wilhelm von Ammon received ten years for his work as a justice official in occupied areas.
Guenther Joel received ten years for being an adviser (like Yoo) to the Ministry of Justice and later a judge.
Curt Rothenberger was also a legal adviser and was given seven years for his writings at the Ministry of Justice and as the deputy president of the Academy of German Law
Wolfgang Mettgenberg received ten years as representative of the Criminal Legislation Administration Division of the Ministry of Justice,
Ernst Lautz (10 years) had been chief public prosecutor of the People’s Court.
Franz Schlegelberger, a former Ministry of Justice official, was convicted and sentenced to life for conspiracy and other war crimes. The court found:
‘…that Schlegelberger supported the pretension of Hitler in his assumption of power to deal with life and death in disregard of even the pretense of judicial process. By his exhortations and directives, Schlegelberger contributed to the destruction of judicial independence. It was his signature on the decree of 7 February 1942 which imposed upon the Ministry of Justice and the courts the burden of the prosecution, trial, and disposal of the victims of Hitler’s Night and Fog. For this he must be charged with primary responsibility.
‘He was guilty of instituting and supporting procedures for the wholesale persecution of Jews and Poles. Concerning Jews, his ideas were less brutal than those of his associates, but they can scarcely be called humane. When the “final solution of the Jewish question” was under discussion, the question arose as to the disposition of half-Jews. The deportation of full Jews to the East was then in full swing throughout Germany. Schlegelberger was unwilling to extend the system to half-Jews.’
It was the “ideas” that these lawyers advanced that made the war crimes possible. Other officials were tried but acquitted. All of these officials used arguments similar to those in the Obama Administration’s brief of why lawyers are not responsible for war crimes that they defend and justify. Bush selected people like Yoo to justify the war crime of torture. If they had written against it, the Administration might have abandoned the effort. The CIA director and others were already concerned about the prospect of prosecution. The Obama Administration’s brief revisits Nuremberg and sweeps away such quaint notions. Indeed, the brief for Yoo could have been used directly to support legal advisers Wolfgang Mettgenberg, Guenther Joel, and Wilhelm von Ammon.
If successful in this case, the Obama Administration will succeed in returning the world to the rules leading to the war crimes at Nuremberg. Quite a legacy for the world’s newest Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Defenders of the Administration insist that the brief does not expressly gut Nuremberg or reference war crimes. Of course, that is the point. The brief does not make any exception for liability for legal advice when it is part of a torture program or war crime. When combined with the Administration’s refusal to appoint a special prosecutor for the torture program (and the President’s promise that no CIA employees would be prosecuted), the brief closes the circle: there will be no criminal or civil liability for the war crimes committed by the Bush Administration.
The only reference to substantive criminal prosecution is in the following abstract statement:
That is not to say that the actions of a Department of Justice attorney providing advice should go unchecked. Department of Justice attorneys, if they abuse their authority, are subject to possible state and federal bar sanctions, see 28 U.S.C. § 530B, investigation by both the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Inspector General, as well as criminal investigation and prosecution, where appropriate. If Congress believes that additional avenues of recourse are necessary in cases where Department of Justice attorneys provide legal advice regarding matters relating to war powers and national security, it could enact appropriate legislation. Given the sensitivities of such claims, and the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding matters of national security, however, this is a clear case where “special factors” strongly counsel against the recognition of a Bivens action.
“[W]here appropriate” are the key words. The Administration has already blocked criminal prosecution for torture. More importantly, this case is about Yoo’s involvement in creating that program. However, even in assisting in the establishment of a torture program, the Administration insists that there can not be civil liability (let alone criminal liability). If the Administration wanted to maintain the rule created at Nuremberg, it would have stated clearly that no privilege or law protects a lawyer who is assisting in the establishment of a war crime or torture program. Of course, the Administration has already said the opposite. Obama and Holder have stated that “just following orders” is a complete defense for CIA employees (here).
The effort to ignore the clear position of this Administration shows the dangers of a cult of personality. Just as conservatives ignored Bush’s violation of core conservative values on the budget and big government, some liberals are ignoring Obama’s violation of core liberal values on civil liberties and privacy.
For the DOJ brief, click here.
Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum November 13, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Human Rights, LGBT, Religion.Tags: catholci archdiocese, catholic charities, catholic church, church-state, first amendment, gay marriage, gay rights, glbt, human rights, michelle boorstein, religion, religious bigotry, religious freedom, roger hollander, roman catholic, same sex, same-sex marriage, tim craig, washington catholic
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[FYI Two weeks ago the Pope made an offer to Anglicans to become Catholics, and yesterday the Vatican announced the search for extra-terrestrial life (yes, seriously).Now this news where the carrot routine has been replaced by the stick. NT]
Roger’s Comment: TAKE AWAY THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH’S TAX EXEMPT STATUS!
Same-sex marriage bill, as written, called a threat to social service contracts
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By Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city’s long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.
The clash escalates the dispute over the same-sex marriage proposal between the council and the archdiocese, which has generally stayed out of city politics.
Catholic Charities, the church’s social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington’s homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.
“All of those services will be adversely impacted if the exemption language remains so narrow,” Jane G. Belford, chancellor of the Washington Archdiocese, wrote to the council this week.
The church’s influence seems limited. In separate interviews Wednesday, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) referred to the church as “somewhat childish.” Another council member, David A. Catania (I-At Large), said he would rather end the city’s relationship with the church than give in to its demands.
“They don’t represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure,” said Catania, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill and the chairman of the Health Committee.
The standoff appears to be among the harshest between a government and a faith-based group over the rights of same-sex couples. Advocates for same-sex couples said they could not immediately think of other places where a same-sex marriage law had set off a break with a major faith-based provider of social services.
The council is expected to pass the same-sex marriage bill next month, but the measure continues to face strong opposition from a number of groups that are pushing for a referendum on the issue.
The archdiocese’s statement follows a vote Tuesday by the council’s Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to reject an amendment that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings.
“Lets say an individual caterer is a staunch Christian and someone wants him to do a cake with two grooms on top,” said council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 6), the sponsor of the amendment. “Why can’t they say, based on their religious beliefs, ‘I can’t do something like that’?”
After the vote, the archdiocese sent out a statement accusing the council of ignoring the right of religious freedom. Gibbs said Wednesday that without Alexander’s amendment and other proposed changes, the measure has too narrow an exemption. She said religious groups that receive city funds would be required to give same-sex couples medical benefits, open adoptions to same-sex couples and rent a church hall to a support group for lesbian couples.
Peter Rosenstein of the Campaign for All D.C. Families accused the church of trying to “blackmail the city.”
“The issue here is they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable,” Rosenstein said.
Rosenstein and other gay rights activists have strong support on the council. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the judiciary committee, said the council “will not legislate based on threats.” “The problem with the individual exemption is anybody could discriminate based on their assertion of religious principle,” Mendelson said. “There were many people back in the 1950s and ’60s, during the civil rights era, that said separation of the races was ordained by God.”
Catania, who said he has been the biggest supporter of Catholic Charities on the council, said he is baffled by the church’s stance. From 2006 through 2008, Catania said, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts, as well as several hundred thousand dollars’ worth this year through his committee.
“If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes,” Catania said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.
Terry Lynch, head of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, said he did not know of any other group in the city that was making such a threat.
“I’ve not seen any spillover into programming. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen if [the bill] passes,” he said.
Cheh said she hopes the Catholic Church will reconsider its stance.
“Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?” Cheh asked. “I hope, in the silver light of day, when this passes, because it will pass, they will not really act on this threat.”
Lt. Choi Won’t Lie for His Country October 16, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Human Rights, LGBT.Tags: amy goodman, dan choi, denis moynihan, don't ask don't tell, gay rights, glbt, human rights, Iraq war, roger hollander
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Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military. Choi has become a vocal advocate for repealing the policy, having spoken before tens of thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies at last Sunday’s National Equality March in Washington, D.C.
Shortly after Choi’s public admission to being gay, the Department of the Army sent him a letter stating, in part, that “you admitted publicly that you are a homosexual which constitutes homosexual conduct. … Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.” Since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993, 13,500 soldiers, sailors and Marines have been discharged from the military for similar alleged behavior. Choi could receive an “other than honorable” discharge, losing the health, retirement, educational and other benefits to which combat veterans are entitled. While Congress acts to remove the restrictions on health insurance for people with “pre-existing conditions,” Choi’s pre-existing conditions, being gay and being honest about it, may be enough to keep him out of the Veterans Affairs health care system for life.
The night before Sunday’s march, President Barack Obama spoke to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest and wealthiest gay-advocacy group: “We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country. … I will end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ ” He laid out no timetable, however.
After receiving the letter from the Army, Choi wrote an open letter to his commander in chief, Obama. He said: “I have personally served for a decade under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: an immoral law and policy that forces American soldiers to deceive and lie about their sexual orientation. Worse, it forces others to tolerate deception and lying.” U.S. troops in Afghanistan are serving side by side with NATO forces that include openly gay and lesbian troops.
Longtime gay-rights activist Urvashi Vaid, author of “Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation,” is opposed to war and militarism, but told me, “The military is a large employer, and has to commit to not being discriminatory.” She, too, was at the march Sunday, whose turnout surprised many of the mainstream gay organizations, as they hadn’t actively organized it. She said: “First, it’s a generational shift in the LGBT movement. There is a new wave of activism coming up. And it’s gay and straight. That’s a second big change … the third shift that’s happening in the LGBT movement is that it’s much more of a multi-issue agenda that is being carried by the people who are marching.” In addition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the LGBT movement is also intent on repealing the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, and on achieving marriage equality. This will be a hard fight, Vaid predicts, based on grass-roots activism in every congressional district. Challenging discriminatory laws couldn’t be more timely: On the day before Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay man in New York City was taunted with anti-gay slurs and savagely beaten by two men. He is currently in a coma.
Lt. Dan Choi is still technically a serving officer. Obama could halt proceedings against Choi. Activists contend Obama could stop active enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” through an executive order. Presidential or congressional action may not come in time to save Choi’s military career. If he loses his health benefits, he has a plan. Choi got a message from an Iraqi doctor whose hospital Choi helped to rebuild while he was there. He said the doctor is “in South Baghdad right now. And he’s seen some of the Internet, YouTube and CNN interviews and other appearances, and he said: ‘Brother, I know that you’re gay, but you’re still my brother, and you’re my friend. And if your country, that sent you to my country, if America, that sent you to Iraq, will discharge you such that you can’t get medical benefits, you can come to my hospital any day. You can come in, and I will give you treatment.’ ”
Choi ended, “I hope that our country can learn from that Iraqi doctor.”
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
At Jail in Bagram, a Detainee Protest July 17, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Iraq and Afghanistan, Torture.Tags: Afghanistan, roger hollander, Guantanamo, human rights, Obama, torture, habeas corpus, justice department, doj, cia prisons, bagram, julie tate, international red cross, greg jaffe, detainee, indefinite incarceration, bagram protest
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Thursday 16 July 2009
by: Greg Jaffe and Julie Tate | The Washington Post
Prisoners being held at Bagram Prison in Afghanistan are protesting their indefinite incarceration.
Indefinite incarceration by US at issue.
The prisoners at the largest US detention facility in Afghanistan have refused to leave their cells for at least the past two weeks to protest their indefinite imprisonment, according to lawyers and the families of detainees.
The prison-wide protest, which has been going on since at least July 1, offers a rare glimpse inside a facility that is even more closed off to the public than the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Information about the protest came to light when the International Committee of the Red Cross informed the families of several detainees that scheduled video teleconferences and family visits were being canceled.
Representatives of the ICRC, which monitors the treatment of detainees and arranges the calls, last visited the Bagram prison on July 5, but inmates were unwilling to meet with them.
”We have suspended our video telephone conference and family visit programs because the detainees have informed us they do not wish to participate in the programs for the time being,” said Bernard Barrett, a spokesman for the organization.
Although the prisoners are refusing to leave their cells to shower or exercise, they are not engaging in hunger strikes or violence. Ramzi Kassem, an attorney for Yemeni national Amin al-Bakri, said detainees are protesting being held indefinitely without trial or legal recourse.
”We don’t want to hold detainees longer than necessary,” said a U.S. military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We engage in regular releases and transfers when we feel a detainee’s threat can be sufficiently mitigated to warrant being released or transferred. Of course, there will continue to be some detainees whose high threat level can only be successfully mitigated via detention, but we review their status regularly to assess whether other options are available.”
Unlike at Guantanamo Bay, where detainees have access to lawyers, the 620 prisoners at Bagram are not permitted to visit with their attorneys. Afghan government representatives are generally not allowed to visit or inspect the Bagram facility.
President Obama signed an executive order in January to review detention policy options. The Justice Department is leading an interagency task force examining the issue and is set to deliver a report to the president on Tuesday.
In recent years, Bagram became the destination for many terrorism suspects as Guantanamo Bay came under more scrutiny through legal challenges. The last significant group transfer from the battlefield to the prison in Cuba occurred in September 2004, when 10 detainees were moved there; in September 2006, 14 high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay from secret CIA prisons. Since then, six detainees have been moved there.
The Bagram prison population, meanwhile, has ballooned. U.S. officials are building a bigger facility there that will hold nearly 1,000.
The Bagram facility includes inmates from Afghanistan as well as those arrested by U.S. authorities in other countries as part of counterterrorism efforts. The prison now holds close to 40 detainees who are not Afghan citizens, many of whom were not captured in Afghanistan.
In April, a D.C. district judge ruled that the Supreme Court decision that extended habeas corpus rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay also applied to a certain set of detainees held at Bagram — those who were not arrested in Afghanistan and who are not Afghan citizens. The Justice Department has appealed the decision.
The indefinite detention of Afghan prisoners also has been a source of anger among Afghan citizens, human rights advocates say. “U.S. detention policy is destroying the trust and confidence that many Afghans had in U.S. forces when they first arrived in the country,” said Jonathan Horowitz, a consultant at the Open Society Institute, which seeks to promote democracy around the world. Horowitz is in Afghanistan interviewing the relatives of Bagram detainees, as well as former Bagram prisoners.







One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists December 28, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: Abu Ghraib, al-Qaeda, animal rights, bagram, chris hedges, civil liberties, constitution, Criminal Justice, environmental activist, extraordinary rendition, first amendment, Guantanamo, habeas corpus, hashmi, human rights, islamic extremists, mcc, muslim, psychological torture, roger hollander, sensory deprivation, terrorism, terrorists, torture, war on terror
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Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.
This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later. Radical activists in the environmental, globalization, anti-nuclear, sustainable agriculture and anarchist movements—who are already being placed by the state in special detention facilities with Muslims charged with terrorism—have discovered that his fate is their fate. Courageous groups have organized protests, including vigils outside the Manhattan detention facility. They can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org or www.freefahad.com. On Martin Luther King Day, this Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. EST, protesters will hold a large vigil in front of the MCC on 150 Park Row in Lower Manhattan to call for a return of our constitutional rights. Join them if you can.
The case against Hashmi, like most of the terrorist cases launched by the Bush administration, is appallingly weak and built on flimsy circumstantial evidence. This may be the reason the state has set up parallel legal and penal codes to railroad those it charges with links to terrorism. If it were a matter of evidence, activists like Hashmi, who is accused of facilitating the delivery of socks to al-Qaida, would probably never be brought to trial.
Hashmi, who if convicted could face up to 70 years in prison, has been held in solitary confinement for more than 2½ years. Special administrative measures, known as SAMs, have been imposed by the attorney general to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media and people outside the jail. He also is denied access to the news and other reading material. Hashmi is not allowed to attend group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown. He must shower and go to the bathroom on camera. He can write one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper. He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation in a cage. His “proclivity for violence” is cited as the reason for these measures although he has never been charged or convicted with committing an act of violence.
“My brother was an activist,” Hashmi’s brother, Faisal, told me by phone from his home in Queens. “He spoke out on Muslim issues, especially those dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His arrest and torture have nothing to do with providing ponchos and socks to al-Qaida, as has been charged, but the manipulation of the law to suppress activists and scare the Muslim American community. My brother is an example. His treatment is meant to show Muslims what will happen to them if they speak about the plight of Muslims. We have lost every single motion to preserve my brother’s humanity and remove the special administrative measures. These measures are designed solely to break the psyche of prisoners and terrorize the Muslim community. These measures exemplify the malice towards Muslims at home and the malice towards the millions of Muslims who are considered as non-humans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The extreme sensory deprivation used on Hashmi is a form of psychological torture, far more effective in breaking and disorienting detainees. It is torture as science. In Germany, the Gestapo broke bones while its successor, the communist East German Stasi, broke souls. We are like the Stasi. We have refined the art of psychological disintegration and drag bewildered suspects into secretive courts when they no longer have the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves.
“Hashmi’s right to a fair trial has been abridged,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Much of the evidence in the case has been classified under CIPA, and thus Hashmi has not been allowed to review it. The prosecution only recently turned over a significant portion of evidence to the defense. Hashmi may not communicate with the news media, either directly or through his attorneys. The conditions of his detention have impacted his mental state and ability to participate in his own defense.
“The prosecution’s case against Hashmi, an outspoken activist within the Muslim community, abridges his First Amendment rights and threatens the First Amendment rights of others,” Ratner added. “While Hashmi’s political and religious beliefs, speech and associations are constitutionally protected, the government has been given wide latitude by the court to use them as evidence of his frame of mind and, by extension, intent. The material support charges against him depend on criminalization of association. This could have a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of others, particularly in activist and Muslim communities.”
Constitutionally protected statements, beliefs and associations can now become a crime. Dissidents, even those who break no laws, can be stripped of their rights and imprisoned without due process. It is the legal equivalent of preemptive war. The state can detain and prosecute people not for what they have done, or even for what they are planning to do, but for holding religious or political beliefs that the state deems seditious. The first of those targeted have been observant Muslims, but they will not be the last.
“Most of the evidence is classified,” Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who taught Hashmi, told me, “but Hashmi is not allowed to see it. He is an American citizen. But in America you can now go to trial and all the evidence collected against you cannot be reviewed. You can spend 2½ years in solitary confinement before you are convicted of anything. There has been attention paid to extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib with this false idea that if people are tried in the United States things will be fair. But what allowed Guantánamo to happen was the devolution of the rule of law here at home, and this is not only happening to Hashmi.”
Hashmi was, like so many of those arrested during the Bush years, briefly a poster child in the “war on terror.” He was apprehended in Britain on June 6, 2006, on a U.S. warrant. His arrest was the top story on the CBS and NBC nightly news programs, which used graphics that read “Terror Trail” and “Web of Terror.” He was held for 11 months at Belmarsh Prison in London and then became the first U.S. citizen to be extradited by Britain. The year before his arrest, Hashmi, a graduate of Brooklyn College, had completed his master’s degree in international relations at London Metropolitan University. His case has no more substance than the one against the seven men arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, a case where, even though there were five convictions after two mistrials, an FBI deputy director acknowledged that the plan was more “aspirational rather than operational.” And it mirrors the older case of the Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian, now under house arrest in Virginia, who has been hounded by the Justice Department although he should legally have been freed. Judge Leonie Brinkema, currently handling the Al-Arian case, in early March, questioned the U.S. attorney’s actions in Al-Arian’s plea agreement saying curtly: “I think there’s something more important here, and that’s the integrity of the Justice Department.”
The case against Hashmi revolves around the testimony of Junaid Babar, also an American citizen. Babar, in early 2004, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks. In his luggage, the government alleges, Babar had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks, which Babar later delivered to a member of al-Qaida in south Waziristan, Pakistan. It was alleged that Hashmi allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call conspirators in other terror plots.
“Hashmi grew up here, was well known here, was very outspoken, very charismatic and very political,” said Theoharis. “This is really a message being sent to American Muslims about the cost of being politically active. It is not about delivering alleged socks and ponchos and rain gear. Do you think al-Qaida can’t get socks and ponchos in Pakistan? The government is planning to introduce tapes of Hashmi’s political talks while he was at Brooklyn College at the trial. Why are we willing to let this happen? Is it because they are Muslims, and we think it will not affect us? People who care about First Amendment rights should be terrified. This is one of the crucial civil rights issues of our time. We ignore this at our own peril.”
Babar, who was arrested in 2004 and has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support for al-Qaida, also faces up to 70 years in prison. But he has agreed to serve as a government witness and has already testified for the government in terror trials in Britain and Canada. Babar will receive a reduced sentence for his services, and many speculate he will be set free after the Hashmi trial. Since there is very little evidence to link Hashmi to terrorist activity, the government will rely on Babar to prove intent. This intent will revolve around alleged conversations and statements Hashmi made in Babar’s presence. Hashmi, who was a member of the New York political group Al Muhajiroun as a student at Brooklyn College, has made provocative statements, including calling America “the biggest terrorist in the world,” but Al Muhajiroun is not defined by the government as a terrorist organization. Membership in the group is not illegal. And our complicity in acts of state terror is a historical fact.
There will be more Hashmis, and the Justice Department, planning for future detentions, set up in 2006 a segregated facility, the Communication Management Unit, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Nearly all the inmates transferred to Terre Haute are Muslims. A second facility has been set up at Marion, Ill., where the inmates again are mostly Muslim but also include a sprinkling of animal rights and environmental activists, among them Daniel McGowan, who was charged with two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given “terrorism enhancements” under the Patriot Act. Amnesty International has called the Marion prison facility “inhumane.” All calls and mail—although communication customarily is off-limits to prison officials—are monitored in these two Communication Management Units. Communication among prisoners is required to be only in English. The highest-level terrorists are housed at the Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, known as Supermax, in Florence, Colo., where prisoners have almost no human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation, replicating the conditions for most of those held at Guantánamo. If detainees are transferred from Guantánamo to the prison in Thomson, Ill., they will find little change. They will endure Guantánamo-like conditions in colder weather.
Our descent is the familiar disease of decaying empires. The tyranny we impose on others we finally impose on ourselves. The influx of non-Muslim American activists into these facilities is another ominous development. It presages the continued dismantling of the rule of law, the widening of a system where prisoners are psychologically broken by sensory deprivation, extreme isolation and secretive kangaroo courts where suspects are sentenced on rumors and innuendo and denied the right to view the evidence against them. Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.
Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C.
Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.