torture

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Secret White House Memos OK'd Waterboarding

Fearing backlash, CIA sought and received support

(Newser) - The Bush administration gave its blessing in writing for the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in two secret memos that have only now come to light, the Washington Post reveals. Intelligence officials sought to get something on paper in 2003—more than a year after the...

Guard: We Didn't Torture McCain

Prison staff saw to prisoner's health, he says

(Newser) - John McCain’s claims that he was tortured while imprisoned in Vietnam are false, says the head guard at the prison where he was held. “On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded,”...

Secret Justice Memo Bares CIA Torture Defense

Agents would be safe from prosecution if they acted in good faith

(Newser) - The Bush administration advised the CIA in 2002 that its agents would not be prosecuted on anti-torture legislation as long as they professed an "honest belief" that their actions would not cause severe pain and anguish, CNN reports. The memo is one of three made public by the ACLU,...

Ex-Inmates Say Russia Keeps 'Torture Prisons'

Prisoners speak out after 4 were allegedly killed this spring

(Newser) - Overcrowding and disease are comparatively minor problems for inmates in Russia's alleged "torture prisons," where convicts are said to suffer regular beatings. Officials insist that they probe all complaints, but NPR has yielded harrowing stories from ex-inmates after four were reportedly clubbed to death this spring. "God...

Teen Rapes Reported at Mugabe Torture Camps

Pregnancy spike among victims as militia crushes Mugabe opposition

(Newser) - Teenage pregnancy rates have spiked after youth militia members began raping Zimbabwean girls in President Robert Mugabe's torture camps, human rights workers tell the Times of London. The stigma against rape victims has kept the victims mostly silent, but a single hospital saw a spike of 16 expectant teenagers, and...

Cops Probe 'Horrific' London Murder of French Students

Brits jolted by brutal killings

(Newser) - Scotland Yard detectives are investigating the "frenzied" murder of two French research students in their flat on a quiet London street, the BBC reports. The biochemistry students were tied up and stabbed a total of 243 times before being set alight. A man was seen running from the building...

Hitchens Agrees: Waterboarding Is Torture

Controversial writer puts his money where his mouth is, takes plunge for Vanity Fair

(Newser) - "You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it simulates the feeling of drowning," Christopher Hitchens writes of waterboarding in Vanity Fair. "You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning," concludes the author, who experienced the controversial...

Rendition Victim Loses US Torture Appeal

Technicality KOs case at center of recent movie

(Newser) - A Canadian software engineer has lost an appeal against the US for his torture in Syria on a technicality, Reuters reports. Syrian-born Maher Arar, whose story inspired the Hollywood movie Rendition, was forced off a flight in New York in 2002 and shipped to Syria, where he says he was...

Gitmo Prisoner Charged in Cole Bombing

Torture claims will be central to defense

(Newser) - A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay for six years has been charged with masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors and injured 50 others. The treatment of Saudi prisoner Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri in custody, which included waterboarding by interrogators, will be a...

Cannibal Family Ate Boy's Flesh
 Cannibal Family Ate Boy's Flesh 
Jun 20, 2008 11:35 AM CDT

Cannibal Family Ate Boy's Flesh

Cult skinned 7-year-old alive

(Newser) - A family of Czech cannibals is on trial for hacking off pieces of a 7-year-old boy who survived the ghoulish abuse, the Sun reports. The horror unraveled last year when a neighbor’s baby monitor picked up images of the chained-up boy meant to be seen by the boy's mother.

Top Ideas of Past Year
 Top Ideas of Past Year 
OPINION
Jun 11, 2008 5:19 PM CDT

Top Ideas of Past Year

Atlantic Monthly runs down issues steered the national discourse in past year

(Newser) - Which ideas informed the national discourse (or lack thereof) in the past year? Well, the Atlantic Monthly knows, and there are 11 … er, 11½. From the troop surge in Iraq to post-partisan politics to the provocatively titled “mass-market atheism,” a look at some of the most captivating...

Alleged 9/11 Leader Faces Gitmo Tribunal

Doubts about fairness attend trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

(Newser) - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, will be arraigned today at a special military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay, reports the Washington Post. Five years after his arrest in Pakistan, the detainee and four others will appear in a specially designed, $4 million courtroom to...

Ex-Detainee Describes Gitmo Tortures
Ex-Detainee Describes
Gitmo Tortures
May 21, 2008 12:02 PM CDT

Ex-Detainee Describes Gitmo Tortures

He was beaten, hung from ceiling, shocked with electricity

(Newser) - A man arrested in Pakistan and held as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay was hung from the ceiling, beaten, and shocked with jolts of electricity, he testified to Congress yesterday. The German-born Turkish citizen told lawmakers that US interrogators also forced water down his throat. He was...

FBI Stalled in Addressing Prisoner Abuse

Report says agents didn't participate in torture, but knew of it

(Newser) - FBI agents dragged their feet in reporting torture inflicted on prisoners by Defense contractors and CIA employees, an an internal FBI report shows, but agents themselves generally did not participate in torture. FBI brass, however, was scolded for not providing more guidance or “pressing harder” to curb other agencies’...

Fritzl's Crimes Rooted in Literary History
Fritzl's Crimes Rooted in Literary History
analysis
May 18, 2008 8:03 PM CDT

Fritzl's Crimes Rooted in Literary History

Dark Austrian captivity stories formed his 'cultural matrix'

(Newser) - Josef Fritzl's crimes stunned the world, but such demented patriarchs have long haunted Austrian literature. The dark 1852 story "Turmalin" depicts a deranged husband locking up his daughter; the 1917 novel The Grave of the Living tells of a troubled family and an imprisoned child. "This is the...

Afghan Appeals Death Sentence Over Women's Rights Charge

Argues he was tortured into false confession

(Newser) - An Afghan journalism student who has been sentenced to death claims he was tortured into falsely confessing that he had written an article championing women's rights. "I would never let myself write such an article," said the student, 24, in court today in a desperate bid to overturn...

Judge Orders CIA to Release 'Torture' Memo

Key document said to outline waterboarding techniques

(Newser) - A federal judge has ordered the CIA to release a 2002 memo believed to outline interrogation methods that may amount to torture. The ACLU, which brought the suit sparking the order, claims that the memo details harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and calls it "one of the most important...

Huffington Unmasks 'Pandering' McCain
Huffington Unmasks 'Pandering' McCain
OPINION
May 6, 2008 6:37 PM CDT

Huffington Unmasks 'Pandering' McCain

Senator denies not voting for Bush in 2000

(Newser) - John McCain said after the 2000 election he hadn’t voted for George Bush, Arianna Huffington wrote yesterday, and the bombshell has provoked angry denials from the camp of the future GOP nominee, whom she once "admired and even loved." Firing back, the Huffington Post founder further details...

UK Intelligence 'Sent Citizens to Be Tortured'

MI5 outsourced brutal interrogations to Pakistan, say lawyers

(Newser) - British intelligence officers have been accused of sending citizens to a Pakistani agency to be tortured, reports the Guardian. MI5 officials requested Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency to arrest British terror suspects in the country, where they were subjected to beatings, whippings, sleep deprivation and fingernail extraction, according to lawyers...

Waterboarding at Work Heads to Utah Court

Employee alleges torture; company calls it 'team-building exercise'

(Newser) - A Utah sales rep is suing his company after his boss waterboarded him as a “team-building exercise” outside a Provo office park, the Washington Post reports. Sure, the man volunteered, but he says he had no idea what he getting himself into. “I’m not getting any air,...

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