Many of my readers know that I was the Director of the Denounce Torture Campaign with Amnesty International, USA this last year. One of my main focus was to educate America on the issues around human rights abuses when it comes to the War on Terror. Specifically, Torture. One of my last successes was to secure the arrival of a replica of a Gitmo Cell to tour the states during the Presidential election.
The UK section of Amnesty International has had some major success with their Unsubscribe campaign that utilizes Web 2.0, social networks, and viral marketing. This latest, powerful video was on the issue of water-boarding. It has received some major press and has become successfully viral.
It is wonderful to see such an organization really use these strategies in an effective way.
As many of you know… I worked for Amnesty International this last year. My last big victory before I left to start our firm, was convincing the organization to bring out the GITMO cell from Australia during the campaign season here in the states. It was NOT an easy task… but I had the support from a great boss, Larry Cox (seen in the video.)
Last night they did a snippet of this cell on the ground in PA. Awesome to see ideas manifest into reality.
When I was at Amnesty we had an idea for a Gitmo cell tour. It was an concept from our team at Denounce Torture team, which I directed. It is awesome to see it move forward from an idea… to action. Proud to have a small part of this great idea.
See the cell near you. Here are the details:
National Tour Launch Event:11:30am - 1pm on May 8 in Bayfront Park, Tina Hills Pavilion, 301 N. Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL
Miami: May 8 - May 11 in Bayfront Park, Tina Hills Pavilion, 301 N. Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL WITH SPECIAL GUEST MARY ROBINSON ON MAY 10 at 2PM.
Philadelphia: May 30 -June 1 in Dilworth Plaza, 1400 JFK Blvd, Philadelphia, PA
Portland, Maine: June 5 -June 7 in Monument Square, Congress Street, Portland, ME
New York, Clearwater Festival: June 21 & 22, Croton Point Park, Village of Croton-on-Hudson, Westchester County, NY
Washington DC: June 25 -June 30
June 26 Special Event in Washington DC to mark International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods
merica’s most senior General was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today’s Guardian.
According to an ABC report, top Bush aides, including Condi Rice, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement. Discussions on torture were so detailed, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group, The torture advisory group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft and Vice President Dick Cheney ABC’s sources said.
Detainee is cameraman for Al-Jazeera 17 Mar 2008 The United States has censored a gruesome drawing by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner [Sami al-Haj] depicting him as a skeleton being force-fed at the military prison, the man’s lawyers said Monday as they released a recreation of the sketch. (Original link here.)
In a reversal of their previous position the Australian government - a close US ally with regard to their “war on terror” policies - has called for the closure of Guantánamo! More here: (original article).
As an expert witness in the defense of an Abu Ghraib guard who was court-martialed, psychologist Philip Zimbardo had access to many of the images of abuse that were taken by the guards themselves. For a presentation at the TED conference in Monterey, California, Zimbardo assembled some of these pictures into a short video. Wired.com obtained the video from Zimbardo’s talk, and is publishing some of the stills from that video here. Many of the images are explicit and gruesome, depicting nudity, degradation, simulated sex acts and guards posing with decaying corpses. Viewer discretion is advised.
