Posts Tagged ‘Human Rights’
Remembering Lies: Interview With Psychiatric Abuse Victim Jeannette Bartha
It is indoctrination. If you look at any, say, religious cult – I read the work of Robert Jay Lifton and was appalled at the parallels [between Lifton's criteria for thought reform (indoctrination), and what was taking place in treatment]. For example, having a charismatic leader: that would be the psychiatrist. A controlled environment: I was told when to eat, when to sleep, when to shower. The heat was controlled in the room. It would get hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold. Information from the outside by TV, mail, magazines, newspapers hardly existed at all. If there were magazines, they were so outdated. If there was a TV show that seemed to relate to the subject, we were not allowed to view it. Sleep medication, sleeping pills, were given out freely, and I also experienced sleep deprivation. There were sedatives, sleepers, truth serum drugs. Physical restraints: four-point leather restraints, or more, to a bed for – could be – 2 hours to 15 hours at a time, at which point I would also be injected with more medication.
Former UK Ambassador: CIA Sent People to be ‘Raped With Broken Bottles’
By Daniel Tencer at RawStory:
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.
“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of…
Judge OKs Challenge to Human-Gene Patents
From Wired:
A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit can move forward against the Patent and Trademark Office and the research company that was awarded exclusive rights to human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer.The first-of-its-kind lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law claims that the patents violate free speech by restricting research.
U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet of New York, in ruling that the case may proceed to trial, noted that the litigation might open the door to challenges of a host of other patented genes. About one-fifth of the human genome is covered under patent applications and claims.
[Read more at Wired]
Churches Denounce African Children as “witches”
From NYT:
EKET, Nigeria (AP) — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.
His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse.
A month later, he died.
Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of ”witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case…
U.S. Map Of Banned Books
There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 513 in 2008. But the total is far larger. 70 to 80 percent are never reported.
This map is drawn from cases documented by ALA and the Kids’ Right to Read Project, a collaboration of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Note that the cases mapped are only from the past three years (2007-2009).
UK police use anti-terrorist legislation to stop climate change activist travelling
Want to go to Copenhagen to protest at the UN summit? The Orwellian state marches ahead in the UK.
From the Guardian website.
UK border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark.
Chris Kitchen, a 31-year-old office worker, said he feared his treatment by police could mark the start of a clampdown on protesters, hundreds of whom are planning to travel to Copenhagen for the climate change talks in December.
Malformed Babies Resulting From Israeli Banned Weapons
Kawther Salam writes:
Since the end of criminal Israeli operation cast lead in Gaza Strip last January, more than five cases of birth have been registered which show babies who have a deformed and not fully formed heart. These births came as an effect of the use of internationally banned weapons of phosphor and uranium by the Israeli occupation in the middle of populated areas.
According to Palestinian medical sources, the health effects on Palestinians who were targeted in Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008 – 2009 still manifest day by day, especially those caused by the internationally banned phosphorous shells and dozens of types of weapons used by Israel and which laboratory tests showed were carrying toxins with delayed lethal effects, which may appear in the future in the form of…
Increase In ‘Academic Doping’ Could Spark Routine Student Drug Tests
The increasing use of smart drugs or “nootropics,” to boost academic performance, could mean that exam students will face routine doping tests in future, suggests an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Despite raising many dilemmas about the legitimacy of chemically enhanced academic performance, these drugs will be near impossible to ban, says Vince Cakic of the Department of Psychology, University of Sydney.
He draws several parallels with doping in competitive sports, where it is suggested that “95%” of elite athletes have used performance enhancing drugs.
“It is apparent that the failures and inconsistencies inherent in anti doping policy in sport will be mirrored in academia unless a reasonable and realistic approach to the issue of nootropics is adopted,” he claims.
But what this should be is far from clear, especially given the…
Obama Keeps Bush Rules On Indefinite Detention
Ari Shapiro in conversation with Guy Raz on NPR’s All Things Considered:
The Obama administration has decided not to ask Congress for a new law that would allow terrorism detainees to be held indefinitely — in other words, it’ll stay with the rules set up right after the Sept. 11 attacks by the Bush administration. What does this decision say about Obama as president?
Empty the Prisons
WIRED: From the death penalty to “three strikes” laws, Americans love tough responses to crime—but not necessarily smart ones. Nils Christie has a better idea: Stop treating lawbreakers like criminals.
“I don’t like the term crime—it’s such a big, fat, imprecise word,” says the renowned University of Oslo criminologist. “There are only unwanted acts. How we perceive them depends on our relationship with those who carry them out.” If a teenager swipes a wallet, we call it a crime. If he snakes a twenty from his dad, it’s a family issue. Locking up the pickpocket only sets him up to learn worse tricks from hardened thugs. Better, Christie says, to treat him like a badly behaved son. Send him to counseling and require that he compensate his victim.
Similarly, drug abuse should…
‘Christian’ Leaders Mum on Torture
Who but the cowardly crew leading the “Christian” churches can be held responsible for the fact that many of their flock believe in torture?
Anyone harboring doubts that the institutional Church is riding shotgun for the system, even regarding heinous sin like torture, should be chastened by the results of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.
Who but the cowardly crew leading the “Christian” churches can be held responsible for the fact that many of their flock believe torture of suspected terrorists is “justified?”
Those polled were white non-Hispanic Catholics, white Evangelicals, and white mainline Protestants. A majority (54 percent) of those who attend church regularly said torture could be “justified,” while a majority of those not attending church regularly responded that torture was rarely or never justified.
I am not…
Monopoly Looms on Electronic Voting
While we’ve been concentrating on the healthcare debate, the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, another story important to American democracy has gotten inadequate attention: a single company is poised to monopolize the counting of over 75 percent of the nation’s votes.
Labor History: Down The Memory Hole
I find it personally maddening the degree to which right-wingers have pushed their narrative on not just “people,” but the working class and the left.
Specifically, I am constantly butting my head up against the ideology of apathy. I’m not talking about people’s lack of resistance — there’s actually a ton going on right now. What I’m talking about is the internalized oppression of the working class, particularly among radicals. This frequently takes the form of “Americans are too comfortable to resist” or “Americans don’t like radicalism” or some other vague, unverifiable claim that ultimately only serves the agenda of capital and the far right.
