US execution of Mexican national violates international law – UN rights chie...

US execution of Mexican national violates international law – UN rights chief

A news release issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) notes that, in addition to the normal UN position of opposing the death penalty as a matter of policy, this case raises particular legal concerns, as Mr. Leal García was not granted consular access, which – as a foreign national – was his right under international law.

“The lack of consular assistance raises concerns about whether or not his right to a fair trial, guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and binding on the United States, was fully upheld,” the Office stated.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38981&Cr=execution&Cr1

Fallen Warriors Victims of ID Theft Servicemembers killed in action are fre...

Fallen Warriors Victims of ID Theft

Servicemembers killed in action are frequent and easy targets of identity theft, officials with the Internal Revenue Service told Military.com, adding a potential financial nightmare to the lives of the grief-stricken families of the fallen.

Erica Paci, whose husband -- Army Sgt. Anthony Paci -- was killed in Afghanistan in March of 2010, discovered in early June that his identity had been stolen when her accountant received a notice from the IRS rejecting her 2010 joint tax return. The IRS said that a return had already been filed under her husband’s social security number and that Paci had to wait up to six months to get her tax refund while they investigated the incident.

http://www.military.com/news/article/fallen-warriors-victims-of-id-theft.html?ESRC=eb.nl

Obama signs Patriot Act extension ...

Obama signs Patriot Act extension

US president extends controversial counter-terrorism search and wiretap powers, minutes before laws were due to expire.

US President Barack Obama has signed a four-year extension of the Patriot Act from Paris, extending post-September 11 powers allowing the government to secretly search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of alleged terrorists or their supporters.

During congressional debates, legislators rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties would not be abused.

While the government's actual use of the Patriot Act largely remains secret, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are unhappy with the extension.

Before Thursday's Senate vote, Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said, "I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry."

"Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out," added Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, also on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Lonely resistance Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul, who saw the act's terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights.

Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government's ability to monitor individual actions. The bill passed the Senate 72-23.

The measure adds four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps, which are authorised for a person rather than a communications line or device; of court-ordered searches of business records; and of surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups. It also allows the government to keep track of local library records.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2011/05/201152715850301322.html

Pvt Manning proves 'slippery slope' ...

Pvt Manning proves 'slippery slope'

Treatment of the US soldier shows there is a fine line between torture of enemy combatants and American citizens.

Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking a massive trove of classified material to WikiLeaks, has been imprisoned since May 2010. The treatment to which he has been subjected, including protracted isolation, systematic humiliations and routinised sleep deprivation, got more extreme last week when the commander of the brig at Quantico, Virginia, imposed on him a regime of forced nakedness at night and during an inspection of his cell every morning until his clothing is returned.

These types of abusive tactics were authorised by the Bush administration for use on foreign detainees captured in the war on terror, on the theory that causing "debilitation, disorientation and dread" would produce "learned helplessness" and make them more susceptible and responsive to interrogators' questioning.

Reports about Manning's treatment indicate that the Pentagon has continued to utilise reverse-engineered SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, extraction) techniques that were developed during the Cold War to train US soldiers in case they were captured and tortured by regimes that do not adhere to the Geneva Conventions.

This development was hardly unforeseeable. Opponents of torture had staked their positions in the early debate with warnings not only that torture is illegal and ineffective, but also with historic evidence that states which authorise the torture of enemies embark down a slippery slope.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/2011310153040668605.html

WikiLeaks reveals Vatican has Islamophobic tendencies The WikiLeaks cables ar...

WikiLeaks reveals Vatican has Islamophobic tendencies

The WikiLeaks cables are getting more interesting by the minute exposing and highlighting what has already been brewing in many intellects minds of the attitude of some in the West regarding the Muslim world in what has become a phenomenon known and labelled as Islamophobia.

Such fear and hostility leads to discriminations against Muslims, exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political or social process, stereotyping, the presumption of guilt by association, and finally hate crimes.

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=27505