ASIO and Australia’s other intelligence agencies need strong oversight to avoid the type of behaviour that went unchecked in the US after 9/11.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Earlier this week, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report on the CIA’s post-9/11 program of detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists during the Bush administration…
Over the past few days, the media and human rights communities have devoted much time and many column inches to discussion about torture: techniques, reasons, implications, weaknesses, and the like. Should…
New norms for what goes on inside this room.
image from www.shutterstock.com
The release of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program documents the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) against terrorism…
Torture victims will soon be lining up to sue the US. What are their chances?
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
The US Senate’s report on the torture carried out by the CIA makes shocking reading. Questions will be asked about whether individual victims can sue for compensation for losses suffered, and where they…
Protesting against messing with minds.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
During the War on Terror, the CIA’s operations subjected hundreds of suspected terrorists to harsh interrogation techniques, which were often criticised as constituting torture. Now, the Senate Intelligence…
The US Senate has released the executive summary of a long-withheld report on harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the post-9/11 era. Previously undisclosed techniques have been revealed and…
On November 12 and 13, the US will appear before the United Nations Anti-Torture Committee in Geneva as part of its periodic look at how various countries comply with the rules on torture and other cruel…
The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, criticised Australia in his opening address to the UN Human Rights Council.
EPA/Salvatore di Nolfi
The Australian government is being examined on Monday evening by the United Nations Committee against Torture. Before the independent committee of experts, an Australian government delegation has to answer…
Hazaras have long been persecuted in Afghanistan, but those returned from countries like Australia are in particular danger of being tortured and murdered.
Wikimedia Commons/ISAF Public Affairs Office
It has been a bad time lately for Afghan Hazaras with Australian connections. In late September, the shocking news came through that the Taliban had tortured and murdered an Australian of Afghan background…
Protest can become suspect under terrorism legislation.
Michael Stephens/PA Archive/Press Association Images
It is now accepted that the war on terror has generated an extensive repertoire of its very own terror. Drone strikes resulting in extrajudicial killings, rendition and torture – zones of exception like…
The government should have focused on a proper investigation into allegations that asylum seekers’ hands were deliberately burned by the Navy.
ABC
The Abbott government has reacted indignantly to allegations by Sudanese asylum seeker Yousif Ibrahim Fasher that asylum seekers were mistreated and had their hands deliberately burnt by Australian Navy…
Osama bin Laden watches himself on a video in his compound. What role does the “fourth wall’ play in our acceptance of torture and war crimes?
US Department of Defense
A lot has been written about Zero Dark Thirty’s torture narrative. Alex Gibney, whose Taxi to the Dark Side traced the abuses of the Bush torture system, gives one of the best accounts. Having seen the…
The Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell) case will be a litmus test for future transnational human rights litigation in the US.
mjsonline
Imagine the following hypothetical. An Iranian company secretly supplies poison gas to the current Syrian regime in order to kill tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens. And imagine that some of the victims…