Another analysis about this story from Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York. (He has taught at Yale Law School, lectured at Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild.)

Image by: Carlos Latuff

Couple of days ago, reuters had a story that said: “Canada places U.S. and Israel on torture watch list”. Today, the same story link was updated and replaced to say: “Canada takes U.S., Israel off torture watchlist”.

The original story is no more available, but the magic of the internet always keeps a [...]

According to the indictment, the soldiers were responsible for transferring 13 Palestinian detainees from the Tulkarm Regional Brigade to an IDF military court in northern Israel in April 2006.

During the journey, the soldiers grabbed the prisoners by their hair, struck their chests and necks and demanded they repeat the number soldiers had previously assigned them [...]

“There was a shocking silence of the Jewish community on the issue of torture, and there is still a lacuna on this vital issue, to my eye,” said Felice Gaer, director of the AJCommittee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. “All Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, need to be more vocal on this [...]

WARNING: You might find this video disturbing. It is actually as entertaining as a kick in the nuts. Unsuitable for under 14s. (Please turn your speakers up).

This film shows a performance artist undergoing, for real, interrogation techniques permitted in the CIA handbook (and it goes without saying - all other dictatorships including the “only democracy” [...]

Film shows six women who inflicted and witnessed torture

One posed for a photo as she scrubbed a Palestinian corpse. Another stripped a man to his underwear and then beat him. A third helped cover up the abuse of a young boy.

The six Israeli women who feature in the documentary “To See If I’m Smiling” each [...]

Film Summary:

Through startling interviews with perpetrators, witnesses and victims, GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB examines and contextualizes the abuses that occurred in the fall of 2003 at the notorious Iraqi prison abuses documented in photographs that are etched in our national consciousness. The film probes the psychology of how typical American men and women came to [...]

A building formerly occupied by Fatah’s intelligence service in Gaza was long notorious for torture and execution. Now Hamas is in control — and is letting former inmates visit the chamber of horrors. The cells are small, perhaps six feet by six feet, with only an overhead lamp to provide light. The toilet is [...]

1. Torture, Israeli-Style

According to A., during questioning a police investigator held his legs in the air, and inserted an object into his rectum.

“While the investigator inserted the ‘object’ into my rectum and removed it, he pulled my genitalia, as if he wanted to rip it out,” said A. “He told me that he wanted to [...]

A report released today by two Israeli human rights organizations (B’Tselem and HaMoked) charges Shin Bet security service in regularly torturing almost all Palestinian detainees. Despite Israel High Court of Justice ruling from 1999 limiting the use of force in investigations, B’Tselem and HaMoked reported torture methods includes beating, painful binding, back bending, body stretching [...]