200,000 people remain trapped in Sri Lankan detainee camps

Facing pressure from the Obama administration and the European Union, the Sri Lankan government last month launched a campaign to resettle tens of thousands of the minority Tamil detainees. But interviews in the country’s war-ravaged north reveal that many civilians have merely been shuffled from the large camps to smaller transit ones and are being [...]

Rights group urges US government to reform Afghanistan detainee policy

[JURIST] The US should reform its detention policy at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in order to combat counterinsurgency, according to a report released Thursday by Human Rights First (HRF). HRF called on the governments of the US and Afghanistan to reach an agreement that “set[s] forth grounds and procedures for detention in accordance with [...]

Report of UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism on his mission to Egypt

An advanced edited version of the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on Egypt is out now. (A/HRC/13/37/Add.2, 14 October 2009). It will be discussed at the Human RIghts Council’s Thirteenth Session in March 2010.

In this report the Special Rapporteur examines the emergency law, criminal law provisions on terrorist crimes, and amended article 179 of the Constitution [...]

al-Marri sentenced on conspiracy charges

[JURIST] Suspected al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was sentenced Thursday to eight-and-a-half years in prison for conspiracy to help the terrorist organization, including researching potential targets within the US for chemical weapon attacks. The sentence was less than the 15 years sought by federal prosecutors. In handing down the lesser sentence, District [...]

Documents detail conditions found at secret CIA jails

Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained Ramzi Binalshibh back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners. According to one document, FBI officials told investigators when they arrived at the unidentified CIA site “the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring [...]

Israeli NGOs release report on security administrative detention in Israel

The Israeli human rights NGOs B’tselem and Hamoked published a detailed report analysing and criticizing the legal regime and practical use of administrative detention on security grounds in Israel. The report calls on the government of Israel to immediately cease using the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law and to take action to repeal it.

Did the Defense Department Stop Reporting Deaths of Detainees in U.S. Custody?

Dr. Steven Miles, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, for years tried to track the deaths of “war on terror” detainees being held in U.S. custody. The author of the book “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and America’s War on Terror,” published in 2006 [...]

Abdelrazik sues Canada for its alleged role in his arrest and torture

Abdelrazik’s suit seeks 24 million Canadian dollars (22 million US) from Ottawa alleging the government’s involvement in his detention and torture, and three million dollars (2.76 million US) from Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for “misfeasance in public office.”
It claims the foreign minister “deliberately and flagrantly violated (Abdelrazik’s) constitutional right to enter Canada, and his legal [...]

Interesting articles

Beth van Schaack – International Criminal Law & its Enforcement
This chapter, to appear in the 2nd edition of Beth Van Schaack & Ron Slye’s International Criminal Law & Its Enforcement (Foundation Press 2010), covers the crime of torture under international criminal law. It begins with a doctrinal discussion of the elements of torture as elucidated [...]

3 Top UN Torture Experts call for proactive measures taken by United Nations treaty bodies to prevent torture

In an exchange of views with Claudio Grossman, Chairperson of the Committee against Torture; Victor Manuel Rodriguez Rescia, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture; and Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, speakers in the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) expressed support for proactive [...]