torture

MP investigating abuse jokes about torture prison, live on TV

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:33:20 +0200

Despite months of mass unrest, dozens of deaths and alleged rape and torture at the hands of the Iranian authorities, the MPs dealing with the issues seem to find the whole thing utterly hilarious.

The Iranian parliament, known as the Majlis, went to the polls on Thursday to vote on each member of President Ahmadinejad's suggested cabinet. The event was broadcast live on major TV channels and radio stations including IRIB1, Press TV, Farhang Radio and Iran Radio. As the MPs queued up to cast their ballots, some of them began making jokes about certain honourable members being too lazy or too busy chatting to get up. They then moved on to the apparently uproarious issue of fraud, referring to reports of areas where 120% of the population voted (which they blame on demographics inaccuracies). But there was one MP who took it a step too far. Kazem Jalali, who is currently leading a parliamentary investigation into human rights abuses following the June 12 election, shouted over to an opposition MP to tell him that, if he said anything about fraud at this vote, he would be sent off to the notorious Kahrizak prison in south Tehran - which he himself is currently investigating following its closure last month due to the alleged torture, rape, beating and death of detainees.

“They forced me to write down all the people I'd had sex with”

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:48:34 +0200

"Minio", a young Iranian who was detained during the post-election repression, describes the humiliating experiences she went through at the hands of her jailers.

The last in a long list of complainants, an Iranian member of parliament has spoken out about the rape and torture of protesters detained following the 12 June election results. The unnamed Iranian MP, who worked on a committee charged with investigating prisoner abuse during the post-election repression, made the acknowledgment in a statement given last Thursday. "Raping of some detainees through baton and soda bottle has been proved to us," he was quoted as saying by the reformist parliamentary news website Parlemannews.ir. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei however blamed reformist politicians for focusing on prisoner abuse rather than the original "defacing of the system" by protesters.

Numerous accounts of prison abuse have emerged since some of the hundreds of people arrested in the repression were released. Even the most prominent cases have, however, been carefully refuted by the authorities. Findings from the investigative parliamentary committee in question are also expected to be unreliable - the majority of the committee members are members of Ahmadinejad's government, the minority, reformist politicians...

Make your confession to the Iranian regime

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:23:58 +0200

Public confessions made by detained opposition activists in Iran are being made a mockery of by anti-government protesters. To illustrate how farcical they found the confessions, Web users from around the world, including a pet cat, a "crazy Jew from Israel", a brainwashed bald manikin and a CIA agent, have made their own confessions, all 'owning up' to instigating the attempted velvet revolution following the 12 June election.

When over 100 reformist activists were put to trial at the beginning of August, it came as little surprise that they pleaded guilty to plotting a velvet revolution against Ahmadinejad's government; their supporters immediately denounced the declarations as forced confessions and labelled the event a "laughable show trial". The case of former vice president and popular reformist blogger Mohammed Ali Abtahi was given particular attention after he appeared on TV looking distressed and underfed. Reformist bloggers, human rights groups, the Western press and his family say that his testimony is a sham.

In response, Iranian comedian Ebrahim Nabavi, who is now exiled in Belgium, decided to make his own "confession" as a sketch. He admitted that he succumbed to an irresistible CIA agent who said "Come on! Let's have a velvet revolution". What followed was a website devoted entirely to confessions. Watch Me Confess has so far attracted dozens of submissions, both hilarious and saddening.

Who wants you to see these torture videos?

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:34 +0200

Blogger Wael Abbas has published footage of a man being tortured in what he says is an Egyptian police station. The horrific scenes seem not to have greatly shocked the Egyptian public. Our Observers there, however, are asking why and for whom these images were filmed.

Please be aware that this post includes images which you may find upsetting.

Wael, who works often with such documents, published the images last Wednesday. He says that the scene appears to have taken place in the Ad-Dawahi police station in the harbour town of Port Said, situated at the mouth of the Suez Canal. His source, which he says is reliable but prefers to remain anonymous, does not know when the scene took place but affirms that the torturer is the station commissioner, Mohamed Abu Ghazala.

Contacted by FRANCE 24, activists from the Port Said branch of the NGO Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said that they have tried to find the victim in the video, but nobody has come forward. They told us that acts of torture at the hands of the station commissioner in question had already been documented by the group. Interestingly, they also told us, the victim does not have the local accent of the Port Said province.

We decided not to publish the torture videos on The Observers. The footage shows a person hung by their wrists in an interrogation room.

He begs his torturer to stop. "Please Mohamed Bey [an old-fashioned dignitary address from the Ottoman empire], stop, I'm going to die. I'm not an animal. I'm a human being."

The officer replies, "Shut up you son of a bitch".

Here are some screen grabs of the scene.

Condoleezza Rice grilled over torture

Team Observers — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:28:52 +0200

A Stanford University student grills ex-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the Bush administration's torture policy. Who sounds more convincing: Rice or Jeremy Cohn?

Condoleezza Rice, former US President George W. Bush's security advisor and then secretary of state (2005-2009), returned to teach political science at Stanford University, where she was a professor before entering politics, in March.

The torture memos released by US President Barack Obama's administration in April revealed that highly-placed officials in the Bush administration, including Rice, legally approved the CIA's controversial torture methods. They also gave interrogators the green light to resort to techniques like waterboarding.

Rice was given a rather luke-warm reception at Stanford University on Monday, when she visited a dormitory where she was confronted by a group of students. Among them was Jeremy Cohn, a fourth-year student who did not hesitate to grill Rice. The scene was filmed by another student, who then posted it on YouTube. Rice denied personally authorising waterboarding and simply confirmed "communicating the administration's authorisation to the CIA."

Emirates' sadistic sheikh

Julien — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:34:57 +0200

The person we see in this video is none other than Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, the brother of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, and Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

This 45-minute video was reportedly made at Sheikh Issa's request. The images are horrific scenes of torture inflicted on Mohammed Shah Poor, an Afghan businessman, accused of not providing the exact quantity of grain demanded by the prince. Policemen in uniform pin Poor to the floor as the sheikh uses an automatic rifle, whips, electric cattle prods, wooden planks with protruding nails and even his Mercedes SUV to torture his victim.

Bassam Nabulsi, a Lebanese-American businessman who worked for the sheikh for many years, released this video in mid-April. The incident occurred in 2004 or 2005. Nabulsi has engaged a lawsuite against his former employer in the United States.

Nabulsi says he was also tortured by UAE police for three months and imprisoned (April to June 2005) after he refused to turn in the tape.

In a statement to ABC News, which aired the video on April 22, the UAE interior ministry — led by Saif bin Zayed al Nahyan, also one of Sheikh Issa's brothers — said it had reviewed the tape and found "all rules and procedures were correctly followed by the police".

On April 30, Abu Dhabi's government, worried about its tarnished image abroad and about the video endangering deals on civil nuclear energy with the United States and France, condemned the sheikh's sadistic act.

Most of our Observers in the region refused to comment on the subject. We also contacted local human-rights experts, lawyers and journalists. No one wants to comment against the royal family. This is not surprising, because according to Human Rights Watch, Abu Dhabi's media law, article 32, provides for a fine of up to a million euros against any journalist who defames government ministers or members of the royal family.

Burmese comedian Zarganar paying a high price for straight talk

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:02:07 +0200

Three weeks after his arrest on June 4, a Burmese comedian known as "Zarganar" remains in an interrogation centre in Rangoon. The junta has as yet given any explanation as to why they arrested Zarganar, but it is assumed that his critical attitude towards the government in the aftermath of the Nargis cyclone has something to do with it.

The Burmese comedian, film director and political activist has already been detained three times in the past 20 years. He is an avid and outspoken activist, and his comedy often contains references to the ruling regime. Last year he brought attention to himself by handing out food to the protesting monks in September's clashes.

This time, he was arrested after carrying out a humanitarian aid project that brought together some 400 writers, artists and activists to deliver aid to victims of the cyclone that struck almost two months ago. When asked by the media about his reasons, the comedian spoke openly. He told them that the government wasn't doing anything to help. It has now been three weeks since the 47-year-old was arrested, when ten policemen turned up at his home without warning at 10 pm.

Torture is "self-defense" according to the Pentagon

Julien — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:41:48 +0200

In 2003 the U.S. Justice Department sent a memo to the Pentagon in which it conceived torture as a "self-defense" for the purpose of interrogating an "enemy combatant". An Iraqi deputy and a French colonel specialised in the Algerian war react to the document, declassified yesterday and published here in full.

Written by a lawyer for the Justice Department, the memorandum basically said that the American president is entitled by the Constitution to authorise certain forms of torture against al-Qaeda militants for reasons of national security. The Justice nullified the statement nine months after it was sent. But according to the Washington Post, the article served as the "legal foundation for the Defense Department's use of aggressive interrogation practices at a crucial time, as captives poured into military jails from Afghanistan".

Don’t try this at home: waterboarding

Julien — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:49:29 +0100

Waterboarding is a form of interrogation that induces the sensation of drowning, causing the victim to sense intense panic and imminent death. In the last century the method has been considered a crime by the US and been prosecuted against. The Army Field Manual prohibits its use by any military personnel. However increasing rumours of its use by the CIA and the US Army have been circulating since the launch of the ‘war on terror' after Sept. 11, and many high-profile politicians and judges have said that its prohibition needs reassessing. The method is forbidden under the rules of the Geneva Convention.