Thursday, April 30, 2015

Ant-Torture Campaign: Day Two

The Honorable Loretta Lynch
Attorney General of the United States
US Department of Justice 

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20530-0001 
Subject: Reading the Senate Torture Report 
Dear Attorney General Lynch: 
The America we believe in does not torture. Yet for years, those who ordered and committed torture, enforced disappearance and other human rights violations in the CIA’s secret detention program have enjoyed impunity. That makes a mockery of the U.S. justice system. 
Recently, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released to the public a summary of its 6,700 page report on these matters, known as the “Senate torture report.” It contains information about potential violations of federal and international law. 
But shockingly, the Justice Department has failed to commit to reading and reviewing the full report. In litigation the Justice Department has even said that its copies of the full report remain unread, in a sealed envelope.1 Presumably, no one at the Justice Department has even begun to read the full report—let alone take any action on any information it contains on human rights violations, including the crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance. 
That’s why, along with this letter, we are sending you a page, during each of the next ten days, for a total of 10 different pages of the de-classified report summary. 
Reading the report is just one step. The Department of Justice must also re-open and expand its investigations into all CIA interrogations, detentions and renditions. It must bring to justice in fair trials all the persons, regardless of their level of office or former level of office, suspected of being involved in the commission of crimes under international law, such as torture and enforced disappearance. 

Respectfully,
Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, member AI Group 128
Amherst MA 
1 See Declaration of Peter J. Kadzik, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, ACLU v. CIA, Case 1:13--cv--01870 (filed January 21, 2015, D.D.C.). We are concerned that the Justice Department and other agencies are not opening the full report due to a cynical and hyper-technical effort to circumvent U.S. open records law (the Freedom of Information Act) and prevent the release of the full report to the public.

From Page 10 of the Torture Report:

#3: The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.

Beginning with the CIA's first detainee, Abu Zubaydah, and continuing with numerous others,
the CIA applied its enhanced interrogation techniques with significant repetition for days or
weeks at a time. Interrogation techniques such as slaps and "wallings" (slamming detainees
against a wall) were used in combination, frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation and
nudity. Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an "an open, non-

threatening approach,"^ or that interrogations began with the "least coercive technique possible"^
and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary.

The waterboarding technique was physically harmful, inducing convulsions and vomiting. Abu
Zubaydah, for example, became "completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open,
full mouth.'"^ Internal CIA records describe the waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Mohammad as

evolving into a "series of near drownings."^
Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in
stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads. At least five detainees
experienced disturbing hallucinations during prolonged sleep deprivation and, in at least two of
those cases, the CIA nonetheless continued the sleep deprivation.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Anti-Torture Action Campaign: Day One

The Honorable Loretta Lynch
Attorney General of the United States
US Department of Justice 
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20530-0001 

Subject: Reading the Senate Torture Report 
Dear Attorney General Lynch: 
The America we believe in does not torture. Yet for years, those who ordered and committed torture, enforced disappearance and other human rights violations in the CIA’s secret detention program have enjoyed impunity. That makes a mockery of the U.S. justice system. 
Recently, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released to the public a summary of its 6,700 page report on these matters, known as the “Senate torture report.” It contains information about potential violations of federal and international law. 
But shockingly, the Justice Department has failed to commit to reading and reviewing the full report. In litigation the Justice Department has even said that its copies of the full report remain unread, in a sealed envelope.1 Presumably, no one at the Justice Department has even begun to read the full report—let alone take any action on any information it contains on human rights violations, including the crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance. 
That’s why, along with this letter, we are sending you a page, during each of the next ten days, for a total of 10 different pages of the de-classified report summary. 
Reading the report is just one step. The Department of Justice must also re-open and expand its investigations into all CIA interrogations, detentions and renditions. It must bring to justice in fair trials all the persons, regardless of their level of office or former level of office, suspected of being involved in the commission of crimes under international law, such as torture and enforced disappearance. 

Respectfully,
I am yours truly,
on behalf of Amnesty International Group 128 of Amherst, Massachusetts,
Martha Spiegelman, Coordinator, AI Group 128
Amherst MA  

spiegelmanmartha@gmail.com
  
1 See Declaration of Peter J. Kadzik, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, ACLU v. CIA, Case 1:13--cv--01870 (filed January 21, 2015, D.D.C.). We are concerned that the Justice Department and other agencies are not opening the full report due to a cynical and hyper-technical effort to circumvent U.S. open records law (the Freedom of Information Act) and prevent the release of the full report to the public.

From Page 9 of the Torture Report:
Images not part of the Report

UNCLASSIFIED

The Committee makes the following findings and conclusions:


#1: The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of
acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.


The Committee finds, based on a review of CIA interrogation records, that the use of the CIA's
enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of obtaining accurate information
or gaining detainee cooperation.

For example, according to CIA records, seven of the 39 CIA detainees known to have been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques produced no intelligence while in CIAcustody.* CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques
were usually subjected to the techniques immediately after being rendered to CIA custody.
Other detainees provided significant accurate intelligence prior to, or without having been
subjected to these techniques.

While being subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and afterwards, multiple
CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence. Detainees provided
fabricated information on critical intelligence issues, including the terrorist threats which the
CIA identified as its highest priorities.

At numerous times throughout the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, CIA personnel


From Page 10:

assessed that the most effective method for acquiring intelligence from detainees, including from detainees the CIA considered to be the most "high-value," was to confront the detainees with
information already acquired by the Intelligence Community. CIA officers regularly called into
question whether the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were effective, assessing that the
use of the techniques failed to elicit detainee cooperation or produce accurate intelligence.

#2: The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on
inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.

The CIA represented to the White House, the National Security Council, the Department of
Justice, the CIA Office of Inspector General, the Congress, and the public that the best measure
of effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques was examples of specific terrorist plots "thwarted" and specific terrorists captured as a result of the use of the techniques.
The CIA used these examples to claim that its enhanced interrogation techniques were not only effective, but also necessary to acquire "otherwise unavailable" actionable intelligence that "saved lives."

The Committee reviewed 20 of the most frequent and prominent examples of purported counterterrorism successes that the CIA has attributed to the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques, and found them to be wrong in fundamental respects. In some cases, there was no relationship between the cited counterterrorism success and any information provided by detainees during or after the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.


Sunday, April 26, 2015

CIA Torture Report

yes, it was a long winter (can you believe it, it was snowing on Thursday this week!) and it's time to welcome the late spring....

Thanks to Martha, Erwin, and Alexa for starting our first Table in 2015 yesterday at the Amherst Farmers Market, which followed by our first Spring's planning meeting at Jones Library (it was a little chilly day but gorgeous)....

We had a long and full agenda in the meeting including a detailed report on the Annual General Meeting from our coordinator Martha Spiegelman who gave a thourough coverage for each session she attended, and the Resolution votes she casted on our behalf (Thanks Martha)...

Alexa, our young active member, proposed an ambitious fundraise plan to help finance our participation in major Amnesty events. She committed to take the lead in this initiative (thanks Alexa)..  

The meeting decided to particpate in the National Days of Action (April 27-May 8) in the Stop Torture Now campaign. Here is a paragraph from Amnesty website on this campaign:

{{The America I believe in does not torture. If you agree please join me in calling on the United States to ensure this never happens again by undertaking investigations and ensuring accountability for the crimes of torture and enforced disappearances.
This is the American Torture Story—and you can stop the United States from torturing again, today!
For years, a Senate Committee worked to collect evidence of these human rights abuses for a 6,700 page report known as “the Senate Torture Report.” The only version accessible to the public is a 500-page summary, but even this small window contains details that are truly horrifying.
The Justice Department has the full report, but apparently won’t even read it, let alone act on any new evidence it contains of criminal wrongdoing.}}

We created a 10-page Word document from the CIA Torture Report (525 pages) for our National Days of Action.
We will be mailing the Department of Justice one page in each of the 10 days of the campaign, and highlight areas on each page that express our idea why Torture is bad, and does not produce reliable information.

We also plan to post this on our Facebook Page

Technical Problem with our Blog

The blog is suffering a massive virus attack...! for the past 2 months we could not even post anything due to unaccessibility to the Blog. 

Viewer of the blog can't see the Homepage for more than 5 seconds and then it automatically changes into a different commercial website!


Today, for the first time we are able to access the link to New Post and we hope to succede in posting this message... If you see this message then there is a hope that we may get our blog back...

We do apologize to our readers...