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Sunday, November 22, 2009 02:13 GMT

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RIGHTS-IRAQ: U.N. Report Paints Grim Picture
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Iraqi prisons are torturing detainees, locking people up for months without charges and, in most cases, allowing the perpetrators of these human rights abuses to escape justice, according to a new United Nations report.
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RIGHTS-US: Court Reins in "State Secrets" Privilege
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - In what may become a landmark decision, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the "state secrets privilege" – routinely used by the government to block lawsuits against its officials – can only be used to contest specific evidence, but not to dismiss an entire suit.
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POLITICS-US: Momentum Builds for Tougher Hate Crimes Law
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - The leaders of several of the United States' largest civil rights and faith groups urged the passage of a bill to strengthen protection from hate crimes Tuesday.
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Q&A: A Death Row Story of Resilience, Faith, Hope
Miren Gutierrez* interviews LUIS ROSARIO ALBERT, filmmaker
ROME - Puerto Rican Juan Melendez spent more than 17 years on death row in a Florida prison for a 1983 murder to which another man had repeatedly confessed - evidence prosecutors withheld. He was only released in 2002. Now a documentary by Luis Rosario Albert tells Melendez's story, the multifaceted circumstances that surrounded it and the human rights struggle in Puerto Rico that followed.
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RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Gay-Bashing Murders Up 55 Percent
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO - In 2008, 190 homosexuals were killed in Brazil, one every two days, representing a 55 percent increase on the previous year – a veritable "homocaust" according to gay rights activists.
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RIGHTS-US: Lawyers’ Group Targets Torture Memo Author
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Lawyers who reject President Barack Obama’s decision not to seek prosecution of officials who may have participated in the torture of terror-suspect prisoners are seeking justice through another avenue: Sanctions against government lawyers who created the "enhanced interrogation" policies of former President George W. Bush.
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RIGHTS: Proponents of Torture May Yet Face Universal Justice
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Human rights advocates who were critical of President Barack Obama’s decision not to prosecute Central Intelligence Agency operatives who tortured war-on-terror prisoners are hailing a Spanish judge’s order to pursue a criminal investigation into the actions of six Bush administration lawyers for providing legal cover for torture - despite a recommendation from his prosecutors that the case not go forward.
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SUDAN: Nobel Laureates Demand Women Be Part of Peace Talks
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - The international community must act immediately to resolve the political and humanitarian crises facing Sudan, said a panel of leading Sudan experts at a briefing here Tuesday, and ensure that any peace process formally include women’s input.
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MEXICO: Chronicler of Oaxaca Struggle Finds Himself in a Lead Role
By Mari Hayman*
NEW YORK - Photographing revolutionary movements seems to run in Gustavo Vilchis’s family. Four generations ago, his great-grandfather snapped a picture of Emiliano Zapata. Vilchis, a 29-year-old photographer and human rights activist from Guerrero, Mexico, keeps the photo of the mustachioed Mexican revolutionary hero taped to the inside cover of his notebook.
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POLITICS: U.S. Navy Snookered in Pirate Hostage Drama
By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - In what has become a commonplace occurrence, a small boat pulled alongside a container ship and a band of men from the smaller vessel boarded the larger one. It was just another day off the Somali coast - the latest in a series of more frequent and bolder acts of piracy.
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RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Fact-Finding Mission "Shocked"
By Constanza Vieira
THE HAGUE - A delegation of seven British Labour members of parliament and 10 trade union leaders from the U.S., Canada and Britain said they were in a "state of shock" over what they heard during a week-long fact-finding mission to Colombia.
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MEDIA-PAKISTAN: Pondering Risks Covering Conflict, Crime, Corruption
By Beena Sarwar
KARACHI - The main issue before the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) meeting over the weekend in the central Punjab city of Faisalabad is the threat faced by journalists in this conflict-ridden South Asian country.
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U.S.: Washington Urged to Seek "Positive Engagement" With ICC
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan, blue-ribbon task force is urging the United States to formally announce a policy of "positive engagement" with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and send an observer to its 2010 Review Conference.
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Q&A: Cambodians Look Beyond Khmer Rouge Trials
Marwaan Macan-Markar interviews YOUK CHHANG, director, Documentation Centre of Cambodia
PHNOM PENH - While the trial of the notorious jailor of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime is expected to break new legal ground in Cambodia, justice is not all that people here expect to come out of the war crimes tribunal.
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/CORRECTED REPEAT*/US-MEXICO: Clinton Visit Has Aura of Drug Intervention
By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - The Barack Obama administration announced this week that it will augment already massive foreign aid to its southern neighbour in a bid to help Mexico fight cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S., as well as sending a series of high-level U.S. officials to Mexico to consult with their counterparts.
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RIGHTS-US: Obama Faces Spate of "Terror War" Lawsuits
Analysis by WillIam Fisher
NEW YORK - Human rights lawyers are proving to be a major headache for the new administration of President Barack Obama, stepping up court challenges on issues of prisoner abuse to test the reality of the president’s pledge to create a "an unprecedented level of openness" in government.
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MIGRATION-US: Strained Detention System a Virtual Black Hole
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has failed to uphold international human rights standards in its detention of immigrants and asylum seekers, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) said in a report released Wednesday.
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Q&A: "Fujimori Gave the Order"
Ángel Páez interviews Peruvian prosecutor AVELINO GUILLÉN
LIMA - With a sentence set to be handed down shortly in the trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) for two notorious massacres of civilians – known as the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings – the prosecutor in the case, Avelino Guillén, said the defendant’s guilt has been amply proven.
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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Tough Terror Laws Part of Routine Policing?
By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE - Civil libertarians are concerned that significant powers wielded by authorities in order to conduct investigations into terrorism-related activities are being normalised and made available for less serious crimes.
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RIGHTS: Death Penalty Losing Favour Around the World
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - Though most of the world is moving a step closer to the abolition of the death penalty, death sentences continue to be handed out in the hundreds around the globe, says a new report from Amnesty International (AI).
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IPS, the global news agency, brings you independent news and views on violations of the basic human right to life – including forced disappearances, capital punishment, war crimes, violence against women & LGBT people, among many others. IPS brings you in-depth reports from correspondents around the world, columns by experts, and analyses of civil society’s work on the ground.