Thực phẩm nông nghiệp: torture

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Thứ Năm, 9 tháng 5, 2013

Death penalty for Ariel Castro? Official cites captives' miscarriages, 'torture'

Prosecutors may seek the death penalty in the case against a Cleveland man accused of kidnapping and holding captive three young women for years, on the basis of police reports that he allegedly forced miscarriages during the women’s detainment, officials announced Thursday.

Ariel Castro was arraigned Thursday morning in Cleveland Municipal Court, charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. He did not enter a plea at the hearing. He is being held on $8 million bail, which is higher than the $5 million requested by the prosecution.

Details about the conditions and abuse of the women – Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus – have emerged as the prosecution presented its case against Mr. Castro. The women were kidnapped between 2002 and 2004 when they were 21, 16, and 14 years old. Castro allegedly lured the victims into his car, promising to give them a ride home, but took them to his house, where he kept them confined for about 10 years.

While in captivity, Ms. Berry gave birth to a daughter who is now 6 years old, said police reports. Ms. Knight said she had at least five miscarriages caused by Castro. The three women were repeatedly beaten and raped, police reported.

“The horrific brutality and torture the victims endured for more than a decade is beyond comprehension,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said during a news conference.

Ohio state law calls for the death penalty for the "most depraved criminals who commit aggravated murder during the course of a kidnapping," said Mr. McGinty, who will "engage in a formal process to evaluate" seeking the death penalty against the suspect.

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"I will seek charges for each and every act of sexual violence, rape, every day of kidnapping ... and each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies ... during this decade-long ordeal," he said.

Both McGinty and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson have asked residents and the media to respect the privacy of the three women and the young girl.

“The victims and their families have been overwhelmed by this response.... We need to give them room, space and time to heal," Mr. Jackson said during a press conference.

Jackson ordered Public Safety Director Marty Flask to instruct officials to not release information or details outside of the department out of respect for the victims.

“This is not for the sake of concealing any information,” he said. “It is to demonstrate compassion for the victims and their families and to ensure the credibility of the investigative process and allow us to arrive at a just conclusion to this difficult situation.”

Castro is currently being held in his own cell at the Cuyahoga County Jail under suicide prevention watch, officials told WEWS-TV. It is likely the suspect will face additional charges after a grand jury hearing within the next few weeks.

– Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Thứ Ba, 16 tháng 4, 2013

Egypt policeman sentenced to 15 years for torture

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Egypt policeman sentenced to 15 years for torture

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Thứ Hai, 15 tháng 4, 2013

Brotherhood members face torture charge in Egypt

CAIRO (AP) — Two Muslim Brotherhood officials have been sent to trial on charges of kidnapping and torturing three men during protests in November following Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's decrees, since rescinded, that granted him near absolute powers.

The case in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour north of Cairo is the first of its kind against Morsi's Brotherhood and is likely to embarrass the group at a time it is trying to fend off opposition charges of monopolizing power in the deeply polarized country.

Mohammed Bahnasy, a lawyer for the three victims, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the case was referred to trial a day earlier. The two Brotherhood local officials — Mustafa el-Khouli and Mohammed Abdel-Radi — have not been detained.

An arrest warrant has been issued for el-Khouli, who has failed to respond to a summons for questioning, according to Bahnasy. Abdel-Radi was questioned and released pending the start of the trial, according to him and another lawyer involved in the case, Mohammed Abdel-Aziz.

The Brotherhood's chief lawyer, Abdel-Monaim Abdel-Maqsoud, said the decision to refer the two to trial was "hurried" and described the investigation as "flawed."

He told the AP defense witnesses showed up at the prosecutors' office on Saturday to testify that el-Khouli and Abdel-Radi were innocent, only to be told it was too late.

"Everything will now have to wait for the trial," he said. "I am surprised at the speed with which this has been done. We have many cases of Brotherhood victims of violence and we have not seen any of them go to trial yet," said Abdel-Maqsoud.

He confirmed that the case against the two was the first of its kind since the ouster two years ago of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Bahnasy said the three men allegedly kidnapped and tortured were Mahmoud Ali, 17, Mohammed Mansour, 18, and Mustafa Farag, 21. He said the three were detained separately for up to five hours during clashes between supporters and opponents of Morsi at Damanhour's main square on Nov. 24.

El-Khouli was identified by Bahnasy and Abdel-Aziz as the administrative head of the Brotherhood's office in Damanhour. They said Abdel-Radi is a senior member of the local branch of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

The two were sent to court following a two-day sit-in by the three victims and their supporters outside Damanhour's prosecution office to protest against what they claimed was stalling on a trial.

The Damanhour case is just one of a series of bouts of political violence in the turmoil roiling Egypt since the overthrow of Mubarak's regime in February 2011.

The violence has deepened the political schism tearing Egypt apart since Morsi took office nine months ago as the country's first ever freely elected president.

At least a dozen offices belonging to the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party were ransacked, some torched, by protesters angered by Morsi's decrees.

The decrees gave immunity from the courts to an Islamist-dominated panel that drafted and hurriedly adopted a new constitution. The document was later ratified in a nationwide referendum.

One major bout of violence was on Dec. 5 when Morsi supporters were shown on video posted on social networking sites to be running impromptu detention centers outside the presidential palace in Cairo, where they tortured protesters during daylong clashes in the area.

The Brotherhood says at least 10 of its supporters were killed that day, but the opposition disputes the figure and maintains that Morsi supporters started the violence when they set upon peaceful protesters staging a sit-in outside the palace.

On March 22, the two sides clashed outside the Brotherhood's national headquarters in an eastern Cairo district. Both sides, according to witnesses, detained and beat members of the rival side during daylong clashes with rocks, sticks and firebombs.

The violence that day had its roots in an incident a week earlier when Brotherhood supporters assaulted a small crowd of protesters painting anti-Morsi graffiti on the street outside the Brotherhood's headquarters. One Brotherhood supporter was caught on camera slapping a female protester to the ground.

The Brotherhood maintains that its supporters were provoked and that they had pleaded with the activists not to paint abusive graffiti or plaster flyers on the headquarters' walls.

Morsi blames thugs for the political violence and accuses the opposition of providing political cover for it. The opposition, mostly liberal and secular, maintains that it does not condone violence.

Bahnasy said the referral documents leave no room for doubt that the alleged detention and torture of the three men took place in the Brotherhood's Damanhour offices and quotes witnesses as saying they had seen sticks, tasers and swords inside the group's headquarters.

"I will study every relevant legal book to prepare for this case," said Bahnasy, a native of Damanhour. "I will do nothing but this case and I will pursue it to the very end."

Mahmoud Duweir, a Damanhour activist, said he was at the city's main square when the Nov. 24 incident took place.

"All three came out with their clothes ripped. They had bruises and marks of blows from sticks on their bodies."

A Brotherhood supporter, Islam Massoud, was killed in clashes in the square a day later in a case that has been intensely publicized by the group.

The Brotherhood says he was killed by opposition protesters. But Bahnasy, Abdel-Aziz and Duweir insist he was slain by a single blow to the head by a Brotherhood supporter who mistook him for a protester during pitched street battles.

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Thứ Ba, 5 tháng 3, 2013

U.N. torture sleuth says no U.S. change on Guantanamo detainee access

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations' torture investigator Juan Mendez said on Tuesday the Obama administration showed no sign of reversing its position and allowing him access to terrorism suspects in long-term detention at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Mendez, whose predecessor was also denied access to Guantanamo prisoners, said the latest Washington response indicated there would be no let up in U.S. insistence he could tour the facility but could not interview detainees.

"We had hoped that there would be a change of position when Barack Obama became president in 2009," Mendez told reporters.

"But to my disappointment, the terms (offered by the United States) were no different."

Under the U.N. rules for such visits, human rights investigators should be granted free access to any prisoners they wish to see without any officials being present, and at a time of their own choosing.

A U.N. treaty defines torture as including not just physical abuse but also inhuman and degrading treatment - like long-term solitary confinement - that can inflict mental anguish on inmates.

His predecessor, Austrian professor Manfred Nowak, long sought permission from the administration of George W. Bush to talk to detainees at the prison. Nowak turned down an invitation in 2004 because he would have had no access to them.

"I am persisting, but I don't expect it to happen any time soon," said Mendez, an Argentine human rights lawyer who now lives in the U.S. capital.

HURDLES

The 67-year-old lawyer, who was imprisoned for his defence of political prisoners during military rule in Argentina in the mid-1970s, has been seeking to arrange a free access visit to Guantanamo since he took up his post in 2010.

Mendez said he was also hoping to visit the U.S. federal maximum security prison ADX at Florence, Colorado, where hundreds of convicts - many jailed on terrorism charges - are held in solitary confinement.

The application was submitted through the U.S. State Department last year but bureaucratic hurdles involving state and federal authorities had not yet been overcome. "It's certainly taking longer than I expected," said Mendez.

He said Russia was also insisting he could only tour prisons there to look into complaints of ill-treatment if he accepted he would have to get clearance from local authorities to visit each prisoner he wanted to see.

"Those are terms we just cannot accept," he told a news briefing on the fringes of a month-long session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

(Reported by Robert Evans; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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