Uruguay Agrees To Take Five Guantánamo Prisoners

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Uruguay Agrees To Take Five Guantánamo Prisoners

Syria News FSA Using Prisoners for a Suicide Bomber Syria war

California: Mentally ill prisoners forced from cells with pepper spray

Paige St. John
L.A. Times
November 1, 2013

Videotapes released Thursday by a federal court show mentally ill prisoners in California being forced from their cells by guards who douse them repeatedly with pepper spray.

Some of the inmates are being forced to comply with medication orders; others are to be moved to new cells.

The six tapes, created by guards abiding by a state policy to record all cell extractions, were shown in court in October as part of a lawsuit by inmates’ lawyers seeking a ban on the use of pepper spray against the mentally ill. The tapes were ordered released by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, who is holding hearings on the issue in Sacramento.

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This article was posted: Friday, November 1, 2013 at 10:37 am

Tags: domestic news, government corruption, police state

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Infowars

California: Mentally ill prisoners forced from cells with pepper spray

VIDEO: Box Office: "Cloudy 2" No. 1 With $35 Million; "Prisoners" Edges Out "Rush"

A crowded weekend at the North American box office saw Sony’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 opening to a strong $35 from 4,001 theaters, while the three other new offerings — Ron Howard’s Rush, Baggage Claim and Don Jon — turned in mixed performances.

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VIDEO: Box Office: "Cloudy 2" No. 1 With $35 Million; "Prisoners" Edges Out "Rush"

VIDEO: Hugh Jackman: Violence in "Prisoners" is Different

Hugh Jackman’s latest film, “Prisoners”, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. The film is about a father, played by Mr. Jackman, whose daughter goes missing, and the lengths he’ll go to to find her. Mr. Jackman tells WSJ’s Barbara Chai that the role required him to portray violence in a less crowd-pleasing way than he does in other films.

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VIDEO: Hugh Jackman: Violence in "Prisoners" is Different

Pakistan releases Indian prisoners as it strives to improve ties

WAGAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan released 337 Indian prisoners, most of them fishermen, on Saturday in the latest sign that Pakistan’s new government wants to improve rocky ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Reuters: Top News

Pakistan releases Indian prisoners as it strives to improve ties

Dozens of California prisoners hospitalized after 40 days of hunger strike

Published time: August 17, 2013 11:18

Dozens of inmates on a hunger strike in California prisons have been hospitalized – 40 days into an organized fast by 200 prisoners. The inmates are protesting state prison conditions, including increasing reliance on solitary confinement as a punishment.

Prison doctors say they fear for the health of 118 prisoners who have been on continuous hunger strike since July 8, when tens of thousands of inmates in California prisons refused breakfast.

The units, where prisoners are kept in cells for 23 hours per day and allowed an hour of solitary exercise in an enclosed yard, have raised concerns from human rights activists, who argue that prisoners are harmed by a lack of social interaction.

According to nutritionists, by the 40th day of refusing food inmates will be suffering from a series of medical and psychological problems, some of which may cause irreparable damage to their health.

“Everything shrinks and the body tends to be starving and just about nothing else,” Dr. Marc Hellerstein, who studies nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley told Reuters. “They will have less judgment, they will have less interest, they will become socially withdrawn and isolated. They just want to curl up in a corner.”

The receiver’s office has not published the total number of inmates who began eating again after falling ill, but strike participation is dropping. According to officials, 292 inmates remained on hunger strike Monday, including 144 continuously since the action began. By Thursday, 226 were on hunger striker, 118 continuously.

Among the complaints sending inmates to hospital are dehydration, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness and lightheadedness.

“It can have long-term effects on your internal organs as your body is pretty much eating itself from the inside out,” said Liz Gransee, a spokeswoman for the federal receiver overseeing care in the state’s prisons.

One inmate who participated in the hunger strike has died in solitary confinement. Thirty-two year old William Sell ended his hunger strike on July 21, but hanged himself the next day. He was serving a life sentence for attempted murder, and was awaiting trial for the murder of a cellmate. Prison rights activists said his death was a result of his participation in the fasting.

The hunger strike is aimed at improving conditions at four Secure Housing Units where over 4,500 inmates are held in near-isolation, some for committing crimes while incarcerated and others believed to be gang members.

The protest has already gone on twice as long as a similar hunger strike in 2011. More than 30,000 convicts refused meals in the first days of the mass strike. Numbers have dramatically dropped since then, with roughly 1,000 inmates at 11 prisons participating 20 days later.

Amnesty International has called on the US Justice Department to stop punishing California prison hunger strikers who are protesting unregulated solitary confinement policies.

“Prisoners seeking an end to inhumane conditions should not be subjected to punitive measures for exercising their right to engage in peaceful protest,” Amnesty International’s USA researcher Angela Wright said. “Prolonged isolation under conditions which can only be described as cruel and inhumane treatment is prohibited under international law.”

Earlier this month, despite warnings from California officials, the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year’s end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons. The court dismissed a complaint by California Governor Jerry Brown seeking to halt the early release, which had been approved by a lower court. Brown argued that releasing 10,000 inmates would mean letting violent criminals out on the streets.

A panel of three federal judges had previously ordered the state to cut its prison population by nearly 8 percent to roughly 110,000 inmates by December 31 to avoid conditions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. That panel, responding to decades of lawsuits filed by inmates, repeatedly ordered early releases after finding inmates were needlessly dying and suffering because of inadequate medical and mental health care caused by overcrowding, AP reported. Court-appointed experts discovered that the prison system had a suicide rate that worsened last year to 24 per 100,000 inmates, far in excess of the national average in state prisons of 16 suicides per 100,000 inmates.

RT – USA

Dozens of California prisoners hospitalized after 40 days of hunger strike

‘Gitmo Clock’ counts seconds since Obama’s unfulfilled pledge to free prisoners

Published time: August 09, 2013 09:58

Activists calling for closure of Guantanamo Bay prison have launched an online clock, which counts the time since President Obama’s latest promise to set free inmates whom the US cleared for release. So far all of the 86 men remain incarcerated.

The clock is a symbolic reminder of the fate of the 166 people who are currently kept in the controversial US facility.

Dozens of detainees are continuing their so-far six-month hunger strike, a gesture of despair from the people, who have little hope to ever be free, says Andy Worthington, a human rights activist who has been advocating for Guantanamo prisoners for years.

The promise to close Guantanamo prison was one of the key points of Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign. One of his first moves as the president was an order to do so, yet the facility still remains active.

The latest pledge from the president regarding Gitmo inmates came in a key security policy speech in May, which came in response to the concerns over the hunger strike voiced by some international bodies, including the UN, the EU and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Obama said that 86 inmates, who were cleared for release in January 2010 by the inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force, would be given freedom. The majority of those on the list – 56 – are Yemenis. The number of people released so far is 0. In the last three years seven prisoners have left Guantanamo.

With a few exceptions, Guantanamo prisoners were never charged with any crimes or tried. Of the 80 inmates not cleared for release, 46 were recommended for indefinite detention without trial, because there was no sufficient evidence against them. The majority of those recommended for prosecution has not been put forward for trials, and are unlikely to be, according to General Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor of the military commissions.

US lawmakers demand that the presidential administration certifies that any Guantanamo prisoner released would not be able to engage in any terrorist activities against the US. Worthington argues that such a certification is almost impossible to make.

While Guantanamo inmates remain in legal limbo, a terrorist threat has returned to the frontline of the public discourse in the US this week. Washington issued a major alert and shut down dozens of its diplomatic outposts, mostly in the Middle East, Persian Gulf region and Africa. The US also evacuated non-essential staff from two facilities in Yemen and Pakistan, also warning its citizens that those countries are not safe for travel.

The terror alert came after an intercepted Al-Qaeda communication indicating a major plot against America, US officials explained. Some skeptics voiced their doubts, saying that the threat may have been blown out of proportion and that the alert is being used to justify the massive surveillance methods used by the US National Security Agency.

The existence of programs for dragnet collection of electronic data, which was made public by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, sparked a major scandal. The US maintains that the programs are lawful, efficient and morally justified methods to provide national security. Critics see it as a major violation of privacy.

RT – USA

‘Gitmo Clock’ counts seconds since Obama’s unfulfilled pledge to free prisoners