Some of us pause on Good Friday to mark the torture and death of a high-value detainee rendered, extraordinarily, to Roman occupiers. Although the charges against Jesus of Nazareth were trumped up, the Romans decided to err on the safe side by going to the “dark side.” They applied enhanced torture techniques with the ultimate hanging. I [...]

Travelers to Cuba and music lovers are familiar with the song “Guantanamera”— literally, the girl from Guantánamo. With lyrics by José Martí, the father of Cuban independence, Guantanamera is probably the most widely known Cuban song. But Guantánamo is even more famous now for its U.S. military prison. Where “Guantanamera” is a powerful expression of [...]

Ex general asumirá presidencia de Guatemala El próximo 14 de enero, el general retirado Otto Pérez Molina, candidato del derechista Partido Patriota (PP), asumirá la presidencia de Guatemala. Durante su campaña prometió “mano dura” contra la delincuencia, el narcotráfico y el crimen organizado, logrando captar el voto de una población atemorizada por los altos índices de [...]

La Dra. Silvia Quintela fue “desaparecida” por los escuadrones de la muerte en Argentina en 1977 cuando estaba embarazada de cuatro meses con su primer hijo. Fue mantenida con vida en una base militar hasta que dio a luz a su hijo y luego, al igual que otras víctimas de la junta militar, fue probablemente [...]

The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries. For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there. Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture. [...]

Dr. Silvia Quintela was “disappeared” by the death squads in Argentina in 1977 when she was four months pregnant with her first child. She reportedly was kept alive at a military base until she gave birth to her son and then, like other victims of the military junta, most probably was drugged, stripped naked, chained [...]

Dumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal? Is the Libyan war legal?  Was Bin Laden’s killing legal?  Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination?  Were those “enhanced interrogation techniques” legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks.  Each seems to [...]

WikiLeaks’ latest revelations — secret military files on almost all of the 779 prisoners held in the US “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — are already causing a stir, and for good reason, as they resuscitate a story that appears to have been forgotten in the last few years: [...]

Los acuerdos económicos con las dictaduras árabes de Oriente Próximo y el norte de Africa explican el silencio internacional Las revueltas no sólo desafían a la represión de los regímenes: también al implícito apoyo occidental a los tiranos mediante la economía “Es la economía, estúpido!”. La famosa frase James Carville, asesor de Bill Clinton durante la [...]

The WikiLeaks suspect’s mistreatment amounts to torture. Either President Obama knows this or he should make it his business. President Obama tells us that he’s asked the Pentagon whether the conditions of confinement of Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with leaking state secrets, “are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure [...]