As I wrote last Wednesday, 17 of the Uighur Guantanamo detainees were to be taken to Palau, a place the majority of the Americans if they are interested at all, would have to look in an atlas to locate… It does not matter, as long as no detainees are taking to US land, everybody is happy. Read the rest of this entry »

In the continuing saga of what to do with the Guantanamo detainees still left in the detention center in Cuba, the resettling of the 17 Uighurs Chinese Muslims now held there has attracted a lot of attention. The U.S. would not send the Uighurs back to China as it is feared that they will be tortured or executed. Read the rest of this entry »

In these times of immediate news, most of which are if not worrisome at least they appear so, we seem to forget about them as quickly as we get them. Either is because our mind refuses to accept so much or because the saturation makes it impossible to concentrate constantly in much of what is happening. Read the rest of this entry »

Following what I wrote in ‘Spanish courts accuse former US officials of torture’,
I have read some late news about the investigation being stopped that have made me wonder if this was caused by pressure from the US. Read the rest of this entry »

It took a while until the American media began reporting that Criminal proceedings had begun in Spain against six senior officials in the Bush administration – Alberto Gonzales, a former White House counsel and attorney general; David Addington, former vice-president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff; Douglas Feith, who was under-secretary of defense; William Haynes, formerly the Pentagon’s general counsel; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, who were both senior justice department legal advisers- for the use of torture against detainees in Guantánamo Bay. Read the rest of this entry »

All is not as good as it was predicted when Barack Obama won the nomination for president of the United States. After eight years of what was perceived in Europe as the disastrous administration of President Bush, Europeans were ready to embrace Obama as a welcome change. Read the rest of this entry »

Exactly one week ago the US government issued its report on human rights with the findings of 2008. Europe was not absent from it. Some of the problems found were in Belgium accused of discrimination on the labor market; neonazi extremism in Austria and abuses against Gypsies in nine EU countries. Read the rest of this entry »