personal note

A few people have contacted me wondering where I am. I'm sorry. I must confess that my motives for neglecting my blog are entirely selfish. I can't help but take human rights abuse "personally". The revelation that I am a citizen of a country involved in this, a country for which up to two-thirds of the citizens approve of it, has been the dark night of my soul. I honestly thought that letting everyone know that this was happening was all that was needed, but now I see that the problem runs much deeper than that, and may be fundamental to human nature itself. The size of the problem has overwhelmed me.

I need some time to recoup. I need to find that place again where this knowledge gives me the will to fight, rather than sapping it away in a morass of depression and fatalism. Please give me some more time. I wish to get back to it more than anything, but I am no good to anyone without the right frame of mind. Know that I am doing everything that I can to overcome my limitations.

Short break

Rummy's Diaries will be taking a short break for the next month, but that doesn't mean that nothing's happening. Check out the collaborative project Bloggers Against Torture to see where all the action is, and please feel welcome join in.

Would you like this on your blog?

We're starting a Bloggers Against Torture blogroll alliance here

Next month is Torture Awareness Month. To help NGOs like Amnesty and Human Right First with their campaign, I've created a blogroll called Bloggers Against Torture. To add yourselves to the blogroll, all you need to do is help promote Torture Awareness Month by mentioning it on your blog. You can simply talk about it, you can use the graphic and link above, or you can grab the blogroll script from Bloggers Against Torture for some reciprocal linking goodness.

Latest updates

Happy Easter!

As this is when Christians the world over remember that Jesus was tortured to death for their sins, I thought it would be a good time to finally get around to two cases from the US detention facility at Bagram:

• 11-2002: Habibullah tortured to death (which, despite the title, is actually a fairly uplifting story), and
• 12-2002: Dilawar tortured to death, which includes a timeline revealing the initial cover-up of the two deaths.

For those following pre-Christian traditions in the Northern Hemisphere, Easter and the symbols of the egg and the bunny represent spring and renewal. With that tenuous connection, the following old posts have been updated:

• 09-2003: Mousa dies in British custody, to add details of how he was murdered, and to note that colonel charged with overseeing the troops who killed him is being promoted.
• 08-2002: Memo, Bybee: a narrow definition of torture, to note an American Republican Congressperson expressing moral concerns about the memo.
• 11-2003: Death in custody, Mowhoush, to add details about how he was murdered, and to note that the Chief Warrant Officer escaped the murder charge, and instead a panel of six Army officers convicted him of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty.
• 04-2002: Benyam Mohammed renditioned, to add the detail that Mohammed's torture (scalpel cuts to the genitalia) led him to falsely confess to being in league with Jose Padilla, whom he'd actually never met.
• 11-2001: Tipton Three detained, to note that their torture led to them making a false confession, and to provide a link to a doco on their story.
• 01-2002: Arar, CCR, sues Ashcroft, to note that their case was dismissed.
• 04-2005: Passaro case, to note that Passaro will be allowed to present evidence that he was following orders when he interrogated an Afghan detainee to death.
• 12-2005: CPT hostages killed unless detainees freed, which now notes that Tom Fox was murdered, and the rest rescued, and that some American Republicans used the incident to make a political point.
• 01-2006: Carrol killed unless female Iraqi detainees freed, to note that she was released unharmed, and to observe that some American Republicans continued a recent theme by attacking Carrol's motives and questioned whether she really was kidnapped.

The following posts are new:

• 13 April 2006: Stolen US military flash drives includes torture photographs
• 14 October 2005: Dossari suicide attempts, with an update noting that he tried again recently, and his lawyers are having difficulty finding out if he's still alive
• 15 May 2004: Investigations into Afghan detention facilities reveal one murder, four deaths, and eight beaten.
• 07 September 2002: Abuse at Kandahar Detainee Facility

Stolen US military flash drives include torture photographs

Today MSNBC will report on stolen US military flash drives being sold in a bazaar outside Bagram Airport. Bagram is a site at which US forces have commited numerous tortures and abuses against detainees (see third group of bullet points).

Among the photos of Americans are pictures of individuals who appear to have been tortured and killed, most too graphic to show. NBC News does not know who caused their injuries. The Pentagon would not comment on the photos.

(This entry concerns a current event, and will be updated)

Latest updates

Latest updates:

• 03 March 2006: 3/4 Baghdad morgue deliveries executions, often tortured first
• 28 Feb 2006: Grievances fuelling insurgency
• 20 Feb 2006: Iran's Minister of Defence scores rhetorical points against US
• 17 February 2006: Washington Post on Iraqi sectarian violence
• 15 February 2006: Torture strengthens insurgency
• 08 February 2006: Republicans in house committee vote down torture investigation
• 05 February 2006: CIA chief fired for opposing torture
• 01 Feb 2006: Creating terrorists
• 24 January 2006: German hostages in orange overalls
• 08 December 2005: Marine tells of US torturing Afghans, commits murder-suicide
• 18 November 2005: Hamra bombing retaliation against Interior Ministry torture
• 27 September 2004: Evidence against prisoners at GTMO obtained by torturing other prisoners
• 04 March 2002: Incident: Kiyemba

Please direct comments to entries themselves, as this post will be deleted with the next update.

3/4 Baghdad morgue deliveries executions, often tortured first

Today The Washington Post will quote former UN human rights chief for Iraq, John Pace, saying that between two-thirds and three-fourths of the victims brought to Baghdad's main morgue are recorded as casualties of gunshot wounds. Nearly all showed signs of having been executed, tortured or both.

The statistics of deaths and causes of death in Iraq are not without politicisation and controversy. Regarding other estimates by the Washington Post

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said on Tuesday that 379 people had been killed since Feb. 22, and he described as inaccurate and exaggerated a Washington Post report that put the death toll at 1,300.

The acting director of the morgue, Qais Hassan, also denied The Post's figure... Hassan began running the morgue when the director, Faik Bakir, fled the country a few months ago after being threatened over the release of morgue information seen as linking many killings to death squads...

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Further reading, opinions and commentary:

• Washington Post, 09 March 2003, 'Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count'
• Free Iraq, 03 December 2005