human rights watch

Aaron hit this earlier, but the Obama administration has lifted the ban on Cuban families in the United States visiting their Cuban relatives. Human Rights Watch welcomes the move but says in a release that the administration should have gone further:
Congress should promptly extend to all Americans the right to travel to Cuba, Human Rights [...]

When President Obama declared early in his presidency that he plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, that was hardly the end of the matter. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder must now figure out what to do with the 240 or so people still held there. And perhaps no cases cry out more [...]

President Obama really opened a big fat can of worms when he issued those executive orders last week.  Not only did he make all sorts of promises on state secrets that he’s now being called on to fulfill, but in promising to review the conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay, he opened himself up to [...]

The Bush administration is set to argue to the military commissions appeals court in Washington Tuesday that a confession obtained from a teenager under torture in Afghanistan should still be admissible against him at his trial.

As Spencer just noted, it’s yet another day of strange and tumultuous proceedings, the five detainees charged with planning the 9/11 attacks withdrew their initial attempt to plead guilty before the Guantanamo military commission. Although all five detainees this morning sent a letter to the judge indicating they wanted to plead guilty, later in [...]

The New York Times’ Sunday lead editorial is devoted to how the new Obama administration can and should close down Guantanamo Bay shortly after Barack Obama assumes the presidency on Jan. 20.
The Times draws on the detailed recommendations of Human Rights Watch, which offers a sensible step-by-step plan for how the notorious prison can [...]

Liberal groups see a successful counterterrorism strategy doing more than ending torture, closing Guantanamo Bay, restricting CIA interrogation practices and curbing domestic spying. It must restore America’s moral stature in the world, and one way to do that is help resolve Arab-Israeli conflicts. The new administration seems receptive to the need for change.

Salon notes today that President Bush could decide to pardon himself, his cabinet and anyone else in his administration who may have committed war crimes by torturing and otherwise abusing suspected terrorists, or those known to “pal around with terrorists,” as Sarah Palin might put it. Although that would seem to be a quasi-admission [...]