Dozen Ukrainian ex-POWs allege torture at Russian prison

Former Ukrainian captives say they were subjected to torture, including frequent beatings and electric shocks, while in custody at a detention facility in south-western Russia, in what would be serious violations of international humanitarian law.

In interviews with the BBC, a dozen ex-detainees released in prisoner exchanges alleged physical and psychological abuse by Russian officers and guards at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility Number Two, in the city of Taganrog.

The testimonies, gathered during a weeks-long investigation, describe a consistent pattern of extreme violence and ill-treatment at the facility, one of the locations where Ukrainian prisoners of war have been held in Russia.

Afghanistan reports of torture and killing contradict Taliban’s promises

Evidence of Taliban killings, detentions and intimidation is emerging across Afghanistan, ominously contradicting the hardline Islamist group’s promise earlier this week not to take revenge against its opponents.

With reports of the Taliban going door to door searching for people who worked with the former Afghan government or western countries, claims have also emerged of Taliban fighters torturing and killing members of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan after overrunning their village last month.

Executed Saudi men confessed under duress: Report

Dozens of Saudi Arabian nationals executed by Riyadh on Tuesday claimed to have been tortured into making false confessions, trial documents obtained by CNN revealed.

Saudi authorities said the 37 individuals were found guilty of attacking security installations with explosives, killing a number of security officers and cooperating with “enemy organisations” against the country’s interests.

But the revelations on Friday by CNN suggest many of the executed men – who for the most part were members of the country’s marginalised Shia minority – maintained their innocence until their dying breath.

'Your only right is to obey': lawyer describes torture in China's secret jails

On day one of his detention Xie Yang claims he was shackled to a metal chair and ordered to explain why he had joined an illegal anti-Communist party network.

On day two he was moved to a secret prison and informed: “Your only right is to obey.”

Finally, on day three, the violence began.

China torturing suspects in 'war on corruption' says Human Rights Watch

Regular beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and solitary confinement are among the tools used by China’s anti-corruption watchdog to force confessions, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

The report throws the spotlight on to President Xi Jinping’s war on corruption, which has punished more than a million Communist party officials since 2013. Xi has said fighting corruption is “a matter of life and death” but many experts characterise the campaign as a political purge against members of rival factions.

Director Brennan: CIA Won't Waterboard Again — Even if Ordered by Future President

CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News in an exclusive interview that his agency will not engage in harsh "enhanced interrogation" practices, including waterboarding, which critics call torture — even if ordered to by a future president.

"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan said.

Liberals dishonour generations of war and torture victims

A once-in-a-lifetime selfie opportunity presented itself at a March 10 State Department luncheon in Washington, D.C., when Justin Trudeau and his team were being feted by one of the worst comedians on the touring circuit, Secretary of State John Kerry, whose stabs at humour could only be considered capital punishment.

After the polite laughter died down, Rufus Wainwright serenaded the room as guests dug into a feast courtesy of a Montreal-born chef. Meanwhile, it seems that Canadian cabinet ministers Navdeep Bains and Mélanie Joly were busily scanning the room for famous people. As members of the Canadian delegation, one would think that they had been chosen for their ability to exercise judgment and good taste while on the international stage, rather than their skill with a smartphone.

Torture Is a Crime

The subject of U.S. policies on torture is back in the news again. With far too much frequency, I've been seeing media reports of public figures calling for a return to so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" or, even worse, using dangerous and ill-informed rhetoric in support of reviving these illegal and immoral tactics.

A question on torture for Canada's new defence minister

Rideau Hall's glorious fall foliage produced the perfect backdrop for a series of memorable photo-ops during the Trudeau government's swearing-in ceremony, from the most diverse cabinet in Canadian history to the large crowds who waited patiently for selfies with the photogenic PM.

Yet one of the most posted photos of the day did not come from the colourful festivities marking what seemed a refreshing changeover to a government marked by openness and transparency. Rather, it was an old handout of a camouflaged Sikh man packing serious heat in Afghanistan, Harjit Sajjan, who had just been named Canada's new Minister of National Defence. 

While the social media universe immediately featured a disturbing round of racist comments -- including the conclusion that the bearded man could not be trusted because he must be a Muslim -- most press coverage was far more salutary, from Foreign Policy's gushing "Canada's New Defense Minister Made His Own Gas Mask to Work With His Beard" to the National Observer's "You don't know how badass Trudeau's Defence Minister really is." 

FBI Agents Accused Of Torturing U.S. Citizen Abroad Can't Be Sued

Federal agents who illegally detain, interrogate and torture American citizens abroad can't be held accountable for violating the Constitution.

A divided federal appeals court on Friday tossed the lawsuit of a U.S. citizen who claimed the FBI trampled his rights for four months across three African countries while he was traveling overseas.

2 Cops Tortured A Young Black Man In A Holding Cell Until He Died. They Were Just Acquitted

A jury acquitted two former sheriff’s deputies of involuntary manslaughter on Friday after the death of a black college student inside a Savannah, Georgia jail holding cell on New Year’s Day.

Matthew Ajibade, 22, died from blunt force trauma after he was tasered several times while strapped in a restraint chair.

A Chatham County Superior Court jury did convict the former deputies of lesser charges: Jason Kenny was found guilty of cruelty to an inmate, while Maxine Evans was found guilty of public records fraud and three counts of perjury for lying in her grand jury testimony.

An $81 Million Betrayal of Medical Ethics

What would you be willing to do for $1 million? Most of us would probably do something foolish or embarrassing. In Afghanistan, in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, many Afghans sold out their neighbors for bounties offered by the United States for "terrorists." Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen designed and implemented a torture program for the CIA for more than $1 million each, $5 million in indemnity against legal liability, and $81 million for the firm they established - Mitchell, Jessen, & Associates. That $5 million indemnity payment was a tacit recognition that in designing and implementing a torture program, Mitchell and Jessen were breaking the law and that should this come to light, they might need some money to defend themselves. The ethically challenged psychologists, wanting to prove the effectiveness of their methods of torture, tested the theory of "learned helplessness" on human beings.

Former CIA Detainees Are Suing The Psychologists Who Developed The Torture Program

WASHINGTON -- Three former CIA detainees are suing over being tortured at the agency's infamous "black sites," the first suit to seek accountability in a U.S. court for the CIA's tactics since the Senate Intelligence Committee released the executive summary of its groundbreaking torture report. But the ex-detainees aren't suing the CIA.

They’re suing the pair that sold the spies the program.

Fiorina Endorses Torture, Warrantless Wiretap Programs

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina may not be a career politician, but a new interview sheds light on some of her firsthand experience in the national security realm.

In a Yahoo News interview published Monday, Fiorina said that shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, she redirected trucks full of Hewlett-Packard servers on their way to retail stores to Fort Meade, Maryland, upon request of then-National Security Agency director Michael Hayden.

Shocker: The CIA Isn't Sorry For Torture

WASHINGTON -- More than a year after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify its massive study on the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program -- and nearly 10 months after its gruesome executive summary was publicly released -- the CIA’s George W. Bush-era guard is still bitter.

And unsurprisingly, the former spies aren’t sorry.

In a volume to be released later this week, former CIA leaders Porter Goss, Jose Rodriguez and George Tenet, along with several other CIA leaders and lawyers, accuse the Intelligence panel’s now-minority Democrats of compiling a slanted report, and unequivocally defend the use of torture against high-level terror suspects.

Obama's Secret Elite Interrogation Squad May Not Be So Elite -- And Might Be Doomed

WASHINGTON -- When President Barack Obama took office, he promised to overhaul the nation's process for interrogating terror suspects. His solution: the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, a small interagency outfit that would use non-coercive methods and the latest psychological research to interrogate America's most-wanted terrorists -- all behind a veil of secrecy.

Canadians get on board the torture train

Just before the annual orgy of Canada Day self-celebration, the Pew Research Center released a poll revealing that over one-third of Canadians supported the use of torture. This was no late April Fool's joke, but rather a shocking figure that was part of a global survey on U.S. foreign policy and the use of what has been referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques."

The survey asked very pointedly: "If the Canadian government used torture against people 'suspected' of terrorism to try to gain information about possible attacks in our country, do you think this could be justified or could not be justified?" In response, 37 per cent said yes, while two per cent said "it depends."

The Secrecy of Torture: What Happens When Survivors' Memories Are "Declassified"?

Among the numerous bizarre facets of the Guantánamo Bay prison saga is the classification of people's memories as state secrets. For years, Guantánamo prisoners who were held in CIA secret prisons known as "black sites" could not publicly discuss their experiences and memories of their captivity. The US government argues that, in doing so, the prisoners would reveal classified information about the CIA's torture program, such as the names of interrogators, the locations of facilities and the torture techniques that were used.

Amnesty: CSIS Reliance On No-Torture 'Assurances' Troubling

OTTAWA - Newly released memos show Canada's spy agency revealed its interest in people to foreign partners in two cases after receiving assurances the individuals would not be tortured — a practice human rights advocates say shirks the law and puts vulnerable detainees at risk.

In one case, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service got the green light from a high-level internal committee to interview a Canadian detained abroad as long as captors gave "proper assurances" the person would not be abused, the CSIS documents say.

CIA torture appears to have broken spy agency rule on human experimentation

The Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” – before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees – that raise new questions about the limits on the agency’s in-house and contracted medical research.

Sections of a previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday, empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people.