Four years after President Obama signed an executive order to ban torture, we’re still debating whether it saved American lives. Why? Because the most authoritative record of the CIA’s post-9/11 “enhanced interrogation” program remains classified.

News broke recently that the CIA has edited the script for the Academy-Award winning film, Zero Dark Thirty,–raising much needed attention to the CIA’s role in actively shaping the torture debate. Human Rights First’s Raha Wala joins us in the podcast.

A Bahraini court has sentenced six people to a year in prison for the crime of insulting the king, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, on Twitter. This ruling is part of an ongoing crackdown in internet freedom, which is taking place across the Gulf.

The Arab Spring uprisings were largely driven by a tech-empowered citizenry, which used social media to organize and communicate. Well aware of this, Gulf governments are stifling free expression online. There is a growing list of youth activists targeted for “electronic crimes.”

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As the world celebrates International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people who have fled their home countries due to persecution continue to face high risks of violence in the countries where they have sought refuge.

Last year, to commemorate IDAHO, we released a report documenting violence against LGBTI refugees in Uganda and Kenya and their difficulties accessing assistance. In some countries, LGBTI refugees face threats of arrest, detention, and sometimes violence by the police due to laws criminalizing same-sex relations. LGBTI refugees may also face violence from citizens or fellow members of the refugee community. Read More»

Photo of Thapelo Mukhutle

As South Africa provides leadership on LGBT rights, it needs to take further steps to protect LGBT people from violence. Despite prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people and allowing same-sex couples to marry, LGBT South Africans have been killed, and their survivors face an uphill struggle to access justice.

Last year we reported on Thapelo Makhutle, a young gay man living in Kuruman who was murdered in his home following an altercation at a nightclub over his sexual orientation. Thapelo was mutilated in such a way that it was clear to those that found the body that the killer was making a statement. Despite a quick identification of the murderer and a full confession, the case has been delayed four times. Finally, a year later, Thapelo’s murderer will face justice.   

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Four years ago, Ana Patricia Centeno, a lesbian and Honduran LGBT activist, was granted asylum in the United States. After years of fear, persecution, and violence she is now living without having to look over her shoulder.

In Honduras—amid a dangerous climate for LGBT people, which has long been documented—she bravely fought for the equal rights of sexual minorities. Members of the LGBT community had been beaten, abducted, murdered with impunity, and fallen victim to ‘corrective rape’. Tragically, as her profile rose as an activist, Ana Patricia became a victim of the latter. She feared for her life.

She fled Honduras and came to New York to seek safety. Through Human Rights First’s Asylum Legal Representation program, we provided Ana Patricia a pro bono attorney that helped her gain asylum in the United States. Her pro bono attorney also worked with her to bring her children to the country. Today, she continues her work fighting for women’s and LGBT rights from her home in New Jersey, knowing that the situation remains dire for those who remain in Honduras.

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Remember the Academy Award-winning film Zero Dark Thirty? Well, last week news broke that the CIA edited the film’s script to make sure that it didn’t portray the “enhanced interrogation” program in a way that would make the agency look bad.

But Zero Dark Thirty isn’t the only thing the CIA’s trying to edit.

The Senate Intelligence Committee recently completed a 3-year study of the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program. Those who have read the study—including Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Senate intelligence committee—say it shows that brutal torture was much more widespread and cruel than we thought, and much less effective at gathering actionable intelligence than torture proponents claim.

But reports suggest that the CIA is fighting the committee’s findings tooth and nail, and trying to rewrite the study.

We can’t let that happen.

Urge President Obama to direct his administration to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee on its study, and make sure it’s released to the American people.

Until the study is made public, torture proponents will continue to cite secret knowledge to argue that the CIA torture program was safe, lawful, and effective—that it saved lives and led us to criminals like Osama bin Laden.

If made public, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s study could debunk those claims.

As Senator John McCain said, “At a moment when our country is once again debating the efficacy and morality of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation’ practices, this study has the potential to set the record straight once and for all.” I agree.

Urge President Obama to direct his administration to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee on its study, and make sure it’s released to the American people.

When talking about the future of counterterrorism and war, four letters seem to be on everyone’s lips in Washington these days: AUMF.

Last week, Politico reported that legislators have been debating whether to revise the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), enacted in 2001, which gives the president the authority to use force against those people or organizations who attacked the United States on September 11, which the government has interpreted as al Qaeda and the Taliban, and their “associated forces.” Just what “associated forces” means, and who falls into this category, is unclear.

Passed in the days after 9/11, the AUMF remains one of the stated legal justifications for everything from the war in Afghanistan to targeted killings in places like Yemen. But as the war in Afghanistan winds down, and the core al Qaeda group weakens, the AUMF may no longer be useful or applicable.

Some, like the authors of a Hoover Institute paper called “A Statutory Framework for Next-Generation Terrorist Threats,” want a new, expanded AUMF to address threats from groups outside the scope of the 2001 Authorization. They believe that this is the best way to respond to emerging terrorist threats: an open-ended authorization to use military force against any group  the president deems a threat to the United States.

But others, like Steve Vladeck and Jennifer Daskal, disagree. Writing for the legal blog Lawfare, Vladeck and Daskal point out that once the war in Afghanistan ends, the United States will no longer be involved in an armed conflict with the Taliban, core al Qaeda, or their affiliates. “One would think, then,” they write, “that this is hardly a propitious time to begin discussing an expansion of statutory authorities to use military force,” adding, “[W]e fear that the sweeping and preemptive militarization of counterterrorism for which they argue is not just unnecessary on current facts, but also deeply misguided—and likely counterproductive—as a matter of policy and prudence.”

Former Obama staffers are also skeptical about a new AUMF and a never-ending war.

Former Defense Department advisor Rosa Brooks points out that the Obama administration has used the AUMF as the justification for targeted killing of suspected terrorists outside the traditional battlefield, but that an “AUMF 2.0” is a bad idea and “An expanded AUMF is also unnecessary. Even if Congress simply repealed the 2001 AUMF (as the New York Times editorial board urges) instead of revising it, the president already has all the legal authority he needs to keep the nation safe.”

Jeh Johnson, former Defense Department counsel, described a “tipping point,” when “so many of the leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al Qaeda as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed.”

And Harold Koh, former State Department counsel, said in a speech at the Oxford Union, “First and most important, our overriding goal should be to end this Forever War, not to engage in a perpetual ‘global war on terror,’ without geographic or temporal limits.”

Even in his inaugural address in 2013, President Obama stated, “A decade of war is now ending … We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.” The president also declined a new AUMF when Congress tried to insert it into the annual national defense spending bill last year, writing that he didn’t need a new AUMF to carry out counterterrorism operations.

Those in government should have a very serious conversation about whether we need the current AUMF, and whether the president should have the power to commit the United States to a never-ending war.

Last week members of the Senate Judiciary Committee filed potential amendments to the bipartisan immigration bill (S. 744) negotiated by the “Gang of 8” – Senators Michael Bennet, Richard Durbin, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Robert Menendez, Marco Rubio and Charles Schumer.  Among the proposed amendments are two sponsored by Senator Grassley (Grassley 27 and Grassley 52) that would eliminate or substantially delay two targeted reforms to the U.S. asylum system included in the bipartisan bill:  section 3401 which would eliminate a filing deadline bar that prevents genuine refugees from receiving US asylum; and section 3404 which authorizes some asylum cases to be resolved through a full asylum office interview conducted by trained Department of Homeland Security –U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS-USCIS) asylum officers.

Refugee Council USA, a coalition of faith based and other organizations (including Human Rights First) ,  sent a letter on the amendments to the Senate Judiciary Committee members specifically asking them to oppose Grassley 27 and Grassley 52 as well as other amendments that would impact refugees and asylum seekers. Faith and other community leaders in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, and Utah also sent letters directly to their Senators in support of the refugee and asylum provisions in the bipartisan bill.    Last week, a diverse group of faith leaders urged U.S. Senators to protect the refugee and asylum provisions in the immigration bill.  On April 26, 2103, over 200 humanitarian, faith-based and refugee-serving organizations from across the United States wrote to the Gang of 8 to welcome and support their inclusion of provisions in the Senate bill that would protect refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons – including a provision that would eliminate the asylum filing deadline.    Read More»

Late in the evening of May 9th, Vladislav Tornovoi became the latest victim of homophobic violence in Russia. Discovered in a courtyard in Volgograd, Tornovoi had been beaten to death and sodomized with beer bottles, his face unrecognizable after three men bludgeoned him with stones. The motive of his attackers was simple: they had overheard Tornovoi discussing his sexual orientation.

Russia’s LGBT people are under an ever-present threat of violence, and recent actions by the government legitimize hatred. Last year’s 100-year ban on gay pride parades in Moscow and the passing of a bill in the first reading prohibiting so-called “homosexual propaganda” in February 2013 are attempts to codify discrimination. (The propaganda law has gone as far as to call attempts to confront homophobia “extremist” because they inherently “incite social and religious hatred.”) Likewise, attacks on the LGBT community often go unprosecuted, and on the rare occasions they are, homophobia as a motive goes unmentioned.

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In 1998, Indonesia’s President Suharto fell from power, ushering in an unprecedented period of reformasi, or political reform. But progress in democratization has been met with resistance from many of those accustomed to power, including members of the military.

Historically, there has been tension between the national police and Kopassus, an Indonesian Army special forces group. Kopassus has a record of human rights violations across the country, beginning in the 1960s in Java and extending to East Timor, Aceh, and Papua in the decades since. The well-documented East Timor abuses prompted the U.S. Congress to impose a ban on military contact with the elite forces in 1999.
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