Overreactions to Those Fleeing Syria, Central America

(Washington, DC) – United States policies toward people seeking refuge or reunification with their families in the US during 2015 have been ill-considered, discriminatory, and harmful, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2016.

“The Obama administration is sending messages of detention, discrimination, and distrust to families fleeing violence and persecution at home,”

said Alison Parker, US program co-director at Human Rights Watch.

“US policymakers should reverse course and stop treating undocumented arrivals as criminals.”

In the 659-page World Report 2016, its 26th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that the spread of terrorist attacks beyond the Middle East and the huge flows of refugees spawned by repression and conflict led many governments to curtail rights in misguided efforts to protect their security. At the same time, authoritarian governments throughout the world, fearful of peaceful dissent that is often magnified by social media, embarked on the most intense crackdown on independent groups in recent times.

In December 2014, the US opened its largest lock-up for arriving migrant families, a detention facility slated to house more than 2,400 parents and children – primarily asylum seekers from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. A year earlier, the US had only 85 beds specifically dedicated to detaining families. This new policy of detaining families from Central America in large numbers was in response to an influx of arrivals seeking refuge from uncontrolled gang violence in their home countries.

By year’s end, more than half of US governors had announced that they would oppose resettlement of refugees from Syria in their state, a reaction to the attacks in Paris in November. The US Congress subsequently debated several measures that would make it nearly impossible for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to be resettled in the US, despite a current system that involves multiple layers of vetting over a two-year period.

The US created a program in December 2014 to resettle refugee children from Central America directly from within their home countries with a parent legally residing in the US. Over 5,000 children applied for the program, but as of November 2015, only six Salvadoran children had qualified to enter the US, leaving thousands exposed to violence and persecution as they waited in their home countries to be processed under the program.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to several court rulings by announcing in June that it would end long-term detention for families that establish eligibility for asylum. However, it said it would continue to lock up many for an initial period of time, contrary to international standards restricting the detention of asylum seekers and children. At its borders, the US still used flawed expedited removal procedures that resulted in the return of many seeking protection.

The US continued to flout international law by indefinitely detaining without charge 107 men at Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration transferred 20 detainees to their home or third countries in 2015, while Congress sought new legislative obstacles to such transfers and a complete ban on transfers to the US.

“President Obama has one more year to make good on his pledge to close down Guantanamo,” Parker said. “He should speed up the process despite congressional efforts to prolong the injustices at the facility.”

The US retained its status of holding the largest reported incarcerated population, with 2.3 million people in prisons and jails. About 12 million people annually cycle through US state and county jails.

There were several important human rights victories in the US in 2015, Human Rights Watch said. These include the US Supreme Court’s landmark recognition of same-sex marriage, which applies to every US state. Congress passed laws that reinforced the prohibition of torture and ended bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, though further reforms are necessary. Ending years of litigation, California has begun dismantling its use of indefinite solitary confinement.

“Deeply offensive and discriminatory comments on a range of issues by US presidential candidates point to renewed concern for human rights in the US in the coming year,” Parker said.

Source: Human Rights Watch

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People of the World pay heed – Fascism is at work in the world: it never stopped.

National Security

The practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay entered its 14th year; at time of writing, 107 detainees remained at the facility, 48 were cleared for release, and the Obama administration had in 2015 transferred 20 detainees to their homes or third countries.

Obama administration claims that legal obstacles prevent criminal investigations into torture by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are unpersuasive, and risk leaving a legacy of torture as a policy option.

The administration continued to pursue cases before the fundamentally flawed military commissions at Guantanamo. In June, a federal appeals court overturned the 2008 conviction of Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul, the alleged Al-Qaeda “public relations director” who was found guilty of conspiracy, soliciting murder, and providing material support for terrorism. As a result of the decision, at least five of the eight convictions imposed by the military commissions are now no longer valid.

Some detainees continued hunger strikes to protest their detention, including Tariq Ba Odah, who has been force-fed by nasal tube for several years and whose lawyers and doctors say is near death. The Obama administration opposed Odah’s legal request for a court-ordered release, even though the administration had cleared him for release five years ago.

Congress and President Obama signed into law the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which in recent years has included provisions on Guantanamo detentions. In 2015, the law tightened existing restrictions on the transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo. The provisions will make it more difficult, though not impossible, to transfer detainees home or to third countries, and maintains the complete ban on transfer of detainees to the US for detention or trial.

The release in December 2014 of a summary of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s detention and interrogation program uncovered new information on the methods and extent of torture and Bush administration efforts to avoid culpability. The summary sparked calls by Human Rights Watch and others for new Justice Department criminal investigations into CIA torture and other violations of federal law, and, should the US fail to act, for action by other governments, including renewed efforts in Europe where a number of cases related to CIA torture already have been filed.

In response to the Senate summary, Congress included a provision in the NDAA that requires all US government agencies except law enforcement entities to abide by rules in the Army Field Manual on interrogation, and provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and prompt access to, all prisoners held by the US in any armed conflict. The provision will bolster existing bans on torture, but without credible criminal investigations into CIA torture it is unclear how effectively the provision will guard against future abuse.

In June, Congress took a first small step toward curbing the government’s mass surveillance practices by passing the USA Freedom Act. The law imposes limits on the scope of the collection of phone records permissible under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. It also puts in place new measures to increase transparency and oversight of surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The law does not constrain surveillance under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act or Executive Order 12333, the primary legal authorities used by the US government to justify mass violations of privacy of people outside US borders. The law also does not address many modern surveillance capabilities, from use of malware to interception of all mobile calls in a country.

US law enforcement officials continued to urge major US Internet and mobile phone companies to weaken the security of their services to facilitate surveillance in the course of criminal investigations. In May, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression

called on all countries, including the US, to refrain from weakening encryption and other online security measures because such tools are critical for the security of human rights defenders and activists worldwide.

Source: Human Rights Watch

#WlakWithJesus

Human Rights Watch is clearly telling us this is happening to people in the U.S. and in other parts of the world now. You are being surveilled no matter where you live in the world.