 The following are excerpts from an interview with Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf, the son of Sheik Hassan Yousuf, Hamas leader in the West Bank. Yousuf Jr. converted to Christianity, and recently revealed that he had collaborated with Israel. The interview aired on BBC Arabic on March 12, 2010.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: I have said, and I continue to say, that my problem is not with Hamas or with the Muslims. My problem is with the God of Islam and with the Prophet of Islam. With regard to... There were continuous conflicts, which drove me to think about which direction I would like my life to go. Of course, the torture carried out by Hamas on its people in prison, their stupidity, and their political inadequacy drove me to speak out.
[...]
Interviewer: Are you saying that your views on what you call "the Islam of Hamas" are what led you to collaborate with the Israelis?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Who said there is the Islam of Hamas and the Islam of Al-Qaeda?
Interviewer: That's what you are saying, more or less.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: No, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that Islam is Islam, and the Koran is the Koran. The Koran suffers from a split personality, and the God of Islam suffers from a split personality. All the Muslims who follow the God of Islam interpret Islam as they like, but this does not negate the terroristic and murderous character of Islam, which incites people, through the Koran, to kill people and blow themselves up.
[...]
Interviewer: Where does the Koran call for terrorism?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Go to Surat Al-Tawba, verses 5 and 29. The problem is that Muslims do not understand their own religion. I call upon the Muslims to read their Koran and understand it, before they say that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion.
Interviewer: I asked you...
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: The God of Islam calls to kill any non-Muslim. The God of Islam calls to kill me today.
Interviewer: But don't you agree that Islam recognizes other religions, exalts Jesus, recognizes Judaism, and so on? Do you or do you not accept this?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: There are several unreliable views of several Islamic thinkers, but their authority does not supersede that of the God of Islam, who said: "Slay the People of the Book wherever you find them."
Interviewer: How can you say that? Did the Koran call to slay the People of the Book?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: He said: "Slay the polytheists wherever you find them." Read the surah.
Interviewer: But the People of the Book are not polytheists, are they?
[...]
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: If you want to ague with me – let's argue. Is Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the supreme role model for the Muslims?
Interviewer: What do you think?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Did Muhammad kill the Jews of Khaybar, or didn't he? You tell me. Why distort the facts? The Muslims must be honest with themselves and with the rest of the world. Muhammad – the supreme role model for the Muslims – killed the Jews of Khaybar, of Qureiza, and of Nadhir. He killed their children and captured their women. This is the supreme role model for the Muslims.
Interviewer: So your problem is with history, not with the present.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: My problem is with that false prophet, Muhammad, and with the God of Islam.
[...]
The Muslims are not terrorists by nature. They are among the best nations, in my opinion. However, if the Muslims continue to cover for the terrorists, and to glorify and honor terrorists who blow themselves up, killing children, they will continue to be accomplices. My father is an accomplice.
[...]
Israel has been acting with violence, and killed innocent people. It killed people with or without a reason, but mistakes may happen. Every country on the face of the earth makes mistakes, not only Israel. The difference between Israel and Hamas...
Interviewer: When Israel kills innocent people, this is a "mistake," but when others kill innocent people, it is not?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Killing is a mistake – regardless of who the killer is – but Hamas has no principles, no laws, and no limits, whereas Israel is bound by law and constitution. If there is a racist Israeli, he will stand trial. Give me one example of a Hamas official who stood trial.
[...]
In my view, if Islam were implemented properly, this would spell the destruction of the Arab and Muslim world – the whole world, in fact – because every Muslim would become a Bin Laden.
[...]
The Christians have been persecuted for the past 14 centuries – not by the Muslims, but by the God of Islam. The persecution begins in the Koran and in the behavior of the Prophet of Islam. View Film Clip Here. With thanks to MEMRI 
 A COURT in the United Arab Emirates has acquitted the UAE President's brother of charges of torturing an Afghan as seen on US television but convicted five co-defendants, including two Americans, his lawyer said. The court acquitted Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahayan "after establishing he was not responsible" for the torture of the Afghan merchant in 2004, lawyer Habib al-Mulla said. Allegations against the sheikh emerged after the video, aired in April, appeared to show him beating a man with whips, electric cattle prods and a wooden plank with protruding nails. Assisted by police, Sheikh Issa is seen to pour salt in the man's wounds and run over him with a four-wheel drive. The victim needed months of hospital care following the incident. He was reportedly an Afghan trader who lost a consignment of grain worth $US5000 ($5450). However, the UAE court accepted the sheikh's defence that he was "under the influence of drugs that left him unaware of his actions", his lawyer said. The two US defendants of Lebanese origin, brothers Ghassan and Bassam Nabulsi, were sentenced to five years in jail each in absentia for having drugged the sheikh. The lawyer said the Afghan victim had demanded compensation from the brothers rather than from Sheikh Issa. Bassam Nabulsi reportedly leaked the video which exposed the case. The court also sentenced three other workers at the farm where the torture took place to between one and three years in jail for drugging the sheikh, likewise in absentia, according to Mulla. A guard at the farm was acquitted. Mulla said Sheikh Issa, 40, who has been in detention for the past seven months, would be released. The verdict, however, is not final as it will have to be reviewed by a higher court if the public prosecution decides to challenge the ruling. Sheikh Issa, who is the brother of UAE President and oil-rich Abu Dhabi's ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, pleaded not guilty at a hearing last month. The lawyer told the hearing in December the sheikh had been drugged against his will during the incident and had no recollection of what had happened. "We submitted medical reports showing that the drugs that the two co-defendants administered to him left him unaware of his actions," the lawyer said on December 15. In a rare trial of a high-ranking member of the ruling family, Sheikh Issa was charged at an opening hearing last October with endangering life, causing bodily harm and with rape for the incident. The lawyer told the court that one of the sheikh's co-defendants was responsible for Sheikh Issa's medications and had drugged him, then videotaped the incident and tried to blackmail him. The Australian
 By FARNAZ FASSIHI At the height of Iran's bloody civil unrest this year, a young doctor named Ramin Pourandarjani defied his superiors. He refused to sign death certificates at a Tehran prison that he said were falsified to cover up murder. He testified to a parliamentary committee that jailers were torturing and raping protesters, his family says. He told friends and family he feared for his life. And on Nov. 10, the 26-year-old doctor was found dead in the military clinic where he lived and worked. The family of Dr. Pourandarjani, who occasionally treated prisoners in fulfillment of Iran's obligatory military service, says he was killed for his refusal to participate in a coverup at the notorious Kahrizak detention center, widely criticized for its unsanitary conditions. In a series of interviews over three weeks, Dr. Pourandarjani's family spoke in detail for the first time about their son's mysterious death. Iranian officials first blamed the doctor's death on a car accident, then a heart attack, then suicide and then poisoning, according to family members and government statements. The controversy over his fate is transforming the doctor into a martyr for the opposition movement challenging the legitimacy of Iran's rulers. In a sign of his mounting symbolic importance, on Dec. 8 Iran's national prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, was pressed by local reporters at a news conference for answers. He said the case remains under investigation. Mr. Mohseni-Ejei couldn't be reached for comment. A spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations said the case is being probed and declined to answer questions. "I sent off my young, healthy and beautiful son to military service, and I got his dead body back," says his mother, Ruhangiz Pourandarjani, who lives in the northwest city of Tabriz. "Anyone who says he committed suicide is lying and should be afraid of God." In Iran, protestors now carry the doctor's picture in street marches and chant his name along with that of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman whose shooting death in June was captured on video and broadcast world-wide. A popular new slogan at some marches: "Our Neda is not dead, Our Ramin is not dead, it's the Supreme Leader who is dead," a reference to Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mothers of individuals killed in Iran's antigovernment protests this year have formed a support group, Grieving Mothers, who march silently Sunday afternoons at Laleh Park in Tehran holding pictures of their dead children. This month, security officials arrested 15 members. They were freed a few days later when crowds gathered near the jail, demanding their release. The opposition says more than 70 Iranians have been killed since June in a crackdown on the protests that erupted after the nation's disputed presidential election. The government says 17 people have died, including a dozen of its own security forces. Iran denies allegations that jailed protesters were tortured or raped and blames the deaths in Kahrizak on a meningitis outbreak. The prison has been closed in the wake of torture allegations there. An influential Iranian parliamentarian and former health minister, Masoud Pezeshkian, is pressing for a full investigation of Dr. Pourandarjani's death. The claim of a suicide by "someone who was a witness in Kahrizak, and has no background for mental illness, is suspicious," he told local news agencies. More at WSJ
 Palestinian security agents who have allegedly tortured Hamas supporters in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the UK's Guardian newspaper has reported. The US Central Intelligence Agency has co-operated with the Preventive Security Force (PSF) and General Intelligence Service (GI) in the Palestinian territory, the report on Friday said. "The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services," a western official told the Guardian. Most of the detained Hamas supporters are held without trial and allegedly tortured by the Palestinian agencies in the West Bank. Hamas backed the Guardian's findings on Friday during a press conference, and blamed Keith Dayton, the US General commanding the Palestinian National Security Force in the West Bank, for the arrest and torture of its supporters. Hamas called on Barack Obama, the US president, to remove Dayton from his position and said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader in the West Bank, was responsible for the "crimes" against Hamas in the West Bank. Human rights organisations say it is common for detainees to be badly beaten and subjected to "shabeh", where they are shackled and held in painful positions for long periods. Hamas, which has de facto control of the Gaza Strip, has faced allegations that its own forces have detained and tortured people allied with Fatah, a rival Palestinian group that is a member of the Palestinian Authority. Between 400 and 500 Hamas supporters are currently being held by the PSF and GI, officials from the PA have said. But Adnan Aldenari, a Palestinian police spokesman, denied that the security forces in the West Bank were abusing detainees. "We have nothing to hide; or nothing to be ashamed of. When we had mistakes [they] were individual as committed by some officers and not expressive of our policy. "Our prisons and detention facilities are open and not secret as they are in some other countries. They are open to the media and human rights organisations." The Guardian reported that at least three detainees have died in custody this year due to being mistreated. The most recent was Haitham Amr, a 33-year-old nurse from Hebron, who died four days after he was detained by GI officials last June, the newspaper said. Shawan Jabarin, the general director of al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, told the Guardian: "The Americans could stop it any time. All they would have to do is go to [prime minister] Salam Fayyad and tell him they were making it an issue. "Then they could deal with the specifics: they could tell him that detainees needed to be brought promptly before the courts." A regional diplomat told the newspaper that "at the very least" US intelligence officers were aware of the torture and were not doing enough to stop it. The CIA does not deny working with the PSF and GI in the West Bank, but Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said that the US agency does not hold a supervisory role. "The notion that this agency somehow runs other intelligence services ... is simply wrong," he told the Guardian. "The CIA ... only supports, and is interested in, lawful methods that produce sound intelligence." Al Jazeera
 MUMBAI, India -- The accused gunman in last year's bloody siege of Mumbai retracted his detailed confession Friday, saying police tortured him into admitting his role in the attacks that left 166 people dead. Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, who is being tried in a special court and was photographed carrying an assault rifle during the attack on Mumbai's main train station, told the judge he came to Mumbai as a tourist and was arrested 20 days before the siege began. On the day the attacks started, Mr. Kasab said, police took him from his cell because he resembled one of the gunmen, shot him to make it look like he had been involved in the violence and re-arrested him. Friday's statement was not the first reversal from Mr. Kasab. In February, he told a judge he wanted to attack India in order to free the divided region of Kashmir where Muslim militants are fighting for independence. He later recanted that statement, saying it was obtained under duress. It was unclear what impact Mr. Kasab's statement would have on the case, and the prosecution brushed it off. "All the while, I expected that Mr. Kasab was about to take a U-turn in the case," said Ujjwal Nikam, the prosecutor. "He is a military-trained commando. It's not going to affect our case." In July, Mr. Kasab, who could face the death penalty if convicted, surprised the court when he suddenly confessed, saying he would rather be hanged in this world than face "God's punishment" in the next. In his confession, he spoke of spraying gunfire into the crowd at the train station and described in detail a network of training camps and safe houses across Pakistan, revealing the names of four men he said were his handlers. The photo of Kasab casually walking through the station with his rifle has become the enduring image of the attacks. But Kasab said police tortured him into falsely confessing. The assault 13 months ago lasted nearly three days and paralyzed India's commercial hub. During the attacks, 10 young men armed with assault rifles stormed two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and the train station. Nine of the gunmen were killed, leaving only Mr. Kasab, who was wounded in a shootout with police, authorities said. He told the court Friday he was initially arrested last year after wandering around Mumbai late at night looking for a place to stay, and his Pakistani citizenship aroused suspicion. After he was re-arrested for the Mumbai attack, he said, four white men came to visit him in jail, including David Coleman Headley, who is jailed in Chicago on charges he conspired in the siege. The judge then told Mr. Kasab not to reveal any more details on Headley. Mr. Headley, the 49-year-old son of an American mother and Pakistani father, is also charged with planning to attack a Danish newspaper. WSJ
Jim Hoft Planet Iran posted this shocking video produced by the BBC of a Basij member talking about the violence and murder by the regime after the Iranian election this year. He said the basiji were enforcing the will of Ayatollah Khamenei after the presidential election. This man escaped to Great Britain. He talks about Basij members raping and beating young protesters in prison. He says officials told him the rape and violence against the democratic protesters was thought to be a virtue. Thanks to Gateway Pundit
 NEW YORK – The Obama administration announced today that it will purchase the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois for the purpose of holding some of the detainees currently remaining at Guantánamo.
Though the administration is leaving unsaid which detainees will be moved there and for what purposes, the information it has provided indicates that some detainees might be held for military commission proceedings in Illinois while others might be held at Thomson indefinitely without charge or trial.
The administration has stated that "any detainees at Guantánamo who continue to be held, and for whom no prosecution is planned, will be held only under authority granted by Congress in 2001 under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, as informed by the law of war." However, the so-called war on terrorism is not a traditional war, having no temporal or geographical boundaries.
The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:
"The creation of a 'Gitmo North' in Illinois is hardly a meaningful step forward. Shutting down Guantánamo will be nothing more than a symbolic gesture if we continue its lawless policies onshore.
"Alarmingly, all indications are that the administration plans to continue its predecessor's policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial for some detainees, with only a change of location. Such a policy is completely at odds with our democratic commitment to due process and human rights whether it's occurring in Cuba or in Illinois. In fact, while the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies.
It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one's accusers.
"It is also greatly disturbing that the administration will continue the use of military commissions, which are no more acceptable in Illinois or any other U.S. state than in Guantánamo.
Despite some improvements, the commissions still fall far short of the legal standards necessary to comply with constitutional and international standards, allowing, for example, the use of coerced and hearsay evidence that would not be allowed in federal court. The proceedings will achieve neither reliable justice nor a restoration of America's credibility around the world.
"The administration must also make very clear what category of detainee will be transferred to Thomson in the future and what kind of prison conditions will apply. Detainees not charged with a crime should not be subject to punitive conditions meant for sentenced prisoners who have been found guilty in a court of law, and all conditions must comply with the Geneva Conventions.
"The administration will no doubt be looking to Congress for legislative buy-in for this facility, and as both branches work together, we strongly urge lawmakers to legislate responsibly and not set any policies or precedents for indefinite detention on U.S. soil, or create any violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"The Obama administration's announcement today contradicts everything the president has said about the need for America to return to leading with its values.
American values do not contemplate disregarding our Constitution and skirting the criminal justice system.
After detaining hundreds of individuals without the basic due process rights that define our justice system for almost eight years, it is time to charge suspects where evidence exists and repatriate and transfer the rest to countries where they won't be tortured."
 By Samer al-Atrush CAIRO, Egypt — Human rights deteriorated across the Arab world in 2009 with torture widely practiced in several countries, an Arab watchdog said in a report released on Tuesday. The report by the independent Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies surveyed 12 countries and said that most of them repressed human rights activists, press freedoms, and discriminated against religious minorities. The state of human rights in the 12 countries—Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen—"has worsened compared to 2008," the report said. "Arab governments remained wedded to a broad array of repressive laws that undermine basic liberties," compared to the previous year, said the report, "Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform." "Peaceful rotation of power through representative politics, and clean and competitive elections remained a dream in most countries covered by this report," it said. Egypt and Syria were singled out as leading offenders, with Cairo said to lead the region in practicing torture and Damascus for repressing rights activists. "Egypt continued to top the list of countries in which torture is routinely and systematically practiced," it said, adding that dozens had died in the country of torture or excessive force by police. The report also found torture was "routine" in Bahrain, "rampant" in Tunisia, and practiced in Saudi Arabia against terrorism suspects. Human rights advocates faced harassment in several Arab countries, with Syria, which has jailed dozens of democracy activists, holding the "worst record in this regard." Religious and ethnic minorities also continued to suffer discrimination in several Arab countries, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the report said. "Despite the Saudi regime's attempt to appear to champion religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue in international forums, in practice the national religious police continue to exhibit violent behavior," it said. Egypt, where roughly 10 percent of the 80-million-strong population are Coptic Christians who frequently complain of discrimination, "is increasingly acquiring the features of a religious state," it added. The report also said that US policies were "wholly inimical to reform and human rights in the region," and accused President Barak Obama's administration of abandoning support for reform initiatives in the Arab world. "The last spark of life in the initiatives was quashed once and for all with the arrival of a new US administration," it said. Bahey eldin Hassan, the rights group's director, said the 12 countries surveyed were indicative of the region. "We think that through analyzing these countries we can get a general picture of the region," he said. Hassan said the report did not include recommendations because the governments would ignore them. "These are not governments that are going through a reform process and are waiting for advice." The rights group's representative in Geneva, Jeremie Smith, warned at a press conference that Arab countries had exported attempts to undermine accountability to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. "Arab governments have largely taken strategies that they have perfected at a national level to avoid accountability, and they have exported them to the United Nations system," he said. Inquirer H/T: Atlas
 Human rights violations in Iran are as bad as at any point in the last 20 years, Amnesty International, the human rights group, has said. Amnesty's report, released on Thursday, examines allegations of torture, rape, death threats, forced confessions, intimidation, cover-ups and unlawful killings in the period after the country's disputed presidential election in June. The rights group called on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to allow United Nations human rights experts to visit the country to help carry out an investigation. Official inquiries to date "seemed to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth", the report said. Iran has dismissed previous criticism of its human rights record. "Members of militias and officials who have committed violations must also be promptly held to account and on no account should anyone be executed," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, said in a statement on Thursday. Official figures say 36 people died in post-election violence, but Iran's opposition says around 70 people died. More than 4,000 people were arrested after the poll, and around 200 remain in prison. The report claimed "patterns of abuse" before, during and after the election, when authorities deployed the the Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards to suppress mass protests against its disputed outcome. Mass demonstrations against the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, plunged the Islamic Republic into crisis. However, opposition rallies no longer muster the huge crowds that flooded the streets immediately after the June 12 ballot. Mirhossein Mousavi, a defeated election candidate, has alleged that the vote was rigged. Some of those detained during the protests have since been forced to flee the country, the report said. One former detainee says he was held at the Kahrizak detention centre for about 58 days, kept in a shipping container throughout and only allowed to contact his family after 43 days, the report said. "Anyone who is arrested or detained must be protected from torture or other ill-treatment, prisoners of conscience must be released and those convicted after unfair trials - including the "show trials" which made a mockery of justice - must have their cases reviewed, or be released," Sahraoui said. "All death sentences should be commuted, and others not yet tried must receive fair trials." Al Jazeera
 A CANADIAN journalist freed by Somali kidnappers today with Australian Nigel Brennan says she was beaten and tortured during her 15 months in captivity. Ms Lindhout said they were released today after a ransom "was paid by our families" to the kidnappers, she told Canadian television in a telephone interview from the hotel in Mogadishu were they were taken by Somali officials. "I believe they are taking that money and, as far as I understand, they plan on leaving the country," Ms Lindhout told CTV News Channel. "It's a long story. It's been sort of going on for the last couple of weeks, and tonight finally everything came together and the men who had kidnapped us turned us over to the federal government in Somalia." Ms Lindhout said she was beaten and tortured while in captivity. "It was extremely oppressive. I was kept by myself at all times. I had no one to speak to. I was normally kept in a room with a light, no window, I had nothing to write on or with. There was very little food. I was allowed to use the toilet exactly five times a day," she said. "There were times that I was beaten, that I was tortured. It was an extremely, extremely difficult situation." She said the kidnappers told her they were beating her because the money "wasn't coming quickly enough". "They seemed to think that if they beat me enough, then when I was able to speak to my mother - which they would put me on the line with her every couple of months - that I would be able to say the right thing to convince her to pay the ransom for me, which was $1 million," she said. "Of course, my family didn't have $1 million and it didn't matter what I said to them. But they didn't really understand that. They thought: She's Canadian, everyone in Canada is rich. She must have $1 million." One of the kidnappers, who refused to identify himself, said that a ransom of $US1 million ($1.08 million) had been paid for the pair's release. Their release was confirmed by an independent source in the Somali capital Mogadishu to an AFP journalist. Ms Lindhout and Mr Brennan were in a Mogadishu hotel today, pending their departure from Somalia tomorrow. A hotel employee said the two journalists were "very tired" following the end of their ordeal, one of the longest-running of many kidnappings in the lawless country. Mr Brennan has told Australia's Channel 7 network he is relieved and safe and looking forward to going home. A Somali journalist and two drivers were also taken hostage but were freed after 177 days in captivity. They were unable to identify their captors or the motives for the kidnappings. The Australian
 Pajamas Media The Saudi mutawas (“morality police”) are terrifying. Like vultures, they swoop down on their vulnerable prey, especially women, and then send them straight to Hell.
The “long beards” curse and beat their female prisoner, totally terrify her; then, they throw her into a dark, medieval dungeon, (assume the worst here).
They remove her only in order to gang-rape and torture her—all presumably in the name of Islam. Her crime? In one instance, although the woman was a foreign national, she dared to take a taxi downtown without a male escort. Remind me: Why are we still allies with Saudi Arabia? Why did President Obama bow to the King who presides over such Hell? Can we find no oil elsewhere, no other sources of energy? Do Americans really understand what goes on in Saudi Arabia? Have we forgotten that the Saudis have single-handedly exported Wahhabi fundamentalism and propaganda that has poisoned both westerners and those in the east—and have funded western universities and media as well? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia? Or that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi? Do we not understand that the Kingdom has funded bin Laden? Are we aware, even dimly, of how very barbaric the Saudi rulers are—despite all their suave, smooth, westernized, glitzy exteriors? Do we understand what it means to live in the 8th or 9th centuries? Prometheus Books is about to publish a book by Sami Alrabaa which is called Veiled Atrocities: True Stories of Oppression in Saudi Arabia. Once I picked it up, I literally could not put it down. Alrabaa is a professor of anthropology and sociology who, for five years, chaired a department of European Languages and Translation at King Saud University. [To continue reading this article, click here] FPM
 President Barack Obama said he won't set a new deadline for closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison, but does expect the facility to shut down sometime next year. The administration no longer feels it can meet the January 2010 deadline Obama set for its closure soon after taking office. Obama says he isn't disappointed about missing the deadline, but has realized that things move slower in Washington than he expected. Obama said the timeline for closing Guantanamo will depend on cooperation from Congress.
About 220 detainees remain at the prison, and the administration must decide how to prosecute some in US courts and turn others over to other countries. Obama spoke in an interview with Fox News Channel.
Also on Wednesday, A British judge ruled that British spies can keep some evidence secret from former Guantanamo prisoners who are suing the government for alleged complicity in their detention, the first volley in a legal battle to expose what role Britain played in the men's imprisonment.
Seven ex-Guantanamo inmates allege they were tortured or abused at the US prison camp and elsewhere - and that the British government contributed to their torment. Their civil suit seeking damages from the spy agencies MI5 and MI6 and other government bodies has yet to come to trial, but the government won a preliminary victory by securing the right to keep selected pieces of information from the men and their lawyers. Justice Stephen Silber warned that his ruling was a "stark question of law, not related to the facts of the case." He said lawyers would still have to work with any future trial judge to decide which evidence, if any, could be kept under wraps. More at JPost
 RAMIN Pourandarjani was a brilliant medical student with a promising future, until he was found dead in a dormitory at Tehran police headquarters last week. He is now the new cause celebre of the Iranian Opposition, with MPs and Western organisations demanding an investigation into the death of a man who knew too much. The official cause of death for the physician is heart attack but there is evidence that regime officials drove him to suicide or murdered him because he witnessed the brutality used against opposition detainees after the disputed election in June.
Dr Pourandarjani, 26, attended a school for gifted children, graduated with distinction from the University of Tabriz and was doing his two-year national service at the Kahrizak detention centre in Tehran during the June protests.
Many detainees were beaten and at least three died of their injuries, including Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of a senior conservative politician. His death provoked such an outcry, even among the regime's sympathisers, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, was forced to close Kahrizak on the pretext that its facilities were sub-standard.
 An Italian judge has convicted 23 US secret agents over the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street in an extraordinary rendition by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The trial was the first in the world to centre on the agency's controversial programme, in which "terror" suspects are thought to have been transferred to countries known to practise torture. The case concerned the seizure of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, and his transfer to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. All of the Americans were tried in absentia, with 22 sentenced to five years in jail and Robert Seldon Lady, the Milan CIA station chief, handed eight years in prison. Two Italians were given three-year prison terms.
Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom on Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans. Five Italians, including Nicolo Pollari, the former head of Italy's Sismi military intelligence service, and Marco Mancini, his ex-deputy, were acquitted, with Magi saying that the men were protected by state secrecy rules. Lawyers for the 23 Americans said they would appeal against their convictions. Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the US state department, said of the judge's decision: "We are disappointed by the verdicts against the Americans and Italians charged in Milan for their alleged involvement in the case involving Egyptian cleric Abu Omar. "The judge has not yet issued a written opinion so we're not in a position to comment further."
George Little, a CIA spokesman, told Al Jazeera that "the CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar".
Al Jazeera's Claudio Lavanga, reporting from Milan, described the verdict as "quite shocking and unexpected".
 Tom Gross The Mail on Sunday (which is the Sunday sister paper of Britain’s Daily Mail) reports that: The British government is sending police and intelligence officers to the West Bank to try to stop a wave of brutal torture by Palestinian security forces funded by UK taxpayers. Their mission is to set up and train a new “internal affairs” department with sweeping powers to investigate abuse and bring torturers to justice.
On Saturday a senior official from the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank and its security agencies, admitted that torture, beatings and extra-judicial killings have been rife for the past two years, with hundreds of torture allegations and at least four murders in custody, the most recent in August. British detectives will also train the Palestinian police and Preventive Security forces in how to question suspects without torturing them. Britain spends £20 million a year funding the forces responsible for the abuse.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Nasser al-Shaer, a former academic from Manchester University who was deputy prime minister in the short-lived Hamas Palestinian Authority government elected in 2006, said many of those released from detention in recent months were telling the same story – of torture, including beatings, being suspended from the ceiling, and electric shocks. Now none of this is new. In spite of what the paper says, it has been continuing not just for the past two years, but since Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and took over most of the West Bank in 1993. What is new is that a major newspaper (The Mail On Sunday is one of Britain’s highest circulation respected newspapers) is reporting on it. Of course, the abuse of human rights and use of torture is even worse in other “moderate” Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, and far worse in non-moderate countries like Syria (which yesterday the European Union eagerly signed an Association Agreement with).
Many Palestinians I know yearn for the days when Israel ruled the West Bank before Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah took over most of the Palestinian-populated territories. Meanwhile, as Palestinian detainees are being tortured to death in Palestinian Authority jails, Palestinian prisoners (including convicted terrorists) in custody in Israel are studying for Israeli university degrees (at Israeli taxpayers’ expense) and also given cable TV, IPods and dental treatment – but international human rights groups instead criticize the treatment of prisoners in Israel, whose deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon narrowly escaped being arrested in Britain for “war crimes” yesterday. And the world community that routinely and harshly condemns Israel even when Israel hasn’t done anything wrong, has failed to condemn the Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon which narrowly missed an Israeli town last night.
It is a strange world. Source: National Review
 Ali Waked Islamist group's spokesman claims his brother was tortured to death in Egyptian prison, says will pursue legal action in international courts Hamas Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri threatened to file a grievance against Cairo with an international court for allegedly desecrating the remains of his brother, who died while serving a prison sentence in Egypt. Zuhri claims that his brother's death was a result of torture and that the body was not intact when it was returned to the family.
The brother, a known Hamas operative, died of what Egyptian authorities claimed to be natural causes, two weeks ago. Both the family and the Islamist group blamed Cairo for torturing him to death, further claiming that in the days prior to his death, he sent family messages begging them to help him before he succumbs to torture.
In a Hamas press conference held after the death was announced, the group slammed "the ugly crime," demanding Egyptian leadership "probe this grievous crime and prosecute the offenders." Zuhri rejected the Egyptian Prosecution's autopsy report as false: "Why was an autopsy performed without the family's knowledge or presence? Why were parts of the body taken before it was returned to us?
"Why did it take (Egypt) four days to inform us of the death? We learned of it from other inmates in the prison.
"The report will not close this case," he added. "We are gearing to address the situation through legal channels and international human rights organizations." Egyptian authorities rejected the accusations as baseless.
 The Palestinian Authority, led by the Fatah party, admitted to a British newspaper that its security forces commonly use torture on prisoners, as charged by the Hamas terrorist organization.
The PA is heavily funded by overseas contributions as well as taxes collected for it by the Israeli government.
“This is a shame on the Palestinian Authority,” Haitham Arar, head of the human rights department of the PA Interior Ministry, told the Mail.
She admitted that torture, beatings and extra-judicial murders have been common in the Abbas administration.
Britain is sending police and intelligence officers to the PA to help train a new department on how to question prisoners without torturing them.
Most of the victims are supporters of Hamas, which took over control of Gaza in violent clashes with Fatah forces two years, resulting in dozens of deaths.
The London newspaper said that many of the torture victims were too afraid to talk of their ordeal. It quoted one young man who disclosed he had been “assaulted with a high-voltage device with electrodes ‘like fingers.’”
Source: INN
 The Iranian regime is increasingly unstable and its collapse has become a real possibility. Economic and international pressure, fractures in the regime, and the increasing hostility of the majority of the population to the government are factors that could prove fatal to the theocracy. As the Iranian government’s pillars continue to shake, a new generation of leaders is poised to fill the gap and take the country in a more positive direction. Let us take a closer look at this new generation of leaders to gauge what may ensue if the tyrannical theocracy falls. The most talked about leader is Mir Hossein Mousavi, the real winner of the rigged presidential vote of June 12 that the enraged Iranian people rallied around in defiance of the regime’s security forces. Millions of Iranians wore green, the color of his campaign and his new political party, the Green Path of Hope. His popularity is likely the one factor stopping Khamenei from arresting and prosecuting him, despite the pressure of Ahmadinejad and other hardline officials. By demanding new elections, an initiative opposed only by the most ardent supporters of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, and not complete regime change, Mousavi is able to win support across-the-board. While he’s certainly far more liberal than the current regime, he has not called for removing the post of Supreme Leader, the key feature of the theocracy. It is important for observers to remember that Mousavi is reported to have been one of the founders of Hezbollah, and he had to be approved by Khamenei to run in the first place. At the same time, however, he should be seen not as the one leading the opposition movement, but as the one led by the opposition movement. His political base will quickly turn against him should he fail to pursue the wide-sweeping change they desire, and based on his recent experience battling the regime, he may very well share the same ambition but isn’t quite ready to cross the red line of vocalizing it. His stance on bringing about complete womens’ rights and free elections, however, would inevitably lead to the total end of the theocracy and he has to know it. Mehdi Karroubi, another presidential candidate, has been acting more confrontational with the regime and is seeing his stock quickly rise. Emails I receive from Iranians mention his name far more than that of Mousavi now, as they respect his boldness and the fact that he is more liberal than Mousavi, having boldly criticized the Revolutionary Guards’ role in the government and consistently calling for broad civil rights for everyone. He has publicly stated that he has proof that the security forces tortured and raped political prisoners, and continues to level the charge despite the regime’s closing of his offices, arresting of his advisors, and threats to arrest him. He’s a growing threat to the regime, which is why they have opened up an investigation of him for possible prosecution.
While he’s calling for the civil rights the countries of the West enjoys, Karroubi has unfortunately said that he’d continue Iran’s support for Hamas if he was elected president, and like Mousavi, hasn’t explicitly called for regime change, although these actions may be attributable to political posturing. Read it all at FrontPage Magazine.
 Britain's High Court ruled Friday that the government must disclose secret details of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee's alleged torture. Judges said Foreign Secretary David Miliband should release undisclosed sections of a 2008 ruling on the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, despite Miliband's claim that to do so could harm intelligence sharing with the United States. Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He alleges he was tortured there and in Morocco before he was transferred to Afghanistan and then to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. His lawyers claim that seven paragraphs previously redacted from the 2008 ruling, which have seen by legal officials but not publicly released, offer critical details about Mohamed's treatment overseas. Miliband had argued that disclosing details of Mohamed's treatment could damage intelligence cooperation between Britain and the United States. He said the paragraphs include a summary of intelligence provided to Britain by the U.S. By tradition, intelligence services vow not to disclose details of each other's intelligence. But Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice David Lloyd Jones ruled that releasing the paragraphs would pose no serious threat to national security. They said they could not accept "that there is a real risk that the United States would reassess its intelligence relationship or reduce its intelligence sharing if we made the seven paragraphs public." The judges did not immediately release the paragraphs or specify exactly when the details would be disclosed. Miliband said he was "deeply disappointed" by the judgment and intends to appeal. "It remains my assessment that the consequence of the court's judgment today, if left unchallenged, will be a restriction on what is shared with us," he said in a statement. Several groups, including The Associated Press, had sued to make the information public. Source: FoxNews
 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Hamas says the brother of a spokesman for the Palestinian militant group has died in an Egyptian prison after being tortured. Hamas says Yousef Abu Zuhri died from internal bleeding. He was the brother of spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. On Tuesday, another spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, urged Egypt to investigate. An Egyptian prison official says Abu Zuhri died of heart and kidney failure due to pre-existing conditions. A security official in Cairo said the man was not tortured. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. International human rights groups say torture is systematic in Egyptian jails. Abu Zuhri was arrested in April for entering Egypt illegally. Source: FoxNews
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The following are excerpts from an interview with Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf, the son of Sheik Hassan Yousuf, Hamas leader in the West Bank. Yousuf Jr. converted to Christianity, and recently revealed that he had collaborated with Israel. The interview aired on BBC Arabic on March 12, 2010.
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