A new lawsuit accuses the State Department of failing to ever sanction Israeli military units under the Leahy Law, which was passed in 1997 to prevent the United States from funding foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. The case was brought by five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States and is supported by the human rights group DAWN. Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights office tasked with implementing the Leahy Law, says there is a mountain of evidence of Israel carrying out torture, extrajudicial killings, rape, enforced disappearances and other abuses. “Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law,” says Blaha, now a senior adviser at DAWN. We also speak with Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, who has family in Gaza and says the last year of genocide has made the lawsuit more urgent. “The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable,” says Moor.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Content warning: This article discusses the details of sexual assault.
The interview (This Week, 3/10/24) that cost ABC $15 million.
ABC has agreed to pay $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential library and $1 million toward Trump’s legal fees “to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll” (AP, 12/14/24).
Fox News (12/15/24) gloated that “Stephanopoulos and ABCNews also had to issue statements of ‘regret’ as an editor’s note” on the online version of the offending piece (This Week, 3/10/24). The note reads:
ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.
This settlement is a dangerous omen for press freedom, given Trump’s threats to use his power to go after his media critics (NPR, 10/23/24; CNN, 11/7/24; PEN America, 11/15/24; New York Times, 12/15/24; Deadline, 12/16/24).
‘Common modern parlance’
Washington Post (7/19/23): Judge Lewis Kaplan “says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.”
Trump has been found liable for defaming and sexually abusing Carroll in two cases, both of which he is appealing (Politico, 9/6/24). “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury,” Stephanopoulos said (ABC, 3/10/24). “Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge.”
However, there is a legal difference between “sexual abuse” and “rape” under New York law. The jury found that Trump had violated Carroll with his fingers, not with his penis, and thus the incident was legally classified as sexual abuse, not rape (USA Today, 1/29/24).
However, as the Washington Post (7/19/23) reported:
The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
In other words, Stephanopoulos’ initial description was not legally accurate, but was instead relying on the popular understanding of the word, according to the judge overseeing the case.
Legally perplexing
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid (Newsweek, 12/15/24): “This is the cowardice of legacy media out to make profit, rather than uphold principle.”
For most journalists, such an offense isn’t nothing: Journalists should always be as accurate as possible, and when they do slip up, they should issue corrections. He should have used the most accurate terminology the court used.
But should this mistake cost the network $16 million, most of which will be used to prop up the legacy of the person who made the complaint, a former president on his way back to power?
Newsweek (12/15/24) noted that it was legally perplexing for ABC to settle so early: “Legal experts also criticized the broadcaster for settling the lawsuit before depositions were due to take place,” it explained. The piece quoted former prosecutor Joyce Vance:
I’m old enough to remember—and to have worked on—cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was even deposed.
Because this case never went to trial, we will never know if there was any evidence of actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth in this misreporting, as would be required to secure a defamation reward under New York Times v. Sullivan (Knight First Amendment Institute, 3/18/24). And while correcting the record seems reasonable for ABC, forking over millions in cash that could be otherwise used to employ teams of working journalists seems excessive.
Newsweek (12/15/24) also covered some of the backlash to the deal:
Democratic attorney Marc Elias wrote: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”
Reporter Oliver Willis also chimed in, writing on Threads: “This is actually how democracy dies.”
Tech reporter Matt Novak said: “Not good for the rest of us when you do this shit, ABC.”
“But that’s probably half the point from management’s perspective,” he added Saturday.
A warning to other media
“The First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation,” attorney Floyd Abrams told CNN (11/1/24). “Mr. Trump may disagree with this or that coverage of him, but the First Amendment permits the press to decide how to cover elections, not the candidates seeking public office.”
The fact that the network is coughing up money as a result of Trump’s case sends a warning to other media that no media will be safe under a Trump regime. Trump has also sued CBS, “demanding $10 billion in damages over the network’s 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.” His suit alleges that the Harris interview and “the associated programming were ‘partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference’ intended to ‘mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales’ of the presidential election in her favor” (CNN, 11/1/24).
If continuing the CBS lawsuit sounds petty in light of the fact that Trump won the election, that’s because it is petty. But protracted litigation could inflict real damage on the network. Fox News (12/13/24) bragged that the “CBS suit could potentially impact an enormous media merger.” As we know, Trump hates journalists, and is vowing to go after them when he gets back into power (FAIR.org, 11/14/24).
To be fair, this strategy, which is meant to create a chilling effect on speech, can backfire on Trump, as when he was ordered to “pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to the New York Times and three investigative reporters after he sued them unsuccessfully over a Pulitzer Prize–winning 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices” (AP, 1/2/24). That’s all the more reason why ABC should be fighting this dubious claim by Trump.
The New York Post editorial board (12/15/24) saw this as a big win for Trump, noting that Stephanopoulos had used the R-word several times in the segment:
The law gives even public figures some rights against such smears; if the case had proceeded, Trump’s legal team would’ve been able to access ABCNews’ internal communications in order to prove the network’s reckless attitude toward the truth.
Trump was actually quite magnanimous in not making ABC pay him the settlement, even if the deal makes the company by far the largest donor to the Trump library.
Conservative legal commentator Jonathan Turley (Fox News, 12/16/24) speculated that ABC’s owner, Disney, likely wanted to start off on a better foot with a new Trump administration. “Disney is trying to adopt a more neutral stance after years of opposition to its stances on political issues and accusations of ultra-woke products,” he said. With “networks like MSNBC and CNN in a ratings and revenue free fall after the election, Disney clearly wants to start fresh with the new administration.”
In reality, ABC’s capitulation may have less to do with ratings and more to do with the GOP takeover of all three branches of federal power. Trump’s avowed plan to reward his friends and punish his enemies could force so-called “liberal” media into being more cheerleaders than a check on political power.
Even before the election, FAIR (10/25/24, 10/30/24) noted how the owners of the LA Times and Washington Post stepped in to keep their editorial boards neutral in the presidential race. In the case of the LA Times, owner Patrick Dr. Soon-Shiong has reportedly continued after the election to soften the paper’s editorial voice, a move that has “concerned many staff members who fear he is trying to be deferential to the incoming Trump administration” (New York Times, 12/12/24).
Now that Trump and his legal army see that at least one network will simply pay to have a legal complaint go away, they may feel emboldened to go after others. That could put a damper on critical coverage of the federal government when Americans need it the most.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – South Korea’s National Assembly voted on Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed bid to impose martial law, to the delight of a huge crowd of anti-Yoon protesters outside the legislature.
The impeachment motion will now be sent to the Constitutional Court, which will determine whether to uphold the parliamentary vote and remove Yoon from office or to reinstate him.
Yoon declared martial law on the night of Dec. 3 to counter “threats from North Korea” and “anti-state activities” by the domestic political opposition. However, the National Assembly rejected the decree nearly three hours later as protesters gathered outside, prompting Yoon to lift the order.
The impeachment motion against Yoon passed with a vote of 204 in favor and 85 against, with three abstentions and eight invalid ballots, as all 300 lawmakers cast their votes.
Once the impeachment resolution is delivered to Yoon’s office, he will be suspended from his duties, and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will assume the role of acting president.
“I will do my utmost to ensure the stable operation of the government operation,” said Han after the impeachment motion was passed.
A crowd of anti-Yoon protesters that media estimated at 200,000-strong welcomed the vote in favor of impeachment. Yoon’s conservative supporters held a smaller protest in another part of Seoul.
An initial bid to vote to impeach Yoon failed last week when most ruling party lawmakers boycotted the vote.
The second impeachment motion was introduced on Thursday by the main opposition Democratic Party and five other minor opposition parties, accusing Yoon of violating the Constitution and other laws by declaring martial law.
If the impeachment is upheld, Yoon will become the second president in South Korea’s history to be removed from office, following former President Park Geun-hye’s ouster in 2017 over corruption.
If the court rules to oust him, an election will be held for a new president.
On Thursday, Yoon defended his botched martial law declaration as an act of governance.
In a televised address, Yoon said he used his presidential power to declare martial law “to protect the nation and normalize state affairs” against the opposition that paralyzed the government, calling it a “highly calibrated political judgment.”
“The National Assembly, dominated by the large opposition party, has become a monster that destroys the Constitutional order of free democracy,” Yoon asserted.
The main opposition Democratic Party controls 171 seats in the 300-member parliament.
In particular, Yoon said that opposition parties blocked a revision to anti-espionage laws despite two separate instances in which Chinese nationals filmed South Korean military installations and the National Intelligence Service.
He also said the opposition parties were “advocating” to lift sanctions against North Korea.
In response, China’s foreign ministry said Thursday it was “deeply surprised and dissatisfied.”
“We are deeply surprised and dissatisfied with the remarks made by the South Korean side,” Mao Ning, Beijing foreign ministry’s spokesperson, said during a regular press briefing.
“We firmly oppose the South Korean side linking its internal issues with factors related to China, making up false charges of so-called Chinese spies and disgracing normal economic and trade cooperation,” said Mao, adding that a verdict has not been reached yet in the mentioned cases and that China is maintaining related communication with South Korea.
She also urged South Korea to guarantee the safety and legal rights of the individuals involved.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
President-elect Trump, himself found liable in court for sexual abuse, has picked a striking number of suspected sexual predators for key positions in his incoming administration. Trump’s early pick of former Florida Congressmember Matt Gaetz for attorney general was shot down amid a firestorm over sexual misconduct allegations. Now Trump is pushing hard to keep the rest of his picks on track, including Fox host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary. Hegseth paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. Meanwhile, a woman who worked for RFK Jr. as a babysitter accused him of sexual assault at his home in 1998. Even one of the few women Trump has chosen, professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon for education secretary, was sued for allegedly ignoring complaints that a WWE ringside announcer sexually abused children for years. “Trump really is the embodiment of a male entitlement,” says Deborah Tuerkheimer, professor of law at Northwestern University. Tuerkheimer says the president and these Cabinet picks are a bellwether for how society responds to abuse. “The #MeToo movement was about and continues to be about not just individual allegations, but this larger question of who’s held accountable and what kind of cultural toleration do we have for abuse by powerful men.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
One week later, North Korean state media has finally reported on South Korea’s brief period of martial law and the ensuing political crisis.
“The shocking incident of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime … suddenly declaring a martial law decree and unhesitatingly wielding the guns and knives of its fascist dictatorship wrought havoc across South Korea,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News.
North Korean media had been completely silent on the matter since last Tuesday, the day of the declaration, and experts said it was because Pyongyang wants to monitor the situation before saying anything, experts told Radio Free Asia.
Shortly after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law last Tuesday, an emergency meeting at the National Assembly nullified his order, forcing him to call it off.
Now lawmakers from both of the major parties are calling for Yoon to resign. If he does not, he could face impeachment or even prison time.
North Korea blocks the internet access of its citizens and tightly controls what outside news it shares with its people.
In the past, political scandals in South Korea were widely publicized in the North, as they could be used as evidence to showcase capitalism’s faults.
For example, in 2016 and 2017 state media was enthusiastically reported about disgraced South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment and trial, which lead to a conviction on charges related to influence-peddling.
President Yoon Seok-Yeol declares martial law in a special emergency address to the nation at the presidential office building in Yongsan, Seoul, Dec. 3, 2024.
But that coverage of Park’s downfall did not have the intended effect because it exposed North Koreans to South Korea’s vibrant democracy and booming economy, said Jonathan Corrado, policy director at the New York-based Korea Society nonprofit organization.
“First, (the 2016 and 2017 coverage) revealed the extent of South Korea’s urban modernization, with Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square lined with glass-covered high-rise buildings,” he said.
“Second, it showed the North Korean public the extent of South Korea’s civil society and democracy.”
Why mess up a good thing?
Pyongyang may also be relishing Yoon’s political crash-and-burn, Lee Hyun-seung, a North Korean escapee and lead program strategist at the Maryland-based Global Peace Foundation, told RFA.
Yoon, a conservative, is more of a hardliner against North Korea than his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, so Pyongyang may want to see him ousted.
“North Korea believes that President Yoon will be impeached even if they do not take action,” he said. “They are staying silent because they believe that if they step forward, they could provide an excuse for conservatives to oppose impeachment.”
Yoon’s martial law order cited “North Korean threats” as its justification, even though it is widely considered to have been a political move targeting the opposition party.
Lee said North Korea could mobilize its spy network to influence the situation in the South, however.
“There are organizations that operate to influence South Korea, such as the Unification Propaganda Department and the Reconnaissance General Bureau,” he said. “Since these organizations have to carry out operations against South Korea, they can deliver instructions through an underground network like in the past.”
The silence was not unusual to Robert Rapson, a former senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
“It’s quite simple if you look at it from the North Korean perspective. Why provoke and provide any distraction from Yoon’s colossal political blunder and anti-democratic actions,” Rapson said.
Kang Vu, a visiting political science scholar at Boston University, said that North Korea is shifting its focus away from South Korea now that is getting closer to Russia and is involving itself in Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
“(That) gives it an incentive it to maintain peace on the peninsula, and this pattern has been clear since the start of 2024,” said Vu.
Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Update adds that North Korea finally reported on the situation on Wednesday.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Cho Jinwoo for RFA Korean.
The Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday joined 55 partner organizations in a joint letter to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to ask her to act on Turkey’s temporarily shelved foreign “influence agent bill,” which introduces a vaguely defined new offense called “committing a crime against the security or political interests of the state” under the direction of a foreign group or state.
The signatories voiced their concerns about how the proposed law could be used to silence government critics if passed by the parliament, along with its predictable effects on rights and freedoms in Turkey. They asked the European Commission to “publicly call on Turkey to fully withdraw the bill,” “prioritize freedom of expression in EU-Turkey relations,” and “raise this matter at high-level dialogues with Turkey,” while supporting the civil society.
Aditya Dalal traces the legislative evolution of the 2024 amendment to the Law on Combatting Prostitution in Iraq, particularly highlighting its draconian provisions on criminalising same-sex sexual relationships, promoting or facilitating same-sex relationships, gender affirmation procedures, and cross-dressing. He criticises this amendment for violating the Constitution of Iraq, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Arab Charter on Human Rights.
On 27 April 2024, the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to Legislation No.8 of 1988, titled the Law on Combatting Prostitution. Under this amendment, which not only imposes unreasonable restrictions on prostitution, the rights of the LGBTQ+ community have been severely curtailed, and promotion or facilitation of same-sex relationships shall face a minimum imprisonment of seven years, which may extend to a maximum of 15 years. The amendment was passed in the presence of 170 out of 329 lawmakers and received overwhelming support from the Acting Speaker, Mr Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, who vehemently asserted that this step was necessary to prevent sexual deviance and moral decay in the Iraqi population and to ensure that there exists no place for homosexuality in Iraq, which is a country of the religious prophets and saints.
Legislative evolution of the amendment
This amendment was first proposed in mid-August 2023 by parliamentarian Mr Raad al-Maliki, and it also advocated for the death penalty as a punishment for engaging in same-sex relationships. The penal provisions also included within their ambit punishments for transgender women, providing for three years imprisonment and a monetary penalty from five million to 10 million IQD (approximately £3,000 to £6,000) for those who “imitate a woman”, meaning dressing like a woman, wearing make-up and appearing in public like a woman. Although the previous Speaker of the Parliament withdrew this Bill in September 2023, the Federal Court ruled that the withdrawal of the proposed amendment was illegal, returning the Bill to the Parliament. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed grave concern over imposing capital punishments for homosexuality, mainly due to Iraq’s ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1971, which provided for the abolishment of capital punishment. The voting on the Bill was postponed during a session in mid-April, which ultimately culminated in the passing of the Bill on April 27, 2024, but with the deletion of the provisions providing capital punishment for those individuals found engaging in same-sex relationships.
Draconian provisions
The amendment provides for a minimum imprisonment of 10 years and a maximum imprisonment of 15 years for all those individuals found indulging in same-sex relationships. In contrast, it also imposes imprisonment for seven years and a monetary penalty of 10 million to 15 million IQD (approximately £6,000 to £9,000) for individuals promoting or facilitating same-sex relationships/homosexuality. The law also criminalises gender affirmation operations or hormone replacement therapy by determining imprisonment for three years for both doctors performing those operations and patients undergoing those surgeries. It also criminalises individuals dressing up in clothing of the opposite gender with imprisonment for one year up to three years or a fine of a minimum of five million IQD (approximately £3,000). These draconian provisions severely curtail the fundamental human rights of Iraqi citizens, particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community, which faces rampant discrimination and malicious attacksof kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder in Iraq.
Violating the Constitution and international instruments
Although there was no specific law prohibiting homosexuality in Iraq before the amendment to Legislation No. 8 of 1988, homosexuality was still curtailed by using provisions of morality and decency in the penal laws. However, despite the arguments of the Iraqi Parliament supporting a complete ban and criminalisation of homosexuality, it is essential to note that the amendment of various instruments, especially the Iraqi Constitution. The amendment, which seeks to discriminate based on private consensual same-sex relationships, violates Articles 14, 15, and 17 of the Constitution of Iraq, 2005, which talk about the right to non-discrimination, the right to enjoy life, security, and liberty, and the right to privacy. Furthermore, the amendment violates Article 2 (non-discrimination) and Article 17 (right to privacy) of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Articles 1 (equality), 2 (non-discrimination), and 12 (right to privacy) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, and Articles 3 (non-discrimination) and 21 (right to privacy) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, 2004.
The passing of the amendment has been condemned by many nations, including the USA and Germany, and can potentially affect Iraq’s economy and foreign relations. While many countries celebrate the presence of the LGBTQ+ community, the situation in Iraq is nothing but a legal massacre of the LGBTQ+ community and those who support them. Considering the Iraqi Constitutional mandate and various international instruments promoting equality and non-discrimination, this situation demands urgent intervention.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Bureau of Prisons closes California facility and suspends operations at six others as rights activists call for clemency
The US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) announced on Thursday it was permanently closing a California women’s prison plagued by staff sexual misconduct scandals, and suspending operations at six other federal institutions.
Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population
A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict.
The 32-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.
The unprecedented scale and magnitude of the military offensive, which has caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict;
Intent to destroy, after considering and discounting arguments such as Israeli recklessness and callous disregard for civilian life in the pursuit of Hamas;
Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm in repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or deliberately indiscriminate attacks; and
Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, such as destroying medical infrastructure, the obstruction of aid, and repeated use of arbitrary and sweeping “evacuation orders” for 90% of the population to unsuitable areas.
Janine Jackson interviewed the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Katherine Gallagher about the Abu Ghraib verdict for the November 29, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: For a press corps that described the grievous abuse of Iraqi detainees at the prison in Abu Ghraib as “seared into the American consciousness,” there’s been relatively little interest in the fact that a federal jury has just found defense contractor CACI guilty of conspiring in that abuse.
Al Shimari v. CACI International was filed in 2008 and, CounterSpinlisteners will know, has been fought and fought and fought. And now, while its unclear what justice would look like for victims of torture, there is some acknowledgement of harm, and the fact that it was people, and not nameless forces in the “fog of war,” who were to blame.
How meaningful this verdict becomes could shape things going forward, given the US military’s increased reliance on private contractors, who’ve evidently been led to understand that they are above the law.
Katherine Gallagher: Thanks so much for having me back.
JJ: First of all, congratulations. I’m not sure people understand that, just because the paper says, “Oh, this was horrible abuse. Our conscience is shocked,” doesn’t mean that anything happens. So the law isn’t justice, but if you use the law, it’s something. So first of all, I want to say thank you.
KG: Thank you, thank you for that acknowledgement, and, really, the thanks and the effort was first and foremost to our clients, who filed this case 16-and-a-half years ago, and stuck with it and stuck with us and stuck with US courts through a rollercoaster ride of moments where they thought that justice might be coming, and then others where the case was dismissed and deep disappointment. So I agree, the law is not always an answer, but it can certainly be a tool, as it was in this case, to get some measure of justice for Suhail, Asa’ad and Salah.
JJ: I’ll ask you to say their names, actually, because they’re not often named. So the plaintiffs in this case, that made it this far, say their names.
KG: Salah al-Ejaili came and testified in person in Virginia in this case. He is a journalist, and he was working as a journalist for Al Jazeera at the time he was detained and tortured at Abu Ghraib. The second plaintiff is Asa’ad al-Zuba’e. He is a fruit vendor in Iraq, and he testified, via video link, live in the courtroom in Alexandria. And then the third plaintiff is Suhail al-Shimari, whose name is the lead name in this long-running case of Al Shimari v. CACI. And he is an educator.
JJ: It seems important to recognize and acknowledge that there are human beings here. I want to ask you to ground us, because some of our listeners weren’t even born. Ground us on the substance of the charges here, and maybe why is this the only lawsuit to make it this far?
KG: So this case stems out of what for many of us, or those of us of a certain generation, really is a historic event, in the negative sense. And that is the torture of Iraqi detainees at a US-run detention center in Baghdad, in Iraq, during the US invasion of Iraq.
At Abu Ghraib, especially during the time from fall 2003 until early 2004, there was a conspiracy to torture and otherwise subject Iraqi detainees to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. And that abuse, that horrific abuse, was documented in photos.
And those photos came out, the world saw them in 2004, and really “shocked the conscience,” which is a term that we often use in the law, but here it was true, for the entire nation and the world, when we saw naked, hooded, Iraqi detainees in human pyramids, being threatened with dogs, being subjected to sexual assault and degradation and humiliation, being held in contorted, painful positions, shackled to bed frames and walls.
And all of this, military generals investigated, they found that this was done, in large part, to “soften up” detainees, to make them pliable and ready to speak when they went into interrogation.
Now, at the time of the US invasion of Iraq, the US went in far too quickly, and with not enough resources, and with really no plan for the counterinsurgency that followed. So in the summer of 2003, the US started detaining Iraqis en masse. And so there were thousands and thousands of Iraqi detainees.
And in order to understand who they were even picking up, the US set up a number of detention centers, and they didn’t have enough trained interrogators, and they also didn’t have enough trained translators within the US military. So they outsourced those functions to private companies, and one of them was CACI, or C.A.C.I., a private government contractor from Virginia.
And CACI was hired, and paid tens of millions of dollars, to augment and support the US interrogation services. So CACI was hired to find so-called resident experts—qualified, trained interrogators to work in Iraq, and to supervise those interrogators who were working with the US military.
But what we found out, as the torture scandal broke and the military investigations happened and more information came out, is that CACI sent over unqualified interrogators, in many cases, and did not provide the kind of oversight or supervision that was required, and that was particularly required at Abu Ghraib, where there was a breakdown in the command structure within the military that allowed the kind of torture and abuse in those notorious photos to occur.
So that’s the big picture of what happened. And the abuse in that time was also inflicted upon the plaintiffs, Suhail, Asa’ad and Salah, who were detained in that end-of-2003, early-2004 time.
JJ: It seems worth just lifting up, as a point of information, these were not people who were charged or convicted of any crime, the detainees that we’re talking about, many of them, at Abu Ghraib, right?
KG: Correct. The individuals in this case, and I’ve represented individuals in two other cases, one that settled back in 2012 and one that was dismissed back in 2009. And of those 338 plaintiffs I’ve represented across those three cases, zero were ever charged with a crime. But I also want to be very clear that, even if one were charged with a crime, torture is always unlawful.
JJ: Right. Well, the case is landmark, in part just because of the way that it names contractors as responsible parties. It’s always been their argument, right, that they’re just private actors following orders from the US, and the US has immunity, so we do too, right? That’s part of what’s important about this.
KG: That’s precisely right. Over the 16 years of litigation, CACI has filed at least 15 motions to dismiss. And whether they’ve invoked Derivative Sovereign Immunity or the Political Question Doctrine or the Government Contractor Defense or the Law of War Immunity, or most recently and throughout trial, the so-called Borrowed Servant Defense—all of these boiled down to essentially one argument, which is, we were working with the US military, and anything we did was because they were overseeing it. And if they were overseeing it, they should have any responsibility, not us. We were just, essentially, following orders.
Now, the conduct at issue in this case—and we have clear decisions from the Fourth Circuit saying as much in our long litigation—the conduct at issue is unlawful. We’re talking about torture. We had plead war crimes, we’re talking about cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. These are violations of US domestic criminal law, and they are also violations of US-signed treaties, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
And so, this is not conduct that the military could order anyone, whether it’s soldiers or contractors, to do. This is unlawful, illegal. So CACI’s defense fails, insofar as this is not a lawful order that they could have ever received from the military.
But, additionally, CACI was hired to supervise its own employees. This is a for-profit corporation that hired employees at will. So, unlike an enlisted person at Abu Ghraib, the CACI employees could quit at any time, and notably, some did, and one even did, more than one, because of what they saw happening at Abu Ghraib. So this corporation should be held accountable for its own employees’ conduct.
And that’s precisely, after 16-and-a-half years, what a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, found to be the case two weeks ago when they gave down a verdict against CACI and for our plaintiffs.
JJ: I will say I’m disheartened by the relative quietness of media around the verdict. There has been some coverage, but I feel like I can say pretty confidently that had this case died in court, we would’ve never heard about it again.
But I’m also saddened by the accounts that I have seen: Virtually all of them use the phrase “over two decades ago.” And that, to me, is not a neutral tag. It’s a linguistic wink that says, “Why are we still talking about this?” But as you’ve noted, the case has taken this long because CACI has resisted it for this long, right?
KG: That is absolutely the case. The plaintiffs filed back in 2008, and our plaintiffs, to this day, the 20-year time period doesn’t erase or make this historic. They are living every day with being an Abu Ghraib torture survivor. They still suffer from nightmares, from flashbacks, and talking about Abu Ghraib is not something that’s easy for them to do.
The fact that this case went to trial not once but twice, and that the plaintiffs had to tell their account, tell about their suffering, their humiliation, more than once, it wasn’t easy. And to remember the kinds of details, some of it is seared in their memory, and others, of course, over 20 years is less clear than it used to be. But the nightmares and the mental harm has continued to this day, and it should not be something that is relegated to the history books at all.
And one of the things I’d note: There weren’t many photos shown during trial, but there were a few photos shown during trial, and there were a couple of jurors who appeared to be on the younger side. And when those photos came up, particularly for one of the younger jurors, who may not have seen this on the cover of the paper each day, as those of us did back in 2004, there was absolute shock. There was absolute shock. I mean, these photos were shocking for everyone, but the accounts seemed to be unknown. And that is not something that should be permitted to happen.
And that’s part of why, despite the difficulty, our plaintiffs have brought this case forward, and stayed with it throughout all of this time, so that it is not forgotten. And it is so that what was done in our name, for me as a US citizen, is also not forgotten. And they want to be sure that this never happens to anyone else again. So to the extent that corrections haven’t been made, whether by the US military or by CACI, to ensure that their employees or soldiers do not ever, ever treat detainees, or humans, in the way that the Iraqi men, women and children who were held at Abu Ghraib were treated, that’s what this case is also about.
JJ: Well, what do you make of the “few bad apples” line, which literally has appeared in some of the journalistic accounts that I’ve seen, that these were some rogue CACI employees, and it’s wrong to hold the organization liable for that?
KG: CACI, again, by its contract, had an obligation to oversee its employees, and it had staff on site precisely to do that. Also, the staff in Iraq was in daily contact with the staff back in Virginia, and some of the staff in Virginia traveled to Abu Ghraib over this period of time.
And so, whether we’re talking about a contractor at Abu Ghraib and allegations of torture, or frankly, other kinds of corporations, you have an obligation to look down your supply chain. And that, here, that supply chain is your employees, and you have an obligation to ensure that they are abiding by the terms of their contract, and the obligations that you as a corporation are putting forward that you will comply with. And that included following federal and international law. And that means no torture, no cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment.
JJ: I sort of resent the fact, though I understand it, that it’s being reported solely as a lawsuit, and not a human rights crisis. And the coverage as a lawsuit means, first of all, we see a note of monetary outcomes: These folks are getting millions!
And then, also, I see the Washington Post quoting CACI, saying CACI employees say, “None of them laid a hand on detainees.” Well, “laid a hand on,” like, I don’t know, that sounds like language you got from somewhere else.
But, also, plaintiffs are described as “saying” they were restrained, “claiming” they were tortured. There’s always this degree of difference. And I wonder, I wish, in some ways, we could move it outside of just the lawsuit framework, and talk about the human rights crisis that Abu Ghraib actually presents and presented for the United States.
Katherine Gallagher: “The jury found not that our clients ‘claimed’ that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture.”
KG: I appreciate that comment and that perspective. And just a few reactions to the language that you cited: What’s important here is, our clients testified in court, under oath, and there were findings made by a jury, factual findings against clear law. And Judge Brinkema gave the jury their legal instructions against which to apply facts.
So the jury found not that our clients “claimed” that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture, or cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. The jury found them credible, as did General Taguba when he investigated Abu Ghraib back in 2004.
And, in fact, one of our clients in this case was someone who provided an account of abuse already, back in late 2003. And at that time, General Taguba also found the report by him and other Iraqi detainees credible.
So these are not mere allegations at this point. We have a jury verdict, and the jury awarded each plaintiff $3 million in compensatory damages, and $11 million each in punitive damages against CACI.
And that punitive damages award is saying that it wasn’t a few rogue employees, but it was a corporation that had responsibilities that it didn’t fulfill. The fact that that punitive damages award was meeting the amount that CACI was paid through their contract at Abu Ghraib, I really think sends a very clear message.
JJ: Finally, and perhaps you’ve answered it, but what are your hopes for the impact of this verdict, and what would you maybe say to other attorneys, frankly, who are working on years-old cases that might never lead to such an outcome?
KG: First, on the outcome, we certainly had a big victory, and it was a real validation of our clients, of what was done to them, and of their quest for justice. So that, again, I am very grateful for.
We will be facing an appeal; CACI has made that clear. So the litigation is not yet over, and our clients have not been given the monetary compensation. But, indeed, there already has been a real recognition for them by the jury, which mattered a lot, I have to say. It mattered a great deal to them, to know that they were heard and that they were believed.
In terms of the bigger picture of what this means, I do think that these cases are important. They may be difficult and, frankly, they also may be lost, but raising the challenges, and bringing the facts to the forefront, and putting harm with proper labels, so that those pictures Abu Ghraib are understood as torture, which means causing severe physical or mental harm, intentionally. And that is what happened to our plaintiffs.
CACI was part of a conspiracy to do that to our plaintiffs. And, indeed, they may not have been the ones to literally shackle our plaintiffs, but they gave instructions and encouragement to have our plaintiffs so mistreated and so harmed.
And I think that that message of challenging injustice, and for our clients to try and regain some of their agency, some of their dignity, it’s important. And I’m gratified that in this case it ended in a victory, but I still think it’s worth bringing cases, even if that’s not the outcome.
JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. They’re online at CCRJustice.org.
Thank you so much, Katherine Gallagher, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
Activists targeted as US-linked hard-right campaigns sow disinformation ahead of inter-American court of human rights ruling on case of woman who was denied abortion in 2013
Earlier this year, Morena Herrera woke up to find that a video about her had been posted on social media. It claimed that the 64-year-old campaigner for abortion rights in El Salvador had “chased down” a young woman in hospital and “terrorised” her into seeking an abortion.
The young woman was Beatriz, who had been denied an abortion in 2013, even though she was seriously ill and the foetus would not have survived outside the uterus.
Australia will set broad limits on anticompetitive behaviour by big tech companies under a proposed framework that could impose penalties of up to $50 million, more than two years after the competition watchdog first called for the regime . Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones outlined the framework in a speech on Monday, which would include service-specific…
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Officials acknowledge prisoners have harmed themselves but say they did not set themselves on fire or self-immolate
Several incarcerated people in Virginia’s high-security Red Onion state prison have intentionally burned themselves in a protest against harsh conditions at the facility.
A written statement from Virginia’s department of corrections acknowledged that men imprisoned there had harmed themselves, although the authorities confirmed six incidents while others reported that 12 men were injured.
This week on CounterSpin: It wasn’t the horrific abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, but the pictures of it, that forced public and official acknowledgement. The Defense Department vehemently resisted the pictures’ release, with good reason. Yet when, after the initial round, Australian TV put out new images, Washington Post executive editor Len Downie said they were “so shocking and in such bad taste, especially the extensive nudity, that they are not publishable in our newspaper.” The notion that acts of torture by the US military and its privately contracted cat’s paws are, above all, distasteful may help explain corporate media’s inattentiveness to the efforts of victims of Abu Ghraib to find some measure of justice.
But a federal jury has just found defense contractor CACI responsible for its part in that abuse, in a ruling being called “exceptional in every sense of the term.” The Center for Constitutional Rights has been behind the case, Al Shimari v. CACI, through its long rollercoaster ride through the courts—which isn’t over yet. We hear about it from CCR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of the ICC’s Israel warrants.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban
Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.
Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.
Conservative leader says there needs to be a ‘plan not just a promise’ beyond leaving the ECHR
William Hague has achieved a rare Tory election victory; he has won the contest to be Oxford University’s next chancellor.
The university has released the figures for the final round of voting, where the winner emerged after the final five candidates were ranked using the alternative vote system. The runner up was Elish Angiolini, the lawyer and academic.
A media mogul, a computer programmer, a developer, a trade unionist, and a Sikh activist – the prisoners arbitrarily detained abroad
The cases of five British men, held for years without a fair trial, are being highlighted as MPs, families, and campaigners fight for their release and better help for all those arbitrarily detained abroad. Who are the five, and what has happened to them?
Charges against Israeli prime minister and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant mark first time western-affiliated leaders have been targeted for war crimes
Thursday’s announcement from the international criminal court’s pretrial chamber of arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has sent shockwaves through the international legal system. As the first time that officials from a democratic, western-allied state have been charged with war crimes, it is widely seen as the most significant action taken by the court since it was set up at the turn of the century.
