UK shows us civilised folk how to enforce nakedness

Iran tortures people and makes them suffer in detention. We in the West are nice and pure, believing in the rule of law. Oh, but wait a minute: The British military has been training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions, the Guardian…

Finding Serco staff involved in unaccountable abuse; all in a day’s work

The reach of private company Serco is global and its human rights record remains abysmal. Yet it continues receiving lucrative contracts. That should stop: Prison campaigners last night called for a review of a North-East secure unit after revelations that 21 children had suffered injuries while being restrained. The injuries were sustained by children at…

We have seen the Iraq war and America is to blame

Hold the laughter. Washington is super serious about Iraq lives. America would never allow prisoners to be abused and tortured. Thankfully nobody actually believes a word the US says about the Iraq war; Wikileaks documents a world of chaos, torture, murder and violence. The US… has defended its record of… probing civilian deaths and abuse in Iraq…

How is life at Villawood detention centre?

The effect of Australia’s immigration detention centres on human lives is often ignored. Villawood in outer Sydney has seen years of privatised prison time. Here are two moving stories: The Stories Project: Villawood Mums from CuriousWorks on Vimeo.

If Washington doesn’t pursue Blackwater, somebody has to

Let’s get this straight. The US government has smeared the latest Wikileaks Iraq information dump and apparently has no interest in investigating anything. The Iraqi government, undeniably corrupt and broken, has a rather different attitude: The Iraqi government says that it will investigate whether employees of the Blackwater security company were involved in hitherto undisclosed…

The Pentagon bathes in blood on a daily basis

With customary passion, Robert Fisk on the real significance of the Wikleaks Iraq dump: As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq…

Serco and G4S are peas from the same pod

In Australian political life, only the Greens are hammering away against the privatisation of detention centres: Australia’s immigration detention system is failing, and this makes the need for transparency greater than ever, according to Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Senator Hanson-Young, Greens spokesperson on Immigration, says she is concerned at reports that immigration service provider SERCO may…

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