More than 500 sentenced to death in ‘grotesque’ ruling in Egypt

Today’s mass death sentences handed down by an Egyptian court are a grotesque example of the shortcomings and the selective nature of Egypt's justice system, Amnesty International said.

According to state media reports, in a single hearing this morning, the Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi to be executed for their alleged role in violence following his ousting in July last year. 

“This is injustice writ large and these death sentences must be quashed. Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries’ use of capital punishment in a year,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

"This is the largest single batch of simultaneous death sentences we’ve seen in recent years, not just in Egypt but anywhere in the world. Egypt's courts are quick to punish Mohamed Morsi's supporters but ignore gross human rights violations by the security forces. While thousands of Morsi's supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Just one police officer is facing a prison sentence, for the deaths of 37 detainees.

Amnesty International

Head Doctor Says A Rich Kid Isn't Guilty BECAUSE He's Rich. Reporter Says What We're All Thinking.

This whole "affluenza" thing has thrown us all for a loop. For those who don't know, 16-year-old Ethan Couch was sentenced to 10 years of probation after driving drunk, killing four people and injuring nine. The excuse? A psychologist (being questioned by Anderson below) said he suffered from affluenza — being a rich kid and thus having no consequences in life and not realizing the severity of his actions.

Sure, psychologists the world over have said sentencing in this case is atypical, but the reasoning behind it is something that we as a people need to put up for examination. The whole situation is pretty absurd. And if you apply this same logic to a poor person: "I stole a loaf of bread because I was so hungry I didn't realize the consequences of my actions," that poor person would be in jail right now.

upworthy.com

"I Do Not Want to Die in Prison": Cancer-Stricken Lawyer Lynne Stewart Seeks Compassionate Release

Lawyers for imprisoned attorney Lynne Stewart head to federal court today to seek her release from prison. Now 73 years old, Stewart is dying from cancer in a Texas prison.

Last month, Stewart’s treating physician in prison estimated her life expectancy is approximately 18 months. This comes after the Federal Bureau of Prisons denied Stewart’s request for early release — a denial her lawyers are appealing and hope to address today in a hearing before her original sentencing judge, Judge John Koeltl. In 2010, Stewart was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to his followers in Egypt. In a letter to Judge Koeltl, Stewart wrote: "I do not intend to go 'gently into that good night' as Dylan Thomas wrote. There is much to be done in this world. I do know that I do not want to die here in prison — a strange and loveless place. I want to be where all is familiar — in a word, home. ...

More on Democracy Now! - Justice for Lynne Stewart

Videla is dead

Jorge Rafael Videla; born 2 August 1925 - died 17 May 2013) was a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón. After the return of a representative democratic government, he was prosecuted for large-scale human rights abuses and crimes against humanity that took place under his rule, including kidnappings or "forced disappearance", widespread torture and extrajudicial murder of activists, political opponents (either real, suspected or alleged) as well as their families, at secret concentration camps.

Some 10,000 of the disappeared were guerrillas of the Montoneros (MPM), and the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP). The accusations also included the "theft" of many babies born during the captivity of their mothers at the illegal detention centres. He was under house arrest until 10 October 2008, when he was sent to a military prison. In his defence, Videla maintains the female guerrilla detainees allowed themselves to fall pregnant in the belief they wouldn't be tortured or executed. On 5 July 2010, Videla took full responsibility for his army's actions during his rule. "I accept the responsibility as the highest military authority during the internal war. My subordinates followed my orders," he told an Argentine court. On 22 December 2010, Videla was sentenced to life in a civilian prison for the deaths of 31 prisoners following his coup d'état. On 5 July 2012, Videla was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the systematic kidnapping of children during his tenure.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Shocking Details of a Mississippi School-to-Prison Pipeline

Cedrico Green can’t exactly remember how many times he went back and forth to juvenile. When asked to venture a guess he says, “Maybe 30.” He was put on probation by a youth court judge for getting into a fight when he was in eighth grade. Thereafter, any of Green’s school-based infractions, from being a few minutes late for class to breaking the school dress code by wearing the wrong color socks, counted as violations of his probation and led to his immediate suspension and incarceration in the local juvenile detention center.

In Meridian, when schools want to discipline children, they do much more than just send them to the principal’s office. They call the police, who show up to arrest children who are as young as 10 years old. Arrests, the Department of Justice says, happen automatically, regardless of whether the police officer knows exactly what kind of offense the child has committed or whether that offense is even worthy of an arrest. The police department’s policy is to arrest all children referred to the agency.

More on Alternet

The Holy Land 5

WeAreChange cover's the Holy Land 5 foundation speech by Noor Elashi. Noor is the daughter of Ghassan Elashi who is currently facing 65 years in jail for his involvement with the Holy Land 5 foundation.
Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States until the Bush administration shut it down three months after 9/11. After a decade of raids, arrests and trials, the Holy Land Five received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years.
To find out more go to freedomtogive.com

UK Judge in late abortion case linked to conservative Christian charity

A British judge who criticised UK abortion policies while sentencing a woman to eight years in prison for performing her own abortion at a late stage in her pregnancy is one of at least five members of the judiciary with links to a Christian charity which has campaigned for more conservative abortion laws.

There has been surprise at the severity of the sentence Justice Jeremy Cooke imposed on Sarah Catt, who took a drug when she was 39 weeks pregnant to cause an early delivery and pleaded guilty in July to administering a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage. Catt told police that she buried the remains but has refused to disclose the location.

In remarks that some commentators have criticised, he told her: "There is no mitigation available by reference to the Abortion Act, whatever view one takes of its provisions which are, wrongly, liberally construed in practice so as to make abortion available essentially on demand prior to 24 weeks with the approval of registered medical practitioners."

The Guardian

Spanish court convicts judge Garzon

Spain's top court has convicted judge Baltasar Garzon in an illegal phone-tapping case and suspended him from the legal profession for 11 years, according to a court official.

Garzon, 56, who became internationally well known for his attempts to extradite Chile's former ruler, Augusto Pinochet, was found guilty of ordering illegal recordings of conversations between suspects in a corruption case and their lawyers.

Human rights groups and many Spanish supporters of Garzon view the accusations as attacks on Garzon for his investigation, launched in 2008, into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Spain’s nationalist government during the 1936-39 civil war.

The supreme court said in a statement on Thursday that Garzon had been suspended from the bench for 11 years, which, given his age, could effectively end his career. Garzon acted arbitrarily in ordering jailhouse phone tapping of conversations between detainees and their lawyers, the court said. It said his actions "these days are only found in totalitarian regimes". The Switzerland-based International Commission of Jurists condemned the supreme court verdict as "deplorable". It said Garzon had been prosecuted simply for doing his job.

Al Jazeera English

Riot Criminals will face harsher Prison Sentences in the UK

British criminals who burgle shops or homes during any future riots will face longer behind bars under new sentencing guidelines. For the first time, general public disorder has been added as an aggravating factor to the notes handed out to judges by the Sentencing Council.

It comes after judges were criticised for the tough punishments handed out following the August riots, with some claiming they were acting outside the established guidelines. From next year the guideline sentence for aggravated burglary with a firearm or other weapon will rise from four years to nine years in jail, if it is connected to a riot.

Those guilty of domestic burglaries, usually attracting sentences of up to 26 weeks in jail, would face up to two years, and the top sentence for non-domestic burglaries would increase from 18 to 51 weeks in jail.

Sky News

Troy Davis Executed

Huffington Post

The Long, Murderous Arm of the Law Has Killed Troy Davis 
Let us not mince words: The state of Georgia just murdered Troy Davis. The state coroner will list homicide as his cause of death. But he wasn’t the first and, sadly, he won’t be the last person slaughtered in the name of U.S. law and order. There are today dozens more people scheduled to be killed by states, according to Amnesty International. Their likely deaths represent the ultimate act of perversity in a system that destroys untold thousands of primarily black and brown lives every day. - Alternet

10 reasons why he should not be executed on The Guardian

Ai Weiwei attacks China over justice and human rights

The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has launched a scathing attack on the Chinese government after his release from secretive detention in late June, accusing officials of denying citizens their basic rights.

In a strongly worded commentary published late on Sunday on the website of Newsweek magazine, Ai – whose detention prompted an international outcry – branded the capital, Beijing, as "a city of violence". He criticised the government for rampant corruption, the judicial system and its policy on migrant workers, all issues that have inflamed social tensions in China.

Ai's commentary signals his growing impatience with the strict terms of his release from 81 days in captivity in late June. It also presents Beijing with a direct challenge on how to handle the country's most famous social critic.

"Every year millions come to Beijing to build its bridges, roads, and houses … They are Beijing's slaves," Ai wrote. "They squat in illegal structures, which Beijing destroys as it keeps expanding. Who owns houses? Those who belong to the government, the coal bosses, the heads of big enterprises. They come to Beijing to give gifts – and the restaurants and karaoke parlours and saunas are very rich as a result."

The Guardian

UK Riot Sentences: Facebook Pair Get Four Years In Jail

Liberal Democrats and justice groups have questioned some of the tough sentences handed down to riot offenders after two men were jailed for four years each for attempting to incite a riot on Facebook.

The party's home affairs spokesman, Tom Brake, said sentencing should not be about "retribution". "Clearly there are cases where offenders who have committed very serious crimes should expect very serious sentences and that is what I expect to happen. But there have been some cases where people who have committed petty offences have received sentences which, if they had committed the same offence the day before the riots, they would not have received a sentence of that nature.

"This should be about restorative justice, in other words making people acknowledge the offences they have committed and preferably if the victims want it, actually sit down face to face with the victims so they can hear from the victims the impact they have had, but it should not be about retribution", he told Newsnight.

Tessa Munt, the MP for Wells, told the Guardian the plans were "bonkers, bonkers, bonkers" and only served to make headlines instead of "calm, rational policy-making".

The Huffington Post

Americans Face Guantanamo-Like Torture Everyday in a Super-Max Prison all over the USA

“They beat the shit out of you,” Mike James said, hunched near the smeared plexiglass separating us. He was talking about the cell “extractions” he’d endured at the hands of the supermax-unit guards at the Maine State Prison.

James’s story illustrates an irony in the negative reaction of many Americans to the mistreatment of “war on terrorism” prisoners at Guantánamo. To little public outcry, tens of thousands of American citizens are being held in equivalent or worse conditions in this country’s super-harsh, super-maximum security, solitary-confinement prisons, or in comparable units of traditional prisons. The Obama administration— somewhat unsteadily—plans to shut down the Guantánamo detention center and ship its inmates to one or more supermaxes in the United States, as though this would mark a substantive change. In the supermaxes inmates suffer weeks, months, years, or even decades of mind-destroying isolation, usually without meaningful recourse to challenge the conditions of their captivity. Prisoners may be regularly beaten in cell extractions, and they receive meager health services. The isolation frequently leads to insane behavior including self-injury and suicide attempts.

Editor's Note: Courageous WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning is reportedly suffering some of the same horrible experiences detailed in the article below, including 23 hours a day of solitary confinement, which has been labeled torture by numerous prison and psychological experts.

More on AlterNet