Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Military Space News .




TERROR WARS
Brazil truth commission urges end to dictatorship amnesty
by Staff Writers
Brasilia (AFP) Dec 10, 2014


China tells US to 'correct its ways' after torture report
Beijing (AFP) Dec 10, 2014 - China on Wednesday urged the United States to "correct its ways" after a damning US Senate report detailed use of torture by the CIA.

"China has consistently opposed torture," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular briefing.

"We believe the US side should reflect upon itself, correct its ways and earnestly respect and abide by the rules of international conventions."

Rights groups say China's own justice system is riddled with abuses and that it is not uncommon for confessions to be extracted through torture.

Beijing says it attaches great importance to human rights and that it carries out detentions in accordance with the law.

In a report that has drawn international calls for criminal prosecution, the US Senate said that CIA torture of Al-Qaeda suspects was far more brutal than acknowledged and failed to produce useful intelligence.

China and the US regularly spar over human rights, with Washington expressing concern over the detention and jailing of prominent rights activists by China's communist authorities.

A senior Chinese official on Monday defended his country's human rights record against Western criticism, saying Beijing favoured the "right to development and survival" over civil liberties.

Speaking in Brussels after an EU-China rights dialogue, Li Junhua told a press conference: "Neither party should judge the other country's system."

He added that Europe is "focused on civil liberties and the right of government but in China we're talking about the right to development and the right to survival."

China has made "great strides in the last 30 years on human rights," which compare to a hundred years of progress in Europe, he said.

A truth commission on Wednesday urged Brazil to scrap an amnesty for torturers, in a final report on the 1964-1985 military dictatorship that says at least 434 people were killed or disappeared by the regime.

The panel made its recommendation to President Dilma Rousseff, herself a victim of torture during the dictatorship.

"We respect and revere all those who fought for democracy," said Rousseff, struggling to maintain her composure during an emotional speech in which she said today's generation and the victims' families deserved to know the truth.

Otherwise, she said, "they will continue to suffer as if their families were dying anew."

Unlike its South American neighbors, Brazil has not prosecuted military officials for regime-era crimes, because of a 1979 amnesty law, ratified in 2010, preventing it from doing so.

A law signed by Rousseff three years ago created the truth commission, which is empowered to summon witnesses under oath but not to bring any prosecutions.

Wednesday, the group urged the amnesty be lifted for torturers and those who had willfully violated human rights, adding that the final tally of victims likely is an undercount.

"These numbers do not correspond to the total of dead and disappeared," a commission statement read.

"These are only the cases it was possible to verify... despite obstacles to the investigation, notably the lack of access to documentation produced by the armed forces, officially listed as destroyed," it said.

"Under the military dictatorship, repression and the liquidation of political opponents became state policy," the commission added, insisting amnesty is incompatible with Brazilian and international law.

Brazil had already recognized some 400 deaths or disappearances under the military regime, compared with 30,000 deaths in Argentina and more than 3,200 in Chile.

Regime opponents routinely were jailed and tortured, with some summarily executed, their bodies never found.

The report quoted harrowing testimony from one, Marcia Basseto Paes, a woman arrested in 1977.

"Aside from electric shocks inside the vagina, the anus and on the breasts, they made me dance naked in front of the police," Paes recalled.

Commission coordinator Pedro de Abreu Dallari said investigators interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses over 31 months in creating the 4,400-page report.

The document, which lists 377 state officials, including now deceased former regime leaders, as being responsible for serious human rights abuses, "describes the history of each one of the 434 dead and political disappeared," Dallari told a ceremony at the presidential palace in Brasilia.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the report.

"Informing society and engaging in dialogue about fundamental freedoms, and how they have been violated, is a vital safeguard against the recurrence of abuse," Ban said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch judged the report "a major step toward addressing the atrocities committed during the country's military dictatorship" and saluted the commission for an "authoritative and long-overdue account of the horrible crimes that took place."

Amnesty International's Brazil director Atila Roque called the publication a "historic step in the country's efforts to obtain justice for crimes against humanity."

Roque added: "We must break the past cycle of impunity that fuels ongoing torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances in the present."

Rousseff, who was detained and tortured as a young political activist, created the commission in 2011 shortly after taking office.

The commission interviewed her during its research, along with former presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, her predecessor, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The commission sifted through cases using evidence from judicial proceedings, public ministry documents and police investigations to produce a report which Dallari hailed as "rigorous, relevant and hard-hitting."


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
The Long War - Doctrine and Application






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





TERROR WARS
Six Guantanamo detainees sent to Uruguay
Washington (AFP) Dec 07, 2014
Six Guantanamo detainees have been transferred to Uruguay from the American military base in Cuba, where 136 detainees remain, the Pentagon said Sunday. Among the inmates transferred was Syrian prisoner Jihad Diyab, 43, who had staged a hunger strike and requested a US court to order prison officials to stop force-feeding him. The six men - including three other Syrians, a Palestinian a ... read more


TERROR WARS
Russian space-based ABM system on-track for 2020 launch

Chinese Hypersonic Strike Vehicle May Overcome US Missile Defense: Expert

Raytheon building air and missile defense center for Qatar

India test fires nuclear capable strategic missile

TERROR WARS
French military orders Ground Master air defense radar systems

40,000th Javelin ant-armor missile produced

Taiwan develops new missiles to counter China's threat

RAF launches Paveway guided bombs from Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35

TERROR WARS
Top pilot sees risk in unregulated US drones

Drone revolution hovers on the horizon

Amazon warns it could take drones testing elsewhere

Army taps AeroVironment for continued Switchblade support services

TERROR WARS
SES Demonstrates O3b Satellite Technology for US Govt Customers

LockMart completes environmental testing on 4th MUOS bird

Harris Corporation supplying Falcon III radios to Canadian military

GenDyn Canada contracted to connect military to WGS system

TERROR WARS
Rapiscan adds CounterBomber distance threat detector to portfolio

Lockheed Martin opens innovation center in Abu Dhabi

Saab supplying shoulder-fired rocket system to French forces

Dutch sell combat vehicles to Estonia for 100 mln euros

TERROR WARS
BAE Systems plans purchase of spy products provider

Russian arms sales soar on domestic spending

New Pentagon chief inherits friction with White House

Northrop Grumman expands operations in Australia

TERROR WARS
Desperate shortages leave Ukraine ill-prepared for trauma of war

Baltics up defence spending as Russia buzzes borders

Vietnam upholds jail terms for activists

Russia denies military jet near miss with airliner over Sweden

TERROR WARS
'Giant' charge density disturbances discovered in nanomaterials

LLNL team develops efficient method to produce nanoporous metals

Thin film produces new chemistry in 'nanoreactor'

Ultra-short X-ray pulses explore the nano world




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.