Torture survivor Juan Mendez looks back at his harrowing experience, and the challenges facing the global fight against torture, in his role as the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture.
In January 2009, Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the notorious detention centre at Guantánamo Bay. Five years on, detainees remain uncharged and subjected to waterboarding, prolonged isolation and force feeding.
Detainees eligible for release from Guantanamo Bay are caught in limbo: the US won’t accept them and foreign countries are reluctant to take in refugees who have been incarcerated with terrorists, writes Scott Fitzsimmons.
The more than 100 detainees on hunger strike at the detention facility have said that they do not trust military doctors who engaged in painful force-feeding.
Obama said there was no evidence to indicate when, who and how chemical weapons were used in Syria as he spoke to the media about Guantanamo Bay and Russian relations earlier today.
Irish peace groups have outlined the “aviation, human rights, and international humanitarian law” which are being violated by the use of the airport by foreign military.
The notorious detention centre has now been open for ten years and, with indefinite military detention now enshrined in US law, hope is fading that it will be closed down as pledged.
The price of keeping a prisoner at the notorious detention centre is more than 30 times the cost of imprisoning a person in the United States mainland.
THE GOVERNMENT HAS faced mounting criticism over its messaging around Covid-19 restrictions, particularly in the last few days.
Our political correspondent Christina Finn writes that the confusion about how the government plans to handle the next phase of the pandemic was not just about mixed messages, but also about plain old bad communication.
She breaks down the numerous bumps for government communications in recent days here.
Government themselves are not as convinced. Taoiseach Micheál Martin told reporters last night that he didn’t think the government had a problem with communicating a clear plan, while Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said this morning that if there have been any failures “we have to accept responsibility for that”.
Today we’re asking: Do you think government communication around Covid-19 restrictions has been clear in recent weeks?
Cloudy with a little rain this afternoon
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