By Staff (sc/jg/jsr/mgt/jf), Prensa Latina | By Rachel Rickard Straus, Daily Mail. Pedro Pimentel, a former instructor of an elite Guatemalan military force called kaibiles, extradited from the US last July, has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in killing 201 indigenous people in the Dos Erres massacre of December 6 to 8, 1982.
Continue reading →By Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity | Occupy Oakland. On Monday, February 20, 2012, over a dozen rallies and demonstrations for a National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners will be held throughout the U.S. including the San Francisco Bay Area’s Occupy San Quentin.
Continue reading →By Mujib Mashal and Staff, Al Jazeera. Khmer Rouge chief jailer and torturer Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, escaped justice for over 30 years by hiding out as a Christian aid worker. On Feb 3, 2012, the 69-year old Duch was sentenced to life imprisonment after he appealed a 30-year sentence because he had only “respectfully and strictly followed the orders.” He is the first person to be brought to justice for the killing-field atrocities.
Continue reading →By Danilo Valladares, IPS. A Guatemalan court has ordered former dictator Efrain Rios Montt to stand trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. If convicted, he faces 30 years in prison. Hopefully the members of the army who perpetrated the crimes will also be brought to justice. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Staff, Innocence Project | Allan Turner, Houston Chronicle | Brandi Grissom, Texas Tribune | Haiti Chery. The Texas State Fire Marshal hurriedly resigned in Dec 2011. This follows protests against the State Attorney General’s July dismissal of a forensic panel that had ripped the methods used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham, a man Texas executed in 2004.
Continue reading →By Staff, Innocence Blog Opponents of capital punishment convened on January 25, 2012 to discuss Washington State Senate Bill 6283 to abolish the death penalty.
Continue reading →By Staff, The Innocence Project | YouTube. “These exonerations illustrate the causes of wrongful convictions that must be remedied.” Video testimonials and discussions by exonerated people.
Continue reading →By Frederico Garcia Lorca, Casa Poema, Kempis, Everything2 | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Frederico García Lorca, one of the greatest poets and playwrights in the Spanish language, became Franco’s most famous victim at the start of the Spanish Civil War. Lorca’s remains might be in one of the unmarked graves that Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered exhumed as part of his probe into Spain’s fascist era. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Marcela Valente, IPS, Periodistas En Español | Princeton Principles of Universal Jurisdiction, Univ. Minnesota Human Rights Library. A judge in Argentina has begun to investigate human rights crimes committed during Spain’s civil war and the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (between 1936 and 1975). The case is invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity and has landed in Argentina because Spain’s justice system is not effectively taking action. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Staff, AlterPresse | Translated by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. After their boat sank off the coast of Cuba, 45 Haitian migrants drowned; 87 were rescued on Saturday, December 24, 2011 by the Cuban Coast Guard. The small boat is estimated to have carried over 160 passengers. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Edwin Musoni, The New Times. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced both Matthieu Ngirumpatse and Edouard Karemera, who were President and Vice-President of Mouvement Révolutionnaire Nationale pour le Développement (MRND) respectively, to life imprisonment for their roles in the 1994 Hutu Genocide against the Tutsi minority.
Continue reading →By Staff, Prensa Latina. The self-proclaimed provisional prime minister of Libya, Mahmoud Jibril, validated confirmations by other leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) on the death of Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday, although new images suggested a brief death by execution.
Continue reading →Peter Vinthagen Simpson and staff, The Local. Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who was on Thursday named the 2011 Nobel Literature Prize laureate, has published a relatively small body of work, often addressing themes of death, history and nature. Here is an English translation of a short poem entitled “National Insecurity,” followed by a brief bibliography.
Continue reading →By Ansel Herz Haiti Liberté Faced with growing outrage over an alleged sexual assault (in July 2011) by UN occupation soldiers on 18-year-old Johnny Jean in the southern town of Port Salut, the UN is pledging to investigate the incident … Continue reading →
