Amnesty International Wants Cheney Investigated For War Crimes

Eight activists representing Amnesty International donned orange jumpsuits Tuesday and held a protest in front of the Department of Justice in hopes of convincing the Obama administration to investigate former Vice President Dick Cheney for alleged war crimes.

“[Cheney] was one of the principal architects of a policy that instituted the torture of US detainees,” Tom Parker, the Policy Director for Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights at Amnesty International USA told TRNS. “That torture included threatening people with power drills, discharging weapons right near their heads, threatening to lock them in a box of insects, throwing them against the wall, heat exhaustion, sleep depravation, withholding food and water and of course, the most infamous of all, waterboarding.”

Although the Bush administration’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques have been controversial for years, they have returned to the spotlight with the release of Dick Cheney’s memoir “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,” in which Cheney describes different interrogation techniques used on detainees. 

“We’re here today to mark the publication of Dick Cheney’s memoirs and to present a copy of those memoirs to the Justice Department as exhibit A in a case to prosecute him for committing war crimes in the context of the global war on terror,” Parker said.

Cheney’s memoir was officially released Tuesday by Simon & Schuster

Click here to view a photo from today’s protest.

An Olympic challenge: Bush should address human rights abuse

As a test of his presidential legacy, President Bush needs to address the human rights violation in China on his visit to the Beijing Olympic Games, said T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia and Pacific for Amnesty International of the United States, especially because, on its own accord, the Chinese government promised to improve its human rights treatment.

Kumar made his message clear: Human rights in China have deteriorated since the International Olympic Committee decided the games would be held in Beijing. 250,000 people are imprisoned in labor camps through the "re-education through labor" detention system. According to Kumar, the Chinese government executes more people than every other country combined.

In his speech in Thailand yesterday, Bush addressed Chinese human rights violations, but that speech was meaningless if he does speak up when he is actually in China, Kumar said. Kumar suggested that Bush meet with"Mothers of Tiananmen," which consists of relatives of Tiananmen Square victims. The Chinese government has decided to designate three areas for peaceful demonstration, Kumar said, and Bush should also visit them.

Bush is sending a conflicted message about religious freedom by visiting state-controlled churches during his visit, argued Kumar. He should also visit independent churches.

Speaking out would be a symbolic victory against human right violations in China. Although it would have not have a significant short-term effect, Bush could set the standard for what the United States expects of China and establish guidelines for the next president, Kumar said.