| July 21, 2007 | -
Bush issued an order requiring the CIA to stop torturing its prisoners and to comply with the Geneva Conventions as the president interprets them, and also made clear that he would, by invoking executive privilege, refuse to allow the Justice Department to pursue any contempt charges that Congress might bring against his aides. “The next step,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.), “would be just disbanding the Justice Department.”
| Source 1:
Voice of America
Source 2:
The Washington Post
Source 3:
The Boston Globe
|
| June 12, 2007 | - A federal appeals court ruled that President George W. Bush cannot indefinitely imprison U.S. residents on suspicion alone, and ordered that the government either charge Ali Saleh Kahla al-Marri in a civilian court or release him. Al-Marri, a university student, was arrested in December 2001 and declared an enemy combatant. “The President,” the panel said, “cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 10, 2006 | -
Augusto Pinochet died on Human Rights Day.
| Source:
un.org
|
| July 11, 2006 | - The Pentagon issued a memo acknowledging that all prisoners in U.S. military custody were entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions.
| Source:
The Financial Times
|
| June 5, 2006 | - It was reported that the Pentagon has decided to remove a reference to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions from a new edition of the Army Field Manual on interrogation. That article bans torture and cruel treatment as well as “outrages on personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” The change, which would reverse decades of military policy, follows President Bush's declaration in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to “unlawful combatants” such as terrorists.
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| March 8, 2006 | - The U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. It also criticized the rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated. The report noted that the United States' "own journey towards liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult," and is "far from complete."
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The Independent
|
| December 30, 2005 | - The University of Michigan was boycotting Coca-Cola products because of Coca-Cola's human rights policies.
| Source:
Local 6
|
| May 20, 2005 | - In Chile, Augusto Pinochet's doctors claimed that Pinochet had suffered a stroke; human-rights lawyers said he was just being wily.
| Source:
ABC.net.au
|
| April 9, 2005 | - Transcripts of legal proceedings at Guantánamo Bay were released. “I don't care about international law,” said the president of a military tribunal in one transcript. “I don't want to hear the words 'international law' again. We are not concerned with international law."
| Source:
AP
|
| March 3, 2005 | -
China condemned the United States' human-rights record.
| Source:
People's Daily
|
| December 16, 2004 | - the British House of Lords said the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects violates EU human rights laws,
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| August 15, 2004 | - Three British men who have been held in Guantánamo Bay for two years were preparing to meet their lawyers for the first time.
| Source:
Independent
|
| August 15, 2004 | - Roughly 1,600 Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike to protest their conditions; "As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death," said Tzahi Hanegbi, the Israeli security minister.
| Source:
BBC
|
| July 9, 2004 | - The European Court of Human Rights declined to extend full human rights to fetuses.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 5, 2004 | - The acting U.N. high commissioner for human rights said that the American abuses of Iraqi prisoners might qualify as war crimes.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 5, 2004 | - U.S. officials postponed the release of this year's international human-rights report because the timing was somewhat embarrassing.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 15, 2004 | -
China amended its constitution to say that "the state respects and preserves human rights." Another amendment declared that "private property obtained legally shall not be violated."
| Source:
Boston Globe, Cybercast News
|
| March 12, 2004 | - One of the Britons released from Guantánamo Bay charged that he was tortured physically and psychologically. "After a while, we stopped asking for human rights," he said. "We wanted animal rights."
| Source:
BBC
|
| March 11, 2004 | -
Saudi Arabia established its first nongovernmental human-rights group.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 2, 2004 | -
China issued a report condemning the United States for its human-rights violations and its "military aggression around the world."
| Source:
Associated Press
|
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