The tweeting inmate is Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and a legal resident of the UK. Unable to go online himself, he is delivering his message to Twitter through his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, who is also founder of legal group Reprieve. The May 20 tweet urging people to call the US Embassy in the UK and demand the closure of Gitmo has already been retweeted more than 300 times. Unclassified (please retweet): Shaker Aamer would like everyone to call US Embassy 020 7499-9000 to demand action on Guantanamo Bay — Clive Stafford Smith (@CliveSSmith) May 20, 2013 Smith said that although he is doing the tweeting, it was Aamer’s idea, despite the fact that he was imprisoned four years before Twitter even existed. “He really does know about Twitter and all the social media, as I have sent him copies of what people have said and done for him to keep his spirits up ,” Wired quoted Smith as saying.Twitter users who called the embassy shared their experience online: @clivessmith Think they are getting wise to what’s happening. The embassy just cut me off. Such democratic souls. — Keith Brindle (@BrindleKeith) May 20, 2013 @clivessmith I just did that I and got a lots of bullshit back, as to how Mr president has been trying to shut gitmo down, demcratically!! — Shaheen Malik (@Sheenamal01) May 20, 2013 Aamer is one of 86 Guantanamo detainees cleared for release. He is also one of the inmates on hunger strike for the facility’s closure. The number of those on strike is 103 according to prison officials, and more than 130 according to the prisoners’ lawyers.One-third of the striking inmates are being force-fed, including Aamer. The practice has been deemed torture and a breach of international law by the UN human rights office.“There’s only one way to end this strike fairly, and that’s to take prisoners who’ve been cleared for release and set them free. And Shaker Aamer, the last British resident, he could come back to London tomorrow if only President Obama would show him redemption and use the National Defense Authorization Act to let people go free. That’s the only way to solve this problem,” Smith told RT.Aamer has been held without charge since 2002, despite having been cleared for release six years ago along with the other 85 detainees. The Reprieve website said he “has been repeatedly abused and subjected to extended isolation in Guantánamo Bay.” Aamer joined the hunger strike on February 15. His lawyer is concerned with his deteriorating health, saying his client has long passed the point where he risks “irreversible cognitive impairment.” … Read More
Courtroom ordered closed for Manning trial session to ‘protect classified information’
The order comes after judges dropped one count against Manning, but are still pushing for serious charges: Disclosing classified data to WikiLeaks and aiding Al-Qaeda. Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges set against him, standing accused of leaking over 700,000 documents to Wikileaks.Twenty-four witnesses, including several US ambassadors, will testify behind closed doors during the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, which begins on June 3.The decision was made by US Military judge Col. Denise Lind, who heads the case. She indicated that otherwise, some sensitive information could be revealed. A censored transcript of the hearing will be published at a later date, the judge explained.There has already been too much secrecy in the Manning case, Jesselyn Radack, national security and human rights director of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project told AP two weeks ago.”The more they do behind closed doors and the more they do through secret codes or anything else that shields the public from information, like not providing transcripts, those things are all antithetical to the democratic idea of having a free and open trial,” Radack stressed.Last year, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a petition to order the court to grant the public and press wider access to the trial, a request an appeals court later denied.In April, prosecutors urged journalists to “police” each other and inform judges if they notice other reporters taking notes or recordings the proceedings. The move followed the leak of a snippet of audio from the courtroom featuring Manning’s testimony about his motives in leaking the documents.The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) released the audio, marking the first time the public has heard Manning’s voice since his 2010 arrest. Manning justified his actions by calling for the exposure of what he saw as US government wrongdoings in order to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.”In the recording, he goes on to accuse the US Army of “not valu[ing] human life,” and compared other soldiers to “a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.”Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted to disclosing classified government documents and diplomatic cables to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, and now faces charges of aiding the enemy for those leaks. Part of the government’s case against Manning asserts that late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden asked one of his deputies to download documents leaked by Manning.Among the witnesses set to testify was one of the Navy SEALs that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in May 2011. Prosecutors said the “DoD operator,” whose identity was not disclosed, would testify that terrorists had received access to some of the WikiLeaks material through an associate.Prosecutors said Tuesday that they had agreed not to pursue a charge that Manning had violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, reducing his potential 162-year prison sentence by eight years.Just over a month ago, the judge ordered the prosecution to prove that Manning intended to harm the US by leaking the cables.On Tuesday, judges accepted Manning’s guilty plea to one of the charges. The offense was related to a State Department cable from the US embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland, which Manning has admitted to leaking.Manning has offered to plead guilty to 10 of the less serious charges against him, which could see him sentenced to up to 20 years. If convicted of all charges against him, he could be imprisoned for up to 150 years. … Read More
Constitutional Rights Rejected: 2nd Amendment Activist Removed from NJ Gun Control Hearing for Exercising 1st Amendment Rights
Everyone is entitled under the 1st Amendment to express criticism of the government but when Big Brother doesn’t like what you have to say, the Constitution is thrown out the window. … Read More
Bergman auction canned after suspected theft
An auction of memorabilia belonging to Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Berman has been scrapped by authorities after claims the items were stolen from the family. … Read More
Russia luxury car tax seen as another step towards social justice
Driving quick as the wind on a car worth over $160,000 on Moscow streets, which sees its fair share of expensive German cars, will soon cost owners much more following the Russian Parliament’s vote for a new tax on luxury vehicles.The new legislation would double the tax on cars worth more than 5 million rubles ($160,000), and a triple the tax on those worth over 10 million rubles ($320,000).For example, the annual payment for a BMW 760Li (544 h/p, 6.6 million rubles or about $213,000) in Moscow is now about $2,600; soon it will be around $5,250. For cars worth over $320,000 – like the Ferrari California V8 (10.4 million rubles or $335,000) – it will rise from current $2,600 to $6,600.“Not so many people use such cars. And such restrictions lie rather in the moral than in the fiscal realm,” Putin said during an annual call-in Q&A in April.A main plank of President Putin’s election campaign 1.5 years ago was taxing hyper-consumption by Russia’s richest citizens, for land and real estate, yachts, business jets, luxury property and expensive cars.Though rich Russian citizens are famous for their conspicuous consumption, the outcome of such a taxation scheme was not expected to be a decisive contribution to the state budget – but that was never the point. “It is the right thing to do, there should be such a [luxury] tax. And the question of social equity, the gap in incomes is a sharp and a very important question,” Putin said during the Q&A.However, the legislation has been drastically softened compared to its original objectives.The new amendments are not the same as a previously proposed luxury tax, as Russian owners of super-yachts and business jets prefer to register and use this kind of property abroad, so they do not pay Russian taxes on the aircrafts and vessels in Russia. Owners of vast land and real estate in Russia have similarly complicated schemes that make it difficult to prove ownership.Still, there are several kinds of property subject to obligatory official registration. The rich prefer to sleep in remote villas at nighttime and drive in expensive cars in broad daylight, making luxury cars a prime target for the tax. So, it was therefore decided not to create the luxury tax from a scratch, but rather to increase annual payments for owning personal “objects of luxury.”The number of expensive cars falling under the new legislation is around 20,000 to 25,000; while not contribute hugely to the budget, the sums of the new tax could amount to billions of rubles. “We’d like to stress that the new legislation rather has social than fiscal character,” Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Shatalov stated.Proposals for additional annual real estate and land taxes have been postponed. The Ministry for Economic Development has said that much private property has previously been estimated too low, and in some regions a reevaluation of such property is needed to estimate their real market value.The opposition supported the new legislation, though calling it a “profanation” of the original proposed luxury tax.”This increase [in annual payments] is a profanation of the original idea of a tax on excessive consumption,” Fair Russia deputy Oksana Dmitrieva stressed. The MP believes that the tax legislation amendments will only affect a limited number of the richest taxpayers, for whom such payments are insignificant. … Read More
Pussy Riot’s Alekhina announces hunger strike
Following the announcement, the court ruled to postpone the parole hearing till May 23. “I’m declaring a hunger strike and order my defense lawyers not to take part in this court trial,” Alekhina stated.She participated in the hearing via videoconference from the penal colony in the Perm region in Russia’s Urals, where she is serving her two-year sentence for hooliganism over the Pussy Riot’s ‘punk-prayer’ in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral. “Given that the Bereznikovsky city court [considering Alekhina’s parole release] is just across the road from the colony, the decision to deny her to attend the hearing can only be explained as humiliation,” tweeted Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, an association of human rights organizations.Prosecutor Lev Tashnikov said there was no need for Alekhina’s presence in the courtroom. The judge also said that there were no grounds for her to attend the hearing, as she could talk with her defense lawyer via the video link, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.During the Wednesday hearing, Alekhina also demanded that the judge – who refused to let her personally participate in the hearing – and the prosecutor recuse themselves from the trial. Prosecutor Tashkinov has personal enmity towards her, she argued. The court rejected both requests.Alekhina, 24, appealed for parole in April, seven months after the court sentenced her and two other Pussy Riot members to jail. Her fellow band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova – who is also serving a two-year sentence – was denied parole last month. The third convicted activist, Ekaterina Samutsevich, was released on probation in October last year.It is yet unclear whether Alekhina will participate in tomorrow’s court hearing. … Read More
Nvidia’s Tegra 4i gets updated for LTE-Advanced networks
Nvidia’s Tegra 4i, designed to work with a variety of 3G and 4G wireless networks, was first introduced just ahead of Mobile World Congress back in February. The chip was billed as a cheaper alternative to the original Tegra 4 although it did include one noteworthy feature: it carries a… … Read More
