I think you should have a speedy Gonzales departure!

From the blog of the author of American Torture, Michael Otterman, comes a very disturbing revelation from Alberto Gonzales - the US Attorney General. In a Judiciary Committee Hearing in the US, Gonzales all but admitted that the US has not only used torture against detainees, but that torture will still be permitted on detainees that are not held in the conflict with Al Qaida!!!!

Firstly, the initial admission came because Bush signed an executive order which reinstated the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention - which outlaws torture. This rejected the previous position of Gonzales which defined the torture provisions of the Geneva Convention as being “quaint”.

Secondly, the executive order only covers detainees held by the CIA in the conflict with Al Qaida. This means that the any detainees not held in the Al Qaida conflict must therefore not be covered by this new executive order.

Again, the questions should be put to the Howard government: Was David Hicks tortured at Guantanamo by the US government?

From American Torture:

“…stress positions, threatening detainees with dogs, forced nudity, waterboarding and mock execution– methods that four senior military JAG lawyers recently opined are violations of Geneva Common Article Three…”

Labour activist reveals debiliting working conditions in China

The labour rights forum organised by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMMWU) and Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) at Tom Mann Theatre on 24th July, Sydney, focused on the labour rights situation in China and the plight of migrant workers in Australia.

Monina Wong, executive director for Labour Action China, touched on the debiliting working conditions in China. In her speech, she went into the history of the ‘opening up’ of the Chinese economy since the early 1980s, which has since caused the work force to become displaced and dispossessed. She displayed statistics (e.g. 49% of the deprived workers work more than 9 to 10 hours per day and with as many as 79.5% having no legal day off) to show the extent of the increasingly slavish working conditions in the country. At the end of her presentation, she highlighted a case study that the organisation undertook. Entitled the “Jewellery Campaign”, Labour Action China helped some Chinese workers sued their former employers who dismissed them after finding out that they had suffered from the work-related silicosis disease.

Paul Sebastian, State Secretary of AMMWU, touched on a wide range of labour issues in Australia such as Work Choices and the 457 temporary skilled migration scheme which has allowed employers to exploit often helpless and non- English speaking migrant workers.

Sophie, campaign co-ordinator for Amnesty International Australia, clarified that while her speech would not be focusing on labour rights, they would nevertheless touched on human rights issues in China. Nevertheless, she did briefly touched on a recent published AI report which revealed shocking working conditions among rural to urban migrant workers in China. They included horrid tales of workers being locked inside the factories by their employers or children of workers being denied state education.

As the world continues to view China as an important trading partner; with Australia planning to sign a free trade agreement with the former in the near future, it is imperative that Australian workers show some form of international solidarity with their Chinese counterparts. They could do so by expressing their concerns to politicians - that human rights and labour right clauses should be included and enforced in any trade agreements with China; and that the Chinese government give workers the right to form unions and collective action.

Moratarium on Death Penalty halted in Florida; Taiwan overturns previous decision and hands out death penalty sentence…

If the death penalty has not been abolished, it appears that there is always a slim chance that legislators can always bring it back.

In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist ended the moratarium on the death penalty imposed by his predecessor, Jeb Bush, who suspended lethal injections in late 2006. The man has signed his first death warrant for Mark Dean Schwab, who was sentenced to death in 1992 for kidnapping, raping and murdering an 11-year-old boy. His execution date is set to be 15 November this year. The reason for reinstating the death penalty? - Execution process improved. Even though there is really no humane way to murder someone…

In Taiwan, according to Amnesty International Australia, The Taiwan High Court has sentenced three men to death even though the evidence is “based almost entirely on their confessions which were allegedly extracted through torture”.This is their 11th retrial and three extraordinary appeals which took 16 years. This re-trial also overturns the 2003 decision of not guilty.