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EU Anti-Torture Ruling Shows Need For UK Public Inquiry
In a significant anti-torture ruling, the European Court Of Human Rights has held that Lithuania and Romania violated the rights of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri by allowing them to be detained at CIA 'black sites' on European soil.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was subjected to "inhuman treatment" at the secret prison in Romania, which operated from 2003-2005. Abu Zubaydah was tortured at a black site in Lithuania that the CIA ran from 2005-6. The new CIA director, Gina Haspel, oversaw the torture of Mr al Nashiri at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002.
WASHINGTON
In a significant anti-torture ruling, the European Court Of Human Rights has held that Lithuania and Romania violated the rights of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri by allowing them to be detained at CIA 'black sites' on European soil.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was subjected to "inhuman treatment" at the secret prison in Romania, which operated from 2003-2005. Abu Zubaydah was tortured at a black site in Lithuania that the CIA ran from 2005-6. The new CIA director, Gina Haspel, oversaw the torture of Mr al Nashiri at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002.
Romania and Lithuania also allowed the CIA to transfer the men to other prisons, the judges found, exposing them to "a foreseeable serious risk of further ill-treatment".
This judgement comes shortly after the UK Government's unreserved apology to Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar, who were abducted by the CIA with British help and rendered to Libya, despite the near certainty they would be tortured by Muammar Gaddafi's secret service.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Tony Blair, who was Prime Minister when Belhaj and Boudchar were abducted, hinted there is more to the story than he can publicly discuss. "There's a lot of things in this case, some of which have been out in the media, some of which have not," he said.
Reprieve is calling for a judge-led public inquiry to establish how Britain let these innocent people down so badly and uncover the extent of UK involvement in rendition and torture.
Commenting, Reprieve's Director Maya Foa said: "This judgement shows how important it is for the courts to hold torturers and their enablers to account. Sadly abuses like these are not just part of history. Donald Trump has just appointed Gina Haspel, who oversaw the US torture and rendition programme, to lead the CIA, so it is all the more important we know the truth about British involvement. The Prime Minister's apology to Mr Belhaj and Ms Boudchar is an important first step, the next must be a full public inquiry."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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US Strikes on Yemen Oil Port That Killed 84 Civilians Called 'Apparent War Crime'
Human Rights Watch said the April bombings, which also wounded more than 150 civilians, demonstrated "a callous disregard for civilian lives" and should be investigated.
Jun 04, 2025
The April bombing of a Yemeni oil port by U.S. forces that killed and wounded hundreds of civilians and disrupted the delivery of lifesaving aid to one of the world's most war-torn nations was "an apparent war crime" that should be investigated, a leading international human rights group said Wednesday.
On April 17, a series of U.S. airstrikes destroyed the Ras Isa oil Port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, killing 84 people and wounding more than 150 others, according to first responders, local officials, and a probe by the U.K.-based independent monitor Airwars.
The bombings were part of the Trump administration's response to resistance by Houthi rebels to Israel's annihilation of Gaza, which has included ballistic missile strikes targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping related to the key U.S. ally.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002."
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," U.S. Central Command said at the time, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
However, the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while workers were still on the job. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that of the strikes' victims, "49 were people who worked at the port, several were truck drivers, and two were civil defense personnel. Others may have been workers' family members. Three were identified as children."
"The list contained one person identified as a 'colonel,' but who was not necessarily a military member," HRW continued. "The Hodeidah branch of the government-owned Yemen Oil Company posted photographs of 49 employees they said were killed."
HRW Yemen and Bahrain researcher Niku Jafarnia said Wednesday that "the U.S. government's decision to strike Ras Isa Port, a critical entry point for aid in Yemen, while hundreds of workers were present demonstrates a callous disregard for civilians' lives."
"At a time when the majority of Yemenis don't have adequate access to food and water, the attack's impact on humanitarian aid could be enormous, particularly after Trump administration aid cutbacks," Jafarnia added.
U.S. airstrikes on Yemen, which averaged around a dozen per month during the final year of the Biden administration, soared to more than 60 in March under President Donald Trump, according to the Yemen Data Project.
Other recent U.S. massacres in Yemen include a series of March 15 strikes on residential areas in the capital Sanaa that killed at least 53 people including numerous women and children, an April 20 strike on the Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood of the capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others, and the April 28 bombing of a detention center for African migrants in the city of Sa'ada that left at least 68 people dead and dozens more wounded.
These strikes came after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth loosened the U.S. military's rules of engagement to allow the bombing of a wider range of targets and people. In March, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed.
Hegseth—who has supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
The U.S has been bombing and conducting ground raids in Yemen since the beginning of the so-called War on Terror launched by the George W. Bush administration in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Airwars says hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed in 181 declared U.S. actions since 2002.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama announced that U.S. forces would provide "logistical and intelligence support" to the Saudi-led coalition intervening in the ongoing Yemeni civil war on behalf of the national government as it battled Iran-backed Houthi rebels. That assistance included refueling Saudi and Emirati warplanes that were bombing Yemeni targets and killing thousands of civilians while a blockade fueled famine and illness that claimed hundred of thousands of lives.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002 against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," HRW said Wednesday. "Those strikes continued until at least 2019 and killed many civilians, including 12 people attending a wedding in 2013. To Human Rights Watch's knowledge, the U.S. has never acknowledged or provided compensation for civilians harmed in this or other unlawful attacks."
The Pentagon has only acknowledged 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen since 2002. The Trump administration has been especially tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials including Hegseth discussed highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included.
"The recent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen are just the latest causing civilian harm in the country over the past two decades," Jafarnia said. "The Trump administration should reverse past U.S. practice and provide prompt compensation to those unlawfully harmed."
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'What Trump and His Sycophants Have Wrought': Mamdani Responds to NYC Councilmember Calling for His Deportation
In a social media post, New York City Councilmember Vickie Paladino called the mayoral candidate a "radical leftist who actually hates everything about the country."
Jun 04, 2025
New York City mayoral candidate and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani responded forcefully on Tuesday to comments from a Republican New York City councilmember, who the day prior took issue with Mamdani's politics and called for him to be deported.
Late Monday, New York City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, who represents a section of Queens, wrote from her nongovernmental X account: "Let's just talk about how insane it is to elect someone to any major office who hasn't even been a U.S. citizen for 10 years—much less a radical leftist who actually hates everything about the country and is here specifically to undermine everything we've ever been about."
Paladino ended the social media post with the word, "Deport."
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is a U.S. citizen. He was born in Uganda and moved to New York City with his family when he was 7. In 2018, he became naturalized as an American citizen. If elected, he would become New York City's first Muslim mayor.
Paladino made the comments in response to a 2019 post from Mamdani, in which he said he was excited to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who at that time was running in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. He had not been able to cast a ballot when Sanders ran in 2016 because he was not at that time a citizen, he said in the post.
"Death threats. Islamophobic bigotry. Now a sitting councilmember calling for my deportation. Enough. This is what [President Donald] Trump and his sycophants have wrought," wrote Mamdani on X in response to Paladino. "It's an assault on the values of our city and our Constitution. Will Cuomo condemn this or will that upset his MAGA donors?"
Former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is Mamdani's main opponent in the Democratic mayoral primary, which will take place on June 24. Cuomo has consistently been the clear front-runner in the contest, though a recent poll from from Emerson College Polling, PIX11, and The Hill showed Mamdani cutting into Cuomo's lead.
Cuomo did respond in a statement that was sent to The New York Times. "The Republican answer to everything, including the common cold, is deportation and it has to stop," he said.
Paladino, who is staunch supporter of Israel and has denounced pro-Palestine student activism, largely doubled down on her remarks on Tuesday. A statement put out by Paladino's office said that she "stands by" her statement, but acknowledged that Mamdani "has clearly achieved U.S. citizenship and thus is not eligible for deportation."
The statement brings up the fact that Mamdani helped found a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine while in college and says that her office has received threats from "Zohran's violent supporters."
Calling his agenda laced with "antisemitism, Marxism, and Anti-Americanism," Paladino said in the statement that "his candidacy and this incident underscore the need for the deportation efforts currently being undertaken by the Trump administration, particularly on our college campuses where these ideas metastasize, so that we can prevent any future Zohran's from taking root in America."
Trump has made a crackdown on immigration a centerpiece of his administration, and that effort has included targeting foreign-born university students who are involved with the pro-Palestine student movement.
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Trump Order to Hospitals on Emergency Abortions 'Means Women Will Die,' Warn Advocates
"The Trump administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive lifesaving abortions," said one reproductive rights leader.
Jun 04, 2025
Ensuring unequivocally that hospitals must provide abortion care to patients whose pregnancies have placed them in life-threatening medical emergencies is not "the policy of this administration," said the nation's top health agency on Tuesday—making clear, said one Democratic senator, that Trump administration officials "don't care how many women die or are forced into health crises to advance their anti-abortion agenda."
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a policy statement saying that guidance regarding emergency abortion care introduced in July 2022 by the Biden administration—just after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people in the U.S. don't have the constitutional right to abortion care—was being rescinded.
Former President Joe Biden made clear to hospitals in 2022 that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), they were obligated to provide abortion care if it was medically necessary, even in states that ban abortions. Medical emergencies that required abortion care included "ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features," according to Biden's guidance.
The 1986 law requires hospitals that receive federal funding to treat or stabilize patients experiencing medical emergencies even if they lack health insurance or cannot pay for health services, or to transfer them to another facility for care. EMTALA has been interpreted to include abortion care by both Republican and Democratic administrations going back to former President George W. Bush, but the CMS statement suggested President Donald Trump will not require hospitals to protect women's health or lives by providing abortions.
While rescinding Biden's guidance, CMS said it would continue to enforce EMTALA, "including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy."
"CMS will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions," the agency added—an apparent reference to a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration against Idaho, which claimed its near-total abortion ban superseded EMTALA.
That case went to the Supreme Court in 2024 and was dismissed, leaving in tact a federal court ruling that required Idaho hospitals to provide emergency abortion care.
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, emphasized that the CMS action "doesn't change hospitals' legal obligations, but it does add to the fear, confusion, and dangerous delays patients and providers have faced since the fall of Roe v. Wade."
"Stripping away federal guidance affirming what the law requires will put lives at risk," said Goss Graves. "At the same time, this administration claims it is considering ways to support 'population growth,' but it is actively dismantling the systems that protect pregnant people's health and lives. The hypocrisy is staggering. No matter what political games the administration wants to play, we will continue to stand with the patients, doctors, and hospitals fighting every day to do what is right."
Mary Ziegler, a professor at University of California, Davis, toldThe New York Times that the CMS guidance creates "a lot of unanswered questions about what hospitals are supposed to do going forward. So more confusion means more risk."
"We've already seen since the overturn of Roe that uncertainty and confusion tends to mean physicians are unwilling to intervene, and the more unwilling physicians are to intervene, the more risk there is in pregnancy," said Ziegler.
The Center for Reproductive Rights said that "confusion is the point" of the new policy statement.
"The Trump administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive lifesaving abortions," said Nancy Northup, the group's president and CEO.
The deaths of at least five women as the result of abortion bans in Texas and Georgia have been reported since Roe v. Wade was overturned, with doctors avoiding providing abortion care even in cases of nonviable pregnancies, for fear of being prosecuted.
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement that rescinding Biden's guidance "means women will die."
"The Trump administration is clearly refusing to protect pregnant people in crisis," said Timmaraju. "It's another calculated step in Trump's war on reproductive freedom—siding with extremists who want to punish doctors and abandon patients. No one should be denied emergency care, and we'll hold every official who enables this cruelty accountable."
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said the organization "will use every lever we have to keep President Trump and his administration from endangering our health and lives."
"The Trump administration cannot simply erase four decades of law protecting patients' lives with the stroke of a pen," said Kolbi-Molinas. "Regardless of where they live, pregnant patients have a right to emergency abortion care that will save their health or lives. By rescinding this guidance, the Trump administration has sent a clear signal that it is siding not with the majority, but with its anti-abortion allies—and that will come at the expense of women's lives."
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also sought to provide clarification.
"Once again, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that they do not care about women's lives," said Murray. "Make no mistake: EMTALA is still the law, and Trump rescinding this guidance does not change the fact that pregnant women who need emergency abortion care to save their life or health are still legally entitled to this care."
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