Tag Archives: medical personnel

Lethal Injection: 30 Years of Hypocrisy

December 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM

lethal injection

TEXAS CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, Art. 43.24. TREATMENT OF CONDEMNED.  No torture, or ill treatment, or unnecessary pain, shall be inflicted upon a prisoner to be executed under the sentence of the law.

Hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue.

30 years ago, just after midnight, Dec. 7, 1982, Texas executed Charlie Brooks with a lethal cocktail of three drugs.  Texas had been execution-free for 18 years, since 1964. The first African American executed in the U.S. since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Brooks’ final words were an Islamic prayer (“There is no God but Allah. Verily do we belong and verily unto Him do we return.”) followed by a “stay strong” to his girlfriend.

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The Guardian 'Gaza War Crimes Investigation' – 3 videos

March 24, 2009 at 7:04 AM
Hermes 450 unmanned drone used by Israel.

Hermes 450 unmanned drone used by Israel.

The Guardian website posted three incredible videos March 23rd by Clancy Chassay, Christian Bennett, Sarah Brodbin, Maggie O’Kane and Mustafa Khalili.  The Guardian team conducted their own investigations into some of the charges that Israel committed war crimes during the Gaza offensive.

The first video covers the use of precision weapons, many fired by unmanned drones, to attack civilians.  Amnesty International mentioned these drones in their report ‘Fuelling conflict: Foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza’.  The fact that these unmanned drones are used to attack as well as surveillance is a fact usually censored by the IDF on Israeli reporters and foreign reporters based in the region.

The second video deals with allegations by both sides of human shielding.  Amnesty issued a report on how both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, were using military tactics that endangered civilians.  Chassay also mentions the deadly campaign that Hamas undertook during the crisis to injure and kill ‘collaborators’ and political opponents which Amnesty also investigated.

The third video shows footage of attacks on medical personnel while trying to tend to wounded and attacks on hospitals and medical facilities.  Amnesty also covered this issue in the blog, LiveWire and in a report.  [Donatella Rovera, senior researcher for AI on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, posted blog entries while on the fact finding mission to southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.]