U.S. Ordered to Release Photos of Military Detainee Abuse
The U.S. government must release photographs depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a federal judge’s ruling on Friday.
For more than a decade, the American Civil Liberties Union has been pushing for the photos to be made public in an attempt to hold the government responsible for its actions in military prisons, including Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Photographs that depicted military abuse of prisoners there were internationally condemned when they surfaced in 2004, initially sparking the ACLU lawsuit that same year. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein suspects there are hundreds or thousands more photographs from multiple sites in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to The Associated Press.
“The photos are crucial to the public record,” Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director, told the AP. “They’re the best evidence of what took place in the military’s detention centers.”
For years, the government has defended its decision not to release the photos by arguing that, if published, the potentially disturbing images could provoke attacks against U.S. forces and government officials abroad.
“To allow the government to suppress any image that might provoke someone, somewhere, to violence would be to give the government sweeping power to suppress evidence of its own agents’ misconduct,” Jaffer said.
In 2009, while the lawsuit was still in court, Congress passed a law permitting the government to keep the photos private if the Secretary of Defense confirmed that releasing them would put U.S. citizens at risk.
While defense secretaries have since done so, Hellerstein said the Defense Department did not provide specific enough details of such a threat. The judge’s ruling gives the government two months to appeal the decision before the photos must be released.
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Pope Accepts Resignation of Cardinal: The Vatican announced on Friday that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who is accused of sexual misconduct. He will lose his clerical office but will be permitted to keep his title. (via NPR)
Law Enforcement Diversity: A former captain in the Michigan State Police is speaking out about the department’s failure to recruit and hire women and minority candidates. The department is nearly 90 percent white and almost 92 percent male. (via the Detroit Free Press)
Confederate Flag: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case on Monday that will determine whether Texas was within its rights to refuse to issue a vanity license plate with the Confederate flag on it. (via The Christian Science Monitor)
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Original article from TakePart
