Australian television yesterday aired footage of cattle being treated inhumanely prior to slaughter in Indonesia.
Australia suspended live cattle exports to 11 Indonesian abattoirs today and announced a review into the A$320 million (RM1 billion) trade after graphic footage was broadcast of Australian cattle being inhumanely slaughtered.
“I have decided to halt the trade of live animals to the facilities identified by the footage. I reserve the right to add further facilities to the banned list,” Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig said in a statement.
“I will appoint an independent reviewer to investigate the complete supply chain for live exports up to and including the point of slaughter,” he said.
Australian television yesterday aired footage of cattle being beaten, whipped and kicked prior to slaughter in Indonesia, prompting a political outcry.
Hard time: Psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen are alleged to have overseen the waterboarding of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was tortured with the method 183 times
The CIA secretly agreed to pay over $5million in legal fees to shield two of it's employees accused of waterboarding terror suspects.
Psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen are well-known to have invented the brutal interrogation programme, now classed in the US as torture.
But former U.S. intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to waterboarding personally.
They are now facing a federal investigation over their exact roles in the simulated drowning tactic.
It is the first time those who carried out the waterboarding have been publicly identified.
A Saudi couple tortured their Sri Lankan maid after she complained of a too heavy workload by hammering 24 nails into her hands, legs and forehead, officials said today.
Nearly 2 million Sri Lankans sought employment overseas last year and around 1.4 million, mostly maids, were employed in the Middle East. Many have complained of physical abuse or harassment. L.T. Ariyawathi, a 49-year old mother of three, returned on Friday after five months in Saudi Arabia.
PRISONERS held in a secret Baghdad jail suffered a variety of tortures from electric shocks to sodomy, according to a report released today by the Human Rights Watch organisation.
The group is calling for Iraq to investigate and prosecute those government and security officials found to be responsible.
Human Rights Watch, a worldwide organisation that strives to shine the light on such abuse, interviewed 42 of the men in the al Rusafa Detention Centre on April 26, 2010.
They were among about 300 detainees transferred from the secret facility in the old Muthanna airport in West Baghdad to al Rusafa over the past several weeks, after the existence of the secret prison was revealed.
Those held were allegedly hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized.
Devout Filipinos have been nailed to crosses and whipped in an annual ritual to mark Good Friday.
Dozens of people were crucified in villages across the Roman Catholic country, in one of the world's most bizarre practices to mark the day when Christians believe Jesus Christ was put to death.
The event drew more than 10,000 Filipino and foreign spectators.
Many gathered at San Pedro Cutud, a farming village where devotees dressed in robes and tin crowns walked to a dusty mound carrying wooden crosses on their backs.
At the mound, men nailed their hands and feet to the crosses.
Among the devotees was Ruben Enaje, a 49-year-old sign painter who was nailed to a cross for the 24th time as his way of thanking God for his survival after falling from a building.
Mary Jane Mamangon, a 34-year-old rice cake vendor, was the lone female devotee to be nailed to a cross this year in San Juan village. It was her 14th time.
She said she started when she was 18 and has taken part in the annual rites on and off to seek God's help in saving her ill grandmother and now her younger sister, who is suffering from cancer.
'I do it because I have seen that it works,' she said. 'I saw how my grandmother recovered from her illness.'
Similar rites took place in nearby Bulacan province, while in other parts of the country, half-dressed, barefooted flagellants walked the streets, whipping their bloody backs with pieces of wood dangling from ropes as a way to atone for sins.
The crucifixion re-enactment has taken place for over 33 years and ends at 3pm, when a person portraying the role of Jesus is nailed on the cross.
According to Catholics, this is also the exact time when Jesus died.
Church leaders reject such practices. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines said the real expression of Christian faith during Lent is through repentance and self-renewal, not flagellation or crucifixion.
Bishop Rolando Tirona of the Prelature of Infanta said flagellation and cross nailings were expressions of superstitious beliefs, and were usually done out of need for money or to encourage tourism.
About 80 per cent of the population of more than 90million people in the Philippines are Roman Catholic.
For the first time foreigners were banned from taking part in the ritual carried out in Pampanga province's San Fernando city.
Organiser Ching Pangilinan said the ban was imposed after foreigners took part in previous years to make fun of the rites.
'We don't want them to just make a mockery out of the tradition of the people here,' Pangilinan said.
A man dressed as Jesus on the cross for a Good Friday open air performance of The Passion Of Jesus in London's Trafalgar Square, which attracted hundreds of onlookers.
Hundreds of people looked on during a Good Friday performance at Trafalgar Square
Ritual: Men raise the cross of the penitent in San Juan village, northern Philippines
Devotee: This man, from the village of San Pedro, north of Manila, was among more than 23 people who were nailed to crosses
Catholic: Mary Jane Mamangon, 34, was the lone woman to be crucified in Pampanga province, northern Philippines
Painfully devoted: Ruben Enaje, a 49-year-old sign painter, was nailed to a cross for the 24th time as his way of thanking God for his survival after falling from a building. The bizarre practice is an annual Filipino ritual to mark Good Friday
The ritual has taken place for the last 33 years, and ends at 3pm - which is the exact time the Catholics believe Jesus died
Maria Wendelyn Pedrosa, 19, is carried by Filipinos in the town of Hagonoy, Bulacan province, northern Philippines
A man rushes forward carrying a cross as he is whipped by others during the reenactment of the sufferings of Jesus Christ
U.S intelligence agencies deliberately concealed their mistreatment of terror suspects, a former head of MI5 claimed last night.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller also said she had only learnt that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded - a total of 160 times - after retiring from the Security Service in 2007.
In a speech to the Mile End Group at the House of Lords, Lady Manningham-Buller also revealed that Britain protested against the treatment of terror suspects.
'The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,' said the former head of the domestic spy agency.
They were 'very keen to conceal from us what was happening'.
She said she had wondered, in 2002 and 2003, how the US had been able to supply the UK with intelligence from Mohammed.
'I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything,' she said.
'They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it.
'It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times.'
She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the gung-ho U.K. intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.
But she joked that members of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, may have been inspired by on-screen excess.
'One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched "24",' Lady Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counter-terrorist agent, starring Kiefer Sutherland.
Her intervention follows intense controversy over British agents' alleged collusion with U.S. counterparts employing torture techniques.
It erupted last month after the disclosure of what was described as the 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident formerly held at Guantanamo Bay.
Ministers and current MI5 chief Jonathan Evans have insisted there was no collusion by UK security forces.
But there are enduring questions about exactly when they learnt that the U.S. apparently changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks.
The security services are also under pressure over claims that they have a 'culture of suppression' about such matters.
Lady Manningham-Buller said the Government had lodged 'protests' with the Americans about its treatment of detainees, but refused to elaborate.
She went on to say that the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt MI5's work.
'The allegations of collusion in torture and the lack of respect for human rights will wound those individuals personally and collectively, and in some respects - whether proven or not - it will make it harder for them to do their jobs,' she said.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said she had only learnt that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded after retiring in 2007
Human rights activists demonstrate waterboarding on a volunteer in a protest outside Capitol Hill, Washington
Cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment: Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed
Tens of thousands of equestrian fans have signed a petition over allegedly 'cruel' training methods that threatens to disrupt the sport ahead of the 2012 Olympics.
Some fans are warning they will boycott the Games's equestrian event - due to be held in South London - over what has been labelled 'the blue-tongue scandal'.
The British Horse Society has called for an urgent inquiry into the practices being used on some of the world's most expensive competition horses. The controversy started when a video posted on YouTube showed a dressage horse being ridden using the 'rollkur' technique - also known as hyperflexion, the practice involves drawing a horse's neck round in a deep curve so its nose almost touches its chest.
Swedish jockey Patrik Kittel - who has since received death threats - can be seen warming up his horse, Watermill Scandic, at October's World Cup dressage qualifiers at Odense in Denmark using the position. The animal's tongue appears to loll out and turn blue.
The footage has angered tens of thousands of fans, who have signed online petitions and written to the sport's governing body Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), based in Switzerland.
Some are even threatening to boycott the 2012 Olympic equestrian event, which is expected to attract 23,000 spectators.
Lady Sylvia Loch, dressage trainer and author, told the Observer: 'It is a shocking symptom of where the sport is going, it's the tip of the iceberg. What is going on behind closed doors in the training of these horses is very wrong.
'Dressage should be about lightness, freedom of movement and a partnership between horse and rider. 'Rollkur is so, so cruel. The horse can only see its own feet, so it is reliant on the rider for balance which is simply psychological torture.
'Dressage should be a delightful ballet where the work looks effortless. It doesn't need vile and unnatural methods. Horses shouldn't be brainwashed like this.'
Patrick Print, chairman of the British Horse Society, has written a letter to the FEI, asking it to investigate.
He wrote: 'In our view, the concerns so widely expressed are reasonable and therefore deserving of an urgent two-part investigation.
'First, an inquiry into the treatment of this particular horse on this particular occasion; and, second, a broader inquiry into the ethics and consequences of hyperflexion.
'Please note that we pass no comment on the aesthetics of seeing a competition horse contorted in a way it never appears to choose for itself. Our concern is only to speak out when we believe that the welfare of horses demands it.'
But supporters of rollkur say it is a 'valuable training method' to improve the suppleness of a horse.
Roly Owers, of the World Horse Welfare charity, said: 'In the right hands it is a valuable training method, and it cannot make a horse's tongue go blue, no matter what people seem to think.
'Current rules do not allow prolonged or extensive use of rollkur. However, the incident has brought into focus that issues need to be ironed out.
'I wouldn't like a ban, as the method will simply be used albeit not in public. It will go underground.
'I don't think that people inside the sport realise the strength of feeling that is out there. There has been quite a phenomenal reaction to this, and clearly we want to see the Olympics bring more people into equestrian sports, not drive them away.'
A spokeswoman for the FEI said: 'FEI's main concern has always been, and will always be, the welfare of the horse.
'We are taking the issues raised in the video and in the comments made by members of the public very seriously and have opened a full investigation.'
But Kittel, the jockey at the centre of the controversy, claimed he 'did not ride Scandic in this depicted frame for the entire duration of the training as implied'.
He told Horse and Hound magazine: 'Scandic was a little hot at Odense, so I rode him for longer than usual. Throughout every training session, including this one, I give my horses walk breaks...
'Scandic sometimes plays with his tongue. During the filmed period of my training, he caught his tongue over or between the bits. I stopped when I noticed and put it back in the right place.'
------------------ Swedish jockey Patrik Kittel has received death threats
Controversial: The rollkur technique involves drawing a horse's neck round in a deep curve so its nose almost touches its chest
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse that Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.
***Detail description**
""--Today, new photographs were sent to La Voz de Aztlan from confidential sources depicting the shocking rapes of two Iraqi women by what are purported to be US Military Intelligence personnel and private US mercenaries in military fatigues. It is now known that hundreds of these photographs had been in circulation among the troops in Iraq. The graphic photos were being swapped between the soldiers like baseball cards.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one Mexican-American soldier told La Voz de Aztlan, “Maybe the officers didn’t know what was going on, but everybody else did. I have seen literally hundreds of these types of pictures.” Many of the pictures were destroyed last September when the luggage of soldiers was searched as they left Iraq, he said
An investigation, led by Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, identified two military intelligence officers and two civilian contractors for the Army as key figures in the abuse cases at the Abu Ghraib prison. In an internal report on his findings, Major General Taguba said he suspected that the four were “either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and strongly recommended disciplinary action.”
The Taguba report states that “military intelligence interrogators and other U.S. Government Agency interrogators actively requested that Military Police guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.” The report noted that one civilian interrogator, a contractor from a company called CACI International and attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, “clearly knew his instructions” to the Military Police equated to physical and sexual abuse. It is not known whether these instructions included, or led to, the raping of Iraqi women detainees as well. --"" source google.com
*Note : The author of this Blog , condemn torture of any kind regardless of religion,race,culture or country..Because the author don like to be tortured hence don like to torture others.
