Category Archives: Post Human

Wairimu V., 65, was raped by a group of men at an IDP camp. Her husband blames her for the rape, and beats and verbally abuses her including in the presence of their children. She would like to leave her abusive husband but is worried that she will not be able to support herself. She has such severe pain in her leg, lower abdomen and back that she has to take pain killers daily; she also has vaginal bleeding and hypertension. Many sexual violence survivors are still in urgent need of medical treatment and psycho-social support.

Wamuyu told me how she was brutally gang-raped by three men in Busia, western Kenya, during the violence that engulfed Kenya following the disputed presidential election in December 2007. Her husband was murdered in the violence, she says, and her home destroyed. Wamuyu described the physical impact of the rape to me: My uterus [had to be] removed. My back was damaged, my legs were broken, and I had to walk with crutches for almost three years.

When I interviewed her in 2014, she still walked with the aid of a stick and could not do any hard work. She was hungry and had no money to treat the hypertension and ulcers she says developed as a result of stress from the rape. As far as she knew, no real investigation of the crimes committed against her and her family had been conducted and no-one had been held accountable.

Wamuyus story is not unique: almost all the women I interviewed who had been raped during the 2007-2008 political violence had similar tales to tell.

February 15, 2016 Report

Reparations for Survivors of Kenyas 2007-2008 Post-Election Sexual Violence

More than two years ago, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the establishment of a fund of 10 billion Kenyan Shillings to help victims of past injustices, including victims of the 2007 political violence. To date, the government has not developed a plan of how the fund would be implemented, and victims have still not received financial assistance, medical care, or counselling.

Parliament still hasnt adopted the report of the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) established by Kenya to help heal historical grievances dating from well before the 2007 election violence. The report also proposes reparations for victims.

Despite these setbacks, victims like Wamuyu have refused to give up their struggle for justice. Today, just a month before Kenya heads to the polls again, close to a hundred survivors, together with representatives of civil society groups, are meeting in Nairobi to press for the implementation of the TJRC report. They are demanding a response from political parties and candidates on how they will take forward the issue of reparations if elected. Their message is clear: Kenya cannot truly move forward without justice for victims, including the payment of reparations. All Kenyans should stand in solidarity with them.

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Justice Lacking for Victims of Kenya's Post-Election Violence ... - Human Rights Watch

Mind-reading tech could also allow us to communicate with computers and control machines using the power of thought

THE US government wants to implant tiny computers the size of a pound coin into peoples brains so they can communicate telepathically.

These devices could also allow us to operate machinery with our minds, treat brain injuries and let societies of the future send WhatsApp messages using the power of thought.

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The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) handed out $65million (50million) to six research teams, who have four years to come up with the terrifying new technology.

Scientists are expected to weave together a vast network of neurograins which can be worn as implants on top of the cerebral cortex or even embedded inside it.

Packed with sensors, the implants will detect how the brain processes and decode spoken language so it can be interpreted and understood by computers.

Some teams will be focused on improving sight whilst others concentrate on hearing and speech.

It will be no small task to design the brain-reading devices.

Darpa said the high resolution implants must record signals from one million neuronsat any given time.

Getty Images

The headset or implant must be able to receive signals as well as transmit them and squeeze everything inside a device no larger than a pound coin.

Darpas Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) arm will fund five academic research groups and one small San Jose-based company to achieve this.

Getty Images

Founding NESD manager Phillip Alvelda said: By increasing the capacity of advanced neural interfaces to engage more than one million neurons in parallel, NESD aims to enable rich two-way communication with the brain at a scale that will help deepen our understanding of that organs underlying biology, complexity, and function.

Its unclear how the brain implants will be tested.

But Darpa might not be the first to make telepathy a reality.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg claim to be working on similar technology.

Zuckerberg has admitted that his firm is secretly developing a mind-reading brain interface designed to allow humans to communicate telepathically.

He later refused to deny whether this will be used to improve the way in which brands can flog their wares on the social network, which is funded purely by massive advertising campaigns.

Fellow billionaire Musk recently founded Neuralink, a firm which willdevelop "neural lace" capable of downloading thoughts and connecting our minds to the internet.

He hopes humans will be able to "download thoughts" and possibly even treat disorders such as epilepsy and depression using the tech.

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US government plans to plug implants into human brains to let us communicate telepathically - The Sun

The president heaped praise on Poland as a country at the center of European civilization and warned that our shared Western civilization is threatened by totalitarian forces in the world who seek ... to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. He called on the West to defend the great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under God and criticized the shyness of some of us in the West about standing for these ideals.

The president in question was not Donald Trump, whose recent speech in Warsaw calling on the West to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization has drawn irrational criticism here at home. It was Ronald Reagan, in his famous 1982 Westminster address promising to leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history.

In fact, Trumps words could have been delivered by almost any American president of either party in the past century. They could have been delivered by Harry S. Truman, who in 1952 praised the United States for saving Western civilization from enslavement by a godless creed. They could have been spoken by John F. Kennedy, who in a 1963 speech in West Germany spoke of preserving Western culture, and Western religion, and Western civilization and defending our common heritage from those who would divide and destroy it. They could have been uttered by Lyndon B. Johnson, who warned in 1966 of ideologies ... that threaten the very roots of our common Western civilization. They could have been spoken by Bill Clinton, who declared in 1994 his belief that Western civilization was the greatest of all, and America was the best expression of Western civilization because of its commitment to ... the belief that the future could be better than the present and that we have an obligation to make it so.

Never mind all that, according to Sarah Wildman of Vox, Trumps call to defend Western civilization sounded like an alt-right manifesto, as the headline on her article described it. In the Atlantic, Peter Beinart complained that Trump referred 10 times to the West and five times to our civilization and that His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means because The West is a racial and religious term.

No, it isnt. Quite the opposite, Western civilization is founded on ideas that transcend race and religion. As Yale historian Donald Kagan put it: Americans do not share a common ancestry and a common blood. What they have in common is a system of laws and beliefs that shaped the establishment of the country, a system developed within the context of Western civilization. He added that every student should study the philosophical, scientific, agricultural and industrial revolutions in the West which allowed human beings to produce and multiply the things needed for life so as to make survival and prosperity possible for ever-increasing numbers and gave birth to the theory and practice of the separation of church from state, protecting each from the other, and creating a free and safe place for the individual conscience.

These ideals are described as Western not because they are exclusive to the West, but because of the historical fact that they emanated from the West: the first democracy in Greece under Pericles (which predated Christianity by more than four centuries); to the principles enshrined in Magna Carta; the works of the Renaissance humanists; and the treatises of Enlightenment philosophers that inspired the authors of our Declaration of Independence.

Western values are universal values, and Trump affirmed their universality in Warsaw, declaring that we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.

Since the 1980s, the left has been on a tireless crusade to drum the study of Western civilization out of universities in the name of fighting Eurocentrism. Now, apparently, they want to drum Western values out of presidential rhetoric. We must not let them do so.

Trump has said many objectionable things, but his eloquent defense of Western civilization in Warsaw was not one of them. It is ironic. The left likes to paint Trump as a threat to democracy. But the real threat to democracy is when the leader of the free world can no longer defend the ideals of the West which, Reagan told us, have done so much to ease the plight of man and the hardships of our imperfect world without being accused of bigotry.

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Trump's defense of Western civilization is not alt-right - Washington Post

A riptide swept away a family from a beach in Panama City, Fla., on July 8. Beachgoers formed a human chain to rescue them. (Video: WJHG-TV; Photo: Roberta Ursrey)

When Jessica and Derek Simmons first saw the beachgoers pausing to stare toward the water, the young couple just assumed someone had spotted a shark.

It was Saturday evening, after all, peak summer season in Panama City Beach for overheated Florida tourists to cross paths with curious marine life.Then they noticed flashing lights by the boardwalk, a police truck on the sand and nearly a dozen bobbing heads about 100yards beyond the beach, crying desperately for help.

Six members of a single family four adults and two young boys and four other swimmers had been swept away by powerful and deceptive rip currents churning below the waters surface.

These people are not drowning today, Jessica Simmons thought, she told the Panama City News Herald.Its not happening. Were going to get them out.

She was a strong swimmer and fearless in the face of adversity. But others had tried to reach them and each previous rescue attempt had only stranded more people.

There was no lifeguard on duty, and law enforcement on the scene had opted to wait for a rescue boat. People on the beach had no rescue equipment, only boogie boards, surf boards and their arms and legs.

Form a human chain! they started shouting.

Beachgoers formed a human chain to save a family on July 8 in Panama city, Fla. Here are four other times good Samaritans came to the rescue. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)

Roberta Ursrey was among those caught in the treacherous rip currents. From 100 yards away in the Gulf of Mexico, between crashing waves and gulps of salt water, she heard the shouting, she told The Washington Post.

By then, Ursrey and the other eight people stranded with her had already been in the water for nearly 20 minutes, fighting for their lives. Ursrey and the others had ventured into the water to rescue her two sons, Noah, 11, and Stephen, 8, who had gotten separated from their family while chasing waves on their boogie boards.

Tabatha Monroe and her wife, Brittany, in Panama City for a birthday getaway, were the first two to hear the boys panicked cries for help. The couple had just gone into the water when they saw theboys far from shore. They swam over and grabbed hold of their boogie boards.

But when they tried towing them back to shore, the women couldnt break free of the current.

They tried to swim straight and they tried to swim sideways, Tabatha Monroe told The Washington Post, but nothing worked. After about 10 minutes, a few young men with a surfboard snagged Brittany and towed her back to shore, just as the number of people who needed rescuing grew.

Soon Ursrey, who had heard her boys cries from the beach, was also caught in the rip currents, followed in close succession by her27-year-old nephew, 67-year-old mother and 31-year-old husband. Another unidentified couple struggled to tread water nearby.

The tide knocked every bit of energy out of us, Ursrey said.

So much water went up Tabatha Monroes nose that she was sure she would drown, she told The Post.

I was exhausted, she said.

On shore, thehuman chain began forming, first with just five volunteers, then 15, then dozens more as therescue mission grew more desperate.

Jessica and Derek Simmons swam past the 80 or so human links, some who couldnt swim, and headed straight for the Ursreys, using surf and boogie boards to aid their rescue efforts.

I got to the end, and I know Im a really good swimmer, Jessica Simmons told the News Herald. I practically lived in a pool. I knew I could get out there and get to them.

She and her husband started with the children, passing Noah and Stephen back along the human chain, which passed them all the way to the beach.

By the time Jessica Simmons reached Ursrey, the 34-year-old mother could hardly keep her head above water.

Im going to die this way, Ursrey thought to herself, she told The Post. My family is going to die this way. I just cant do it.

Ursrey remembered Simmons coaxing her to carry on.

I blacked out because I couldnt do it anymore, Ursrey said.

She woke up on the sand to the sound of more screams in the water.

Someone yelled that Ursreys mother, Barbara Franz, still in the water, was having a heart attack. Simmons told the News Herald that Franzs eyes were rolling back. At one point, the 67-year-old woman told the rescuers to just let her go and save themselves. Instead, Ursreys husband and nephew held Franzs body up as they struggled to keep their own heads above water.

Thats when the chain got the biggest, Ursrey said. They linked up wrists, legs, arms. If they were there, they were helping.

Nearly an hour after they first started struggling, just as the sun prepared to set, all 10of the stranded swimmers were safely back on shore.

The entire beach began to applaud.

It was beachgoers and the grace of Gods will, Ursrey said. Thats why were here today.

Both Brittany Monroe and Franz were transported to a hospital. Monroe was later released after being treated for a panic attack and Franz remains hospitalized, her daughter said. She suffered a massive heart attack and an aortic aneurysm in her stomach, but has been taken off the ventilator and is considered to be in stable condition.

The Ursreys plan to meet up with Jessica and Derek Simmons once Franz is released from the hospital, but Roberta said she could give hugs to the dozens of strangers who rescued her family.

It actually showed me there are good people in this world, Ursrey told The Post.

In a Facebook post, Jessica Simmons expressed a similar sentiment: To see people from different races and genders come into action to help TOTAL strangers is absolutely amazing to see!! People who didnt even know each other went HAND IN HAND IN A LINE, into the water to try and reach them. Pause and just IMAGINE that.

The whole ordeal has given the Ursreys, who just moved to Florida from Georgia a month ago, a newfound respect for the power of the water.

Shell take you with her, Ursrey said. She almost took nine of us that day.

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Rip currents swept away a Florida family. Then beachgoers formed a human chain. - Washington Post

The Peak 2 Fire near Breckenridge was human-caused, according to U.S. Forest Service investigators who now are trying to identify two people seen hiking on the Colorado Trail above Miners Creek Road junction at around 11 a.m. on July 5.

After fire conditions moderated and it was safe to enter the area, fire investigators examined the point of origin and determined the Peak 2 Fire was human-caused, acting Dillon District Ranger Kevin Warner said in a news release Tuesday. This information is important in helping us determine the cause of the Peak 2 Fire. We appreciate any information the public can provide about these individuals.

Reached by phone, Warner said he could not provide any additional detail due to the sensitive nature of the open investigation. He said that all ignition possibilities other than human activity had been ruled out.

Officials urge members of the public with information that might help identify the two individuals to call 970-262-3486 and leave a message with their name, return phone number and a brief summary of the information they can provide.

The Peak 2 fire started on July 5 about two miles north of Breckenridge, quickly growing to 84 acres and prompting a two-day evacuation of more than 450 homes in the Peak 7 area. So far, officials estimate the response has cost around $2 million and counting.

To read more of this story go to summitdaily.com

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Peak 2 Fire was human-caused, investigators seeking two hikers seen in area - The Denver Post

HOUSTON A judge on Tuesday doubled the bond amounts for two women accused of helping smuggle a dozen people into the U.S. who were found in a locked, sweltering hot truck in Houston.

State District Judge George Powell raised each womans bond to $600,000 after Harris County prosecutors said Priscila Perez Beltran, 21, and Adela Alvarez, 26, were flight risks or would resume smuggling activities if released.

The women and a third person, Nelson Cortes Garcia, 27, were arrested Sunday and charged with two counts of human smuggling likely to cause injury or death and one count of human smuggling involving a minor. Ten men, a woman and a 16-year-old girl were inside the stifling truck, where temperatures topped 100 degrees.

Cortes Garcia, who is being held on $300,000, didnt appear at the hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said they would seek to increase his bond at his next court appearance.

Prosecutors believe all three defendants are from El Salvador. Court records show none is a U.S. citizen.

The three were arrested at a strip centre construction site parking area where Houston police discovered the people inside the truck. Authorities believe the people were from Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador.

Prosecutor JoAnne Musick said U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials already were aware of Beltran and Alvarez after a recent bust in Corpus Christi. Authorities have said they continue to investigate whether more people may be involved in the trafficking operation.

At a hearing late Monday for Cortes Garcia, prosecutors said Beltran told authorities that she previously helped him and Alvarez smuggle people into the U.S. and that Alvarez had acknowledged bringing an aunt and uncle into the country without documentation.

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Bond doubled for 2 charged in Texas human smuggling case - National Post

The Human Rights Campaign is taking the LGBT rights fight to the grassroots in hopes of influencing the 2018 races.

HRC today announced what its calling the biggest strategic investment in its 37-year history, with an initiative called HRC Rising. The organization plans to add at least 20 full-time staffers to work on state and local issues, joining the two dozen already doing so, and working with 32 existing volunteer-led local steering committees. It will allocate $26 million to the effort.

Its not enough to resist the hateful policies and attacks coming from the Trump-Pence regime weve got to accelerate the pace of progress toward full equality and secure protections for LGBTQ people in states and communities across the country. Thats why were going on offense with the largest grassroots expansion in HRCs 37-year history, said HRC president Chad Griffin in a press release.

Our grassroots army of over 3 million has proven that, even in the face of unprecedented challenges, we can make incredible progress and defeat the hateful politicians who've been emboldened by Donald Trump when we organize and mobilize. The power and determination of the 10 million LGBTQ voters and our allies across America will only continue to grow stronger in the face of discriminatory attacks on our rights and freedoms.

HRC is well known for its work in Washington, D.C., but it has historically been involved in state and local matters as well. It worked with Equality North Carolina, for instance, in support of Democrat Roy Coopers successful run for governor; he defeated incumbent Republican Pat McCrory, who had signed the states anti-LGBT House Bill 2 into law and staunchly defended it. It turned out to be a key factor in McCrorys loss.

HRC Rising will work in all 50 states but will make what the press release calls an especially strong, early push in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. Theyre all swing states, most of which Trump won, and all have big 2018 Senate races as well as some potentially competitive governors races, notes The Washington Post.

One of the races HRC will focus on is Democrat Tammy Baldwins bid for reelection to the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin. Baldwin, a lesbian, is the only member of the LGBT population in the chamber, and she may face a tough opponent, the Post reports. There are also many anti-LGBT U.S. House members HRC would like to defeat.

The organization points out that LGBT voters can be a powerful bloc when mobilized, with these voters credited as crucial to President Obamas reelection in 2012. HRC Rising will focus on allies as well, seeking to turn out what the group calls pro-equality voters.

The election of Trump as president has motivated many of these voters, Griffin told the Post. I think folks believed that after the Supreme Court ruled on marriage, that we were headed quickly toward a place of full equality in this country, he said. And the president's attacks on our community and so many minority communities has served to be, in many ways, a great awakening of our democracy.

Griffin also emphasized the need to work across lines of identity.LGBTQ people are Muslims, he told the Post, so when he attacks Muslims, he's attacked our community. LGBTQ people are women, so when he tries to defund Planned Parenthood, that's an attack on LGBTQ people.

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Human Rights Campaign Expands Grassroots Effort, Looks to 2018 - Advocate.com

Two Democratic senators unveiled a bill on Tuesday that aims to drastically reform how the U.S. federal prison system treats women behind bars, a segment of the incarcerated population that is often overlooked despite its rapid growth.

Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) introduced The Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act at a press conference Tuesday. The bill, which also had Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) as co-sponsors, would require federal prisons to provide free, quality sanitary napkins and tampons to female inmates, and would ban shackling them during pregnancy or placing pregnant women in solitary confinement.

At the heart of the bill are proposals that would make it easier for women to maintain strong family ties with their children while in prison. It requires that the Federal Bureau of Prisons consider the location of children when deciding where to place an inmate, and to create policies that make it easier for inmates to communicate with their families. These include longer and more frequent visiting hours, allowing physical interactions during visits, and not charging for phone calls.

It is in the societal interest to support families when members of those families are incarcerated, Booker told HuffPost. We do unnecessarily harsh things that are not necessary for public safety, but really punish women and punish their families as a whole.

Men make up the bulk of Americas imprisoned population, but the number of women behind bars has soared over the past few decadesto more than 200,000 as of 2014, and women are now the fastest growing segment. (Compared internationally, the U.S. incarcerates women at a higher rate than every country but Thailand).

The legislation would affect the nearly 12,695 women in federal prisons almost 60 percent of whom were convicted of drug offenses but not those in state prisons and local jails, where the majority of women are held.

Most women locked up in the U.S. are mothers, and many have histories of drug use, mental health problems, and were victims of sexual or physical violence before their involvement in the criminal justice system.

The bill comes at a time of growing national concern about the need for criminal justice reform. While most of the discussion focuses on men, the popular Netflix show, Orange Is The New Black, has highlighted the plight of women behind bars, and touched on many of the issuesthat the bill seeks to address: a lack of proper access to feminine hygiene products, the trauma histories of the inmates, and the difficulty of parenting from prison.

While many prisons do provide a limited amount of feminine hygiene products, they are often of poor quality and not useful. That means women are in the uncomfortable situation of either having to ask correctional officers for more which can be demeaning and raise the risk of abuses or use limited funds to buy them at the commissary.

Considering the fact that 72% were living in poverty prior to being incarcerated, that often isnt feasible, said Jesselyn McCurdy, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU.

In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced it would no longer shackle pregnant women during labor.But women are still allowed to be shackled while pregnant, which the bill would prohibit.

The legislation was met with approval by prison reform advocates.

This bill could mark a profound shift toward treating people within our prisons as whole and feeling humans with a desire to do better for themselves and their families, said Diana McHugh, director of communications for the New York-based Womens Prison Association. We hope to see similarly well-informed policies at the city and state level, as well as a general shift toward alternatives to incarceration that promote public safety without prison.

Judith Resnik, a professor at Yale Law School, said that while the bill would provide an important step forward, sentencing reform is also needed. Many women are over-incarcerated, she said.

Booker said women in prison are in need of therapy, in need of healing, and in need of support, and called the criminal justice system profoundly unjust.

We need to create a prison that, yes, is holding people accountable, and yes, is allowing people to pay their debt to society for mistakes they have made, but also is about the dignity of humanity, he said. Weve got to be a better society than this.

This article has been updated to reflect that Sens. Durbin and Harris signed on as sponsors late Monday prior to the introduction of the bill.

Melissa Jeltsen covers domestic violence and other issues related to womens health, safety and security. Tips? Feedback? Send anemailor follow her onTwitter.

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Cory Booker And Elizabeth Warren Want To Treat Women In Prison Like Human Beings - HuffPost

Charleena Lyles is being buried on Monday. I plan to be there.

I didnt know Ms. Lyles, never met this pregnant mother of four who in death has captured the conscience of a city. But in a way she represents us all. The systems that were supposed to protect her ended up failing her instead. And the very people she reached out to for help in the end were the ones that took her life with her children present to bear witness.

Ms. Lyles shooting on Fathers Day at the hands of two Seattle police officers, was as tragic as it was senseless. And three weeks later it still angers and haunts me, as a mother and a grandmother, but also as someone who was involved early on in creating the very system to prevent these kinds of tragedies in the first place.

Mothers for Police Accountability, which I founded, began working in the late 1990s with the Seattle Police Department as well as county mental health practitioners to find more humane responses for officers dealing with people in mental health crises.

In 1997, following a standoff on a downtown Seattle street in which a man, wielding a samurai sword, held police at bay for 11 hours, Police Chief Norm Stamper agreed to look at a model for crisis intervention training that was being used in Portland.

I rode there with Seattle officers and observed first-hand how Portland police worked with mental health professionals to de-escalate crisis situations. That year, Seattle Police established a Crisis Intervention Team, a voluntary program for officers to receive training from mental-health experts.

And the training is included in the Memorandum of Understanding between Seattle and the Department of Justice (DOJ), as part of the citys ongoing monitoring by the federal government.

All Seattle police officers are required to have at least eight hours of crisis training. Most are CIT-certified, which means they have more extensive 40-hour training. Both officers who shot Lyles had been trained. Jason Anderson, who was hired in 2015, had eight hours while Steven McNew, who came on in 2008, was certified.

And we know the training works. The departments own report last August showed that over the span of a year, Seattle police used force in less than 2 percent of roughly 9,300 incidents in which they believed someone suspected of a disturbance or crime was mentally ill or in a state of crisis. The reporting is required under the court-ordered 2012 consent decreebetween (DOJ) and the city.

But it didnt work for Ms. Lyles.

We need to understand why.

Knowing about her past mental health encounter with Seattle police, why didnt either of the responding officers use pepper spray? And why did neither have a Taser with them something that is required as part of the crisis training?

I understand Anderson told investigators that even if he had a Taser, he still would have shot Charleena because his training called for the use of lethal force when being attacked by someone with a knife.

I believe they failed to see her as a human being.

Mothers For Police Accountability wants to know if this is a prelude to what will happen when the DOJ monitor checks all the boxes and leaves town. What will happen when nobodys watching?

The guys with the white hats arent coming.

What is happening in America now makes me even more determined that we have to fix this. I refuse to make this the new normal.

To heal the community we need to be able to hold this unjust system accountable. So Mothers will stay at the table where weve been for nearly three decades whether its holding community meetings, working alongside other organizations and on various committees around policing or speaking out directly about policy change.

We believe in accountability for everybody not just the police but for the black community, too. We are working to break the silence on black-on-black crime and how we harm one another.

We have to do both. In order to have a whole community, everybody needs to do better.

Rev. Harriett G. Walden is founder of Seattle-based Mothers for Police Accountability and co-chair of the Community Police Commission, a civilian body established as part of the agreement between the city of Seattle and the Department of Justice working to develop police reform recommendations.

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Seattle Police Failed To See Charleena Lyles As A Human Being - HuffPost

TORONTO The Canadian government's breach-of-rights settlement with Omar Khadr is far from unprecedented, but its public apology to the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner sets Canada apart from other countries whose citizens were held at the infamous U.S. prison, an international human rights group said Monday.

The settlement sources say Khadr was paid $10.5 million echoes deals reached years ago by the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia, who also spent millions settling lawsuits.

However, Laura Pitter with Human Rights Watch said Canada had gone further than other countries by publicly acknowledging wrongdoing.

"It's really important that Canada took the additional step of publicly apologizing to him," Pitter said Monday from New York. "Canada's action here really sets an example."

Britain reportedly paid millions to several of its citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay but offered no apologies. One of the highest profile was Moazzam Begg, who along with seven others, had accused the U.K. and its intelligence agencies of complicity in their abduction, mistreatment and interrogation.

In November 2010, the U.K. government announced a settlement with Begg and 15 others, despite insisting British agents had not participated directly in any prisoner abuse. Officially, the settlement was made to avoid publication of sensitive documents related to Britain's co-operation with the U.S. on the transfer of terror suspects to various secret locations and to Guantanamo.

The British deal was reported to be worth 20 million pounds about $30 million at the time. Then-justice secretary Kenneth Clarke noted it could have cost taxpayers more than double had it gone to court.

Announcing the Khadr deal on Friday, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould made a similar observation in light of the government having already spent $5 million defending the litigation.

"I hope Canadians take away two things today: First, our rights are not subject to the whims of the government of the day," Wilson-Raybould said. "Second, there are serious costs when the government violates the rights of its citizens."

In a similar case, suspected terrorist Mamdouh Habib reached a confidential settlement with the Australian government in 2010.

Arrested in Pakistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and taken to Egypt, where he was tortured for seven months, Habib was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002. The Americans released him without charge in January 2005.

Habib sued the Canberra government for alleged complicity with the CIA in his transfer and torture. Despite denying the allegations, the government settled. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the "hushed-up" settlement followed evidence an Australian official had watched Habib's torture at Gitmo.

Pitter noted that the United States has never paid compensation to any of its former captives.

"The U.S., who is most responsible for the mistreatment of Khadr, has not done anything to provide him redress or redress to any of the scores of men who were unlawfully detained and tortured at Guantanamo and elsewhere since 9/11," Pitter said.

In Photos: Omar Khadr Freed

An inquiry in the U.K. found the British government and its intelligence services had indeed been involved in the illegal transfers of detainees, deliberately turned a blind eye to abuses, and had interviewed suspects they knew were being mistreated.

"Officers were advised that, faced with apparent breaches of Geneva Convention standards, there was no obligation to intervene," Sir Peter Gibson stated in his report.

In Khadr's case, a key tenet of his claim was that Canada's intelligence agencies had travelled to Guantanamo Bay to interview him in 2003, despite knowing he had been mistreated before their arrival to soften him up. The agents had also agreed to American demands to share information obtained from their interrogations with them.

The Supreme Court of Canada was unequivocal in 2010 in finding a breach of Khadr's charter rights, but the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper refused to demand his repatriation as other western countries had done for their citizens.

As with Canada's deal with Khadr, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to five purported war crimes before a widely criticized military commission, the British settlement ignited a political firestorm. Some argued the state was rewarding people who wanted to destroy it. Others maintained it was the right thing to do given the abuses uncovered.

"Our reputation as a country that believes in human rights, justice, fairness and the rule of law indeed, much of what the services exist to protect risks being tarnished," then-prime minister David Cameron told parliament in July 2010. "Public confidence is being eroded, with people doubting the ability of our services to protect us and questioning the rules under which they operate."

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Canada's Apology To Omar Khadr 'Sets An Example': Human Rights Watch - Huffington Post Canada