Gitmo tapes “as explosive as anything from Abu Ghraib” News
Gitmo tapes “as explosive as anything from Abu Ghraib”

[JURIST] A former lawyer for Australian terror suspect David Hicks [defense advocacy website] told a major law conference in Australia Monday that US military videotapes from the terror detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be “as explosive as anything from Abu Ghraib” if they were ever released. In his address to LawAsia Downunder 2005 [conference website] Stephen Kenny said that there are some 500 hours of video of actions by the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) at the camp who were responsible for prisoner control, and that the ACLU was pressing for release of the tapes after a journalist broke the story that a secret review of 20 hours of recordings by a military panel found 10 instances of substantive prisoner abuse. AAP has more. The existence of the tapes first came to light in news reports [AP report] in February; the military panel claimed in a summary report, however, that despite having questions about mistreatment of detainees it had found no evidence of systemic detainee abuse [JURIST report].

THIS DAY @ LAW

Montgomery started racially-integrated bus service after boycott

On December 21, 1956, buses in Montgomery, Alabama, started racially integrated service following federal court rulings ending on-board segregation. Bus boycott leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy were among the first riders under the new scheme. Learn about the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Stalin born

On December 21, 1879, Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia. In 1922, he became leader of the USSR until his death in 1953. During his time as Soviet dictator, Stalin industrialized his country, which he then led to become one of the world's two superpowers after WWII. Through his infamous purges, show trials and nationwide famines, Stalin also became responsible for millions of deaths.