News Briefs: Human Rights

* A report released by Amnesty International USA concluded that human rights violations are prevalent in the U.S. immigration system. The types of abuses are numerous according to the study including excessive periods of detention and substandard detention centers.

* A former Cuban political prisoner has undergone a hunger strike that has lasted over a month. 'We are conscious of the risks and dangers to the human body… But you are talking to a person who spent 17 years in prison in a country where there are no legal channels to pursue,'' said Jorge Luis García to the Miami Herald over his protest on the island.

* The National Security Archive obtained declassified security documents showing that U.S. knew of Guatemalan rights abuses in the 1980s. "Government security services have employed assassination to eliminate persons suspected of involvement with the guerrillas or who are otherwise left-wing in orientation," read one 1984 State Department report obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

* Earlier today we mentioned how a Mexican court upheld a ruling that exonerated ex-president Luis Echeverria over the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. Local human rights activists have decried the decision with one politico calling it “an insult to the Mexican people.”

Image- Reuters (“Mexican immigrant Antonio Lemus waits at a processing center in Santa Ana, California, September 13, 2007.”)
Online Sources- miamiherald.com, AP, Scoop, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, Monsters & Critics, boston.com, AFP