U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S. | Hacker News Reader

U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S.

salon.com

47 pointsyeahsure30 comments

As a Somali, this person's life is likely absolute hell in Kuwaiti prison. The Middle Eastern countries are incredibly prejudiced against people of Indian Subcontinental and African origins as many come to the peninsula in order to work on construction/menial jobs. Family friends (I am of Indian origin) have horror stories of passports being confiscated, police blackmails, and blatant racism.

Its truly sad that the U.S. has let a citizen be treated like this by a state, especially a state where the U.S. has as much influence.

A very sad story. I find it interesting that Bush is still brought up without noting that the policy of rendition started under Clinton and was largely replaced under Bush with Gitmo.

Also, calling Kuwait a puppet of the U.S. is a vast over simplification of the situation. Though, the FBI agent and other officials who visited this young man should be severely disciplined if they showed the disregard that is alleged here.

Very sad.

Just a practical question, if someone is on the "no fly" list, does that prevent them from flying in all countries? One would think not, so why wouldn't that person be able to fly to Mexico then present their passport at the border for reentry into the US?

You would think it works the way it is written but there have been a few instances of flights being diverted even though they would never fly through US airspace. And don't even think about flying to Canada, they are in lockstep with the US as far as the no fly list is concerned.

For example, last year a flight from London to Mexico City was turned back because a US citizen on the no fly list was onboard. Plane landed back in London, the passenger was asked to leave, no argument, and the flight resumed eight hours later. No one has been able to find out who he was and what happened to him; arrested, cleared immigration, deported (where?).

Isn't it true that an american citizen can not be banned from entering his country and isn't that a constitutional law? I'm not from US, but I remember a small media mess around a case, when TSA didn't want to let an american citizen out of the airport (was mentioned on HN).

Sadly, our US consitutional rights are have been severly abridged by the State "in order to keep us safe". Rather than admit we are sliding into some sort of police state, we try to rationalize that only the "bad" people are treated unconsitutionally.

While a few brave souls stand up for their rights, the majority are too afraid to. We submit to warrantless searches every time we fly (even if we know it's pure ineffective security theater) lest we miss our flight.

Thanks for your answer :). But still, I'd like to know if it is a constitutional right or if I misread it somewhere?

BTW. I heard a joke about current flight security policies in general (ie. not specific to any country) that "you can board the plane with a fish in a bowl, as long as you dispose of water before entering" ;).

(Disclaimer; I am not a lawyer, but I have studied the history of Constitutional rights).

As far as I know, there's no specific right to international travel in the US Constitution, but the law and the courts have generally held that withholding a citizen's ability to enter and exit the country should not be used punitively.[0]

That being said, the First Amendment specifically protects citizens' ability to petition the government for redress of grievances, as well as publicly assemble.[1] I know that people have attempted to use that to establish a definitive right to travel, as in Gilmore v. Gonzales [2]. I don't know whether they've had any success.

It's interesting that the Wikipedia page on citizens' rights doesn't have any sources for their claim that all US citizens have the right to re-enter the country [3]. However, I imagine that to deny someone right to entry would also deny them their right to due process, specifically guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment [4]. Heck, usually the government pro-actively tries to extradite criminals back to the US...

[0] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freedom_of_mo... [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/First_Amendme... [2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gilmore_v._Go... [3] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citizenship_i... [4] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fifth_Amendme...

Warning: the page opens a video ad that starts to play automatically. I nearly shat my pants, since I opened it in the background :)

AdBlock Plus

If you care for a different cure, then noscript. The developers of each had a spat in recent times though.

Wow I wasn't aware, but after reading this post: http://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript-users I'm honestly concerned about using NoScript any longer.

//Edit: http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-noscr... The reply by NoScript was excellent. I feel reassured.

Uninstalling Flash makes for a pleasant and serene browsing experience. Highly recommended.

Shocking! But my comment is about something else: the different presentation style used by NYT and Salon.

The chances that I would have skipped over the NYT article is much higher than I would have the Salon article. A picture makes a lot of difference, so does "U.S. Teenager" versus "Detained American", and of course "torture" versus "beaten".

I think "torture" may be a little extreme. Are threats, beatings & lashings to the feet & hands considered torture?

I mean, definitely not desirable or anything, but I always understood torture to refer to the much more extreme. Otherwise we conclude schoolyard bullies, police, and schoolteachers regularly engage in torture, though schoolteachers have mostly ceased using canes for lashing.

Prolonged beating of the soles of the feet, or phalanga as it is sometimes called, is definitely torture. It has a rich history. It is extremely painful, primarily because of the abundance of nerve endings in the sole of ones feet. It takes a long time to heal so the punishment effectively gets extended over a long period of time, possibly permanent.

Conveniently enough it leaves almost no evidence.

Edit:A study on the effects of phalanga http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_4_CVER...

Too late to edit, but meant "possibly permanently".

A friend of mine was in an orphanage in MX when he was a child. He suffered from extended beatings on his soles (among other things like cigarette burns and the like). I don't know if it's true, but he says he can't feel absolutely nothing with his soles (ie No pain).

So yes, this is definitely torture, with permanent consequences.

What is torture then? Suffocating? Raping? About to die, then can be called torture?.

Maybe ask, 'would I want this done to me or someone I loved?'

At that point, putting someone in jail is torture. Heck, at that point, overcharging is torture: I wouldn't want it done to me.

rauha's was mostly a rhetorical question, a response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2082751

According to the UN, torture is "... any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person ...".

It seems this is very much the case here.

from that defenition it sounds like any form of violence is torture.

Torture is violence on a detainee.

Find a school yard bully who beats people under the feet and I will call that torture.

If you don't think this boy has been tortured, John ascroft has a job for you.

For every story like this, there are countless that never get told, though people in the Arab world are keenly aware of them.

Sad tale, of course, but why is this front page news on HackerNews?

When just the act traveling to a certain country makes you a target for torture and imprisonment by your own government, it would make one uncomfortable, particularly as a person who would like to travel.

Unfortunately, if a small portion of HN'ers find this story worth upvoting, it will hit the frontpage, even though it is a very political article with no relevance to hackers, technology or startups nor does it affect life of the typical HN audience. As HN becomes more mainstream, expect more mainstream articles.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com