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This week on Uprising:

* Taguba: Abu Ghraib Photos Show Rape and Sexual Abuse
* Empire Notes on Guantanamo and American Culture
* California Supreme Court Maintains Gay Marriage Ban
* Black Agenda Report about Obama’s Memorial Day Decision
* Bhopal Survivors Seek Justice 25 Years After World’s Worst Industrial Accident

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Taguba: Abu Ghraib Photos Show Rape and Sexual Abuse

In an interview this week with a British newspaper, a former US general revealed that allegations of rape and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops are confirmed in photographs. Former Major General Antonio Taguba was quoted in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that unreleased photos from Abu Ghraib show a female Iraqi prisoner being raped by a male soldier, as well as a male prisoner being raped by a male interpreter. There are also photographs of a female prisoner being forced to undress to reveal her breasts, and other prisoners being sexually assaulted with objects including a “truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.” President Obama recently reversed a campaign position by refusing to release photographs of detainee abuse from Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they would endanger US troops if exposed. The ACLU and Physicians for Human Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2004 when the first of the Abu Ghraib photos were released. It is not clear whether the photos that Taguba was referring to in his interview with the Telegraph were the same as those in question between the White House and human rights groups. Taguba led the inquiry in 2004 into the Abu Ghraib prison abuse. Incidents of rape and sexual abuse of detainees have been documented through witnesses and survivors but it was not clear until now that photos of the abuse exist.

GUEST: Jonathan Hutson, Chief Communications Officer at Physicians for Human Rights

Read the Daily Telegraph article here: http://www.alternet.org/rights/140311/report%3A_unreleased_abu_ghraib_abuse_photos_%27show_rape%27/

Read PHR’s report about the Abu Ghraib torture here: www.brokenlives.info

Empire Notes on Guantanamo and American Culture

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is on Guantanamo and American Culture

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

California Supreme Court Maintains Gay Marriage Ban

Proposition 8, the anti-same sex marriage initiative which passed in California last November, has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. In a 185 page ruling issued earlier in the week, the Court’s 6-1 decision affirmed the right of voters to amend the state constitution through the ballot. At issue was the question of whether Proposition 8 went so far to change the constitution that it should have been considered a revision rather than an amendment. The opinion stated that LGBT Californians still have access to all the rights afforded to them under marriage, as they did before the passage of Prop 8, but that the word marriage wouldn’t apply. In the months since Prop 8 passed, several states including New Hampshire, Iowa, Maine, and Vermont have legalized same-sex Marriage. On the evening of the Tuesday May 26th decisions there were actions around the country protesting the California Supreme Court decision.

GUESTS: Brian De Shazor, the director of the Pacifica Radio Archives, and the lead producer of an historic all-day broadcast being planned on KPFK in mid-June called Gay Day, Jenny Pizer, the Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal, one of the organizations that launched the legal challenge to Proposition 8 the day after it passed, Amy Balliet, Co-Founder of Join the Impact, a national organization demanding marriage equality and gay rights, Linda Martinez, got married to her long-time partner Gina in June 2008 live on Uprising

Black Agenda Report about Obama’s Memorial Day Decision

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about Obama’s Memorial Day decision.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Bhopal Survivors Seek Justice 25 Years After World’s Worst Industrial Accident

Survivors of the December 3rd, 1984 catastrophic gas leak in Bhopal, India are currently touring the United States in search of justice and accountability. As the worst industrial accident in history, 8,000 people were killed instantly that fateful day when methyl-isocyanide spewed from a pesticide-manufacturing plant operated by the US-based Union Carbide Corporation. Due to still present contamination in surrounding areas and groundwater supplies, tens of thousands of residents continue to suffer ill-health effects as a result of the Bhopal disaster including those who were born after the incident took place. Ahead of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy, a delegation of survivors is touring twelve major U.S. cities to raise awareness. Earlier this month, three Bhopal residents met with members of Congress at the start of their tour to call for a hearing on the accident. They specifically urged lawmakers to apply pressure on Dow Chemicals which bought out Union Carbide in 1999. Seeking to hold the corporation accountable for the disaster, the touring survivors are demanding that Dow Chemicals clean the contaminated areas, provide significant economic assistance to affected residents, and stand trial before a court in Bhopal as the owners of Union Carbide.

GUESTS: Sarita Malviya, a 2nd generation survivor of the Bhopal disaster, Rachna Dhingra, a member of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

For more information, visit www.bhopal.net and www.studentsforbhopal.com.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for Day:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” — Martin Luther King Jr.