Released hiker describes friends' abuse in Iranian prison

Shane Bauer, left, and Josh Fattal have been detained in Iran since their arrest during a 2009 hiking trip near the Iranian border.Sarah Shourd says Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were abusedThey were beaten and pushed down stairs, she saysThe three hikers were arrested in July 2009 when they wandered into IranShourd was released last year but the two men remain jailed

(CNN) -- Iranian prison guards abused and assaulted two U.S. hikers who have been detained in the Islamic Republic since 2009, according to their friend Sarah Shourd, who was released last year.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Shourd described the abuse that Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer experienced before Shourd was released on $500,000 bail in September, according to a statement released by the families Thursday.

A guard at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison was furious that Fattal took extra food and pushed him down the stairs, Shourd said. The guard repeatedly threw Bauer against a wall of his cell until his head began bleeding.

She said the three had feared that they would be executed soon after they were arrested, when a guard began cocking his gun.

The two men are allowed limited communication these days, and their families have no way of knowing their condition.

"My worst fear is that they're not safe," Shourd said. "They don't have consular access, they're not allowed to see their lawyer, and we fear the worst."

In July 2009, Shourd, 32, Fattal, 29, and Bauer, 28, were hiking in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish area along the border with Iran when they were arrested by Iranian police. Shourd said they accidentally strayed across the border. Iranian authorities say the three crossed into Iran illegally.

Twice, they feared for their lives as guards loaded them into a vehicle to a mysterious location and cocked their weapons, Shourd said. Terrified, they held hands, cried out and begged for their lives.

Even though Shourd is free, she, along with the families of Fattal and Bauer, remains focused on helping her friends to freedom. Shourd and the families have begun fasting in an effort to show their solidarity and support for the imprisoned men.

Fattal and Bauer started their own hunger strike when they were no longer allowed to receive family letters. They have been allowed only three brief phone calls to their families; the most recent was May 22.

Fattal and Bauer were supposed to attend a trial hearing May 11 but never showed. Their absence has not been explained by Iranian officials.

"We are shocked and angry at the way Shane and Josh are being treated and the terrible incidents that Sarah has told us about only heighten our grave concern for their physical and mental welfare," said the family statement.

"The people who are holding Shane and Josh are breaking Iran's laws ... and behaving shamefully. This nightmare must end and Shane and Josh must be released."

CNN

Sri Lanka video shows executions, abuse of corpses (AP)

GENEVA – A U.N. expert called Tuesday for Sri Lanka to investigate and file charges against soldiers shown in a graphic video shooting bound, blindfolded prisoners and abusing corpses in the final days of the country's 26-year civil war.

The U.N. expert, Christof Heyns, reviewed the 5-minute, 25-second video frame by frame with a team of technical and forensic specialists to determine its authenticity, and concluded that the video suggests there is enough evidence to open a war-crimes case. Sri Lanka has claimed the video is fake.

In the video, several men lie on a muddy track, bound and motionless. The camera cuts and another man is shown being forced to sit upright by a soldier in camouflage carrying a rifle. Another soldier steps up behind the seated prisoner and shoots him in the back of the head, point blank. The prisoner slumps sideways as the camera pans across the road revealing nine bodies, most of them naked, with gunshot wounds clearly visible despite the grainy quality of the footage.

The uniformed men then force another blindfolded prisoner down into the dirt. A gunshot rings out and he, too, jerks and collapses. Later, the camera focuses on a young man, his skull blown open. Soldiers stand over the half-dressed corpse of a woman, gloating.

Heyns, a South African law professor who is also the U.N.'s independent investigator on extrajudicial killings, said the footage provides solid evidence for a prosecution case.

"It's very rare that you have actual footage of people being killed," the former lawyer told The Associated Press. "This is different from CCTV. This is trophy footage."

The Sri Lankan government says the video is staged, an attempt by pro-Tamil Tiger groups to undermine its hard-won victory in the country's 1983-2009 civil war.

"We have proven beyond any doubt that this is not authentic," the director general of the government's Media Center for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalla, said on Monday. The U.N. panel says it unpicked Sri Lanka's claims and found them to be unsupported.

Heyns says the video shows "definitive war crimes" — believed to have taken place in May 2009 — that require both domestic and international proceedings to be launched.

"There is a prima facie case and it should now go to the next level," Heyns told the AP before screening the video for the first time to reporters in Geneva. "So far we haven't seen any concrete results on the domestic level," he added.

If Sri Lanka resists outside pressure to conduct a credible criminal investigation, referral to the International Criminal Court would be possible, Heyns said. This is unlikely as it would require approval by the U.N. Security Council, where Sri Lanka has a strong ally in China.

The United Nations estimates that between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the war.

The final months of fighting in Sri Lanka were almost completely hidden from public view and international scrutiny. The government barred journalists, aid workers and human rights organizations from the northern section of the country where the fighting raged. As reports of abuses and widescale civilian deaths leaked out, government officials denied them and insisted they were doing everything possible to protect innocent lives.

At one point, after a government doctor in the battle zone reported that people were dying of starvation, a top Sri Lankan official dismissed the statement as absurd because there was no official autopsy report from the battlefield clinic.

After the war ended, the government insisted it had not shed a drop of civilian blood in the last months of fighting. A partial U.N. count showed at least 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians killed in the last five months of the conflict.

Numerous U.N.-appointed officials have since concluded that both sides committed atrocities, and that the death toll may have been in the tens of thousands.

A recent U.N. report said Sri Lankan government forces deliberately targeted civilians and hospitals, and blocked food and medicine for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone. It also accused the Tamil Tigers of recruiting child soldiers and using civilians as human shields.

Sri Lanka has categorically rejected calls for an independent international probe into the allegations. Instead, it has established a national panel to investigate. Meanwhile, the government continues to celebrate its battlefield victory, hosting a three-day international defense seminar in Colombo this week to show foreign experts how it won the war.

The latest footage was obtained by Britain's Channel 4, which has so far shown only brief excerpts and an earlier, shorter video of the same events. Ben De Pear, head of foreign affairs for Channel 4 News, said the station chose to broadcast the footage after the U.N. experts helped it conclude that it is genuine.

The extended video will be part of an hourlong program examining atrocities committed by both government forces and Tamil Tiger fighters that Channel 4 plans to screen for the first time Friday at the United Nations in Geneva.

___

Ravi Nessman in New Delhi contributed to this report. Frank Jordans can be reached on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/wirereporter

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Vatican Gets Tough on Child Sex Abuse but Not Tough Enough (Time.com)

When the Vatican issued a letter on Monday ordering bishops across the world to draw up tough guidelines for dealing with priests who rape or molest children, it addressed only half the scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church.

To be sure, when it comes to the abusive clerics, the Vatican's new edict takes a firm stand, obliging local bishops to cooperate with local law enforcement in reporting sex crimes and recommending that policies be put in place to exclude accused priests from public ministry if they pose a continued danger to minors or could be a "cause of scandal for the community." (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI.)

But what Monday's letter fails to do is put in place any sanctions on the bishops who oversee those clerics, should they fail to follow through with the recommendations. Child abuse is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. What sets the scandal apart is the sustained and widespread effort by church authorities to cover up for and protect the accused. And, in this regard, the new guidelines change little. "No threat of penalty will deter a child molester from committing a child sex crime," says David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which criticized the proposal as too lax. "But penalties can deter bishops from ignoring or concealing those crimes."

In drafting its directive, the Vatican has had to walk a fine line between ensuring its bishops cooperate with officials in the just prosecution of sex offenders under their authority while also ensuring their autonomy from civil authorities, especially in repressive regimes in East Asia or the Middle East, where the church can often have an antagonistic relationship with the state. Indeed, in the handling of individual cases, the letter specifically elevates the judgment of bishops over the civilian review boards that have been introduced in some countries, including the U.S. and Ireland.

But in its effort to make sure bishops retain their independence, the Vatican risks perpetuating what victims' groups say is a pattern that sees church officials place the protection of their priests over the well-being of their parishioners with few repercussions. For whatever reason, until recently, bishops have preferred to deal with clerical abuse internally - often transferring abusive priests from parish to parish - instead of handing them over to civil authorities. "The best explanation I can come up with is a profoundly misguided idea of what is in the good of the church," says Phil Lawler, editor of CatholicCulture.org. "They were paying more attention to its public image than to the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of the faithful." (See the top 10 Vatican pop-culture moments.)

Doubly worrying is that the Vatican's new guidelines seem modeled on those set in 2002 in the U.S., where even with similar policies in place, the church continues to get hit with scandalous revelations. In February, a grand jury accused the archdiocese of Philadelphia of covering up decades of wrongdoing and keeping up to 37 priests who were suspected of child abuse in active ministry. The archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali, at first denied the accusation, but he later suspended 24 of the accused priests. "There were all the procedures in place for handling credible allegations," says Lawler. "But it was the bishop and his subordinates who were responsible for deciding what was a credible allegation."

And while the priests who allegedly committed the abuse face punishment, the man who failed to bring them to account has yet to suffer any sanction. Indeed, a few months later, Rigali was chosen to represent the church in a celebration in the Czech Republic in June. "As long as church officials who ignore and conceal abuse are tolerated and promoted, than nothing will change," says SNAP's Clohessy. "There simply have to be penalties for dreadful wrongdoing."

See the top 10 controversial popes.

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Sex abuse defense for Casey Anthony?

(CNN) -- While questioning prospective jurors, Casey Anthony's defense team hinted Thursday that "a history of sexual abuse" may have explained their client's behavior after she allegedly killed her 2-year-old daughter then failed to alert authorities.

The comments came during the fourth day of jury selection in the case, in which the 25-year-old Anthony is charged with capital murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee. She also faces six other charges, including aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and misleading law enforcement.

Potential jurors dismissed after talking about trial

One of Anthony's attorneys, Ann Finnell, did not state in court that her client killed her daughter. Rather, she raised potential "mitigating circumstances" to try to gauge what would-be jurors might consider if they have to decide whether to sentence Anthony to death if she is convicted of murder.

Finnel specifically laid out such factors when broaching the subject with Orange County Superior Court Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr., the presiding judge in the case. She started with age -- Anthony was 23 when her daughter went missing -- then went onto include a "lack of maturity" and "lack of impulse control."

The lawyer, too, said that "a history of sexual abuse" might be one of the mitigating factors, later asking potential jurors individually whether they would take that into account as well as alleged verbal and emotional abuse.

The comments touched again on the Anthony family's rocky relationship with each other, as well as with the prosecution and defense team. Casey Anthony made allegations of sex abuse against her father and brother in a letter from jail last year. In an interview with NBC News afterward, her father, George Anthony, denied the claims and criticized the judgment of Jose Baez, another of his daughter's attorneys, in questioning him about the allegations.

Police began their investigation in 2008 only after Cindy Anthony -- Casey's mother -- made three 911 calls worried about her granddaughter's disappearance. Her brother, father and mother all testified during pretrial hearings last March, with her father alternately tearing up and sparring with prosecutors.

While she did not lay out specifics Thursday, Finnel asked possible members of the jury pool whether the assertion her client came from a "dysfunctional family" might factor into their penalty decision.

"Lack of parental guidance. Mother and father failed to protect her as a child," said Finnel, reeling off what she described as "mitigating circumstances" to Perry. "The fact she was verbally and emotionally abused as a child. She was taught poor coping and has poor coping skills by normal standards.

"She was taught to project false appearance," the attorney added. "She was used as a decoy or pawn by her parents and a scapegoat for parental misconduct."

Some form of these issues came up before a handful of jurors Thursday in Clearwater in Pinellas County, Florida. Authorities moved the proceedings there from Orange County hoping to draw from a jury pool that was less likely to have seen and been influenced by the intense media coverage surrounding the case. Once the final jury pool is selected, the plan is to sequester them in Orlando for the trial's likely six- to eight-week duration.

Some 200 men and women were initially called, starting Monday, to be part of that mix. Of those, 128 were excused within two days due to hardships or other personal reasons.

That leaves 72 potential jurors remaining. Some of them took the stand Thursday, answering questions not only about their stance on "mitigating circumstances" but also what they already knew about the Anthony case.

The day began with Baez questioning media reports -- including a video clip -- "that are being repeated, where I allegedly told my client (she) was acting like a 2-year-old." After making his case, Casey Anthony's attorney asked the judge that all microphones -- except the one at the witness stand -- be turned off.

Perry said that after Baez's request, the microphones at his and the prosecution's table were turned off. But he said he would not do anything more.

"This is a public courtroom, and it could not be a public courtroom if the public did not have the ability to hear," the judge said. "I have no control nor do I want control of what journalists say or print ... but this is America."

CNN

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70 Belgian sex abuse victims to sue Vatican

BRUSSELS (AP) — A group of 70 people claiming to be sexual abuse victims of clergy will take Vatican and Belgian church officials to court, claiming they offered them insufficient protection from pedophile priests.

Lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge said Friday he will lodge the complaint in about two weeks. He said religious officials, including the pope, had failed to take proper action to prevent such abuse.

The Belgian church got involved in a major abuse scandal last year when Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe was forced to resign after he admitted he abused for 13 years his young nephew. Later, hundreds of victims came forward with tales of abuse by clergy going back decades.

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Ending painkiller abuse requires doctor training, drug czar says

By J. Scott Applewhite, By AP

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg speaks during Tuesday's news conference in Washington to announce new prescription drug safety measures.

EnlargeCloseBy J. Scott Applewhite, By AP

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg speaks during Tuesday's news conference in Washington to announce new prescription drug safety measures.

The Obama administration’s Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan calls on Congress to amend the Controlled Substances Act with a new requirement: that health care practitioners learn appropriate uses for opioid medicines and how to screen patients for drug abuse before they can get a Drug Enforcement Administration license to prescribe controlled substances. Opioids, such as hydrocodone, are synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of opium and can be used to treat severe pain. They can be highly addictive.

The DEA, Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services endorsed the plan.

MORE: FDA orders lower doses in prescription painkillers STORY: CDC links prescription painkillers in pregnancy to birth defectsWhen prescription drugs are abused,

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Nicolas Cage arrested on domestic abuse charge

Nicholas Cage arrestedSTORY HIGHLIGHTSNEW: Cage leaves a New Orleans jail Saturday afternoonThe actor allegedly pulled his wife's arm during an argumentCage beat on cars after arguing with his wife, police sayCage is in New Orleans filming a movieCNN affiliate WWL has more on the story

(CNN) -- Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage went on a drunken tear in New Orleans' French Quarter Friday night that ended with his arrest on several charges, including domestic abuse battery, according to a police spokesman.

It began at 11:30 p.m. when Cage, who is in the city to work on a movie, began arguing with his wife on the 600 block of Dumaine Street, New Orleans Police Officer Garry Flot said.

"He and his wife were standing in front of a residence that he insisted was the property the couple was renting," Flot said. "She disagreed, and Cage grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her to what he believed was the correct address."

Cage then "began striking vehicles and later attempted to get into a taxi."

Police, who had been called by on-lookers, arrived to find Cage heavily intoxicated," he said. They ordered the actor out of the cab, "which prompted Cage to start yelling," Flot said.

"The officers subsequently took Cage to Central Lock-Up," the police spokesman said.

In the mugshot released by the Orleans Parish Sheriff, an unshaven Cage stood with eyes closed.

Cage was charged with domestic abuse battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness, Flot said.

An Orleans Parish magistrate set his bond at $11,000 with a court date for May 31, according to the booking information online.

It also said "stay away order waived," indicating Cage is not prohibited from being with his wife.

"There were no visible signs of injury on his wife's arm," Flot said.

Cage was released from jail Saturday afternoon, according to the jail's information line.

Calls and e-mails from CNN to the actor's lawyer and representative have not been returned.

Cage, 47, and his third wife, Alice Kim, have a 5-year-old son. His previous two marriages, to Patricia Arquette and Lisa Marie Presley, ended in divorce.

The Academy Award winner has acted in dozens of films, but is best known for his roles in "Raising Arizona" and "Leaving Las Vegas," for which he nabbed an Oscar.

Although one of Hollywood's highest-paid movie stars, Cage's financial troubles, including tax liens and foreclosures on houses, have been highly publicized in the past two years.

He sued his accountant in 2009, charging that he "lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin."

The accountant, Samuel Levin, responding to the lawsuit by saying he warned Cage that he could face bankruptcy unless he scaled back his lavish lifestyle.

CNN's KJ Matthews contributed to this report

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Undercover Animal Abuse Video 'Terrorism' Must Stop, Say Ban Proponents

The Humane Society of the United States

Shown here is an image from an undercover video The Humane Society released showing cattle at a California meatpacking plant.

In response to a string of undercover videos meant to expose animal cruelty on America's farms, several states capitals are considering bills that would make it illegal for groups to secretly document the treatment of livestock. 

Backed by the agriculture industry, lawmakers in Florida, Iowa and Minnesota have introduced proposals imposing criminal penalties for trying to make one of these films. Proponents say the measures are necessary to prevent people from lying their way into local farms, then exploiting their access to make videos which they claim are used to raise money, not improve animal conditions. 

"It's almost like terrorism, the way they go in," Florida state Sen. Jim Norman told FoxNews.com. 

But animal rights groups say the investigations are essential to stopping animal abuse and keeping the U.S. food supply safe. They claim the proposals to crack down on them are a sign the agriculture industry has something to hide, and suggested the bills could infringe on free-speech rights. 

Both sides say that if the bills pass, copycat legislation could start popping up all over the country. The Iowa bill passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate; the others are still in committee. 

"It's a very real prospect. ... It would have a chilling effect on information coming out of these factory farms," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. 

The Humane Society is among the groups lobbying against the bills in Florida, Iowa and Minnesota, and has experience in the undercover video field. An undercover film they released of abuses at a California meatpacking company led to the largest beef recall in U.S. history in early 2008. The footage showed workers kicking sickly cattle and pushing them with forklifts -- a combination of problems since cattle too weak to stand are not supposed to be slaughtered for food. 

The Humane Society also conducted investigations at Iowa egg farms last year, releasing videos that showed chickens allegedly dying in their cages -- the investigations came shortly before salmonella fears led to a massive egg recall at a separate Iowa farm. 

Pacelle questioned the timing of the latest bills. 

"Iowa is looking to do this after it had one of the biggest food safety scares in American history," he told FoxNews.com. 

The new bills, in Iowa and elsewhere, would outlaw a string of activities associated with undercover farm investigations. They call for some combination of the following: a prohibition on damaging property at a farm, harming the animals at a farm, producing any video or audio recording without owner consent and gaining access to a farm under false pretenses. The latter is meant to stop undercover activists from posing as job applicants. 

Daniel Hauff, director of investigations with Mercy for Animals, said the proposals would effectively criminalize investigative journalism by putting restrictions on documenting a range of abuses. 

"Without undercover investigations, there are no meaningful watchdogs protecting animals from egregious cruelty in these facilities. The agribusiness industry should be trying to root out cruelty to animals, not trying to make it harder to expose," he said in a written statement. "Cruelty to animals runs rampant on factory farms, and the industry knows it. Rather than improve conditions for animals, agribusiness is attempting to silence individuals who seek to expose and stop it." 

But Dal Grooms, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Cattlemen's Association, said the activists are not in this for the benefit of livestock. 

"Who cares more about that livestock? The farmers who own it and have to make sure that it's healthy ... or people who kind of stop in for a bit and then move on to their next victim?" she said. "They're just seeking ways to put farmers out of business who raise livestock and trying to raise money." 

She said Iowa ranchers are confident in the conditions in which their livestock are being kept. 

Grooms said filmmakers are the ones posing a risk to the livestock, arguing they could come in and "wipe out a livestock population by introducing various diseases." 

Norman said the filmmakers are trying to "cause harm" to the industry. He expressed concern that these videos are "spliced, diced, doctored," then presented to the public without giving the farmers and ranchers any "recourse." Though he couldn't recall any explosive undercover farm footage in Florida recently, he described his proposal as a preemptive measure. 

"There's only 40,000 farms left in Florida," he said. "We've got to have some protection of the farm community. ... If not, eggs are going to have 'made in China' on the side of them." 

Norman said that while two other states are considering similar bills, many more are looking to Florida to see what happens. 

"We have momentum," he said, estimating that "as many as 28" other states could move on similar bills. 

Pacelle, though, said the proposals are designed to "conceal unholy practices that are occurring on factory farms." He rejected claims that groups like his are only releasing videos to raise money, as well as claims that the groups sit on the videos. He said it takes time to complete an investigation and compile information. 

"You don't just do one day and then stop," he said. "This whole thing just shows that the industry has something to hide."

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Man accused of sex abuse to be freed

Outrage! UT Sex Offender Walks Free!STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe judge says he was following a Utah statuteJohnson has been diagnosed with a cognitive disorderHe faces numerous counts of sex offenses against childrenAlleged victim's mother says Johnson is faking a mental illness to avoid trial (CNN) -- A Utah judge has ordered a registered sex offender who faces nearly two dozen charges of child sex abuse released on the basis that he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.

At a hearing on Thursday, Fourth District Judge James Taylor, who previously ruled Lonnie Johnson incompetent to be tried on sex crime charges, said there were no legal grounds for holding him.

"We are at the end of the road...I can't do anything but have him released from the state hospital," Taylor said at Thursday's hearing.

Taylor said he was following a Utah statute requiring the release of anyone deemed incompetent to stand trial and who has not been convicted of a crime.

Johnson, 38, has been diagnosed with a cognitive disorder. Doctors who examined Johnson found his competency could not be restored. They also said he is not a danger to society and did not qualify for involuntary institutional commitment.

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