When Maher Arar arrived at New York’s JFK airport in 2002, he was only supposed to change planes and continue his journey from visiting relatives in Tunisia back to his home in Canada. But the routine layover was a fateful one: while briefly on U.S. soil, Arar was snatched by authorities, kept incommunicado and away from lawyers for two weeks, then shipped to Syria. Arar endured a year of captivity and alleged torture at the hands of the brutal Syrian regime. Now, after the Canadian government formally apologized to him five years ago, rights groups are demanding that the U.S. do the same.

Three American groups that oppose torture — the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International USA, and the Center For Constitutional Rights — delivered a petition with 60,000 signatures to the White House this week demanding an apology.

In 2007, the Canadian government admitted Arar had been mistakenly pinpointed as an Al Qaeda ally, apologized, and compensated him.

President Obama ended the “extraordinary rendition” program in 2009 and Politifact noted that the Obama administration “has announced new procedural safeguards concerning individuals who are sent to foreign countries” but some rights groups claim those safeguards aren’t adequate.

Citing the requirement for “remedy and redress” in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment — which prohibits knowingly transferring detainees to countries, like Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, that engage in torture — the letter campaign (PDF) asked signees to themselves apologize and then demand the U.S. do the same. An Amnesty press release said:

“It was so painful,” Maher Arar said of the beatings he endured, “that I forgot every enjoyable moment in my life.”

Released without charge and allowed to return home to Canada, Maher Arar received an apology and compensation from the Canadian government for its role in his treatment. But the U.S. government has failed to apologize or offer Maher Arar any form of remedy – despite its obligation to do so under the UN Convention Against Torture and other human rights treaties.

The letter campaign emphasized that additional steps need to be taken for accountability in the Arar case, including more explicit prohibitions on transfer, not relying only on diplomatic assurances about the treatment of detainees before transfers, ending discrimination in “no fly lists” and investigating and prosecuting those who broke the law.

Amnesty also released an infographic — using a mock-up of Arar’s 3-foot-wide, 7-foot-high and 6-foot-deep Syrian cell — highlighting the numbers around his detention: 12 days of incommunicado detention in the U.S., 351 in Syria while enduring torture, and 0 charges filed against Arar. However, there is no figure for the “number of people like Maher Arar subjected to the U.S. government’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ program.” That number? The Amnesty infographic boldly states, “UNKNOWN.”

When the State Department granted the head of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, Mariela Castro Espín, a visa to chair a panel on LGBT issues at the Latin American Studies Association in San Francisco later this week, the Republican response was as obvious as the Cuban LGBT activist’s relations to the Caribbean island’s Communist dictators. Her father is Cuban President Raúl Castro, her uncle is revolutionary leader and longtime dictator Fidel Castro, and the Republicans were “appalled.”

“The State Department needs to wake up from its delusional love fest with the dictators in Havana,” said right-wing House Foreign Affairs chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Republican Members of Congress released web videos and organized conference calls denouncing the visa as “outrageous.”

Even presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney got in on the action, releasing a statement accusing the Obama administration of “a slap in the face to all those brave individuals in Cuba who are enduring relentless persecution.”

Ros-Lehtinen and Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), David Rivera (R-FL) and Albio Sires (R-NJ) wrote a strongly-worded letter to the State Department saying:

The administration’s appalling decision to allow regime agents into the U.S. directly contradicts Congressional intent and longstanding U.S. foreign policy.

If it’s “longstanding U.S. foreign policy” to deny Mariela Castro a visa to enter the U.S., someone forgot to tell President George W. Bush. The Bush administration granted Castro not one but three visas to enter the U.S. in 2001 and 2002. State Department spokesman william Ostick told the Miami Herald:

Mariela Castro visited once in 2001 and twice in 2002. I can’t discuss her visas specifically, but you can assume she needed one to travel.

An Obama surrogate, Freddy Balsera, told the Herald:

In fact, the top State Department Official in charge of Latin America at the time was a Cuban American. Where was their criticism then? Nowhere, because ultimately this is all about politics for them.

A ThinkProgress search of the Lexis Nexis news database for Mariela Castro’s name during 2001 and 2002 returned no results relevant to her trips to the U.S.

Former attendees at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) said that Cuba has long been a presence at LASA conferences. This year, the State Department accepted 60 visas, denied 11, and is still processing 6. A State spokesman said visas couldn’t be rejected simply because “we don’t like you.”

LASA’s president told the Associated Press that Castro’s appearance at the conference was “an academic issue, not a political issue,” and that she’d answered a call for papers like any other conference speaker.

The European Union’s foreign ministers harshly denounced Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, writing that settlement expansion is threatening a potential two-state deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The statement comes as some analysts speculate that a broad national unity government announced could give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist government political space to slow settlement expansion or even cut a deal — though few view such moves as overwhelmingly likely.

The E.U. Foreign Affairs Council statement, however, stressed the importance of slowing the settlement enterprise before the Israeli communities jutting deep into a future Palestinian state forclose the possibility of peace. Noting that “settlements remain illegal under international law, irrespective of recent decisions by the government of Israel,” the 27 E.U. foreign ministers wrote:

The viability of a two-state solution must be maintained. The EU expresses deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible…

The EU expresses deep concern regarding settler extremism and incitement by settlers in the West Bank. The EU condemns continuous settler violence and deliberate provocations against Palestinian civilians. It calls on the government of Israel to bring the perpetrators to justice and to comply with its obligations under international law.

Settler extremism has not only affected Palestinians, but also the Israeli army, which last year was subjected to a reprisal attack by ideological settlers.

The document also cited rapid settlement expansion — settlement construction increased 660 percent in the first six months after 2010′s settlement freeze — and the legalizing of so-called outpost settlements that are at inception considered illegal by Israeli law. The Israeli government said the E.U. statement was “based on a partial, biased and one-sided depiction of realities on the ground.”

Palestinians, too, share some blame in the failure to get a two-state solution off the ground. The Second Intifada, an often violent Palestinian uprising after the Oslo peace process stalled in the late 1990s, shook Israeli confidence that peace was possible. Just last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas rebuffed Israeli overtures for talks without preconditions, insisting on an Israeli settlement freeze.

The international community and the U.S. consider the settlements “illegitimate.” Several high profile figues, including top current and former Israeli officials, recently called for various forms of halting settlement activity.

The tiny Gulf sheikhdom of Bahrain promised an even harsher crackdown on its internal oppoenents on the same day a premier international human rights organization decried the country’s imprisonment of “prisoners of conscience.” The latest episodes — emblematic of a continuing disconnect between the country’s Sunni leadership and the Shiite majority — mark a potential escalation between the government and protesters who rose up last February.

A close U.S. ally that hosts the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Bahrain promised reforms after an independent commission last fall cited problems with the response to demonstrations. No tangible steps toward reforms, though, have been initiated. Talks between the government and the opposition failed to get underway, and this February, tens of thousands of demonstrators revived on-going robust protests. Now, the government appears to have had enough. A Bahraini government spokesman, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, told the news agency Reuters:

Because of the escalation in violence, we are looking into the perpetrators and people who use print, broadcast and social media to encourage illegal protest and violence around the country.

If applying the law means tougher action, then so be it.

Al Khalifa’s accusations against protesters must resonate with human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. While few credible reports about the protests cite widespread violence against the government, Rajab’s case offers a window into other charges Al Khalifa levels against the movement. Rajab was already facing charges of participating in an “illegal” demonstration — meaning any demonstration at all in Bahrain — and was on Saturday arrested by authorities at the door of his airplane as he returned from foreign travel.

The new charges against Rajab? An active user of the social media platform with almost 150,000 followers, Rajab was arrested for sending “insulting tweets” about the government.

Today, Amnesty International declared Rajab a “prisoner of conscience.” Sanjeev Bery, Amnesty International USA’s Middle East & North Africa advocacy director, said:

It is utterly ridiculous that the Bahraini government would arrest human rights advocate Nabeel Rajab for sending tweets. Instead of attempting to silence critics, the Bahraini government needs to start listening to what they have to say about free speech and freedom of expression. Rajab is a prisoner of conscience being held solely for expressing his views. He must be released immediately.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights itself warns that another activist — Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja — is in dire straits due to a two-month old hunger strike against his detention. Amnesty chimed in on that case, which involves another 20 activists, as well today, noting: “Amnesty International considers all those currently detained in the case as prisoners of conscience and is calling for their immediate and unconditional release.”

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was quick to lash out at the Obama administration’s handling of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. Yesterday, when reports circulated that U.S. embassy officials had communicated threats to Chen’s family, Romney blasted the administration, saying, “if the reports are true” then the episode was a “dark day for freedom.”

The situation on the ground in Beijing remains uncertain but new reports suggest that progress is being made by the State Department in reaching an agreement with Chinese authorities to permit Chen to take up a fellowship from an American University, “where he can be accompanied by his wife and two children,” reports State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. But while Romney was quick to attack the Obama administration while sensitive negotiations were underway yesterday between U.S. diplomats and Chinese authorities, the presumptive Republican nominee has never answered questions about whether his own family has profited from Chinese surveillance of its own citizenry.

In March, The New York Times revealed that a Bain-run fund, in which a Romney family blind trust had invested between $100,000 and $250,000, purchased Uniview Technologies in December. Uniview is a Chinese company that claims to be the biggest supplier of surveillance cameras to the Chinese government and produces “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that allow police to share images in real time and provide technology for an emergency command center in Tibet “that provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people’s peaceful life,” according to Uniview’s web site.

Security cameras played a central role in the house-arrest imposed on Chen Guangcheng’s family. After his escape to Beijing and the U.S. embassy, Chen reported that Chinese authorities installed seven video cameras and an electric fence at his house. However, it is not known whether Uniview supplied these cameras.

Yesterday, in a surprise call to a Congressional hearing, Chen told lawmakers, “I’m really afraid for my other family members’ lives” and “[n]ow those security officers in my house basically have said, ‘We want to see what else Chen Guangcheng can do.’”

With the news that Chinese authorities may permit Chen to leave China with his family, a political crisis may be averted. But Mitt Romney and his family’s investment of between $100,000 and $250,000 in Uniview Technologies should raise questions about Romney’s ties to a company that openly advertises its close ties to the Chinese government’s state security apparatus and the use of its technologies in “both peacetime and wartime.”