Democracy Now! April 6, 2012

April 06, 2012 from Democracy Now! via Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND

New details emerge over the fatal shooting by police of elderly ex-Marine Kenneth Chamberlain; "Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout is sentenced to 25 years but his trial ignores ties to the US and Dick Cheney; and we have an interview with the director of "Shouting in the Dark," a new film that chronicles Bahrain's pro-democracy uprising against US-backed rule.

(more) (less)

In This Video

Viktor Bout

Viktor Anatolyevich Bout is a convicted Russian arms smuggler of Ukrainian origins. A citizen of Russia, he was arrested in Thailand in 2008 before being extradited in 2010 to the United States to stand trial on terrorism charges, after having being accused of intending to smu... Explore this topic

DEA

The Drug Enforcement Administration is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States. Not only is the DEA the lead agency for domestic enforcement of the Controlled Sub... Explore this topic

Arms trafficking

Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the illegal trafficking or smuggling of contraband weapons or ammunition. What constitutes legal trade in firearms varies widely, depending on local and national laws. The 1997 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Sma... Explore this topic

Trial

In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated tr... Explore this topic

Kathi Lynn Austin

Kathi Lynn Austin is an expert on arms trafficking, peace and security, and human rights. For nearly 20 years, Ms. Austin has carried out original, precedent-setting and in-depth field investigations into the illegal trade in weapons, illicit trafficking operations, illegal re... Explore this topic

Taliban

The Taliban, alternative spelling Taleban, is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread into Afghanistan and formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, with Kandahar as the capital. Ho... Explore this topic

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden at some point between August 1988 and late 1989, with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a rad... Explore this topic

Rwanda

Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a sovereign state in central and east Africa. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All of Rwanda is at high elevation, with a geograp... Explore this topic

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, often violent, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no legally binding, criminal law definition. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended ... Explore this topic

Rwandan Genocide

The Rwandan Genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutus that took place in 1994 in the East African state of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate. Estimates of the d... Explore this topic

Also See

Bahrain Uprising

Kenneth Chamberlain

Viktor Bout

Watch Next

45:22

War in Afghanistan: The Price of Revenge?

Al Jazeera English | May 31

More than a decade ago -- without consultation, without any debate - the United States launched the war against Afghanistan, with the whole world b...