Saudi Arabia urged to release protesters
Press TV – March 25, 2011
The Saudi-based Human Rights First Society has called for the release of 100 protesters amid reports that some of those arrested have been tortured.
The rights group has called for a full investigation into the allegations of physical and psychological torture of the detainees, AFP reported.
It says the protesters were mainly arrested in the cities of Safwa, Qatif, and Hassa in the east of the country during peaceful rallies last week.
Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has declined to comment on the report. Riyadh has recently stepped up its clampdown on anti-government protesters in response to protests in the kingdom.
The anti-government demonstrators are demanding political reforms and the immediate release of political prisoners, whom protesters say are being held unjustly and without trial, some for as long as 16 years.
The protesters also condemned Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Bahrain and called for the withdrawal of Saudi forces from the country.
Shias, a minority in Saudi Arabia, say that they face discrimination in getting government jobs and benefits. The Saudi monarchy denies the allegations.
King Abdullah announced last week that the country would hold the second municipal elections next month, already delayed for two years. He also allotted $136 billion to tackle unemployment and housing problems and ordered the establishment of an anti-corruption body.
Activists say the state should take up real political reforms including an elected parliament with legislative powers, public freedoms and true independence for the judiciary.
They say that instead of carrying out the reforms, the government has stepped up security to suppress demonstrations.
Judge Cites Privacy Concerns in Rejecting Google Books Settlement
By Nicole Ozer | ACLU | March 23, 2011
What you read says a lot about what you think and believe. That’s why the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, filed an objection to the proposed Google Book Search settlement on behalf of authors and readers concerned about inadequate privacy safeguards in the book service. Now a federal court has rejected that proposed settlement. In today’s court opinion, the judge wrote that “[t]he privacy concerns [with Google Book Search] are real.”
We urged the court to reject the proposed settlement unless Google took several important steps to protect user privacy:
- Promise to protect book records from disclosure by complying with demands for information only when those demands are embodied in a search warrant or civil court order and by informing users whose records are sought as soon as legally permissible.
- Limit tracking of users who choose to browse, read, and search books anonymously, including allowing users to use the service without registering or providing any personal information.
- Provide user control over reading and purchasing data, including the ability to maintain privacy settings for “bookcases” and to transfer a digital book to another user without a permanent record.
- Be transparent about the information that the service collects and maintains about users and when and why that information has been disclosed to any third party.
As we pointed out in Digital Books: A New Chapter for Reader Privacy, our recent issue paper, digital book services are growing in popularity. These services may collect detailed information about readers and the books they browse, the pages they read, and even the notes they write in the “margins.” The time is now to retain and strengthen reader privacy in the digital age and ensure that sensitive browsing and reading history does not improperly end up in the hands of the government or third parties.
To address this challenge, we are working with EFF to introduce landmark digital book privacy legislation in California. (Stay tuned!) But we need companies like Google to support these efforts — and to ensure that their digital book products protect reader privacy.
As the court noted today, Google has an opportunity to incorporate additional privacy protections into its Book Search product. Please let Google know that you demand strong reader privacy protections for the digital age by signing our petition today.
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Turkey defers purchase of F-35 jets
Press TV – March 24, 2011
Turkey has postponed the purchase of 100 US-made F-35 warplanes in objection to the American’s refusal to share the aircraft’s technology.
Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Tuesday that negotiations with Pentagon officials over procurement of source codes used in the software designed for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), and codes used externally to operate the military aircraft had not yielded “satisfactory results,” Today’s Zaman newspaper reported on Thursday.
He said a range of topics has been covered in the talks but stressed that it did not yield sufficient grounds to convince Turkey to purchase the jets.
“We will evaluate the order in the next meeting of Turkey’s Defense Industry Implementation Committee,” Gonul said.
Turkish engineers reportedly would not be able to make any changes to the software that operates F-35 fighter jets without the source codes. The external flight codes are also necessary to navigate the jets.
The fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II — also known as Joint Strike Fighter or JSF — is a single-seat, single-engine and multi-role fighter. The aircraft can conduct air-to-air and air-to-ground combat missions.
The F-35 Lightning II is manufactured in three different main versions; conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL), carrier variant (CV) as well as a short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL). A fourth variant, the F-35 I, is a version exclusively manufactured for the Israeli regime.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway and Denmark have contributed financially to the development of F-35. Israel and Singapore have joined the project as security partners.
Why are They Making War on Libya?
Reasons and False Pretexts
By DIANA JOHNSTONE | CounterPunch | March 24, 2011
Reason Number One: Regime change.
This was announced as the real objective the moment French president Nicolas Sarkozy took the extraordinary step of recognizing the rebels in Benghazi as “the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people”. This recognition was an extraordinary violation of all diplomatic practice and principles. It meant non-recognition of the existing Libyan government and its institutions, which, contrary to the magical notions surrounding the word “dictator”, cannot be reduced to the personality of one strongman. A major European nation, France, swept aside all those institutions to proclaim that an obscure group of rebels in a traditionally rebellious part of Libya constituted the North African nation’s legitimate government.
Since factually this was clearly not true, it could only be the proclamation of an objective to be reached by war. The French announcement was equivalent to a declaration of war against Libya, a war to defeat Qaddafi and put the mysterious rebels in power in his place.
False Pretext Number One: “to protect civilians”.
The falsity of this pretext is obvious, first of all, because the UN Resolution authorizing military action “to protect civilians” was drawn up by France – whose objective was clearly regime change – and its Western allies. Had the real concern of the UN Security Council been to “protect innocent lives”, it would have, could have, should have sent a strong neutral observer mission to find out what was really happening in Libya. There was no proof of rebel claims that the Qaddafi regime was slaughtering civilians. Had there been visible proof of such atrocities, we can be sure that they would have been shown regularly on prime time television. We have seen no such proof. A UN fact-finding mission could have very rapidly set the record straight, and the Security Council could then have acted on the basis of factual information rather than of claims by rebels seeking international aid for their cause.
Instead, the Security Council, now little more than an instrument of Western powers, rushed ahead with sanctions, referral of alleged present or expected “crimes against humanity” to the International Criminal Court, and finally an authorization of a “no-fly zone” which Western powers were certain to interpret as a license to wage all-out war against Libya.
Once the United States and its leading NATO allies are authorized to “protect civilians”, they do so with the instruments they have: air strikes; bombing and cruise missiles. Air strikes, bombing and cruise missiles are not designed to “protect civilians” but rather to destroy military targets, which inevitably leads to killing civilians. Aside from such “collateral damage”, what right do we have to kill Libyan military personnel manning airports and other Libyan defense facilities? What have they done to us?
Reason Number Two: Because it’s easy.
With NATO forces bogged down in Afghanistan, certain alliance leaders (but not all of them) could think it would be a neat idea to grab a quick and easy victory in a nice little “humanitarian war”. This, they can hope, could revive enthusiasm for military operations and increase the flagging popularity of politicians able to strut around as champions of “democracy” and destroyers of “dictators”. Libya looks like an easy target. There you have a huge country, mostly desert, with only about six million inhabitants. The country’s defense installations are all located along the Mediterranean coast, within easy reach of NATO country fighter jets and US cruise missiles. Libyan armed forces are small, weak and untested. It looks like a pushover, not quite as easy as Grenada but no harder than Serbia. Sarkozy and company can hope to strut their victory strut in short order.
False Pretext Number Two: Arabs asked for this war.
On March 12, the Arab League meeting in Cairo announced that it backed a no-fly zone in Libya. This provided cover for the French-led semi-NATO operation. “We are responding to the demands of the Arab world”, they could claim. But which Arab world? On the one hand, Sarkozy brazenly presented his crusade against Qaddafi as a continuation of the democratic uprisings in the Arab world against their autocratic leaders, while at the same time pretending to respond to the demand of… the most autocratic of those leaders, namely the Gulf State princes, themselves busily suppressing their own democratic uprisings. (It is not known exactly how the Arab League reached that decision, but Syria and Algeria voiced strong objections.)
The Western public was expected not to realize that those Arab leaders have their own reasons for hating Qaddafi, which have nothing to do with the reasons for hating him voiced in the West. Qaddafi has openly told them off to their faces, pointing to their betrayal of Palestine, their treachery, their hypocrisy. Last year, incidentally, former British MP George Galloway recounted how, in contrast to the Egyptian government’s obstruction of aid to Gaza, his aid caravan had had its humanitarian cargo doubled during a stopover in Libya. Qaddafi long ago turned his back on the Arab world, considering its leaders hopeless, and turned to Africa.
While the Arab League’s self-serving stance against Qaddafi was hailed in the West, little attention was paid to the African Union’s unanimous opposition to war against the Libyan leader. Qaddafi has invested huge amounts of oil revenues in sub-Saharan Africa, building infrastructure and investing in development. The Western powers that overthrow him will continue to buy Libyan oil as before. The major difference could be that the new rulers, put in place by Europe, will follow the example of the Arab League sheikhs and shift their oil revenues from Africa to the London stock exchange and Western arms merchants.
Real Reason Number Three: Because Sarkozy followed BHL’s advice.
On March 4, the French literary dandy Bernard-Henri Lévy held a private meeting in Benghazi with Moustapha Abdeljalil, a former justice minister who has turned coats to become leader of the rebel “National Transition Council”. That very evening, BHL called Sarkozy on his cellphone and got his agreement to receive the NTC leaders. The meeting took place on March 10 in the Elysée palace in Paris. As reported in Le Figaro by veteran international reporter Renaud Girard, Sarkozy thereupon announced to the delighted Libyans the plan that he had concocted with BHL: recognition of the NTC as sole legitimate representative of Libya, the naming of a French ambassador to Benghazi, precision strikes on Libyan military airports, with the blessings of the Arab League (which he had already obtained). The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, was startled to learn of this dramatic turn in French diplomacy after the media.
Qaddafi explained at length after the uprising began that he could not be called upon to resign, because he held no official office. He was, he insisted, only a “guide”, to whom the Libyan people could turn for advice on controversial questions.
It turns out the French also have an unofficial spiritual guide: Bernard-Henri Lévy. While Qaddafi wears colorful costumes and dwells in a tent, BHL wears impeccable white shirts open down his manly chest and hangs out in the Saint Germain des Près section of Paris. Neither was elected. Both exercise their power in mysterious ways.
In the Anglo-American world, Bernard-Henri Lévy is regarded as a comic figure, much like Qaddafi. His “philosophy” has about as many followers as the Little Green Book of the Libyan guide. But BHL also has money, lots of it, and is the friend of lots more. He exercises enormous influence in the world of French media, inviting journalists, writers, show business figures to his vacation paradise in Marrakech, serving on the board of directors of the two major “center-left” daily newspaper, Libération and Le Monde. He writes regularly in whatever mainstream publication he wants, appears on whatever television channel he chooses. By ordinary people in France, he is widely detested. But they cannot hope for a UN Security Council resolution to get rid of him.
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Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions.She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
New Egyptian law criminalizes protests
Al-Masry Al-Youm | March 23, 2011
The Egyptian Cabinet on Wednesday ordered a law criminalizing protests and strikes. Under the new law, anyone organizing or calling for a protest will be sentenced to jail and/or a fine of LE500,000.
The new law will be enforced as long as the current Emergency Law is in place, said the cabinet in a statement on Wednesday. The Emergency Law has been in force since 1981 following the assassination of former President Anwar Sadat.
The new law will apply to anyone inciting, urging, promoting or participating in a protest or strike that hampers or delays work at any private or public establishments.
Since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February, Egypt has witnessed nationwide labor strikes and political protests. Among those protesting have been university students, political activists, railway workers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, journalists, pensioners, and the police force.
“Nakba Law Incites against Arab Population”
Israel’s Knesset approved the Nakba Law, mandating fines for state funded bodies that commemorate the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe of death, displacement and dispossession. Palestinian public in Israel will continue to commemorate its national days and history, despite this legal threat.
The Israeli Knesset approved on Tuesday night (22 March) the second and third readings of the controversial “Nakba Law.”
37 Knesset members voted in favor of the bill, which would require the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events marking Israeli Independence Day as the “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic) or for supporting “racism” against Israel. 25 others opposed the law.
The bill, initiated by Knesset Member Alex Miller of the ultra right-wing Zionist party Yisrael Beiteinu, will now become law, unless the decision is overturned by the Israeli High Court.
The Nakba is the term for the events of 1948 that left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as refugees, dead, and homeless.
The final version of the law will require the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events commemorating the Nakba, supporting armed resistance or racism against Israel, or desecrating the state flag or nation symbols.
A statement released by the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education- Israel, following the vote, says, “The Palestinian Arab public in Israel has every right to observe national days and preserve the national collective memory, including content in school curriculum.”
“The Follow-up Committee on Arab Education will continue to target Arab schools, specifically on Nakba Day, Land Day, the massacre in Kafr Qasem and other important historical events, to enhance the national and cultural affiliation of Arab students and present the denied Palestinian narrative, and will continue to fight for inclusion in the curriculum.”
The AIC spoke with Raja Za’atra the spokesperson for the Committee on Arab Education Issues, which said it will continue to commemorate the Nakba Day in schools.
“This law has no practical effect on the committee itself because it receives no funding from the state, but it is meant to intimidate schools, local councils and other bodies that are giving services to the public and dealing with Palestinian nationalism in general,” Za’atra said.
“This law is an attempt to incite against the Arab population,” he added.
The Abraham Fund responded to the Nakba Law, warning that “Knesset members are mistaken to think that one can force the Arab minority to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. It is important to allow Arab citizens to learn about and acknowledge their painful past. It is also important that mutual understanding of the other’s historical narrative exists between the Jews and Arabs in Israel.”
Prior to the final vote, Attorney Dan Yakir, ACRI’s Chief Legal Counsel, sent a letter to Members of Knesset, urging them to oppose the Nakba Law. In his letter, Attorney Yakir states that the law will limit specific forms of expression, while attempting to dictate one ideological and historical truth: “This bill severely damages freedom of political expression, freedom of artistic expression, and freedom of protest, which are all basic rights and are essential to the very existence of a democracy.”
Two civilians wounded in new Israeli air raids on Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 24/03/2011
GAZA — Two Palestinian civilians have been wounded Thursday morning during Israeli aerial attacks north of the Gaza Strip.
For its part, Salahuddin Brigades, the armed wing of the popular resistance committees, said one of its fighters miraculously survived an air raid.
Local sources told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that Israeli warplanes launched two raids this morning on a group of civilians east of Beit Lahia district, north of Gaza, which led to the injury of one citizen.
Another civilian was transferred to hospital after a similar raid on an area near Al-Khazndar station in Beit Lahia.
Salahuddin Brigades claimed responsibility for firing three homemade rockets on Karmiya settlement, south of Ashkelon city and one mortar shell on the Israeli military post Abu Safiya.
The firing of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli settlements and military posts near Gaza comes in retaliation to Israel’s military escalation against the Strip.
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One settler killed and 39 others injured in an explosion in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 23/03/2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — One Israeli settler was killed and 39 others were injured as a result of the explosion that took place on Wednesday evening at a bus station in occupied Jerusalem, according to Israeli occupation sources.
Israeli occupation medical sources said that about half of those injured are in moderate condition.
Yedioth Ahranoth said that the Israeli occupation suspects that the explosion was as a result of a bomb placed in a rubbish bin and detonated by remote control and suspect that Palestinians were behind it.
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Israeli occupation says retaliatory rocket attacks from Gaza injured settlers
Palestine Information Center – 23/03/2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israel occupation state admitted on Wednesday that 26 Israeli settlers were wounded when two grad rockets landed in the vicinity of Beersheba city in the early morning hours.
The Hebrew radio said the injured settlers were transferred to Soroka hospital for medical treatment.
It described the injuries of three of them as moderate and the others as slight, and noted that all of them are in a state of panic.
Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, declared its responsibility for firing two grad rockets at Beersheba in response to the assassination of four of its resistance fighters, and the massacre of children and civilians in Shuja’ia neighborhood.
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Israeli occupation killed 10 Palestinians and wounded 43 since Sunday
Palestine Information Center – 23/03/2011
GAZA — Israeli occupation forces launched more than 17 airstrikes and fired more than sixty artillery missiles between Sunday 20 March to Wednesday 23 March killing ten Palestinians and wounded 43 others.
Palestinian medical sources in Gaza confirmed these figure and added that the number of martyrs is likely to rise as a number of those wounded are in critical condition.
Adham Abu Selmeyyah, spokesman for the emergency services said in a statement on Wednesday evening that the number of martyrs reached 10, five of them children and the number of wounded is 43 people, 15 of them are children and six of them are women.
He further said that more than sixty bombs were fired and 17 airstrikes were carried out against 30 civilian targets in the Gaza Strip.