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Rallies Worldwide to Mark the 9th Anniversary of the Disappearance of Aafia Siddiqui

Please also note that events scheduled for Saturday include a rally in New York at 12 noon, and a rally in Toronto (sisters only) at 6 pm. On Friday (March 30), there is also a rally in Fort Worth, Texas at 3.30 pm.

By Andy Worthington – 29.3.12

On Saturday, outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, I will be speaking at an event marking the ninth anniversary of the disappearance in Pakistan of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who vanished for five years and five months, and then mysteriously reappeared in Afghanistan in August 2008, where she was arrested, and then allegedly tried to shoot at the US soldiers who were holding her.

She was subsequently flown to New York, where, in September 2010, after a trial at which she did not appear to be well, although her mental health was not considered to be an issue worthy of scrutiny, she was sentenced to 86 years in prison, which she is serving in a notorious psychiatric prison, FMC Carswell, in Texas. 

The rally outside the US Embassy, organized by the Justice for Aafia Coalition, takes place from 3 pm to 6 pm, and the speakers, and the timing of speeches, are as follows:

1500: Introduction
1510: Sultan Sabri (Croydon Muslim Association)
1520: Raza Karim
1530: Andy Worthington (journalist, author of The Guantánamo Files)
1540: Asif Hussain
1550: Raza Nadim (MPACUK – Muslim Public Affairs Committee)
1600: Sheikh Suliman Ghani (Imam, Tooting Islamic Centre)
1610: Anas Altikriti (Cordoba Foundation)
1620: Ken O’Keefe (anti-war activist)
1630: Statement of Support from the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
1635: Joy Hurcombe (Save Shaker Aamer Campaign) reads out Statement of Support from Walter Wolfgang
1645: Omar Deghayes (former Guantánamo prisoner)
1655: Adnan Rashid (Hittin Institute)
1705: Sultana Parvin
1715: Uthman Lateef (Hittin Institute)
1725: Conclusion

I hope to see some of you down there, as the case of Aafia Siddiqui, which I have been following for many years, remains deeply troubling. My previous articles can be found here, and below is a re-cap of her story, drawn largely from an account of the website of the Justice for Aafia Coalition.

Please also note that other events scheduled for Saturday include a rally in New York at 12 noon, and a rally in Toronto (sisters only) at 6 pm. On Friday (March 30), there is also a rally in Sandton, South Africa at 2 pm, and another in Fort Worth, Texas at 3.30 pm.

The story of Aafia Siddiqui

Nine years ago, on March 30, 2003, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen, and a cognitive neuroscientist, disappeared in Karachi along with her three children, the youngest of whom, Suleman, was just a baby. For the next five years their whereabouts were unknown, and have never been publicly acknowledged by either the Pakistani or the US government, even though it seems clear that she was held in secret detention, where she was severely abused. Former Bagram prisoners have stated that a female prisoner was held in the prison, identified by the number “650,” and have said that they heard her horrific screams.

Following demands for her recovery by human rights organisations and the Pakistani public, Aafia resurfaced in Afghanistan in August 2008, framed with the attempted murder of US personnel. Transferred to the US, she was convicted in a shocking miscarriage of justice and was sentenced in September 2010 to 86 years in prison. She is currently held in isolation at FMC Carswell, Texas, a facility notoriously referred to as the “hospital of horrors.” She is denied any meaningful contact with her family and is unlikely to see her children again.

Whilst the two elder children were released in 2008 and 2010 respectively, the whereabouts of her youngest child, Suleman — only six months old at the time of the abduction — remain unknown, although it is believed that he may have been killed art the time of her initial capture. Most recently, disturbing reports have emerged that her health is deteriorating and there are serious concerns that she may have cancer.

To request Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan, please contact the following officials in the US and Pakistani governments:

Eric Holder: Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001, Tel: +1 202 353 1555, Email: AskDoJ@usdoj.gov

Hilary Clinton: Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street, N.W. Washington DC 20520, Tel: +1 202 647 4000, Fax: +1 202 261 8577, Email: questions@friendsofhillary.com

Mr. Asif Ali Zardari: President of Pakistan, President’s Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Tel 92 51 920 4801/921 4171, Fax 92 51 920 7458, Email: publicmail@president.gov.pk

Mr. Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani: Prime Minister of Pakistan, Prime Minister House, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Fax: + 92 51 922 1596, Email: secretary@cabinet.gov.pk

Mr. Rehman Malik: Minister of Interior, Room No. 404, 4th Floor, R Block, Pak Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Tel: +92 51 921 2026, Fax: +92 51 920 2624, E-mail: minister@interior.gov.pk, ministry.interior@gmail.com, interior.complaintcell@gmail.com

Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi: Foreign Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Islamabad, Pakistan, Tel: +92 51 921 0335, Fax: +92 51 920 7600, Email: smhq148@hotmail.com

You can also write to Aafia:

Aafia Siddiqui # 90279-054
FMC Carswell
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
U.S.A.

And to send a message of support to her family, email: support@justiceforaafia.org

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Open Letter to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO

By Ralph Nader | March 28, 2012

Dear Mr. Trumka,

You have come to your leadership position of our country’s labor federation of unions with 13 million members the hard way. Starting by working in the coal mines, then becoming a lawyer, heading the United Mine Workers, then becoming the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO before assuming your present position in 2009, who can pull rank on you in the formal labor movement?

Yet, the AFL-CIO’s public leadership in three major areas has been far less effective than one would expect. I am referring to your less than assertive response to President Obama: 1) turning his back on raising the federal minimum wage; 2) failing to advance his card check promise to you in 2008; and 3) dropping the ball on backing long-overdue safety and health responsibilities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

I say this with the awareness of your group’s public stands in favor of these three crucial matters to working families. But as you well know, there is a very marked difference between being on-the-record, as the AFL-CIO is, and being on-the-daily ramparts pushing these issues, as your organization is not.

Even just making a statement, however, took a back seat in your March 13, 2012 endorsement of Barack Obama for a second term as president. In what ways has Mr. Obama “moved aggressively,” as you declared, “to protect workers rights, pay, health and safety on the job?”

He has neither championed nor pressed Congress, when the Democrats were in control in 2009-2010, to give you card check which you have long-said was needed to reverse the serious decline and expand the ranks of organized labor by millions of workers (you told me this in 2004).

Second, Mr. Obama appointed an excellent head of OSHA and then betrayed OSHA – an agency that has estimated 58,000 workplace-related American deaths a year from disease and trauma! That is over 1000 people a week, every week, on the average.

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor and the head of OSHA, cannot get White House approval for issuing long-overdue standards or strengthening weak and outdated standards such as the woefully inadequate silica rule, to save American lives not threatened by terrorists, but by corporate negligence or worse. Why have you not exposed this reality in public? Has Mr. Obama, whom you have socialized with at White House viewings of the Super Bowl, ever invited you to come across Lafayette Square to discuss this serious ongoing, preventable tragedy?

Had he taken worker concerns seriously, he might have asked you why the AFL-CIO for many years, has retained at its large national headquarters so few full-time advocates on occupational health and safety? And you in turn might have asked him why his politicos are blocking Dr. Michaels and why he is content in having only $550 million for OSHA’s annual budget while the U.S. spent $675 million in 2011 paying corporate contractors to guard the overbuilt U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Are these the Obama “values” you extolled in your endorsement statement?

More dismaying is your touting Mr. Obama for aggressively protecting workers’ pay. By pushing for more NAFTA type “pull-down” trade agreements through Congress, and not moving to revise NAFTA as he promised in his 2008 presidential campaigns, he is undermining both workers’ pay and jobs. By totally abandoning his pledge made to over 30 million workers in 2008 that he would press for a $9.50/hour federal minimum wage by 2011, he left them defenseless with more debt and fewer necessities of life.

The AFL-CIO wants at the least to catch up to 1968 with an inflation-adjusted $10/hour minimum wage law. Where is the visible muscular campaign for such legislation? Keeping up with inflation for the federal minimum wage is historically supported by 70 percent of the people. That includes many Republicans and even Rick Santorum and, until his latest flip-flop, Mitt Romney. A $10 minimum wage, after years of windfall price increases and executive compensation windfalls at labor’s expense, would annually pump tens of billions of dollars into greater consumer demand by low-income families in this recessionary economy.

What is the AFL-CIO waiting for? Hundreds of non-profit organizations will follow your lead. Talk is not enough. Resources and muscular lobbying are required along with far more relevant and tough public advertisements than your members are seeing and paying for on TV these days. Enough, already, of the general feel-good mood spots on TV.

As someone who in earlier days had been a dig-in-your-heels labor negotiator in fights with management, what did you receive for millions of American workers in your early, blanket endorsement of Mr. Obama? No wonder he can get away with giving the trade union movement and unorganized workers the back of his hand. You have unnecessarily allowed him to believe that you have nowhere to go. This is another way of saying that the Republicans, by being worse than the bad Democrats, are holding the American labor movement hostage to the corporatist Democratic Party.

The AFL-CIO is in a deep, defensive rut when in these tough times it should be in an aroused, innovative state of high alert and aggressive action. Workers in the 1930s’ Depression were in worse shape than workers today, yet organized labor was more militant.

People inside and outside the AFL-CIO know the problems. They are: complacent bureaucratic rigidity, fractious relations between member unions over how supine they need to be to Obama and the Democrats (with their costly wars), the lack of union democracy and competitive elections both within member unions and at the AFL-CIO plus, except for a few unions like the California Nurses Association, a distinct lack of sustained fervor and money for organizing drives.

You know all this only too well. Yet, as a 14th Century Chinese philosopher once said, “to know and not to do is not to know.” Unless you shake the AFL-CIO up and reorder its priorities against the corporate state, expect another four years of an Obamabush Administration.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Scores Injured as Israeli Troops Attack West Bank land Day Protests

By George Rishmawi & Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC | March 30, 2012

Thousands of Palestinians marked land day, on Friday, Palestinian sources said that 100 civilians were injured when Israeli troops attacked protesters in Ramallah and Bethlehem cities.

Marking the 36th anniversary of land day today Palestinians and their supporters marched for Jerusalem demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the city. Protests were organized near the Israeli Lebanese borders as well as the borders with Jordan.

The Land day commemoration started in 1976, when Palestinian residents of the Galilee to the Negev protested Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for security and settlement purposes. Israeli military and police attacked the protests leaving 6 killed, hundreds injured.

Today After the midday prayers, people marched from Ramallah city, central West Bank, towards Qalandiya checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Jerusalem.

Troops fired tear gas and sound bombs then later used rubber-coated steel bullets. 80 Palestinians were injured. Witnesses told IMEMC that among those injured were two Palestinian medics.

In Bethlehem 20 residents were injured, seven were moved to hospitals, when soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at land day protesters. The marchers were first stopped by the Palestinian security forces however they managed to reach the gate of the wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem. As protestors reach the gate, youth threw rocks and firebombs at the wall and the nearby military tower.

“We are here to tell the Israeli occupation that Jerusalem is Palestinian and will never forget it.” One of the protesters told IMEMC.

Israeli troops responded by firing tear gas and sound bombs. A source from the Palestinian Red Cresent Society told IMEMC that one resident was hit with a tear gas canister in his back causing burns and bruises.

The wounded was identified as Yousef Sharqawi from Bethlehem. Another activist from the US was hit with a tear gas canister in his head and was transferred to the hospital for medical treatment. Field medics said his wound is moderate.

Photo of Land Day Protest in Bethlehem Today –  by Ghassan Bannoura
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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Palestinian lawmaker wounded in Land Day protest


Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti
Press TV –  March 30, 2012

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti has been injured by Israeli forces attacking peaceful demonstrations marking international Land Day, Press TV reports.

Barghouti was wounded on Friday in the city of al-Quds (Jerusalem) where he attended a Land Day rally.

Israeli forces opened fire on peaceful pro-Palestinian rallies across the occupied Palestinian territories, with clashes underway between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Qalandiya.

Earlier reports said at least two protesters were injured by Israeli troops and several others were arrested.

More demonstrations were planned for after the Friday Prayers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) despite Tel Aviv restricting access to al-Aqsa Mosque for the weekly prayers.

Pro-Palestinian rallies have been held near border areas in Lebanon and similar demonstrations are expected in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria where activists will also march towards the Palestinian borders.

The rallies, joined by international human rights activists, are part of an international campaign named Global March on al-Quds (Jerusalem), a peaceful international movement that also condemns the Israeli occupation of the holy city.

The event marks Land Day and the Israeli military’s deadly attack on Palestinians peacefully protesting Tel Aviv’s land policies in 1967.

The demonstrations have prompted Tel Aviv to deploy thousands of police and armed forces across the occupied Palestinian territories and around border areas near Lebanon and Jordan.

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

MKO is US’ only hope to stop Iran nuclear program: NY ex-mayor

Press TV – March 29, 2012

The former mayor of New York says the terrorist group of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is the United States’ only hope to stop Iran’s nuclear energy program through a military attack.

Speaking at a conference in Paris, Rudolph Giuliani noted that the United States should use the MKO to militarily attack Iran’s nuclear program, International Business Times reported.

The conference was also attended by former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and former Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy.

“I have a feeling that the only thing that will stop [Iran] and the only thing that will stop [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is if they see strength, if they see power, if they see determination, if they see an America that is willing to support the people that want to overthrow the regime of Iran,” he added.

Giuliani’s remarks come despite the fact that MKO, along with 49 other groups including al-Qaeda, is on the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations which considers providing “material support or resources” for such groups or accepting donations from them as illegal.

Despite that law, three top-ranking former US officials are currently being investigated by the Treasury Department for accepting speaking fees from the MKO.

Former Pennsylvania Gov., Philadelphia mayor, and Democratic National Chairman Ed Rendell was the first to face federal scrutiny for accepting speaking fees from the MKO. Earlier this month ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, were also subpoenaed.

In the past few years, dozens of other US politicians have been paid by the MKO, including former Vermont Gov. and Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Bush’s White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and even former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who was also co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Giuliani, who charges as much as USD 100,000 per speaking engagement, was asked to appear at the Paris conference by the so-called French Committee for a Democratic Iran. The US Treasury Department charges that these types of Iranian organizations are clandestinely funneling money from the MKO into speakers’ pockets.

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

On the eve of Land Day: Al Quds anticipates the Global March

29 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

March 30 is Land Day in Palestine. The events of the day annually commemorate the events of 1976, when Israeli authorities seized massive quantities of land from Palestinian owners, and then killed several and injured dozens to crack down on the general strike called to protest the theft.

This year on Land Day, March 30, people from around Palestine and the world will march towards Al Quds  (Jerusalem) to protest the theft in progress today: the isolation and ethnic cleansing taking place in Al Quds, as well as throughout occupied Palestine through illegal settlement activity. Marches are planned towards Al Quds from multiple points in the West Bank, Gaza, inside the Green Line, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria, as well as in Asia, North America, and Europe. The global march aims to highlight the colonization of Al Quds by Zionists and the refusal of access for Palestinians to the holy city.

According to multiple treaties and UN resolutions, Al Quds is recognized as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel seized control of the city in 1967. Al Quds has long been the center of religious, cultural, health, and commercial life for Palestinians, and an estimated 270,000 Palestinians reside in the eastern parts of the city (OCHA 2011).

The Palestinian population and presence in Al Quds is currently under extreme pressure from Israeli authorities and illegal settlers as the Zionist state seeks to take complete control of the city, drive out the Palestinian inhabitants, and eliminate any hope of its future as a Palestinian capital. This pressure is manifested in various ways:

Isolation

Fadwa Khader, an Al Quds resident and organizer of the Global March on Jerusalem remembers a time when Al Quds was “the most important place in Palestine.” Now, the apartheid wall and associated military closures prevent the majority of Palestinians from traveling to Al Quds for any reason. The city’s status as a center of Palestinian life is fading, due to its isolation from the rest of the West Bank. But material realities will not erase Al Quds’s place in the hearts of the Palestinian people. One needs only to view the multitude of images of Al Aqsa mosque in Palestinian homes, businesses, and streets to understand this.

Removal and Denial of Residency

In a systematic effort aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian residents of Al Quds, Israeli authorities seize any opportunity to rescind the residency permits of individuals, even those who are born and have lived their entire lives in the city. If Palestinian residents are known to have lived in the West Bank or abroad, even temporarily, they risk the withdrawal of their residency rights and may never be allowed into Al Quds again, even to visit family.

Fadi, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is a Palestinian who resided in Jordan for example, has retained his Jerusalem IDs. Yet his children who were born in Jordan and whose mother is a Palestinian refugee, have been unable to attain their Jerusalem IDs. “My family’s history is in this city,” said Faid. “The lack of jobs, and the bleak future of Palestinians here forced me to seek these elsewhere. Now that I have returned and have brought my children with me, my children are unable to maneuver throughout the city as they are undocumented in their own father’s hometown. Israel refuses to recognize them as the children of a Jerusalemite, but we will remain here, even if that means that my children and wife live without an ID or any rights.” Fadi continued after a long silence and the evident hurt in his eyes. “This is our resistance to Zionism.”

This policy has the effect over time of reducing the Palestinian population in Al Quds and preventing residents from traveling or living elsewhere for fear of losing residency.

Pressure on existing residents

Fadwa Khader noted another component of Israel’s campaign for the complete colonization and ethnic cleansing of Al Quds: the application of pressure to Palestinian residents in order to drive them out of the city. One way this is manifested is in the denial of municipal services in the eastern parts of the city inhabited by Palestinians.

The residents here pay the same taxes as the Jewish residents of West Al Quds.  Despite this, the municipality of Jerusalem does not provide adequate services to the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city. Ninety percent of the municipality’s sewer lines and paved roads and sidewalks are in West Al Quds (B’tselem). In some neighborhoods, cleaning services come only once every three days as opposed to three times a day in West Al Quds. n February the Wadi Hilweh Information Center  reported the Jerusalem Municipality created a dump at the door of Palestinian neighborhoods.

Khader notes the dual nature of this denial of services: First, to make life in Al Quds miserable and untenable in an effort to convince existing residents to leave. Second, to demonstrate to the internationals that visit Al Quds that the Palestinian residents “don’t care about their neighborhoods” and live in filth.

Pressure is also applied to Palestinian resident through settlement of East Al Quds neighborhoods by extremist Israelis, evictions of Palestinian families, and demolitions of Palestinian homes. The neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan have been particularly affected by this strategy. The goal of the Israeli authorities and Zionist activists is to forcibly settle Jews in East Al Quds through the seizure of land and homes and settlement of Israelis in these areas. In addition, home demolitions make life increasingly untenable for affected residents.

The Global March this Land Day will seek to highlight these issues and call for an end to Israeli Zionist settlement policy, access restrictions, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Al Quds and throughout occupied Palestine.

Khader has a message for the international Palestine solidarity movement:

“We want to live in peace and liberty  and to feel free. Can you imagine how we suffer and sacrifice for this dream?”

She noted that there can never be a real Palestinian state as long as the Israelis continue to steal land and water, to control borders, and to separate cities and villages of Palestine from each other.

Still, she is hopeful.

“We won’t give up hope. We believe in you (international solidarity activists). You are our voice outside of Palestine, calling for dignity, liberation, and an end to the occupation.”

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Settlers Attack Internationals Accompanying School Children on Shuhada Street

28 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Today at around 1 PM  extremist settler Anat Cohen attacked a Canadian woman accompanying school children, and a few minutes later sent two teenage settlers to throw rocks at the Canadian woman and a Finnish man.  The attack occurred at the bottom of the stairs connecting the Qordaba Girls School with the section of Shuhada street where Palestinians are allowed to walk.

Cohen passed the internationals in her car and stopped to talk to soldiers at the nearby checkpoint.  She then reversed her car, parked next to the internationals and proceeded to shove, kick and scream at the Canadian women while soldiers looked on.  Eventually a soldier came to force the internationals up the stairs, but did nothing to stop Cohen from harassing them.

A few minutes later two children who Cohen had just spoken with ran up a parallel staircase and threw rocks at the  internationals from less than a foot away, hitting the Finnish man in the ear.  Two soldiers watched the second attack, then turned in the opposite direction and refused to intervene.  Cohen then called the police, who demanded the passports of all the internationals present, who detained them for several minutes, and then told them they were not allowed to stand at the bottom or top of the stairs.  When asked why the police were doing nothing about the attacks, a soldier responded that Anat Cohen is “well known to the police” and there was “nothing to be done.”

The staircase that connects Palestinian schools and houses with Shuhada street has been a site of frequent settler attacks, particularly on girls from the nearby Qordaba school who have been stoned by settlers many times on the stairs and the area leading to it.

Internationals have been accompanying children in this area to try and prevent attacks by settlers and harassment from soldiers.

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | 2 Comments

ISRAEL: Water being used to coerce Bedouin villagers, says NGO

IRIN | March 29, 2012

Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IRIN
The Bedouins in Umm al-Hieran village live several kilometers away from a source of clean water and rely on trucks to get their supply

UMM AL-HIERAN, NEGEV DESERT – Salim Abu al-Qi’an’s family live in Israel’s Negev desert in the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran, 9km from the nearest source of clean water.

“There is no water in the village. We truck it in. It costs about 50 shekels [US$13.4] per cubic metre of water,” explained the 53-year-old village leader. “There is a pipe that’s about 8km long, but it’s too old, and the planning authorities don’t allow us to put a new one under the ground. We are asking for better access to water, a new pipe that should be close to the village.”

The Israeli authorities forced Umm al-Hieran residents to move to the area where the village now sits in 1956, shortly after the military had evicted them from their original homes in the Wadi Zuballa area of the Negev desert.

In 2004, the villagers faced a new threat of expulsion, as the Southern District Planning Committee unveiled a master plan which involves once again displacing Umm al-Hieran, and building the Jewish community of Hiran in its place. According to the Israeli government, the 500 residents of Umm al-Hieran are trespassers who are illegally squatting on state land.

Some 80-90,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel live in unrecognized villages in the southern Negev, according to a report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. As a result of their unrecognized status, nearly every structure in these communities can be demolished at any time, and residents do not receive basic services from the state, including electricity, paved roads, healthcare facilities, schools, and water.

Constitutional right

In June 2011, however, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the right to water was a constitutional right, and that the state must guarantee a “minimum access to water” for the residents of the unrecognized villages. Still, the court did not specify what constituted a fair minimum.

Shortly thereafter, a Haifa court, acting as a water tribunal, rejected Umm al-Hieran’s application to be connected to the local water network. The court argued that the villagers had minimum access to water, and suggested they buy water from private citizens in towns connected to the water network, or move into nearby government-planned Bedouin townships.

According to Sawsan Zaher, an attorney at Adalah, the Legal Center from Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has represented al-Qi’an’s family and the residents of Umm al-Hieran in their legal struggle, the water tribunal’s decision means that “a constitutional right, which is the right to water as part of the right to a minimal standard of living, [will] be provided by private actors and not by the state. This is in contradiction to constitutional law. The duty is on the state to fulfil this right and protect it even.”

Adalah has filed an appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court, asking that “minimum access to water” be explicitly defined, and challenging the constitutionality of forcing Umm al-Hieran residents to purchase water from non-state actors.

“Despite the fact that they are citizens, they are not entitled to the same level of rights as other citizens of Israel. Why? Because they are living in unrecognized villages,” Zaher told IRIN.

“We want you to move out”

“The purpose is not hidden any more. It is revealed and it’s very official: we are not connecting you to water because we want you to move out. This is the policy. It’s a kind of punishment. This is in huge contradiction with human rights and logic and humanity – to come and punish people by not giving them water for political purposes,” Zaher said.

In a 9 March report, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination raised concerns about Bedouin communities in Israel, particularly with regard to Bedouin home demolitions, and inequalities between Bedouin and Jewish citizens’ access to land, housing, education, employment and public health.

Israel’s proposed Law for the Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, which would forcibly displace 30,000-60,000 of the 80,000-90,000 Bedouins living in unrecognized villages, should be shelved, the UN Committee found, since it legalizes “the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities”.

According to Salim Abu al-Qi’an, forcibly displacing residents of Umm al-Hieran to the nearby government-planned Bedouin township of Hura is indeed the motivation behind denying them direct access to high-quality water.

“They want to push us to leave the village and to displace us,” he told IRIN. “Even though we are an unrecognized village, this is nicer than to live in Hura. There are no services there. Sewage and garbage is in the street. There’s not enough space. It’s another refugee camp.”

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Calls on EU Parliament to press Israel into releasing Palestinian MP Hajj

Palestine Information Center – 29/03/2012

GAZA — The international campaign for freeing kidnapped Palestinian MPs informed the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament about the deterioration of the health of detained MP Ahmad Ali Hajj who has been on hunger strike for 15 days.

The campaign called, in letters to both Mr. Martin Stchaulz President of the European Parliament and Mr. Anders Johnson Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to exert international parliamentary pressure on the occupation to release the MP Ali Al-Hajj, warning that his health is worsening by the day.

Hajj (74 years) is at risk of death at any moment because of his serious health condition. He has already lost 10 kg as a result of his hunger strike to protest administrative detention without charge or trial, in addition to losing 70% of his ability to hear and other ailments, the campaign added.

27 Palestinian MPs are still detained in the occupation jails in violation of the international law and their parliamentary immunity, the campaign said, pointing to the occupation’s arbitrary measures against the elected representatives, especially administrative detention for years on end. The campaign stated that the international silence toward this blatant violation of human rights gives the occupation a green light to commit more crimes towards people’s representatives.

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Deal reached to free Hana Shalabi

Ma’an – 29/03/2012

BETHLEHEM — A deal to release Palestinian hunger-striker Hana Shalabi to the Gaza Strip temporarily was reached late Thursday, officials with knowledge of the negotiations told Ma’an.

The officials say Shalabi will be sent to Gaza for three years in exchange for giving up a 43-day strike against Israel’s policy of holding detainees without charge.

The Palestinian prisoners society confirmed the deal in a statement praising Shalabi’s resolve. It expressed its appreciation for her efforts to bring attention to Israel’s policies toward prisoners.

Qadoura Fares of the prisoners society said Shalabi agreed to the deal “in return for ending her strike and being freed. … We reject deportation, but this is her decision and her own life,” Fares said.

Shalabi’s lawyer, Jawwad Boulous, also confirmed the agreement.

According to a high-ranking Palestinian source, the deal was reached after Palestinian officials and Red Cross intervened to confirm that Shalabi approved.

The Palestinian Authority minister of civil affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, said the leadership in Ramallah was not involved in the negotiations as it rejects Israel’s deportation policy.

The deal apparently followed talks between Shalabi and the Israeli government, he said.

Al-Sheikh added that Israel is responsible for the hunger-striker’s well-being and should instead release Shalabi unconditionally to her home and family in the West Bank, not to Gaza. … Full article

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Israeli settlers storm into Palestinian home, occupy residence

Al Akhbar | March 29, 2012

Israeli settlers invaded a home in a Palestinian-owned building in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and took up the apartment as their own, residents and Israeli security forces said on Thursday.

“At 1:30am we heard noises and it was the settlers,” Montasser Abu Rajab, who lives on the first floor of the building in Hebron’s Old City, said.

“They broke the main door and brought their furniture in, accompanied by the army, who locked us in our house,” he said.

Palestinian sources in Hebron said that the property belonged to the Abu Rajab family, who had sold the second floor of the house to another Palestinian family.

But the Israeli army – who confirmed the incident – claimed that “the title to the property is contested.”

“The area has been declared a closed military zone, and soldiers have been put in place to keep the calm,” a spokeswoman for the Israeli army said.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said “police have been dispatched to the scene to verify the legal status of the house and the property titles that are apparently the subject of litigation.”

The settlers also claimed that they had titles to the property, which is located near a prominent religious site for both Muslims and Jews.

Speaking to Israeli public radio, right-wing Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari, of the National Union party, said it was “time to recover all the Jewish homes in Hebron stolen by the enemy.”

Right-wing Israeli politicians and figures often incite violence against Arabs, with Palestinians frequently attacked and harassed by settlers as well as the Israeli military, often with impunity.

House demolitions and evictions are among the serious threats indigenous Palestinians face on their native land, as Israel continues to build Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, including in Hebron, in defiance of the international community.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, with the territory being only a fraction of historical Palestine on which the Israeli state is now situated.

Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, imposing harsh restrictions on native Palestinians while providing privileges to illegal Jewish settlers.

(Al-Akhbar, AFP)

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | 2 Comments

Marwan Barghouti: A Decade of Defiance

Despite spending the past 10 years in prison, Marwan Barghouti remains at the forefront of the Palestinian liberation movement.

By Fadi Abu Saada | Al Akhbar | March 29, 2012

In mid-April 2002, Israeli occupation forces invaded Palestinian cities under Operation Defensive Shield.

The Israeli government at the time was after Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who managed to disappear for three weeks before he was arrested under circumstances that remain unclear to this day.

Barghouti is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Secretary-General of Fatah in the West Bank, but the Israeli state accused him of leading al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and deemed his arrest a great success.

The verdict of five life sentences and 40 years in prison that Barghouti was handed is a clear indication of Israel’s recognition of the “threat to Israel” that he represents. This was expressed by one Israeli leader who described Barghouti as a “young Abu Ammar,” Yasser Arafat’s nom de guerre.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said that he prefers to see Barghouti dead rather than in prison, because he is the engineer and the brains behind the intifada, and he is a symbol of Palestinian national unity and resistance.

Despite his forced absence from the Palestinian public arena, Barghouti is still at the forefront of the political scene. An opinion poll revealed that 55 percent of Palestinians would elect Barghouti if he were to run for the presidency and president Mahmoud Abbas does not run.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducted the poll, explained that Barghouti swept other Fatah candidates by a big margin, receiving 55 percent of respondents’ votes, while other candidates did not receive more than 3 percent each.

Palestinian political analyst Khalil Shahin refers to three main factors to explain Barghouti’s popularity.

The first is the struggle factor: “Barghouti was always at the forefront of the leaders standing with the people. He had been exiled and detained and with the start of the second intifada, he led the protests,” says Shahin.

“The decisive factor of the legitimacy of any leader,” he adds, “is joining the ranks of the people and that is what Barghouti did.”

The second factor, according to Shahin, is “the nature of the discourse adopted by Barghouti as it is nationalist par excellence. It is not factional and it is not Fatah-centered. Barghouti walked in the footsteps of national leaders like the late Arafat, George Habash, Abu Iyad, Abu Jihad, and others.”

The third factor has to do with “the staunch positions” held by Barghouti and “represented in the last message he issued from prison in which he spoke about the political process, the senseless negotiations, reconciliation, and corruption which might push for the adoption of an new path in the Palestinian strategy for the next phase.”

In addition, the vision proposed by Barghouti, says Shahin, “scares Israel because it might represent the opening of new path in Palestinian resistance against Israel in order to isolate it internationally, which Israel considers a grave danger.”

Despite his imprisonment, the Israelis could not stop Barghouti’s continued struggle as he issued a series of messages to the Palestinian people from inside his prison cell.

On the 10th anniversary of his arrest, Barghouti called for an end to all forms of security and economic cooperation with Israel and for launching wide-ranging popular resistance.

“Experience has demonstrated that there is no partner for peace in Israel. Even worse, settlement building multiplied three or four times over the course of two decades of negotiations and the Judiazation of Jerusalem is accelerating in an unprecedented manner,” his message read.

“We must confirm the absolute right of our people to resist the occupation by all forms, means, and methods, and concentrate this resistance in the territories occupied in 1967 while highlighting the importance of choosing the appropriate form and method for the current phase,” he added.

Barghouti also spoke in his letter about the importance of achieving reconciliation and national unity, and the need for the Palestinian leadership to deal seriously and responsibly with this issue.

He urged pairing resistance with work at the level of diplomacy, politics, and negotiations, as well as struggle and popular activism.

He called for a complete official and popular boycott of Israeli products and goods, and for encouraging people to purchase Palestinian products. He also called for renewing efforts to achieve Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

Barghouti did not forget the most important issue and that is battling corruption which he saw as another face of the occupation. He said “the symbols of corruption who have not been held accountable yet must be held to account.”

Palestinian public opinion might differ on the question of reconciliation but there is an agreement on Barghouti’s strong presence and his nationalist discourse.

Despite him being in prison for 10 years, he has the final word on many sensitive matters having to do with the issue of prisoners, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority.

Exist to Resist

The Palestinian prisoner and MP Marwan Barghouti was born in 1959 in the village of Kobar to the northwest of Ramallah. He joined Fatah at the age of 15.

He was arrested and put in prison by the Israeli occupation forces in 1976 when he was only 18 years old.

After his release, Barghouti headed the Birzeit University Student Council and graduated with a degree in History and Political Science and an MA in International Relations.

He was arrested again in 2002 and has been in prison since then.

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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