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Standing defiant. Khalid Daragmah’s family protect their land in a sea of settlements

By Amelia Smith | MEMO | February 1, 2013

Khalid Daragmah’s home dates back to the Ottoman times. Set on 22 dunams of green, arable land, it is sprinkled with trees, a spring and rolling hills to the back. It has been in his family for generations; his grandfather ran a business pressing olives from inside.

These days, the entrance has been fitted with solid iron doors; a preventative measure to keep out the groups of settlers who arrive at night with sticks and stones to harass his family. They mainly come from Ma’ale Levona, a settlement on the West side of his home, which has been built on the land of Al Libban village near Bablus. Across the valley, on the mountain in front of the house, the Naley and Shilo settlements stretch for miles from here until the green line.

When I spoke to Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots organisation, ‘Stop the Wall’ who are helping Khalid with his case, he explained that the family are protecting a very sensitive part of the West Bank. “The Israelis want it because it’s connecting the settlements together. In this area they are planning to cut off the West Bank from the north and the middle of the south. So from here, until the Armistice Line, there are over thirty kilometres of settlements continuously. There are gaps between the settlements, and one of the main gaps is this one, that’s why Khalid has been under heavy attack for years now.”

In August last year, Khalid’s wife and sons were beaten at their house. They have also been subject to arson attacks, and jailed for fighting with the aggressors. “I don’t count how many times I’ve been arrested because it’s been so many times,” Khalid tells me. “Last time I was arrested they even stole stones from the house, and the tools I inherited from my grandfather, which he was using for the land.” It was one of many tactics used by settlers, intent on scaring them out of their house.

The settlers attacked Khalid’s wife so badly that she had to be taken to hospital. They told her it was because the house was their synagogue and they wanted it back, though Khalid’s family insist that this is not the case. “Historically, this place has been inhabited by my ancestors, it was never empty and there is no sign of Jewish heritage here,” Khalid explains. “Inside the house, there is nothing to do with Jewish culture.”

To complement the violence, officially, in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010, Khalid received eviction notices from the Israeli military asking him to vacate the property, but the family have refused. “This is our land, and they will not force us to leave” he told me defiantly. “They are trying to find any mistake they can to use against me, they’re searching all my files and records since I was born. Which law in the whole world can penalise somebody for staying in his home and his land?”

Officials have delivered a string of excuses to the family, pretexts for why they have to leave. “They give one reason after the other, like the road leading to my house.” Khalid tells me. “They want me to open it because it is an obstacle to the military or to visitors, i.e. the settlers. They want me to allow the settlers to visit and pray in the house. They want me to remove the fence from around the spring and remove the doors from the house to allow them to come in.”

At one point, military officers even came to tell him he must use his home as a supermarket, to open it and charge visitors money to enter the room and pray inside, or let them swim in the spring. “They are punishing me and destroying my life.” Khalid tells me. “What problems have I caused them for them to do this to me? My only crime is that I’m staying in my house and I don’t want to leave.”

Khalid has a strong case because the land is officially registered in his name, and he has documents to prove the house is privately owned. But this has not stopped the authorities from claiming it is state owned and belongs to them. “In all the time I have lived here, why have they come here in the last few years? They say this is state land, and I asked them officially if they have any proof that this is state owned land. My cousins and my extended family are living in the village and we have had houses here for more than 270 years,” Khalid says.

For this reason, it is not easy for them to evict him, which is why they’re using pressure, scare tactics and making his life impossible. “Abu Jamal [Khalid] is a very strong guy and despite all of this, he’s still standing here, he’s still staying in his land,” Juma’ adds. “They want to exploit him and make him totally disparate. They want to know how long he can survive under all these years of attack and targeting and they are gambling that he will get fed up and leave.”

Life is certainly hard. He rarely leaves his house without somebody staying inside; if he goes to the shop or to work they will occupy the house. He lives far from the nearest Palestinian village, so it’s not easy for people to come and help. A large source of the family’s income comes from their 22-year-old son, Jamal, who works as a mechanic nearby earning 1000 shekels a month. But such harsh tactics have meant the family have grown stronger. “They have tried so many aggressive tactics that now we’re not scared of anything” Khalid tells me. “Before, when my wife saw a mouse she got scared and started screaming. Now, when she sees a hyena, she will attack it.”

A large part of the problem is the Palestinian Authority, who don’t do anything to help them. Responsibility therefore falls on international organizations, which collect money to buy fruit trees to plant so he can earn money from his land, and individuals like Lubna Masarwa, a Palestinian activist, who is currently helping him find a lawyer. “Myself and Jamal Juma’ are really doing our best to try and keep him in the house,” Masarwa tells me, “but it’s impossible because someone always has to be here otherwise the settlers will use the chance occupy the house.”

“The settlers are well organised, they’re becoming very violent. And they don’t respect any laws. The rule of the army is to defend the settlers. When the settlers attack the Palestinian families, the army will be standing there; the soldiers are there to protect them, this is their work. In the West Bank you feel like you’re in a jungle, they’re beating the kids, they’re shooting, the kids don’t sleep at night. And they have nowhere to go with no one who can really protect them. In the last few years, the settlers are getting stronger,” Masarwa explains.

Khalid thinks that more people around the world should start pressuring governments and officials to hold Israel to account for this behaviour. Juma’ explains that in other cases this has helped a lot. “They [the Israeli authorities] try to do these things silently and in the dark, they don’t want anyone to know what they’re doing. The question is, how we can make his case well known, and how we can mobilise people to move, to talk about it, to ask them to question the Israelis about why they are doing this to him.”

Despite the hardship, Khalid and his wife are adamant that they’re not leaving. “I don’t have other option,” Khalid’s wife Um Jamal tells me “I can’t leave the house, my husband and the land; there is nothing I can do. Before they put in the iron doors it was scarier but now I feel a little bit safer. You can’t have a decent night sleeping when you can be attacked at any point.”

Yesterday, when the settlers came, one of her children stood in the window and asked them to go away. Um Jamal smiles as she tells me the story. “What do you expect? What can we do? This is our life and we have to show our power. If the settlers feel that we’re scared or weak, they will get stronger. The younger and the older kids have to show strength and have to stand up to them because this is the only thing that we have, we don’t have anything else.”

“This is our life and this is our struggle and we’re not going to give up. We’re not going to leave the house. I will never leave my home and my land.”

February 2, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘US a police state, Obama consciously allows torture’ – CIA veteran John Kiriakou

RT | February 1, 2013

Ten years ago, the idea of the US government spying on its citizens, intercepting their emails or killing them with drones was unthinkable. But now it’s business as usual, says John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent and torture whistleblower.

Kiriakou is now awaiting a summons to start a prison sentence. One of the first to confirm the existence of Washington’s waterboarding program, he was sentenced last week to two-and-a-half years in jail for revealing the name of an undercover agent. But even if he had another chance, he would have done the same thing again, Kiriakou told RT.

­RT: The judge, and your critics all seem to believe you got off lightly. Would you say you got off lightly?

JK: No, I would not say I got off lightly for a couple of very specific reasons. First of all, my case was not about leaking, my case was about torture. When I blew the whistle on torture in December 2007 the justice department here in the US began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together a charge and force me into taking a plea agreement. And I’ll add another thing too, when I took the plea in October of last year, the judge said that she thought the plea was fair and appropriate. But once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last Friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years.

RT: And why did you, a decorated CIA officer, take such a strong stance against an agency policy? Did you not consider that there might be some come-back?

JK: I did. I took a strong stance and a very public one and that’s what got me into trouble. But honestly the only thing I would do differently is I would have hired an attorney before blowing the whistle. Otherwise I believe firmly even to this day I did the right thing.

RT: You have called it ironic that the first person to be convicted with regards to the torture program is the man who shed light on it. Do you believe the others, who put the program together, will ever face justice?

JK: I don’t actually. I think that president Obama just like president Bush has made a conscious decision to allow the torturers, to allow the people who conceived of the tortures and implemented the policy, to allow the people who destroyed the evidence of the torture and the attorneys who used specious legal analysis to approve of the torture to walk free. And I think that once this decision has been made – that’s the end of it and nobody will be prosecuted, except me.

RT: When you initially came out against torture, you said it was impractical and inefficient. Did you consider it immoral initially?

JK: I said in 2002 that it was immoral. When I returned from Pakistan to CIA headquarters early in the summer 2002, I was asked by a senior officer in the CIA’s counter-terrorist center if I wanted to be trained in the use of torture techniques, and I told him that I had a moral problem with these techniques. I believed that they were wrong and I didn’t want to have anything to do with the torture program.

RT: It’s no secret that Obama’s administration has been especially harsh on whistleblowers. But can the US afford leniency, in these security-sensitive times?

JK: I think this is exactly what the problem is. In this post 9/11 atmosphere that we find ourselves in we have been losing our civil liberties incrementally over the last decade to the point where we don’t even realize how much of a police state the United States has become.

Ten years ago the thought of the National Security Agency spying on American citizens and intercepting their emails would have been anathema to Americans and now it’s just a part of normal business.

The idea that our government would be using drone aircraft to assassinate American citizens who have never seen the inside of a courtroom, who have never been charged with a crime and have not had due process which is their constitutional right would have been unthinkable. And it is something now that happens every year, every so often, every few weeks, every few months and there is no public outrage. I think this is a very dangerous development.

RT: Obama’s tough stance, and harsh punishments for whistleblowers, has sent a message. Is he winning his fight against those who speak out?

JK: I don’t think he is winning this fight against whistleblowers, at least not over the long term, and I’ll tell you why.

President Obama has now charged seven people with violations of the Espionage Act. All previous presidents in American history combined only charged three people with violating the Espionage Act. And the Espionage Act is a WWI-era act that was meant to deter German saboteurs during that First World War. And now it is being used to silence critics of the government.

But so far all seven of these cases that have made their way into a courtroom have either collapsed of have been dismissed, including mine. All of the three espionage charges against me were dropped.

So, I think frankly the Obama administration is cheapening the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act should be used to prosecute spies and traitors, not to prosecute whistleblowers or people who are exercising their first amendment right to free speech.

RT: Do we still need whistleblowers? Are we going to see more of them coming out?

JK: I think we will see more whistleblowers and I think we need whistleblowers now more than ever before. Whether it’s in national security or whether it is in the banking industry, the American people have a right to know when there is evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. If the Justice Department is not going to prosecute these cases, at the very least the American people need to know.

February 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

For First Time, Most Americans Believe Federal Government Threatens Personal Freedoms

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | February 02, 2013

Distrust of the U.S. government has reached an all-time high among Americans, a majority of whom now say Washington represents a threat to their personal freedoms.

According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 53% of respondents said the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms. Those disagreeing numbered 43%.

The percentage of those viewing the government as a threat represents a six-point increase from nearly three years ago, when 47% said they felt that way, and a 23% jump from November 2001, when Americans rallied around their government following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Conservative Republicans are the largest group who distrust Washington, with 76% expressing fear for their personal freedoms. A majority (54%) described the government as a “major” threat.

Three years ago, 62% of conservative Republicans said the government was a threat to their freedom, while 47% said it was a major threat, according to the Pew survey.

Meanwhile, only 38% of Democrats see the government as a threat to personal rights and freedoms, with 16% viewing it as a major threat.

Among gun owners, 62% see the government as a threat, compared with 45% of those without guns.

February 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 1 Comment

PICKING CABBAGE IN BEIT HANOUN

By Theresa in Gaza | Free Gaza Scotland | February 2, 2013

Today we went to Beit Hanoun to help the farmers to pick cabbage. Its sounds like boring hard work, especially as it was raining quite hard off and on while we were there but actually it was a really enjoyable and interesting day. When we arrived at the field we joined a group of young farm labourers who made the morning very enjoyable with their singing, laughing and joking as we worked quickly to gather as many cabbage in a short period of time as possible. The field we were working on was quite some distance from the fence, we only heard gunfire twice and didn’t feel directly targeted, the jeep only showing itself once on the treeline before stopping behind a small hill in the distance. We helped pile the motorized cart high with cabbage and chatted in the rain until the cars arrived to take us back into Beit Hanoun.

While we were chatting one of the farmers talked about his Grandmother and the stories she told him about her childhood here. We were stunned when he told us that she had talked about being able to go from Beit Hanoun to Hebron in only half an hour in those days. It was something we hadn’t thought about, when you are in Gaza everywhere in the West Bank seems like such a long way away but when you think about it it makes sense, it’s actually only around 40km. To get there today takes a minimum of 2 days with no stop, Beit Hanoun – Cairo-Round the Southern tip of the Sinai via Sharm El Sheikh to cross at Taba into Israel then on to Hebron. That is of course if you are a privileged International, for a Palestinian there are a whole new set of problems.

Beit Hanoun is an interesting town, it’s directly across the border from Sderot. A place I’ve heard of very often and met a couple of residents of but never had the chance to visit. The countryside here is gently rolling low hills and as you leave Beit Hanoun to reach the fields you see Sderot in the distance. Built right up to the border, mainly nestled in between two hills with some of the red roofed buildings of the town on top of one and a large army installation with radio towers on the other.

Being so close to Sderot has meant that Beit Hanoun comes under huge pressure with all houses within one and a half miles of the border bulldozed, mainly in 2009 and all of the citrus trees which used to cover this landscape destroyed in order to leave clear lines of sight for the Israeli Military. Every building facing Sderot shows serious damage from shelling bombing and gunfire, and across the town there are damaged houses. Why is it that I had never heard of Beit Hanoun before I came to Gaza and yet Sderot is on the lips of every Israeli and everyone who defends the Zionist policies of Israel, ingraining it on everyone’s conciseness? Perhaps because there are so many places in Gaza which have the same damage, the same experience of attack, destroyed homes and death due to Israeli Military action? Whereas Sderot is special, in Israel it is the one place which has seen regular rockets causing some structural damage and very occasional death. Is it too much to ask that the violent death or injury of a human being is treated with the same shock and grief whichever side of the border it’s on? That the damage to lives and property is judged by the same standards wherever they occur?

February 2, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | 7 Comments

Stop EU funding of Israeli military companies and illegal settlements

Palestine Solidarity Campaign and International Solidarity Movement

Join and spread widely the latest EU-wide call to stop funding of Israeli military companies and illegal settlements: 

As more and more of us become aware of the injustices against Palestinians denied their basic rights, the situation is becoming even more desperate on the ground. It has never been more important for us to make our elected representatives aware of the growing and unstoppable pressure for peace and justice.

The EU should be playing a leading role in implementing policies to ensure that Israel ends its illegal occupation and respect Palestinian human rights and international law. Instead, they are supporting Israel’s occupation by:

  • allowing illegal settlement products to be traded in the UK and across Europe
  • by using EU tax-payer money to fund Israeli military companies who are responsible for killing civilians and supporting Israel’s military occupation

It is time for actions, not words. Tell the EU to act today.

Read the full letter and sign the call here today: http://psc.iparl.com/lobby/96. Please spread widely.

Join and spread widely the call from Palestine to EU citizens to urge representatives to suspend trade agreements with Israel until it complies with international law, initiated by Palestinian grass-roots organizations recently:

Send letters to EU Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers (in all EU languages!)

Send letters to Members of European Parliament (MEPs) (in all EU languages!)

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US may have broken own sanctions by buying Tehran’s oil

RT | February 2, 2013

There is a high probability that US sanctions against Iran have been violated by its own army. Part of the $1.55 billion in fuel the US bought from Turkmenistan for the Afghan army in the last five years may have originated in Iran.

A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) suggested that “despite actions taken by DOD to prevent the purchase of Iranian fuel with US funds, risks remain that US economic sanctions could [have been] violated” from 2007 to 2012.

Most of the fuel for domestic Afghan consumption comes from neighboring Iran. Because of the US sanctions on Tehran restricting the trade of Iranian oil and petroleum products, the ISAF has been required to abide by the regulations and buy petrol from eight Afghan-owned companies that deliver petroleum from Turkmenistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan.

The SIGAR report also acknowledged there are no plausible oversight mechanisms to make sure Iranian petroleum products are not included in future fuel purchases.

Turkmenistan is a major regional oil producer, which also trades for petroleum products made in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Iran. Petrol vendors in Turkmenistan use flexible supply schemes, meaning that fuel of various origins could potentially be blended together.

In response to a draft of SIGAR report, the US Embassy in Kabul stated that “it is possible that if blending is taking place in Turkmenistan it could contain some Iranian fuel,” but refused to admit that fuel imported from Russia could also be blended with Iranian fuel prior to its import into Afghanistan.

“All fuel imports carry a ‘verified Fuel Passport’ from the refinery, which provides information on the origin, quantity, quality, and specifications of the fuel,” the embassy explained.

“Suppliers are unlikely to blend Iranian fuel, or any other product, with other sourced fuel because of the potential that blending could cause product deviation from specification standards and potentially cause a rejection of the entire shipment,” the embassy said.

In 2012, the Pentagon reportedly spent over $800 million on imports from Turkmenistan, most likely for fuel purchases.

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Milan court convicts former CIA chief of kidnapping

Press TV – February 1, 2013

ebrahimpour20130201183320060Milan’s appeals court has sentenced a former Central Intelligence Agency chief to seven years in prison for kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric.

Jeff Castelli was found guilty along with two other agents, who were each given six years for abducting Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as part of the CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ program in 2003.

The trio had been acquitted at their first trial in 2009 due to diplomatic immunity but prosecutors had appealed against the verdict.

Abu Omar, who was kidnapped in a joint operation by the CIA and the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI, enjoyed political asylum in Italy at the time.

He was allegedly taken to a US air base in northeast Italy and then transferred to a US base in Germany and subsequently to Cairo.

The Muslim Cleric, who was released in 2007, claims he was tortured in prison by his kidnappers.

Last year, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld the convictions of 23 CIA agents over the same incident and ordered new appeals trials for five Italian intelligence agents, including Italy’s top two former military intelligence officers, Nicola Pollari and his ex-deputy Marco Mancini.

The Italian Supreme Court ordered the 23 CIA agents to pay one million euros in damages to Abu Omar and 500,000 euros to his wife.

The ‘extraordinary rendition’ program was launched by former US president George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks as an operation for the global apprehension and incarceration of suspected terrorists.

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran’s ‘Nuclear Weapons Program,’ Again

By Peter Hart | FAIR | January 31, 2013

FireShot Screen Capture #328 - 'Israeli Warplanes Make Strike on Weapons Convoy in Syria I PBS NewsHour I Jan_ 30, 2013 I PBS' - www_pbs_org_newshour_bb_middle_east_jan-june13_israel_01-30_ht

On Monday’s edition of the NewsHour (1/28/13),  host Gwen Ifill referred to concerns about  the “threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program,” and told viewers at the end of a Margaret Warner report that “Margaret’s next story looks at the debate in Israel over how to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.”

And on last night’s broadcast (1/30/13), Warner explained that countries like the U.S., Israel and Turkey “are concerned about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

To reiterate an obvious point: There is no proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. There are allegations that Iranian’s enrichment of uranium for its nuclear power program is hiding a military component, but weapons inspectors have not uncovered any such diversion.

The NewsHour has made this mistake before, as FAIR noted in a recent action alert:

In an October 22 discussion of the foreign policy presidential debate, the PBS NewsHour‘s Jeffrey Brown stated that “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been a particular flash point.”

A few weeks earlier (10/5/12) on the NewsHour, Ray Suarez said that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez had

continued to thwart American efforts on a range of international issues, such as Washington’s attempt to convince Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to halt his country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

How hard is it for NewsHour to understand that allegations are not facts? Write to them at onlineda2@newshour.org

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | 4 Comments

The politics of aggressive war

By John Robles | Voice of Russia | February 1, 2013

When is it acceptable for a country to engage in an act of aggressive war? Can it be justified to engage in an act that has been recognized by the world community and laid down in international law as a crime against humanity? Not just my humanity but all humanity?

These are questions the world community should have been asking itself every day for approximately the past two decades, but it has not. For it was approximately that long ago that one of the world’s superpowers began engaging in acts of aggression wherever it saw fit in order to show its strength and military might and terrorize the world into bending to its will.

Suppose for a minute you and I are that power. We are righteous, rich and powerful and control much of the planet through our economic manipulations and massive media and political know-how. We also have bombs and weapons all over the planet ready to wipe out any adversary and the adversaries of our friends. We are righteous, our God is the proper god and our people are beautiful, fairly well educated and created in our God’s image.

We have more of a right to exist on earth and consume the world’s resources than any of the other nations, because we are the chosen, the beautiful and the strong. They are weak, poor, envious of our power, and worth almost nothing compared to us. What is more, their god is the wrong god and they are not as beautiful and tall and proud as we are. The world is ours, we own it and everyone else has to bow down before us. We take what we want, from where we want, when we want.

Above all else is our moral superiority; we have been victimized in the past and the world must side with us and allow us to seek revenge on our enemies who want to destroy us because we are powerful, beautiful, free and our God is better and more righteous than their god. Our word must be good enough for everyone. If we say someone wants to destroy us, that is the way it is. We do not need to provide proof or receive permission from anyone to destroy whoever we decide is our enemy.

We know that one of us is worth thousands of them because we are the chosen and live in God’s land, a land given to us by our God. A land we cleansed of the savages and animals that had claimed it was theirs. We also know we are worth more than them because we were persecuted for our God and our God has chosen us over other, false, gods.

Since we are the chosen, if we have the idea that you are not worthy of life and are a useless eater, we can kill you, we can bomb you and we can take your lands. After all you are less worthy than us, we are the beautiful and strong and we were created in our God’s image.

So if we have “intelligence” that your country is arming our enemies we can, at our discretion and when we please, enter any country’s territory, including yours, and murder the people and destroy their facilities. Sure we can. After all we are the righteous and you are a bad guy in the eyes of me and my friends. And what is more we control the international courts and all of the international bodies that you could use to complain against us.

What is more, if we decide we don’t like your ruler we will replace him, assassinate him or publicly execute him before your eyes.

But you will never complain or do anything against us because what is more we control you, and if we decide you are a threat we will come to you and destroy you. Or cripple you, or torture you, or take you to a secret prison and make you disappear forever. We can even kill you without leaving our own bunker on the other side of the world.

Do you doubt our power? We have satellites, the Internet, cameras and even tracking devices set up in your cell phone. We know where you are every minute. We record your every move, we know what you watch and what you buy at the shop and we know where your children are and we can kill them if you get out of line. For you are nothing. You are the mud people and we are your masters.

Did you imagine you and I were that powerful? Did you feel the righteousness and superiority? Do you understand who we are dealing with? If you feel a little uneasy, queasy or even nauseous that is okay. It means you are still human and there is still hope; if you feel rage and feel you are being mocked it is time you took off your blinders and imagined you were the “lesser” people and your lands were being taken and your women and children were being murdered before your eyes and there was nothing you could do about it.

Wake up!

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

7 Year-Old Boy Handcuffed for $5 ‘Robbery’

By Alison Silveira | ACLU | February 1, 2013

Five dollars is apparently all it takes to land a 7-year-old in handcuffs in a New York City public school these days.

Parents across New York City awoke Wednesday morning to the news that Bronx third-grader Wilson Reyes was pulled out of class, handcuffed and interrogated over the course of 10 hours at his elementary school, and later, at a local precinct. Reyes was charged with robbery after someone said he grabbed $5 that a classmate had dropped on the floor, causing a scuffle among several boys.

Playground disputes that once amounted to a trip to the principal’s office have long since come under police jurisdiction in New York City, where over 5,000 agents assigned to the School Safety Division roam public school campuses under the auspices of the NYPD.

When Reyes’ mom was finally allowed to see her son, the New York Post reports, she found him handcuffed to a wall at the NYPD’s 44th Precinct, where she says he’d been interrogated and verbally abused for six hours. The shocking photo she took of her son in cuffs made front-page news on Wednesday.

Another student eventually admitted to taking the money, but it was well after Reyes had spent 10 hours handcuffed, interrogated and humiliated by the police.  A police source told the NY Post that officers were responding to “a 9-1-1 call of a robbery and assault.”

Though shocking, Reyes’ story is far from unique. When police officers are involved in disciplining minors, a classroom disruption involving an “unruly” student can quickly escalate into a call for police back-up.

Nearly 900 arrests were made at New York City public schools during the 2011-2012 school year, and 90 percent involved black or Latino students, according to an analysis of NYPD data released last year. Another 1,666 summonses were issued for illegal conduct.

New York’s public school students are dragged out of classrooms and cafeterias by police officers for shouting in the hallways or scribbling on desks. Court summonses and assault charges are levied for playground fistfights, and students are carted from schools to precincts for the fear-inducing offense of carrying a cell phone on school grounds. In a number of cases, officers have also used excessive force to arrest children for violating school rules, at times leaving injuries requiring hospitalization.

That’s why the ACLU – along with the New York Civil Liberties Union, and law firm Dorsey & Whitney – is suing the City of New York on behalf of the city’s public middle and high school students, accusing the NYPD’s School Safety Division of violating students’ constitutional rights.

Yet the over-policing of our schools is not an issue unique to New York City.

The deployment of cops to public schools across the country epitomizes the national trend known as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” in which children of color are funneled from our public school classrooms into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

There’s Kaleb Winston, the Salt Lake City 14-year-old who was interrogated by gang police at his school because of the design of his backpack and the sketches he made for art class. Or the Kansas sophomore whose arm was broken as a cop pulled a Taser gun to help arrest him for wearing saggy pants. One Wisconsin teen was arrested and fingerprinted for allegedly stealing a chicken nugget meal in the school cafeteria, while a Texas honor student was jailed for missing class. And then there’s the Georgia kindergartener who was handcuffed last year when she refused to calm down.

The stories are countless, and every one of them heartbreaking. In too many school districts across the country we are witnessing the increased criminalization of our youngest and most vulnerable students. Parents, teachers, principals, and mental health experts know children best. We should let them decide what’s best for their wellbeing. Putting cops in classrooms is not the answer to ensuring our children’s safety.

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 3 Comments

South African agricultural company cuts ties to Hadiklaim

BDS South Africa | January 31, 2013

Karsten Farms, a leading South African agricultural company backed by one of South Africa’s primary finance bodies, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), has severed its relations with the Israeli cooperative, Hadiklaim, and has also undertaken not to enter into any future relations with any Israeli entity complicit in the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

South African human rights organizations, lead by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) and BDS South Africa, launched a consumer campaign against Karsten Farms due to its trade relations (in violation of the boycott of Israel) with Israel’s Hadiklaim – an Israeli company operating, against international law, in the illegal Israeli settlements.

This week, after almost 3 years of campaigning, in a letter to BDS South Africa via their lawyers, Werksmans Attorneys, Karsten Farms undertook: “Not to enter into any trade relations with Hadiklaim for the current harvest year of 2013 and not have any business relations with them [Hadiklaim] in the future.” In addition, and in a precedent-setting move, Karsten Farms also undertook: “Not to enter into any trade relations with any Israeli company and/or entity within the occupied/illegal settlement areas of Israel”.

Siphiwe Thusi of the Palestine Solidarity Alliance welcomed the news: “This is the first time that a South African company has taken the legally as well as ethically correct decision not to trade with Israeli companies complicit in the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Karsten Farms has indeed set a precedent for other South African businesses and companies to follow. This is a breakthrough not only for the boycott of Israel but also for ethical and good business practice.” Thusi added that “the call for the consumer boycott of Karstens products has now been called off by virtue of their legal undertakings” however he also cautioned that “the Palestine Solidarity Alliance and BDS South Africa will be monitoring the situation and if any new Israeli relations, even if via third parties, were to be formed, the boycott campaign against Karsten Farms would be re-launched, and intensified.”

Find the full statement here: http://tinyurl.com/avlzt7n

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ministry confirms Veolia still owns West Bank landfill

BDS | January 31, 2013

As Veolia has become the target of worldwide campaigns in protest of its complicity in Israel’s violations of international law, costing it public contracts in several countries, the company has tried to evade responsibility. However, Who Profits — a project of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Tel Aviv — received confirmation from the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection in response to an application under the Freedom of Information Act on 17 January that Veolia subsidiary TMM is the sole owner and operator of the Tovlan landfill in the occupied West Bank — despite Veolia’s claims that it divested from the landfill in 2011.

The Tovlan landfill is located in the Jordan Valley of the occupied West Bank near the Israeli settlement of Masua. The landfill serves mainly the needs of the Israeli population in Israel and in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Three Veolia subsidiaries in Israel hold permits to transfer waste from Israel to the Tovlan landfill — including TMM — according to Who Profits.

Moreover, international law prohibits Israel from using occupied land for the sole benefit of its own civilian population. In Resolution 63/201 of 28 January 2009, the UN General Assembly called on Israel to cease the dumping of all kinds of waste materials on occupied Palestinian land.

Contrary to the confirmation by the Israeli ministry, Veolia has claimed numerous times it had sold its interest in Tovlan landfill to the Israeli settlement of Masua. By selling off the Tovlan landfill to Masua, Veolia would be entering into a business deal with an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The US North Coast Coalition for Palestine has been campaigning for the exclusion of Veolia from a public transit contract in Sonoma County. The county’s Commission on Human Rights debated the issue on 24 July 2012. Ruth Otte, executive vice president, marketing and communications of Veolia Transportation North America, says the following about Tovlan landfill in the above video:

It was sold last year. I have no reason to doubt that. I have been told that by the top of our company. Now there is a required consultancy that Veolia has to do as the contract transitions. But the contract was sold. We do not have any ownership or interest as Veolia Environmental Services in that contract any more.

In a May 2012 letter, Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia Environnement, claimed the company sold its entire rights in the Tovlan landfill to Masua on 26 June 2011. At the same time, Robert Hunt, executive director of Veolia Environmental Services UK, made the same claim in a meeting with MP Julian Brazier.

In a June 2011 letter, James Good, president of Veolia Water North America, wrote that the agreement to sell the rights in Tovlan to Masua should be signed any day.

Israel’s recent confirmation that Veolia is the sole owner and operator of Tovlan landfill sheds a different light on the divestment claims by the Veolia bosses. Activists should therefore seriously question any information that Veolia provides for its defense.

February 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment