The New “Steps Towards Democracy” in South Korea
By Konstantin Asmolov | New Eastern Outlook | August 22, 2015
On July 15 2015, the police of the Republic of Korea in Seoul raided the office and residence of members of the civil movement, “Korean Alliance”, (in Korea – the association for independent reunification and the development of democracy), who advocate the expansion of ties with the DPRK. This organization was created in November 2011 to implement the independent reunification of the two Koreas without external influence. It demands the withdrawal of foreign troops (read – the US, because there are no others) from the Korean peninsula and advocates the abolition of the National Security Law (NSL), which (among other things) prohibits citizens of the Republic of Korea, any unauthorized contact with North Koreans and actions to support the DPRK.
According to law enforcement officials, the movement is suspected of “promoting North Korean ideology and actions in support of Pyongyang.” About 100 police officers went to the movement’s offices in order to seize documents for the investigation.
According to investigators, members of the movement, which the authorities consider “anti-government“, repeatedly published messages indicating a positive attitude towards the North Korean regime on the Internet, as well as organizing public events against the NSL. Furthermore, in 2013 during a stay in Germany, one of the members of the movement allegedly attended a seminar organized by the pro-North Korean group and was in contact with officials from the DPRK.
In addition, the chairman of the organization was the late pastor, Pak Chan Kyung, who, according to secret service agents, was previously deputy chairman of the pro-North Korean, organization “Korean Association for the Reunification of the Motherland.”
Its members are holding protests, calling for a stop to the investigation, but the chances of getting away with this are very slim. After all, at the same time the law-enforcement system in South Korea has taken “an important step toward democracy.” This entails the decision by the Constitutional Court on the issue of whether possession of North Korean literature is a political offense subject to proceedings under the Law on National Security. In comparison to the ban on the United Progressive Party, against which only one judge out of nine spoke up, the number of those voting “against” has risen to three, yet the ruling has been passed.
The decision was made in connection with the appeal by Hon, who was accused by the court of Suwon of violating the National Security Law. He was counted as belonging to the “anti-state organization” on the grounds that memoirs of Kim Il Sung were found on the hard drive of his computer, but he filed a protest, claiming that he held such materials to “better know the enemy.”
The court judgement confirmed that the NSL is vital in curbing social unrest, and necessary to ensure public safety and freedom by preventing actions that could lead to a violent regime change. Moreover, according to the Court, these restrictions did not violate freedom of speech. Of course, they could be used to suppress political opposition, but this should be separated from pro-North Korean activities. Such bans are precautions against possible social instability achieved by means of illegal protests.
As stated by the judges in their verdict, “given the current circumstances in the country, national security is critically dependent on the law which is being proposed for review. We recognize that, currently, there is no clear and direct threat, but it is in the public’s interest to restrain these violent ideas before they gain impetus.” Therefore, the storage of materials was sufficient for prosecution. “Given the level of modern scientific and technological progress, the rapid dissemination of materials via the Internet is very likely. The law prohibits the storage of individual anti-state literature without legal authorization.” In other words, anything that is not permitted is prohibited. Even if you’re just interested in North Korea without being a patented fighter with the Communists, this poses the threat of sedition.
It is curious that such an interpretation is, in fact, the assumption that a person that stores such information is, a priori, a supporter of North Korea.
Three of the judges, however, did not agree with this interpretation: the punishment for possession alone without proof of proliferation creates a great potential for errors or violations of the law. Too much depends on the personal opinion of the investigator. It requires additional evidence that the accused distributed these materials or kept them because they held similar views.
Let’s translate this law into the language of reality. Just the mere fact that you keep a copy of “Mein Kampf” at home automatically makes you a fascist and a suspect in a series of other crimes motivated by ethnic hatred, why else would a person keep this at home? And silly talk such as “how can you study Hitler, without reading Hitler?” are just flimsy excuses; if you are not registered as an official opponent of Hitler, then you must be one of his secret supporters, and so, face criminal prosecution. In general, if we compare this case with Russian practice, we have to ask ourselves who is catching up with the Russian Federation – North Korea, or even the Republic of Korea?
In this context, one cannot but recall the textbook for North Korea’s lawyers, issued by the Ministry of Public Security (i.e. by the ordinary, detective police) of North Korea in 2009. The book contains a great number of examples of various offenses, including an example very similar to the aforementioned, right up to the prescribed punishment.
Finally, here’s more recent news from July 31, 2015. The Constitutional Court has recognized the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea’s Law on the election of officials, which requires Internet users to use their real names during the electoral period. This relates to paragraph 6 of Article 82 and paragraph 1 of Article 261, which requires the user to specify their real names if they want to express opinions about political parties or candidates for leadership positions. For violation of these requirements, fines of up to 10 million Won, or 8.5 thousand Dollars are enforced. This requirement is effective only during the election period, because, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court dated August 23, 2010, the collection of users’ personal information when working with the Internet violates the constitutional rights of citizens. Thus, the 2007 requirement of the identification of Internet users was lifted, so as to prevent the interference with freedom of expression on the Internet.
Today’s decision by the Constitutional Court came in response to a complaint filed in 2013 by Daum, the web-portal whose headquarters are on the island of Jeju. The Jeju Provincial Electoral Commission fined the portal for breach of compliance with the requirement to indicate the real names of users during the 2012 presidential election. The Portal administration felt that this requirement was contrary to the decision of the Constitutional Court from 2010. Meanwhile, five of the nine judges found no violation of the law requiring users to indicate their real names. Especially, since it does not reveal the individual’s full personal information and is valid only during the election period. The other four judges considered that the requirement was unconstitutional because it required online-voters to disclose personal data, even if only for a limited period.
Here we should note the following: the Internet in South Korea is already only provided with passport identification. To register on a forum or to perform any transaction, it is necessary to submit a unique identification number. But here we are talking about the compulsory disclosure of personal data in any attempt to discuss politicized issues. Obviously, it’s not just for the sake of combating Internet trolling (which is usually cited to justify abolishing anonymity), but, so the state security organs could easily identify anyone whose thinking does not coincide with “the party line.”
This is an obvious crackdown. How it interfaces with the internal policies and whether it is possible, in this context, to say that conservative circles are regaining their former influence in the Republic of Korea will be in one of our forthcoming articles.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD (History) is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Alert: 21st Aug 2015 – Demand Freedom For Amer Jubran & Muhammed Allan
inminds – August 20, 2015
Date: Friday 21st August 2015 3pm-5:30pm
Location: Jordanian Embassy, Upper Phillimore Gardens, London W8 7HA (few minutes walk from High Street Kensington tube station), move to Israeli Embassy around 4:30pm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/947233385320459
Assalaamu Alaikum
Please join us as we hold two vigils this friday for Palestinian prisoners. At 3pm we will be outside the Jordanian Embassy demanding freedom for Palestinian father and human rights activist Amer Jubran who is facing a 10 years prison sentence in Jordan at the behest of Israel for refusing to betray the Lebanese resistance against Israel. Then at around 4:30pm we will move to the Israeli Embassy a few streets away to demand the unconditional and immediate release of Palestinian lawyer and hunger striker Muhammed Allan.
Muhammed Allan is again in a comma, breathing through a respirator, after having suffered brain damage whilst in Israeli custody. Muhammed launched his hunger strike on 15 June 2015 to protest Israel’s illegal practice of Administrative detention – of caging Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. He has been caged by Israel without charge since 6th Nov 2014 on never ending rolling detention orders. Allan ended his hunger strike after 65 days on 19th Aug after the Israeli Supreme Court on health grounds ordered the suspension of the administrative detention order against him. But Israel is still threatening to reimpose his administrative detention and imprisonment should he recover, its imperative at this time that we maintain the pressure and demand his immediate and unconditional release.
LATEST UPDATES ON MUHAMMED ALLAN
(courtesy Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network)
20th Aug: Reports state Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan again in a coma, on respirator
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/reports-state-palestinian-hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-again-in-a-coma-on-respirator/
19th Aug: Breaking News: Reports state Muhammad Allan has ended his strike after decision of the Israeli Supreme Court
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/breaking-news-reports-state-muhammad-allan-has-ended-his-strike-after-decision-of-the-israeli-supreme-court/
18th Aug: Muhammad Allan regains consciousness, pledges to continue hunger strike
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/muhammad-allan-regains-consciousness-pledges-to-continue-hunger-strike/
17th Aug: Muhammad Allan rejects attempt to forcibly deport him from Palestine as Supreme Court considers case
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/take-action-muhammad-allan-rejects-attempt-to-forcibly-deport-him-from-palestine-as-supreme-court-considers-case/
17th Aug: Israeli Supreme Court to hear petition for release of hunger striker Mohammed Allan
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/israeli-supreme-court-to-hear-petition-for-release-of-hunger-striker-mohammed-allan/
16th Aug: Palestinian doctor denied access to Muhammad Allan as he faces life-threatening infection
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/palestinian-doctor-denied-access-to-muhammad-allan-as-he-faces-life-threatening-infection/
14th Aug: Muhammed Allan on ventilator in coma; Palestinian prisoners under Israeli lockdown
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/action-alert-muhammed-allan-on-ventilator-in-medical-crisis-palestinian-prisoners-under-israeli-lockdown/
AMER JUBRAN – BACKGROUND
Palestinian activist Amer Jubran has a long history of being targeted for his activism on behalf of Palestine, first in the US and then in Jordan.
In the US he formed the “New England Committee to Defend Palestine” and in November 2002, two days after leading a demonstration in Boston calling for justice in Palestine, the FBI stormed Amer Jubran’s home and arrested him under the Patriot Act initially holding him without charge. When public outcry made it difficult to continue holding him they initiated deportation proceedings against him and he was deported to Jordan in January 2004 where he continued his activism for Palestine.
In Jordan he was under constant surveillance of the notorious Jordanian secret police. On 5th May 2014, 20 armed me in black uniforms stormed his home where he lived with his wife and four young children, smashing the doors and windows. The secret police abducted Amer, and for months he was interrogated at an undisclosed location without charge and without access to a lawyer.
Finally in August 2014 Amer Jubran was charged under a new law that didn’t exist when he was arrested, that makes “harming the relationship with a foreign government” a crime of “terrorism”. Last month on 29th July 2015 we was sentenced by a military court to 10 years hard labour, reduced from a 15 year sentence. Following his visit to Lebanon to speak an an Anti-Apartheid week function he was accused of working with the Lebanese resistance Hizbullah against Israel, hence ‘harming’ Jordan’s relationship with a friendly country. During his interrogation he was told by the secret police that any decision made about him involves “our American and Israeli friends”. Amer says it “all started when I refused to be a sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance. I was told then that I will be sent behind the sun for such a refusal. And frankly it is very easy for me to disappear behind the sun rather than to be well, outside but a sell-out and traitor. “. Essentially he is being persecuted and imprisoned because he refused to work for Israeli /Jordanian intelligence as an infiltrator and informant against the resistance.
BACKGROUND – ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
Muhammad Allan was on hunger strike to protest against Israel’s practice of Administrative detention. Administrative detention is a practice used by Israel to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. Prisoners are given rolling detention orders which can be anything from 1-6 months, renewable indefinitely. Such practice is against international law.
For example administrative detainee Mazen Natsheh has been locked up cumulatively for nearly 10 years without charge or trial. Muhammad Allan has in total been caged for 3 years under different administrative detention orders without charge or trial.
Detention orders are based on so called “secret information” which never needs to be produced, either to the detainee nor their lawyer. Administrative detention is often used to arbitrarily jail Palestinians where there is no evidence for a trial. It is also used for punishment as in the case of 8 Palestinian MPs who are currently caged in Israeli dungeons to punish them for their political stance.
Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer have documented “many cases where the detainees themselves will say that administrative detention is actually far worse than a fixed sentence, be that five years, ten years, 20 years, or whatever and why. With a fixed sentence, you know when you’re going home, a prisoner knows when he goes home. It could be ten years or 15 years down the line, but they know when they’re going home. Not with an administrative detention..” They have documented “many cases where prisoners or detainees have been literally leaving the prison, walking out of the prison with their bags in their hand after their administrative detention order has expired [with their family waiting on the other side] and the Israelis have handed that detainee another administrative detention order and they have to go back into the cell to recommence another administrative detention order. Now, this is a form of psychological torture for not only the detainee [but also] their families.”
Israel has on average issued over 2000 detention orders every year (between 2007 and 2011). Today there are around 450 administrative detainees. Most of them, like Muhammad Allan, having been transferred from the West Bank into Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, with their families being prevented from visiting them.
On 18th August 2015, 250 Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention in the “Negev” prison in the Naqab desert in the south of Palestine announced they will launch an open-ended hunger strike to defeat administrative detention. Their statement reads “the growing use of administrative detention.. represents a clear and explicit violation of all international conventions and human rights principles, where we are arrested for extended periods, for years continuously, at the mercy of a so-called “secret file,” where we have no right to defend ourselves. Administrative detention is a sword hanging over our necks, that eats away our flesh and blood and years of our lives without trial and without mercy.”
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
https://www.facebook.com/inmindscom
https://twitter.com/InmindsCom
If you support this activity please share this alert widely, thank you.
JazakAllah,
Abbas Ali
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
http://www.inminds.com/caged
http://fb.com/inmindscom
http://twitter.com/InmindsCom
http://youtube.com/user/inminds
US ‘shamefully’ refuse to release Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo despite UK pressure
Shaker Aamer © Wikipedia
RT | August 20, 2015
American authorities are “shamefully” refusing to release Shaker Aamer, the last British resident detained at Guantanamo Bay, despite calls from Prime Minister David Cameron for the prisoner to be freed, a lawyer has claimed.
Aamer’s legal counsel Ramzi Kassem called on the British government to pressure the White House further after President Barack Obama promised to “prioritize” his case in January.
Kassem also blasted the US government for refusing to allow Aamer access to independent doctors, despite concerns over the neutrality of army medical personnel.
The New York-based lawyer said the physical condition of Aamer, who has been imprisoned without trial for 14 years, “deteriorates with each passing day.”
Kassem filed a 26-page motion at a court in Washington calling for the British resident to be examined by two independent doctors and an army doctor to gauge how Aamer is coping with post-traumatic stress.
The Department of Defense has rejected the request, claiming it is too “difficult.”
Aamer’s last independent assessment took place in October 2013, when Californian psychiatrist Dr. Emily Keram described he had been mentally “destroyed” by interrogators, who allegedly subjected him to sleep deprivation and beatings.
Law professor Kassem expressed dismay at the reluctance of US authorities to release Aamer.
“It is truly shameful that we have to litigate every step of the way despite the prime minister’s demand and the president’s pledge to prioritize Shaker’s case,” he said.
“The UK government must press the White House to make good on its promise. The only thing more shameful are the arguments the US government is making in court to prevent Shaker’s examination.”
Cameron raised the issue with Obama on his official visit to the US earlier this year.
Obama promised to “prioritize” the case in January, but Aamer’s legal team claim nothing has been done to progress his case.
Writing in the Guardian last Friday, Aamer’s UK lawyer Clive Stafford Smith claimed the US military has deliberately ignored Obama’s order in breach of the constitution.
“President Obama, it seems, has personally ordered Aamer’s release, and his subordinates have ignored and thwarted his order,” Smith wrote.
“The contravention of the president’s orders indicates that there is a profound problem with the state of democracy in America.”
Kassem slammed the US government for not taking Aamer’s physical and mental health seriously.
He condemned the United States’ “self-servingly attempts to dismiss Mr. Aamer’s reliably-diagnosed and grave ailments as only ‘minor long-term impairments.’”
Aamer has never been charged with a crime or faced trial since he arrived at the high security prison in Cuba.
In describing his treatment at Guantanamo Bay, Aamer said he was stripped of his pride.
“I was not a human being any more. I meant nothing to them. I lost my dignity, my pride,” he said.
“I had to take off my underwear and hand it to them. I had sleep deprivation for 11 days. That made me crazy. They poured cold water over me. They kept me standing for 20 hours a day. I had to hold my hands and arms out.
“All of the statements I made at Bagram were during the sleep deprivation. I would have said anything. I told them, ‘I will tell you I am Bin Laden if you want me to,’” he said.
Aamer was arrested in 2001 in Afghanistan and subsequently moved to Guantanamo Bay, where in 2007 the US military claimed he was a “close associate” of Osama Bin Laden and a “recruiter, financier, and facilitator” for Al-Qaeda.
The Saudi citizen has always insisted he was only in the country to perform charitable work and said he confessed to being a jihadist while being tortured at the hands of the CIA.
Obama Administration Supports Privacy-Invasive “Cybersecurity” Bill
By Mark Jaycox | EFF | August 20, 2015
Right before Congress left for its annual summer vacation the Obama Administration endorsed the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). EFF opposes the bill because its vague definitions, broad legal immunity, and new spying powers allow for a tremendous amount of unnecessary damage to users’ privacy. Just last week the Department of Homeland Security agreed and criticized CISPA for its lack of privacy protections. More importantly, CISA fails to address the causes of the recent highly publicized data breaches.
The Obama administration’s endorsement is a complete reversal from its previous stance on privacy-invasive cybersecurity bills. In 2012, the White House published a detailed two-page veto threat against CISA’s antecedent, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). In the letter the Administration noted CISPA:
lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities
and that it would
inappropriately shield companies from any suits where a company’s actions are based on cyber threat information identified, obtained, or shared under this bill, regardless of whether that action otherwise violated Federal criminal law or results in damage or loss of life.
The same is true of CISA, which is why the Administration should’ve vetoed the bill. Like CISPA, CISA
- Adds a new authority for companies to monitor information systems to protect an entity’s hardware or software.
- Fails to mandate companies and the government remove unrelated personal information before sharing it with government agencies like the NSA.
- Grants broad legal immunity to companies for sharing more private information with the government than they’re currently permitted to do.
Lastly, CISA, like CISPA, doesn’t address problems identified by recent data breaches like unencrypted files, poor computer architecture, un-updated servers, and employees (or contractors) clicking malware links.
The administration has invested immense capital into looking strong on cybersecurity since January. And instead of publishing another veto threat, the White House Press Secretary urged the Senate to pass CISA. There was no deep analysis as in 2012. There was no explanation about CISA’s own privacy problems. And there was no acknowledgement about the White House’s sudden change in position.
Even though the President wants to sign the bill, the Senate must pass CISA first. Privacy advocates have defeated these “cybersecurity bills” five times in the past five years. In July, users and privacy advocates postponed a vote on CISA after sending over 6 million faxes opposing CISA to Senators during a Week of Action. Unfortunately, the vote was only postponed to mid-September when Congress gets back from vacation.
We must continue the pressure on the Senate to stop this bill. Please join us in continuing to tell our Senators to say no to CISA.
“See Something, Say Something” — Unless It’s Police Brutality
PrivacySOS – August 20, 2015
Today the ACLU of Massachusetts filed suit against two officers from the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority police department for civil rights violations against our client Mary Holmes. From the ACLU’s website:
In March 2014, Ms. Holmes was at the Dudley Square MBTA station in Roxbury when she saw Officer Jennifer Garvey scream at and shove an older Black woman. The situation worried Ms. Holmes so she tried to calm the woman and asked Officer Garvey to stop being so aggressive. When these efforts failed, she called 9-1-1 for help. In response, Officer Garvey and her partner, Officer Alfred Trinh, pepper-sprayed Ms. Holmes in the face, beat her with a metal baton, and arrested her, handcuffing her hands behind her back while forcing her to the ground.
“The MBTA has signs everywhere telling people ‘if you see something, say something.’ This is exactly what Ms. Holmes did. She saw something wrong, and she spoke out. We need more people to follow Ms. Holmes’ lead and do the same,” said Jessie Rossman, staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Unfortunately, the officers’ reactions are part of a broader, troubling trend, in which police officers mistreat individuals exercising their constitutional rights. It has to stop.”
See something, say something—unless it’s police brutality. That isn’t right. Stay tuned for more news on this lawsuit.
LAPD Holds Pregnant Woman at Gunpoint in Case of Mistaken Identity
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | August 15, 2015
In another case of mistaken identity that could have turned deadly, Los Angeles police held a pregnant woman at gunpoint while ordering her out of her pickup truck, making her walk to the middle of street with her hands in the air and yelling at her to get down on her knees.
LAPD said they were in fear for their lives because the woman, who is due to give birth next week, was driving a truck matching the description of a truck driven by a murder suspect.
They said that because the woman’s truck had dark, tinted windows, they were unable to determine if it was being driven by the man they were seeking or if it just happened to be one of almost six million registered vehicles in Los Angeles County that were not connected to the suspect.
The incident, which took place Thursday, was captured on video from an NBC L.A. news helicopter hovering overhead.
The video shows about a dozen cops training their guns on the woman as well as another female passenger who was also ordered out while they all remained behind their patrol cars in the name of “officer safety.”
The video also shows both the driver side and passenger side windows either open or without tints, but we don’t see the initial stop, which may have shown the windows closed – not that dark tints should excuse them for violating the woman’s rights like that.
However, they’ve already learned that they can shoot up a truck in a case of mistaken identity and not face charges.
After all, it was only in 2013 that LAPD cops shot up a truck driven by two women after claiming it matched the description of a truck being driven by a whistleblower cop turned cop killer named Chris Dorner.
Dorner had been driving a gray Nissan Titan. The women had been driving a blue Toyota Tacoma.
So naturally police began fearing for their lives, which is why they opened fire on the Tacoma, driven by a 47-year-old daughter, accompanied by her 71-year-old mother, both of them delivering newspapers in a residential neighborhood.
Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, ended up receiving a $4.2 million settlement. The cops ended up on paid desk duty for a while before returning to the streets.
Moments after that shooting, a Torrance police officer shot up another pickup truck thinking it was Dorner’s truck, but that was also a different make and color and driven by a man named David Perdue who looked nothing like Dorner. He ended up receiving a $1.8 million
settlement.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck determined the eight cops who left Carranza’s truck with more than 102 bullets violated department policy, but said he was not allowed to disclose what, if any, discipline they may receive because a state law protects cops’ personnel files from public eyes.
So with that type of job security, it is no wonder LAPD officers tend to shoot first and ask questions later.
LAPD have not released the name of the murder suspect they were seeking, who they say is also responsible for several burglaries in the area, nor the make and model of his truck, not that it would make a difference to them as we saw in the Dorner incidents.
The women, who also had two kids in the back seat of the truck, were released after police determined they were not the murder suspect. They are probably also eligible for a settlement.
Rights group: 2,799 deaths by Egyptian authority in two years
MEMO | August 15, 2015
Some 2,799 Egyptians have been killed since the Egyptian authorities forcefully dispersed mass rallies in Cairo on August 14, 2013. The rallies were held as protest against the military coup which ousted the first every freely elected Egyptian president, an Egyptian rights group said on Friday.
Anadolu News Agency reported that the Egyptian Coordination of Rights and Freedoms stated that since June 30, 2013 until today, the Egyptian authorities’ varied methods of killing resulted in a large number of deaths.
According to the National Egyptian Council for Human Rights, on August 14, 2013, the Egyptian army and police dispersed the demonstrations against the military coup, killing 632 Egyptians. Meanwhile, national and international rights groups said the number of deaths was over 1,000.
Following the violent dispersal of the rallies, the Egyptian authorities adopted systematic killing, including torturing prisoners to death, liquidations and assassinations.
In June of this year, the Egyptian security forces assassinated nine unarmed Muslim Brotherhood leaders, claiming they were planning to make chaos in the country. The Muslim Brotherhood denied the accusations and stressed that the individuals were a team following up the families of Egyptians killed or wounded by the army and the police.
According to the report, which was divided into three stages, the first stage covered the period from June 30, 2013 until August 13, 2013, where 316 Egyptians were killed. The second stage covered August 14, 2013 until August 16, where 2007 Egyptians were killed. The third stage details the events from August 17, 2013 until August 12, 2015, where 476 Egyptians were killed.
Since the military coup against Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian authorities have been cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing it of “inciting violence and terror” in the country.
In December 2013, an Egyptian court designated the group as a “terrorist organisation” and ordered all of its leaders and members to be arrested and their property confiscated.
Hundreds of its leaders and members have been sentenced to death or life in prison since the announcement of that ruling.
When the NSA tells journalists things, those things are not necessarily true
PrivacySOS | August 15, 2015
If you find yourself reading a story about US war or spying that contains a variation on the phrase “according to US officials” in the top paragraph, you are likely biting into a whopper of state propaganda and lies. Today’s NYT reporting on Snowden documents provides just the latest example.
Back in February 2014, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal published big time stories under the bylines of two of those newspapers’ most respected ‘national security’ and surveillance journalists. The Post story started like this:
The National Security Agency is collecting less than 30 percent of all Americans’ call records because of an inability to keep pace with the explosion in cellphone use, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Here’s the first paragraph of the Wall Street Journal story, reporting the same official claims:
The National Security Agency’s collection of phone data, at the center of the controversy over U.S. surveillance operations, gathers information from about 20% or less of all U.S. calls—much less than previously thought, according to people familiar with the NSA program.
AP’s Phillip Bump ran a story based on the Post’s version. Troublingly, his first paragraph dispensed entirely with the origin of the information. In Bump’s retelling, the information appears to have come from God—or at least is as good as The Word.
The NSA’s vaunted cell phone metadata collection program, often defended on the grounds that its comprehensive sweep of information allows the government to uncover unseen connections, only collected about 30 percent of all such information as of last summer.
The problem with these stories? Actual NSA documents (read: not NSA employee claims to journalists) show they are false.
The New York Times reports on documents disclosed by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden:
In 2011, AT&T began handing over 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records a day to the N.S.A. after “a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11,” according to an internal agency newsletter. This revelation is striking because after Mr. Snowden disclosed the program of collecting the records of Americans’ phone calls, intelligence officials told reporters that, for technical reasons, it consisted mostly of landline phone records.
I must quibble a bit with the New York Times excellent reporting here, only to suggest that what’s “striking” about the discrepancy between what journalists reported and the truth isn’t the fact that the NSA would lie to journalists. What’s striking is that journalists continue to print official, often anonymous, claims about government surveillance programs without a shred of evidence that those claims are true.
In February 2014, the NSA must have decided—perhaps in consultation with other parts of the US security state establishment—to lie to a few key journalists in order to propagate the myth that the all powerful intelligence agency couldn’t figure out how to obtain cell phone call records. At the time, not everyone believed it (myself included). But two powerful US newspapers were credulous, and printed the NSA’s claims as if they were fact—in the apparent absence of any documentation or other confirmation.
Everyone, including media consumers, needs to remember a very simple thing about intelligence agencies: they are professionals in deceit and manipulation. A good spy must be able to lie and connive in order to achieve their goals.
You wouldn’t expect a car mechanic to be a good oral surgeon. You also shouldn’t expect spies to tell the truth. Remember that the next time you read a newspaper article based off of undocumented, unproven “official” claims.
Drunken Ukrainian Troops Shoot Donbass Beachgoers… Just for Fun
Sputnik – 15.08.2015
The residents of Novgorodskoe in Donbass planned on spending a warm August day on the beach, but unfortunately fell target to Ukrainian troops, who were shooting locals for pleasure, local wire agency Novosti Donbassa reported.
“Troops attacked the security guard of the pond and broke his ribs. They were shooting the people from the opposite side of the pond with submachine guns! Beachgoers with children were running in all directions!” information agency Regnum quoted local residents as writing about the accident on the social networks.
The military command has detained three shooters, Regnum reported. They all appeared to be drunk while shooting and the main reason for opening fire was allegedly for their own pleasure.
No injuries or casualties were reported.
The authorities of Dzerzhinsk, the nearest city to Novgorodskoe settlement, along with local military command have held an urgent meeting over shooting incident. The members of the OSCE monitoring group also attended the meeting, Novosti Donbassa reported.
According to social media reports, the local residents are concerned over possible reopening of military operations in the area on the upcoming weekend. Officials recommended the citizens from Dzerzhinsk outskirts to leave their homes for the next couple of days.
This is not the first incident in Donbass, involving the Ukrainian troops. On the August, 9, a soldier, driving a truck struck and killed the boy from the village of Georgiyevka in the former Donetsk Region.
Mexico’s War on Journalists
By Laura Carlsen | CounterPunch | August 14, 2015
Earlier this summer, Ruben Espinosa fled Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz after receiving death threats. His work as a photojournalist there had made him an enemy of the state’s governor, who presides over one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter.
On July 31, Espinosa was found beaten and shot dead in a Mexico City apartment.
Eight months ago, Nadia Vera, a student activist and cultural worker, looked boldly into a camera lens and told an interviewer that if anything happened to her, Veracruz governor Javier Duarte and his cabinet should be held responsible. She also fled Veracruz to the nation’s capital after suffering attacks.
On July 31, Nadia Vera was found sexually tortured and murdered, shot point-blank in the same apartment.
Three more women were assassinated in the normally tranquil, upper-middle class neighborhood that afternoon — an 18 year-old Mexican named Yesenia Quiroz, a Colombian identified only as “Nicole,” and a 40 year-old domestic worker named Alejandra. The press generally refers to the case as “the murder of Ruben Espinosa and four women,” relegating the women victims to anonymity even in death.
At a recent demonstration of journalists and human rights defenders, the sense of dread was palpable. As communicators in Mexico, we’re angry and intensely frustrated at how so many of our ranks have been killed, disappeared, displaced, or censored with no repercussions.
For many, including me, this crime especially hit home. For a long time, whenever I was asked if I was afraid to speak out critically in Mexico, I answered that fortunately Mexico City was relatively safe. Drug cartels and their allies in government only kept close tabs on reporters in more disputed areas.
The quintuple homicide in a quiet corner of the city shattered that myth — and with it what was left of our complacency. Several days before his murder, Espinosa told friends that a man had approached him to ask if he was the photographer who fled Veracruz. When he said yes, the man replied, “You should know that we’re here.”
Once considered a haven, Mexico City has become a hunting ground in a country where, too often, journalists end up reporting on the brutal assassinations of their colleagues — and wondering who will be next.
Targets
Ruben Espinosa had photographed social movements in the state of Veracruz for the past eight years, including journalists’ protests over the murder of Regina Martinez in 2012, a journalist and colleague of Espinosa at Proceso magazine. He covered the protests against the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa by local police in Guerrero and acts of repression by the Veracruz state government.
Espinosa captured a front-page photo of Governor Duarte, big-bellied and wearing a police cap, which appeared on the cover of Proceso alongside the title: “Veracruz, a Lawless State.” Espinosa noted that the governor was so enraged by the photo he had his agents obtain and destroy as many copies of the magazine as they could get their hands on. He reported that while he was taking pictures of the eviction of protesters, a government agent told him, “You better stop taking pictures or you´ll end up like Regina.”
The Mexican Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression recognizes 102 journalists murdered from 2000 to 2014.
Yet the Mexico City prosecutor didn’t even mention the threats and attacks against Nadia Vera, an activist and a member of the student organization YoSoy132, as a line of investigation in her murder. The UN High Commission on Human Rights in Mexico stated that Vera and the other female victims found with Espinosa showed signs of sexual torture. Mexico City investigators announced that they were applying investigative protocols for possible femicides, but didn’t say why or confirm the reports of rape and sexual torture.
The invisibility of the women victims in the press and the official statements has been partially compensated for by social media. In social networks, millions of posts and tweets have brought to light the lives of the women, and especially Nadia’s more public and activist past, in an impromptu campaign that insists that women’s lives also matter.
Signs of a Cover-Up?
Now, just days into the investigation, with the nation — and especially journalists — reeling from the news, there are already signs of a cover-up.
On August 2, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios gave a press conference reporting on advances in the case. Although Rios promised to pursue all lines of investigation, he downplayed the possibility that this could be a political crime against freedom of expression, claiming that Espinosa was not currently employed.
Rios also stated that the photojournalist came to Mexico City to look for work — a thinly veiled attempt to pre-empt the dead journalist’s own version of the facts that he was forced to leave Veracruz due to ongoing persecution. The city attorney’s office has put forth robbery as the principal motive of the crime, despite the execution-style torture and killings, and hasn’t called on anyone from the Veracruz government to provide testimony.
These are signs that the city government may be trying to railroad the investigation, and they’ve outraged the public, especially journalists. The attorney general’s absurd claim that Espinosa was unemployed at the time of his murder, seemingly suggesting that his journalistic work wasn’t a motive, caused particular indignation.
On August 5, investigators announced that they’d arrested and were questioning a suspect based on a match with a fingerprint found in the apartment. Despite apparent advances, there’s a growing fear that the government has no intention of really investigating a crime that could lead straight to a powerful member of the president’s own party.
The U.S. Role
The involvement of the Mexican government in the crime itself, or at least in creating the climate that led to the crime and failing to prevent it, raises serious questions for U.S. policymakers as well. The watchdog organization Article 19 reports that nearly half of the aggressions against journalists registered were carried out by state agents.
Since 2008, the U.S. government — through the Merida Initiative and other sources — has provided some $3 billion to the Mexican government for the war on drugs. This is a period when attacks on human rights defenders and journalists have skyrocketed, and more than 100,000 people have been killed by criminals and security forces alike.
A fraction of that money has gone to mechanisms for protection that have so far proved worthless. Rather than helping, this serves to support the false idea that the Mexican state is the good guy in a war on organized crime. The cases of corruption, complicity, and abuse that pile up week by week have demolished this premise.
Supporting abusive governments and security forces while claiming to support the journalists and human rights defenders being attacked by them is like pretending to help the fox while arming the hunter — it just prolongs the hunt. Mexican citizens who speak up are being hunted, too often by their own government. It’s time the U.S. government came to grips with that and immediately suspended the Merida Initiative.
Until there is accountability and justice — and an end to the murder of those who tell the truth about what’s happening here — sending U.S. taxpayer money to Mexican security forces is a vile betrayal of Mexicans’ friendship and of the highest principles of U.S. foreign policy.
Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas Program in Mexico City and advisor to Just Associates (JASS).
No Thanks, Obama and McCain. Continuing Indefinite Detention Isn’t Closing Guantánamo.
By Chris Anders | ACLU | August 12, 2015
A bad idea doesn’t somehow become a good idea just because five years have gone by. But the Obama White House and Sen. John McCain seem ready to recycle a proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected in 2010.
President Obama has renewed his commitment to closing Guantánamo before he leaves office, and McCain (R-Ariz.) said he might be able to support closure. However, there has always been a right way and a wrong way to close Guantánamo. The restrictions the Senate has passed, along with the latest proposal floated by the White House to move some detainees to the United States for indefinite detention without charge or trial, is the wrong way.
Guantánamo has never been just about the prison. Instead, Guantánamo has been about our government violating the rule of law and ducking American values. From torture and abuse during the Bush administration to indefinite detention and defective military commissions extending through the Bush and Obama administrations, Guantánamo has been a place where our government behaves like a human rights pariah instead of a human rights beacon.
The solution can never be to simply pack up both the detainees and bad policies at Guantánamo and ship them to some new prison here in the United States. No. The only meaningful solution is to close Guantánamo by ending indefinite detention without charge or trial, transferring the detainees who have been cleared for transfer, and trying detainees for whom there is evidence of wrongdoing in our federal criminal courts in the U.S., which regularly try terrorism suspects, including high-profile ones.
But instead of doing the hard work of closing Guantánamo the right way, the Obama White House is reportedly dusting off the same plan that Congress overwhelmingly rejected in 2010. The “plan” would involve transferring overseas all cleared detainees (an excellent idea, but one that actually needs to be completed now, not when this “plan” goes into effect), but then setting up prisons in the U.S. to continue the indefinite detention of men who have been imprisoned for more than a decade without ever being charged with any crime. Other detainees would be put on trial — but some of them would be tried before the same unfair military commissions used at Guantánamo. The result would be moving Guantanamo, not closing it.
McCain has a hand in it too. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he sponsored the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow indefinite detention and military commissions to be brought to the U.S. as part of closing Guantánamo — but only if both houses of Congress approve the president’s plan. Of course, anything requiring both houses of Congress to approve almost anything from the president is a political non-starter. But this provision is still being sold as a step towards closing Guantánamo.
A particularly bizarre bit of news about the White House plan this week came in a Washington Post report that said that the White House was considering setting up a nearly empty prison in Thomson, Illinois, as a site for indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees. This exact same plan, with the exact same prison in Illinois, was rejected by a House vote of 353-69 in 2010. Then Attorney General Eric Holder later swore that the Thomson prison would never be used for that purpose.
The ACLU said back in 2009 that shipping indefinite detention north was the wrong way to close Guantánamo, and it still is the wrong way to close Guantánamo. Bad ideas don’t get better by just sitting on the shelf. It’s time to close Guantánamo the right way, by charging in federal court any detainee who can be charged and ending indefinite detention for everyone else. If a prosecutor can’t put together a case against someone who has been sitting in prison for as long as 13 years, there is no reason that person should continue to sit in prison, whether in Guantánamo or someplace else.
Let’s close it the right way.
Featured Video
Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Oil and the Israel Lobby
Reknowned economist M. Shahid Alam offers this excellent critique of Noam Chomsky’s defective analysis of the relative influence of Oil versus the Israel lobby over US foreign policy: … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ICC ignored ‘very well-documented’ NATO crimes – ex-Libyan minister
- SNSC secretary dismisses US response to Iran’s conditions as ‘inadequate’
- Sanaa says Taiz roads open, secure for residents, warns Saudi forces
- Iraqi resistance group urges Saudi leadership to admit defeat, lift Yemen siege
- Trump’s Retreat: How Al-Aqsa Flood Took Down the US Empire
- Israel’s Military Actions in Lebanon Grossly Violate International Law — Lavrov
- Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
- Leaders Condemn Ansarallah Attack on Saudi Arabia While Ignoring Illegal War Against Yemen
- Leaked: Britain’s Covert Iraqi Psyops Network
- Yemeni Armed Forces Warn Airlines Against Using Saudi Airports, Exempt Mecca and Medina
- If Americans Knew
- Israel goes ballistic over Nobel Laureate Navi Pillay
- U.S. May Join Yet Another Middle Eastern War — TCN
- Yellow Line moves again as Israel closes in on trapped Gazans – Daily Update
- Israeli Attacks Kill Seven Palestinians in Gaza Including Six-year-old Girl
- Gaza: Ceasefire Anniversary Marks Year of Failed Promises
- The American Conservative: Mike Huckabee Should Resign
- A C-Section in Shackles: A Palestinian Woman’s Harrowing Birth in Israeli Detention
- ‘He’s Desperate’: AIPAC Begins Spending Against Abdul El-Sayed to Boost Mike Rogers:
- Trump, Hormuz, and the Looming Economic Catastrophe
- For three years, Israel has killed a child in Gaza every 71 minutes – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
