After nearly a week of increasing public protests in Turkey, ostensibly over government plans to turn a last bit of green space in Istanbul into another shopping mall, matters became far more serious on Friday. Riot police descended on the protestors with various forms of tear gas (and possibly worse chemical and biological agents — raw sewage?) and water cannon, blasting everyone and everything in sight including non-participants. When they caught protestors, they beat them violently and brutally, as can be seen in this video. Photographs show that police fired tear gas into crowded underground metro stations, leading to panic and worse. Istanbul looks like a war zone.
Today indications are that protests have only increased in number and fury in response to the violence with which they were met yesterday.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under increased criticism at home over his enthusiastic support for those fighting to overthrow the government in neighboring Syria. Turkish government support for the rebels came early and has included providing safe havens for the Islamist insurgents and safe passage into Syria from Libya, Yemen, and other countries of the insurgents’ origin.
Erdogan’s stated policy of “zero problems with neighbors” has been turned on its head by his support for the rebels fighting next door. Public dissatisfaction with the Turkish government’s policy of encouraging an Islamist insurgency next door has steadily increased.
The insurgents fighting the Syrian government were still unsatisfied by the level of support they received from their Turkish hosts and they took to false flag attacks in places like Reyhanli and a planned false-flag sarin gas attack on southern Turkey in Adana in attempt to provoke a Turkish (and NATO) military response against Syria.
Suddenly the tables are turned at home.
Faced with a nascent but growing protest movement of his own, Erdogan expresses a very different view toward the people in the street. The Prime Minister strongly supported the “Arab Spring” overthrow in Egypt and supports the overthrow of Assad next door because he said the leaders of these countries did not listen to their people. Just last week he met with President Obama and agreed that “Assad must go.” Now with protesters in Turkey chanting “Erdogan must go” he is singing a different tune. Now “the people” he claimed to speak for — on the streets in Egypt and Syria, at least — were, in Turkey, “with terror, have dark ties,” in his words.
Suddenly “the people” are not so noble when they are calling for his ouster. With the tables turned on Erdogan, he can only demand order! “I call on the protesters to stop their demonstrations immediately,” he thundered yesterday.
Erdogan caught the tiger by the tail and thought he would become a new Ottoman Sultan. Reality bites back hard on the streets of Istanbul and elsewhere. This is far from over.
Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at demonstrators in central Istanbul, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests in years.
Thousands of demonstrators massed on streets surrounding Istanbul’s central Taksim Square while protests erupted in the capital, Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
Broken glass and rocks were strewn across a main shopping street near Taksim. Primary school children ran crying from the clouds of tear gas, while tourists caught by surprise scurried to get back to hotels lining the square.
The unrest reflects growing disquiet at the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Riot police clashed with tens of thousands of May Day protesters in Istanbul this past month. There have also been protests against the government’s stance on the conflict in neighboring Syria.
“We do not have a government, we have Tayyip Erdogan. … Even AK Party supporters are saying they have lost their mind, they are not listening to us,” said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Bosphorus University, who attended the protest.
The protest at Taksim’s Gezi Park started late on Monday after trees were torn up under a government redevelopment plan, but has widened into a broader demonstration against Erdogan’s administration. Friday’s violence erupted after a dawn police raid on demonstrators who had been camped out for days.
“This isn’t just about trees anymore, it’s about all of the pressure we’re under from this government. We’re fed up, we don’t like the direction the country is headed in,” said 18-year-old student Mert Burge, who came to support the protesters after reading on Twitter about the police use of tear gas.
Thousands chanting for the government to resign gathered at a park in the center of Ankara, where police earlier fired tear gas to disperse several dozen opposition supporters trying to reach the AKP headquarters. Protesters also rallied at two locations in Izmir, according to pictures on social media.
A woman was in critical condition last night after being hit by a police gas canister and underwent an operation after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
A total of 12 people, including a pro-Kurdish MP and a Reuters photographer, suffered trauma injuries and hundreds suffered respiratory problems due to tear gas, doctors said.
Some people were injured when a wall they were climbing collapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas.
Amnesty International said it was concerned by “the use of excessive force” by the police against what had started out as a peaceful protest. Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the European parliament rapporteur on Turkey, also voiced concern.
In Washington, the State Department said it was concerned with the number of injuries and was gathering its own information on the incident.
“We believe that Turkey’s long-term stability, security and prosperity is best guaranteed by upholding the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association, which is what it seems these individuals were doing,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
Interior Minister Muammer Guler promised that allegations that police had used disproportionate force would be investigated.
Hundreds of military officers have been jailed for plotting a coup against Erdogan in recent years. Academics, journalists, politicians and others face trial on similar charges.
He has made no secret of his ambition to run for the presidency in elections next year when his term as prime minister ends, increasing opposition dismay.
“These people will not bow down to you” read one banner at the Gezi Park protest, alongside a cartoon of Erdogan wearing an Ottoman emperor’s turban.
Postings on social media including Twitter, where “Occupy Gezi” – a reference to protests in New York and London last year – was a top-trending hashtag, and Facebook said similar demonstrations were planned for the next few days in other Turkish cities including Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bursa.
A young Palestinian man, from the Negev, who was shot and seriously injured by Israeli Police fire when an armed Israeli man attacked the Hapoalim Bank in Beersheba, on Monday May 20, stated that the Israeli Police shot and cuffed him, after instantly profiling him as the assailant.
Omar Waleeedy – aljabha.org
The Israeli man killed four persons, and then killed himself, after the bank refused to give him a 6,000 NIS loan. The Arab man, Omar Al-Waleedy, 22, was shot by four live rounds leading to serious injuries.
Israeli Ynetnews has reported that Al-Waleedy, remained on life support for ten days, and when he told his story, the Police said that “his version was inconsistent with the outcome of the investigation”.
He said that he hid under a table, fearing for his life when he saw the gunman, but when the Police stormed the bank, they shot and wounded him.
In his testimony, Al-Waleedy said; “I thought the Police arrived to save me from the killer who killed four, but they shot me”.
From his hospital bed in Soroka Israeli hospital in Beersheba (Be’er As-Sabe’), Al-Waleedy said; “I arrived at the bank with my Jewish friend, Iran Sabri, in order to open an account for him, all of a sudden, a white-bearded man stormed into the Bank and opened fire in different directions”.
“I laid onto the ground, pretending to be dead; the attacker took a female employee hostage, and went to the toilets, then my friend and I rushed to the main door of the Bank”, he said, “The Police allowed my friend to pass, but they shot me, then they handcuffed me before evacuating the bank building”.
Following the incident, the Police claimed that eyewitness testimonies indicate that the Police “did not open fire at Al-Waleedy during the attack”.
On Thursday at night, May 31, the family of Al-Waleedy forced Police investigators out of his hospital room, and refused to allow them to interrogate him.
They asked the police to allow him to rest, and recover; the Police then arrested four.
One of the relatives said that the Police were “adding insult to injury” by trying to question Al-Waleedy on his hospital bed, “injustice took place the moment they shot him and took him to hospital in handcuffs”, he said.
According to Ynet, the police said that the fact the Al-Waleedy was unconscious made it impossible for the investigators to question him.
The Police also stated that the crime scene investigation led to the conclusion that the Police “did not open fire at Al-Waleedy at any time during the attack”, Ynet said, and added that a source at the Soroka Medical center indicated that “it is possible that Al-Waleedy was shot by the same gun that killed the four victims.”
President Obama gave an influential speech on counter terrorism and national security policy last week, and while much of the media coverage discussed the President’s remarks on Guantanamo prison and drone strikes, buried in the speech was a line just as critical to civil liberties online.
Half way through the speech, Obama said he wanted to “review […] the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication, and build in privacy protections to prevent abuse.”
We certainly agree with the president, we need new privacy protections for our digital communications, and it’s encouraging to hear him suggest support for such proposals. After all, we know that the vast surveillance authorities have given to law enforcement over the last decade—like the Patriot Act, FISA Amendments Act, and National Security Letters—have been serially abused. Unfortunately, President Obama has actively defended these laws and policies in Congress and the courts, despite promising to reform them as a candidate.
There are still many measures his administration could support in the coming months to protect American’s communications. The White House could formally support reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which still says law enforcement agencies do not need warrants to obtain emails over 180 days old. The White House could come out in favor of warrant protection for cell-phone location information since it’s requested by authorities literally millions of times a year without a warrant. In the wake of the Associated Press scandal, Obama could also support a bill to require a court order for call records of all Americans.
But the first half of Obama’s statement—about “review […] the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication”—is quite troubling. The line is likely an allusion to CALEA II, a dangerous proposal the New York Times has reported the administration “is on the verge of backing.” The measure would force companies like Google and Facebook to install backdoors in all of their products to facilitate law-enforcement access, putting both our privacy and security at risk.
Law enforcement certainly doesn’t need more legal authorities to conduct digital surveillance. As mentioned above, Congress has already been provided a huge amount of new surveillance authority that has been abused.As former White House Chief Counselor for Privacy Peter Swire said in 2011, “today [is] a golden age for surveillance.”
Indeed, it seems that law enforcement is working at cross-purposes with folks concerned about actual cybersecurity. Just a few months ago in his State of the Union address, Obama himself talked about hackers who “steal people’s identities and infiltrate private e-mail” and “foreign countries and companies [that] swipe our corporate secrets.” Requiring real-time back doors into all of our communications would make those kinds of attacks easier. Recently, a group of more than a dozen of the nation’s best cybersecurity experts published a paper explaining why such a proposal would be a disaster for Internet security, giving hackers all over the world a central point of vulnerability to target.
And of course the FBI has still failed to put forth any evidence showing a bill to “intercept new kinds of communications” is needed at all. According to government statistics, from 2006-2010, the FBI has been ultimately thwarted by encryption zero times in their criminal investigations.
Citing privacy concerns, the White House commendably has threatened to veto CISPA, the cybersecurity bill. It should also jettison this ill-conceived CALEA II proposal in favor of privacy and security.
Email and call the White House today to tell them you oppose any plan to make Internet companies build government backdoors into your communications.
President Obama is reportedly picking a former hedge fund executive turned senior Bush administration official at the Justice Department by the name James Comey to be his next head of the FBI. Like Chuck Hagel, this largely meaningless nomination in terms of actual policy is being played up as meaningful by the hacks whose job it is to do that sort of thing.
Forget the pundits. Here’s what the nomination means, if anything, by way of remarks Comey made at a press conference in 2004:
Had we tried to make a case against Jose Padilla through our criminal justice system, something that I, as the United States attorney in New York, could not do at that time without jeopardizing intelligence sources, he would very likely have followed his lawyer’s advice and said nothing, which would have been his constitutional right.
He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and hope — pray, really — that we didn’t lose him.
Trials can be so inconvenient, especially when the criminal justice system only affords the state a 93 percent conviction rate. You really don’t want to take any risks when it comes to national security. Indeed, “We could care less about a criminal case when right before us is the need to protect American citizens and to save lives,” Comey told reporters, presumably grabbing his genitals. “We’ll figure out down the road what we do with Jose Padilla.” His remarks mean he will do well at the FBI, that Comey, leading a department where protecting Americans has long served as justification for ignoring their rights.
Padilla ended up being labeled an “enemy combatant” and stashed away in a Naval brig, spending nearly four years in solitary confinement, which in the words of a psychiatrist who examined him led to the “destruction of a human being’s mind.” Despite his years spent being tortured in military custody, however, Padilla was ultimately tried and convicted within the civilian criminal justice system. A final punch to the gut, because this America and we are terrible: the mentally destroyed Padilla’s original conviction of 17 years in prison for expressing an interest in (if not actually engaging in) violent jihad was overturned for being too lenient.I hope you like your humor dark.
“Officials: Man who knew Boston bombing suspect was unarmed when shot”
Just to give you a taste of the massive and elaborate lying involved, here’s the original reporting: “FBI agent fatally shoots man with suspected ties to Boston Marathon bomber: authorities” (my emphasis throughout in red):
“An FBI agent fatally shot a Florida man this morning, after questioning him about ties to Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, authorities said.
Feds, two Massachusetts state troopers and investigators from other agencies were questioning Ibragim Todashev, 27, shortly after midnight when he suddenly pulled a knife and stabbed an FBI agent, law enforcement sources told The Post.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the stabbed FBI agent was the same one who shot and killed Todashev. The wounded FBI agent was taken to the hospital and he was expected to survive his wounds, officials said.“
Also!: “Source: Friend of bombing suspect attacked agent with sword“:
“FOX 25’s Bob Ward was told by a confidential informant that the man, who was killed while being questioned by FBI agents in Florida, was in the process of confessing to a triple murder that occurred in Waltham when he suddenly attacked an agent with a sword.
…
During the interview, investigators took notes and everything appeared to be going well. Eventually, Todashev was asked to write down, in his own handwriting and in his own words, what he had been telling authorities about his role in the murders when in the words of one source – all hell broke loose.
Todashev allegedly began writing, but then flipped a table over, knocking the Boston FBI agent into the wall hitting his head.
FOX 25’s Bob Ward was told the agent looked up to see Todashev waving in his direction what was described as a Banzai ceremonial sword.
Fearing for his life, the FBI agent drew his weapon and fatally shot Todashev. The entire incident taking only seconds.”
There is an attempt to make this seem less outrageous by repeating the story that Todashev was just about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the Waltham killings:
“Todashev became violent as he was signing a written statement based on his confession to the triple murder and attacked the agent with a knife, according to the FBI.”
But note:
“But sources say during questioning Tuesday night, Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the killings. As investigators pushed at him towards a confession, he snapped, reported Orr.”
There’s a big difference between the usual police haranguing towards a confession (which means no confession), and having a written confession ready for him to sign, just as there is a difference between a knife wound which sends an agent to hospital (where ‘he was expected to survive his wounds’!!!), and no wound and no weapon. The lies are simply too specific and detailed to be mistakes or slips.
Seven times?!! (note the headline disparages the story by attributing it up front to one of those dastardly ‘Islamic groups’, and the article disparages the photograph by emphasizing its source): “Islamic group: Slain man was unarmed, shot by FBI agent 7 times”:
“An Islamic group Wednesday called for a federal civil-rights investigation of last week’s fatal shooting of an Orlando man by an FBI agent investigating his connection to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
And the Tampa director of that group said not only was 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev unarmed when he was shot by the agent May 22, he was hit seven times, including once in the head.
. . .
At a news conference Wednesday evening, Shibly showed what he said were photos of Todashev’s body after the shooting. The photos were taken at an Orlando funeral home after the Orange-Osceola County Medical Examiner’s office released the body to Todashev’s next of kin, he said.
The photographer was Khusen Taramov — a friend of Todashev’s who lives in Kissimmee — and photos show at least a dozen wounds, although some may have been exit wounds, Shibly said.”
The claim that one shot was to the ‘back of the head’ somehow didn’t make it into all of the stories.
I’m reading a lot of the usual nonsense of the supposed mental and psychological problems of conspiracy theorists, but I would like to ask a question of the Official Story believers. What would it take for you to entertain the notion that there might be a conspiracy here? Is there any set of facts of official wrongdoing that might cause you to have even the slightest doubt about what you are being told by official sources? If there is no possible set of facts which would cause you to start to have doubts, you have a serious mental and psychological problem of needing to believe what your ‘betters’ tell you.
A Detroit police officer charged with fatally shooting a 7-year-old girl while she was asleep on her couch will stand trial in June. The fatal gunshot was recorded by a reality TV crew, which was filming an episode of “The First 48.”
Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year-old girl from Detroit, was shot in the head while a SWAT team conducted a midnight raid of her two-story home, tossed a flash grenade through a window, fired the bullet that killed her, and burst through the front door on May 16, 2010.
Police officers were searching for a murder suspect accused of killing a 17-year-old boy and were accompanied by a camera crew recording the raid for a reality A&E TV show called “The First 48” – a show that closely resembles “Cops”. The TV show tracks murder investigations in the immediate aftermath of a slaying, and provides viewers with real-life police drama.
But that quest for drama overstepped its boundaries on that fatal night three years ago. Officer Joseph Weekley, a then-member of the Detroit Police Special Response Team, was carrying the gun that shot that little girl. Police claim that the weapon accidentally discharged after Weekley bumped into the girl’s grandmother. But if convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Weekley could face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
The cop has been accused of acting with gross negligence by failing to prevent his gun from firing. The victim was one of four young children that were in the home at the time of the raid. Video footage gathered by the A&E camera crew will serve as evidence in the case, but videographer Allison Howard is also facing charges. The camerawoman was indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges after she was accused of withholding crucial video footage from authorities, while sharing it with unspecified “third parties”.
The shooting, together with the presence of “The First 48” camera crew, shocked and outraged Detroit residents and prompted Mayor Dave Bing to ban reality TV crews from shadowing police in Detroit. He also prompted then-Police Chief Warren Evans’ resignation for failing to inform the mayor that he was allowing TV cameras to accompany police raids. Evans was allegedly also planning to partake in a different reality TV show, in which he would be the star, AP reports.
“Police work is not television, and television work is not police work,” Ron Scott, spokesman for Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, told AP. “The two combined to make it a horrific night.”
Scott also referred to the raid and the shooting as a “military assault on a private dwelling”.
On Friday, Weekley appeared at a Detroit courthouse to file a motion for dismissal of the case against him. About 30 protesters, led by the victim’s family, gathered at the courthouse, chanting “Justice for Aiyana” and “No Justice, No peace”. Weekley’s motion was dismissed, and a jury for the case will be selected May 29.
“It shouldn’t have taken three years for this to come to justice when a little girl died,” Scott told MLive.
An Illinois community is rallying around a teacher who is reportedly up against disciplinary action for informing his students of their rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment before the high-schoolers answered a survey regarding their personal behavior.
John Dryden, a social studies teacher at Batavia High School, not far from Chicago, Illinois, told the Kane County Chronicle he was docked a day’s pay for reminding his students they have the right to not incriminate themselves before administering a drug-screening survey to the class.
The exact contents of the survey were not disclosed, but Dryden said each form was printed with a student’s name and had questions relating to drug use, alcohol consumption, and emotional tendencies. The results were to be reviewed by school officials, social workers, counselors and psychologists, according to the Chicago Daily Herald.
For advising the students of their rights guaranteed by the Constitution, Dryden was scheduled to face a closed-door meeting with school board officials on Tuesday night. He was charged with the vague count of “unprofessional conduct” and could be disciplined with a “letter of remedy” that would remain on his 20-year employment record, along with the docked pay.
Dryden said it was “dumb luck” that he examined the contents in the survey before handing them out. He said that if he had been notified about the questions, he would have consulted a school administrator over the issue.
“Somebody needs to remind them they have the ability not to incriminate themselves,” Dryden said. “I made a judgment call. There was no time to ask anyone.”
School Superintendent Jack Barshinger told the Daily Herald the survey was meant to determine which students were emotionally unstable and considering self-harm.
“We can’t help them if we aren’t aware of their needs,” he said.
A letter mailed to parents did not specify whether the survey was mandatory or optional. A petition of support, which described Dryden as an “uncharacteristically engaging educator,” attracted 4,000 signatures and pleaded with administrators to not discipline him.
“It is Mr. Dryden’s task as an educator to impart his students with the knowledge and ability to make informed choices, even if these lead to conscientious objection,” the letter read. “For the administration of Batavia High School to pursue disciplinary action against a dedicated educator, whose instruction is solely student centered is, in our opinion, an extreme lapse of professional competence.”
Through the scrutiny and media attention Dryden has maintained that the survey’s legality, not he, should be the focus of the story.
“I have asked people to talk about the survey. I think I am a sideshow,” he said. “I’m not a martyr. I’m trying to refocus people’s attentions. Calm down.”
Related article
School Board Reprimands Teacher for Telling Students About Their Right to Remain Silent (reason.com) … “These kids need to know that the U.S. Constitution is there for them,” Batavia Alderman Alan Wolff told the school board yesterday, referring to the Fifth Amendment’s ban on compelled self-incrimination, which Dryden mentioned as he distributed the survey forms. Another Batavia High School teacher, Scott Bayer, said Dryden was not alone in thinking it was important to let students know they were not obligated to answer the questions if doing so involved admitting crimes. “Every teacher I talked to addressed students in the same way,” he said. Perhaps we can expect more written warnings of improper conduct. …
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department’s (DOJ) surveillance of reporters.
The panel is looking at a statement Holder made during a back-and-forth with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) about whether the DOJ could prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917, an aide close to the matter told The Hill.
“In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material — this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy,” Holder said during the hearing.
However, NBC News reported the following week that Holder personally approved a search warrant that labeled Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen a co-conspirator in a national security leaks case.
The panel is investigating whether NBC’s report contradicts Holder’s claim that he had not looked into or been involved with a possible prosecution of the press in a leaks case.
The May 15 Judiciary hearing was held after The Associated Press revealed Justice had secretly subpoenaed its phone records in a separate leaks investigation.
Justice did not return a request for comment, but Johnson on Tuesday defended Holder, arguing his statement was specific to Johnson’s line of questioning about the Espionage Act and not meant to pertain to other investigations.
“The attorney general’s statement that no journalists have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act during his tenure is accurate,” he told The Hill.
Johnson said he raised the Espionage Act issue because he believes the law could be misused to target reporters due to the way it was written. He argued it should be changed.
“Congress is responsible for protecting the press while giving law enforcement the tools to prosecute officials who leak classified information,” Johnson said. “I support considering amendments to the Espionage Act and passing the Free Flow of Information Act to refine this balance.”
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill that Holder was “forthright” with the panel and that there was “no need to turn a policy disagreement into allegations of misconduct.”
But Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (Wis.), the second-ranking Judiciary Committee Republican, told The Hill that Holder should resign.
He accused the attorney general of misleading the panel during the investigation of the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking operation, and again when he claimed to not know about the AP probe.
“As we saw in Fast and Furious and are seeing now, Attorney General Holder refuses to hold himself accountable,” Sensenbrenner said. “He misled the Judiciary Committee under oath when he said he had not heard about Fast and Furious and he misled us again when he claimed to be unaware of the AP scandal. The head of DOJ should be someone the American people can trust. Attorney General Holder should resign.”
Justice’s probe into national security leaks is threatening to become the biggest controversy of Holder’s career.
President Obama last week said he was “troubled” by reports about the DOJ’s surveillance of reporters, and argued that journalists “should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”
He ordered Holder to review his department’s guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters. The DOJ will present its findings to the president on July 12.
A report in The Daily Beast over the weekend suggested Holder felt a sense of personal remorse over the aggressive tactics used in targeting the Fox News reporter. Citing aides close to Holder, the article said the Attorney General knew Justice would be besieged by questions about the two probes as he read a Washington Post story about the investigation of Rosen.
The DOJ seized Rosen’s personal emails and used other surveillance methods to investigate whether he was complicit in a leak of classified information. It also examined Rosen’s phone records and tracked his visits to the State Department using security-badge data during the 2009 probe.
Justice filed legal papers saying Rosen may have acted as “an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” by getting materials from a government official also under investigation.
The investigation was primarily focused on rooting out Rosen’s alleged source, a State Department worker who is facing federal charges for disclosing classified national security information and could see a trial as soon as next year. The DOJ has said it never intended to prosecute Rosen.
Some Republican senators have said Holder should not be in charge of reviewing his own department.
Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) called Holder’s review a “conflict of interest.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said a special counsel or some other independent body should be appointed to conduct the review.
The DOJ has also faced criticism over its seizure of phone records belonging to the AP. The news wire was never a target of that investigation.
The House voted to find Holder in contempt over his refusal to turn over documents to lawmakers on “Fast and Furious,” an operation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purposely allowed guns to be illegally purchased in the United States and Mexico in the hope they could be tracked.
Officials in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine have placed a two-child limit for Muslim Rohingya couples in a gross violation of fundamental human rights and amid accusations of ethnic cleansing against the community.
Local authorities said on Saturday that the new measure will be exercised in the townships of Buthidaung and Maundaw, where about 95 percent of the population are Muslim.
Rakhine state spokesman, Win Myaing, said the measure was enacted a week ago, and was meant to stem population growth in the Muslim community.
Human rights groups say the policy makes Myanmar the only country in the world to impose such a restriction on a religious group.
They also warn that the new move will serve to fan the flames of sectarian violence in Myanmar.
Human Rights Watch has accused Rakhine authorities of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya Muslims.
Thousands of Rohingyas are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion, and displacement.
The Myanmar government has so far refused to extricate the stateless Rohingyas in Rakhine state from their citizenship limbo, despite international pressure to give them a legal status.
The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine. Myanmar Army forces allegedly provided the fanatics containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who are then forced to flee.
Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in recent attacks by extremists, who call themselves Buddhists.
Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.
Among items transferred to local law enforcement agencies have been assault rifles and grenade launchers, even Blackhawk helicopters and .50 caliber machine guns. In fiscal year 2011 alone, the Pentagon transferred almost $500 million worth of materials to domestic law enforcement — near double the previous year’s total.
UK intelligence service MI5 approached Woolwich killing suspect Michael Adebolajo to offer him a job, a friend of the alleged murderer claimed in a BBC interview. Shortly after his statement, police detained the interviewee for questioning.
Abu Nusaybah, who claims to be a close friend of Adebolajo, was promptly arrested on BBC premises following an interview regarding the brutal killing in Woolwich on Wednesday. During the interview, Nusayaba stated that Adebolajo told him MI5 had “harassed” him for information on repeated occasions, and had even attempted to recruit him.
“But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals, what he said was they asked him if he would be interested in working for them. He was explicit in that he refused to work for them but he did confirm he didn’t know the individuals,” Nusayaba said.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Friday that a 31-year-old man had been detained in London under the Terrorism Act. Police said the arrest was not directly related to Wednesday’s murder.
MI5 acknowledged on Thursday that Adebolajo had been known to them for eight years, prompting criticism that they could have taken steps to prevent the murder of 25-year-old Army Drummer Lee Rigby.
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale are suspected of hacking Rigby to death in broad daylight on Wednesday. The two suspects were shot by police during their arrest, and are now in hospital awaiting police questioning. Footage of Adebolajo surfaced showing him brandishing a bloody cleaver, claiming the attack was an “eye-for-an-eye” act to avenge Muslims killed abroad by UK troops.
Nusayaba claimed that when he became acquainted with Adebolajo, the murder suspect did not exhibit any extremist Islamist tendencies. However, following a trip to Kenya last year where Adebolajo was allegedly taken into custody by the Kenyan military and was tortured and sexually abused, Nusayaba said he changed.
“He was not his bubbly self,” Nasayaba said, adding that he became less talkative following the trip.
Relatively little is known about the two suspects who committed the atrocity in Woolwich on Wednesday, which was condemned in the UK press as “Baghdad-style violence.” It was confirmed that Adebolajo and Adebolawe are UK citizens from devout Christian families of Nigerian descent, who later converted to Islam.
He was also known to hand out radical Islamist leaflets that decried UK military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Police raided Adebolajo’s family home in Lincolnshire following the killing. The family reportedly moved away from London over concerns their son was becoming more radicalized.
There have been a number of arrests in London in connection with Wednesday’s murder. Detectives took a 29-year-old woman at a residential address in south London into custody on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder on Thursday. A 29-year-old male was also arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.11.2017
The United States Air Force’s 59th Medical Wing’s molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. … continue
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