Students in the Canadian province of Quebec have pledged to continue protests after a court rejected a petition to scrap parts of a law that was passed to crush student protest over tuition hikes.
The controversial law was passed in May in the wake of clashes between police and students fighting an 82 percent hike in tuition fees in the French speaking province.
Judge Francois Rolland said on Wednesday that the parts in question do “not prevent protests, even if certain limitations are imposed.”
Students and their lawyers rejected the court’s ruling, saying they would consider appealing.
Under Special Law 78, the organizers must inform the police about the timing and locations of marches at least eight hours before they stage a protest. It also allows imposing heavy fines on protesters who fail to do so.
Critics believe the law breaches rights of assembly and free expression. Police have arrested many people since the start of the protests more than four month ago.
University students and student unions have been protesting since mid-February to draw international attention to the government’s announced plans to raise tuition fees and the passing of the controversial law.
June 28, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Press TV, Protest, Quebec |
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A group of nine British lawyers lawyers from the fields of human rights, crime and child welfare released the Children in Military Custody report on Tuesday, concluding that Israel is in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Fourth Geneva Convention in its treatment of Palestinian children.
The Report compared Israeli domestic law as it applies to Israeli children, and Israeli military law as it applies to Palestinian children, and found significant differences.
“What is important is that, whatever the offence charged, an Israeli child and a Palestinian child should from start to finish be treated by the Israeli justice system, whether civilian or military in form, according to the same principles and procedures,” the Report states.
Practices criticised in the report included discrimination, failure to observe the child’s best interests, premature resort to detention, confining children with adult prisoners, delayed access to lawyers, and the use of shackles. The group also considered that other practices they were informed of, if proven, would constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Report contains a litany of abuses of Palestinian children at every stage of the process, from arrest through interrogation, bail hearings and plea bargains, trial, sentencing, detention and complaints.
One section (Section 36, of the 120 in the Report) describing only the detention process, states:
“…those who have been identified as offenders or suspects are arrested by soldiers, usually in nighttime raids on their homes are blindfolded, and, with their wrists painfully bound behind them, are then transported to interrogation centres, sometimes face-down on the floor of military vehicles. The majority are verbally and / or physically abused and, without being informed of their right to silence or the right to see a lawyer, are sometimes held in solitary confinement, pressured to inculpate themselves and others, and are often made to sign statements which they cannot read because they are written in Hebrew. Interrogations are not, save on rare occasions, audio-visually recorded, and those tapes that do exist are almost impossible to obtain by defence lawyers representing the children.”
The details of these detentions, as well as the remand and jail conditions, make horrifying reading.
The project was funded by the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the reporting group was comprised by The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Sedley, The Rt Hon the Baroness Patricia Scotland of Asthal QC, Frances Oldham QC, Marianna Hildyard QC, Judy Khan QC, Jayne Harrill, Jude Lanchin, Greg Davies and Marc Mason.
The stature of the reporting group, and the fact that “a substantial and balanced body of relevant information was collated” from key parties, including Israeli Government departments and the military, Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, UN agencies, former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian children, gives some hope that international pressure will be brought upon Israel to end these illegal and inhumane practices.
Whether Israel bows to the pressure, and observes international law, is quite another matter.
June 28, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Convention on the Rights of the Child, Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel, West Bank |
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Palestinian and international rights groups have condemned the Israeli government’s failure to live up to the agreement made one month ago in order to end the month-long hunger strike of over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The promises made by the Israeli government in order to end the hunger strike included an end to solitary confinement, improved living conditions for prisoners, proper medical care and increased family visits. A month after the hunger strike was declared over, however, the Israeli authorities have yet to implement these agreed-upon terms.
The one item that Israeli authorities did carry out was the return of 91 bodies from the so-called ‘Numbers’ cemetery in Israel – a cemetery made up of Palestinians who died or were killed inside Israel. Although Israel has always denied the existence of this cemetery, mocking those Palestinians who insisted that it did exist, the release of the bodies constituted an admission by the Israeli government that the Numbers cemetery does exist. Those 91 bodies are not all of the Palestinians buried in the Numbers cemetery, but no one on the Palestinian side knows how many bodies remain, and Israel has refused to release any data.
Some prisoner rights groups are blaming the Palestinian Authority for giving in to easily during negotiations with the Israelis regarding the hunger striking prisoners, and for failing to pressure Israel to live up to its end of the bargain.
In fact, there is no mechanism by which the Palestinian Authority can force Israel to carry out its promises regarding prisoners, as Palestinians have no legal recourse to take the Israeli government to court.
One of the promises made by the Israeli government was hailed at the time as a success for prisoners, but prisoner rights groups including Addameer have cautioned that it does not constitute a real change in policy. That is the decision to not extend so-called ‘administrative detention’ orders under which Palestinians are held without charges. The caveat, however, is that Israel can extend those orders if there is ‘new information’ in the case. Since the charges and trial in these cases are held in secret, with no possibility of mounting a defense, this caveat makes the change in policy virtually meaningless.
One representative of Addameer, Mourad Jadallah, told reporters with the Ma’an news agency, “Israel also does not want Palestinians to feel they reached something with the hunger strike or let the prisoners movement feel like they reached their demands. They want to say: We can control everything.”
June 28, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Administrative detention, Hunger strike, International Middle East Media Center, Israel, Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Solitary confinement |
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Former top Israeli diplomat Alon Liel threw his backing behind renowned author Alice Walker’s decision to shun an Israeli publishing house, citing an international boycott against Israel for its oppression of Palestinians, the Times of Israel reported.
Liel, who served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa between 1992 and 1994 and was also the director of Israel’s foreign ministry, said he supported the international campaign against Israel, adding that he too boycotted goods from illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“If nobody speaks about the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, nothing will happen. I think that such a move, boycotting products from Israeli factories in the settlements, is a kind of wake-up call,” he wrote in South Africa’s Business Day paper published on Sunday.
“I can understand the desire, by people of conscience, to reassert an agenda of justice, to remind Israelis that Palestinians exist. I can understand small but symbolic acts of protest that hold a mirror up to Israeli society,” he said
Liel went on to back Walker’s refusal to allow her best-selling novel “The Color Purple” be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publishing firm to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people.
“I think it’s needed, yes. Unfortunately, I don’t see Israeli politicians waking up from these calls. But it’s better than nothing,” he said.
The former Israeli diplomat also defended South Africa’s decision to ban “Made in Israel” labels on products from the occupied West Bank.
“I cannot condemn the move to prevent goods made in the occupied Palestinian territory from being falsely classified as ‘Made in Israel.’ I support the South African government’s insistence on this distinction between Israel and its occupation,” he wrote in his column.
Palestinian children tortured
Britain is preparing to challenge Israel over alleged malpractices by the Jewish state of Palestinian children, which could amount to torture, The Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday.
An investigation by senior British lawyers – funded by the Foreign Office – included shocking acts of cruelty against detained Palestinian children, including solitary confinement, blindfolding and being forced to wear leg irons.
The findings, based largely on testimonies by Palestinian children from the West Bank, were published in Children in Military Custody.
“We were sitting in court and saw a section of a preliminary hearing when a very young looking child, a boy, was brought in wearing a brown uniform with leg irons on. We were shocked by that. This was a situation where we had been invited into the military courts for briefings from senior judges,” Greg Davies, a human rights barrister involved in the investigation wrote.
“To hold children routinely and for substantial periods in solitary confinement would, if it occurred, be capable of amounting to torture,” the report said.
The report also found Palestinian children were often dragged from the beds in the middle of the night, and subjected to verbal and physical abuse in jail in a bid to have them sign confessions they were not permitted to read, The Independent said.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it would “lobby” Israel “for further improvements” without clarifying.
“The UK government has had long-standing concerns about the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention, and as a result decided to fund this independent report. While recognizing that some positive recent steps have been made by the Israeli authorities, we share many of the report’s concerns, and will continue to lobby for further improvements,” The Independent quoted the Foreign Office as saying.
Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank, and a siege on Gaza, subjecting the indigenous Palestinian population to extremely harsh measures that many activists have dubbed apartheid.
(Al-Akhbar, Times of Israel, The Independent)
June 27, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Alice Walker, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Independent, Israel, West Bank |
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Jerusalem, Palestine – “Yes, Israel does violate international law and is far from perfect,” concedes the “enlightened” liberal Zionist, “But it is nowhere near as brutal or contemptible as the Assad regime.” The notion that Israel is somehow more tolerable than Arab tyrannies just because it does not bomb Palestinians in the West Bank or (gasp!) does not mass-murder demonstrators is virtually universal. This assumption, however, underlines a disturbing lack of understanding of the Israeli military occupation and the system of racial segregation governing the occupied west Bank. It goes without saying that those repeating this mantra have never lived under military occupation and have never experienced the constant fear of being abducted from their bedrooms and arrested without warrant, charges or trial.
In an attempt at refuting this notion, it’s necessary to explain the reasons for this shockingly pervasive ignorance. The vast majority of Israelis consistently and unashamedly clasp the charade that Israel is a democracy even if that means living in perpetual frugality, shrugging off horrendous crimes as singular incidents that do not represent the “most moral army in the world” and defending the indefensible under the guise of security. For a colonial society that thrives on a counterfeit sense of moral, intellectual and cultural superiority over an “invented” people, admitting culpability or complicity in the systematic annihilation of a defenseless, far less privileged community is unthinkable. So profound is the sense of denial enveloping Israelis that they take great offence at the very labeling of Israel as an apartheid state or, God forbid, condemning it in the same breath as Arab dictatorships. There is little to no outrage by Israelis about Israel’s atrocities because, remember, they are unrepresentative, rare – and for many they do not exist – no state is “perfect” and because human rights organizations are “biased” against Israel and want to wipe away the island of democracy surrounded by an ocean of oppressive, vulgar third world tribes.
The maligned genius of the Israeli occupation lies in its success to squeeze the lifeblood out of entire communities silently, gradually but brutally. Practices such as the rapidly increasing home demolitions; ceaseless construction and expansion of illegal settlements; blocking access to schools and agricultural fields; the frequent destruction of basic infrastructure like water wells and solar power plants; and the theft of land, identity and collective memory are hardly reported in the mainstream media. The discriminatory legal system and the racist bureaucracy that controls the tiniest minutiae of Palestinians’ daily life, including traveling to neighboring villages and even marriage, murder the soul of Palestinian society, but will never capture the headlines of the New York Times or CNN. The silent, invisible ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population does not possess the flash of missiles and explosions or the booming sound of mortar shells, but it is even more devastating and effective.
Such is the regularity of Israel’s human rights abuses that even Palestinians have normalized them, at times to the extent of desensitization. When asked whether she would like to write about her experience as a prisoner’s wife, a woman from Beit Ummar said no-one would be interested to read about it, likening the experience to cooking chicken.
The Palestinian victims of the Israeli occupation are often nameless and faceless. We read that there are over 4500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli occupation jails but very few of us recognize their names, their faces or their stories. If it were not for the heroic hunger-strikes, the suffering of thousands of prisoners languishing in Israel’s dungeons would remain untold. We only heard of Khader Adnan because of his inspiring 66-day huger-strike. If it were not for her incredible 43-day hunger-strike, we would never know that Hana Shalabi spent the best years of her life detained in Israel without charges or trial. It is only thanks to his astonishing 78-day hunger-strike that we knew about Thaer Halahleh who, prior to his release on 5 June, had never kissed his beloved daughter Lamar. Even Palestinian national team footballer Mahmoud Sarsak, who has been detained in Israel without trial or charge since July 2009, would have never gained the support of FIFA and world renowned footballers if it had not been for a miraculous 92 days without food. Mind you, even that was not sufficient for the Palestinian Football Association to raise an eyebrow. All of us, on the other hand, are familiar with the Israeli occupation soldier who was captured by Palestinian resistance 6 years ago today. He did not have to go on for days without food to garner the world’s attention and sympathy.
We might scroll through news about the demolition of Palestinian-owned houses, tents, huts and animal shelters while drinking our morning coffee, but little do we know about the actual victims, the hundreds who are forcibly displaced every month for the crime of being Palestinian.
Have you ever heard of Sawsan Hamamdeh? She does not blog nor does she have a Twitter account; she does not introduce herself as an “activist” but she perfectly personifies the Palestinian struggle. Born in the cave-dweller village of Mfaggara in South Hebron Hills, Sawsan became the first girl from her village to attend collage in the city of Yatta. Denied access to electricity or running water like the overwhelming majority of South Hebron Hills’ residents, Sawsan studied for her Tawjihi exams under the light of an old lantern she inherited from her grandfather. On a dreary, rainy November afternoon last year, private Israeli contractors, hired by the “civil” administration, came to demolish her home. The pretext, as usual, is building without permit. Israel sweepingly and systematically refuses to grant residents of Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank, permits to build homes or tents to accommodate the natural growth. Sawsan’s father Mahmoud put up two rooms on top of his cave in 2002 after applying and failing to get a permit. Needless to say, the residents of the illegal, Jewish-only, nearby settlement of Avigail face no such problems. Settlers can expand, build parks and enjoy all the privileges that the indigenous Palestinians can only dream of. As this video shows, Sawsan’s punishment for trying to nonviolently prevent the demolition of the cave, wherein the best memories of her childhood reside, was brutal arrest, pepper-spray and a week in the infamous “Russian Compound”, a detention camp in occupied Jerusalem. “I’ve always dreamt of visiting Jerusalem,” Sawsan told me, “but not like that. They dragged me to the vehicle along with my 17-year-old cousin Amal. We were hand-cuffed and blindfolded. The week I spent in detention in Jerusalem was the worst in my life.”
Fighting back tears, Sawsan showed me the rubble of her demolished home. “I felt like an olive tree that was violently uprooted.” She said with agony. “The Israelis want all of us to leave Mfaggara and go to Yatta, but I would never leave my village even if I had sleep on the street.”
Budour Hassan, originally from Nazareth, is a Palestinian anarchist and Law student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. You can follow her on Twitter here.
June 26, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Israeli-occupied territories, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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An Egyptian court has overturned a government decree allowing the army to arrest civilians.
The decree was originally issued by the army-backed interim government on June 13, before the presidential election earlier this month. It was challenged by human rights activists and politicians who accused the military council of reviving an unpopular emergency law that lapsed in May.
It gave the military police and intelligence the power to detain civilians and refer them to a military tribunal.
“The court has blocked the decision of the Minister of Justice that gave military and military intelligence officers powers of arrest,” said Cairo administrative court Judge Ali Fikry.
According to the Al Ahram newspaper website, the list of crimes to which the law could be applied include crimes and misdemeanours harmful to the government, possession and or use of explosives, resisting orders issued by those in power or assaulting them, destruction of public property or historic monuments, obstructing traffic, strike-actions at institutions that serve the public interest or assaulting the right to work, and intimidation and thuggery.
Former presidential candidate Khaled Ali, along with 17 activists, who initially filed an appeal against the law has confirmed to the newspaper that the court had ruled in his favor.
June 26, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Egypt, Military police |
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As we’ve acknowledged before, our lives are increasingly contained on our digital devices, which makes travel—and the decisions we make about what to carry with us—increasingly complicated.
A recent case in which two young travelers to Israel were requested not simply to provide their laptops for arbitrary searches, but to log in to their e-mail accounts and allow Israeli officials to search through their e-mail for specific strings and correspondence highlights the increasing obstacles to privacy that travelers face, as well as the increasingly global nature of security theatre.
In that particular case, the two young women—both of Palestinian origin—complied with officials’ requests but were nonetheless detained overnight before being deported. In another, similar case, a U.S. citizen who refused access to her email was told she was probably hiding something and was refused entry to the country. Israeli security (Shin Bet) told a reporter that “the actions taken by the agents during questioning were within the organization’s authority according to Israeli law.”
Not unlike travelers to the U.S., travelers to Israel face serious privacy challenges at the border. The government generally has broad authority to search through your personal possessions, including your laptop, for any reason at all. When you cross the border to Israel, the Israeli government retains the authority to question you and examine your belongings, which it interprets as also allowing it to go through your electronic devices and computer files. More recently, authorities have also been known to demand user passwords to online accounts.
As we state in our guide to U.S. border searches:
For doctors, lawyers, and many business professionals, these border searches can compromise the privacy of sensitive professional information, including trade secrets, attorney-client and doctor-patient communications, research and business strategies, some of which a traveler has legal and contractual obligations to protect. For the rest of us, searches that can reach our personal correspondence, health information, and financial records are reasonably viewed as an affront to privacy and dignity and inconsistent with the values of a free society.
EFF recently asked Jonathan Klinger, an Israeli attorney, for his thoughts on the law and government practices that apply to searches at the Israeli border, and here is his analysis.
The Situation at the Israeli Border
At the Israeli border, there are some limited legal protections against the search itself. Based on a collection of experiences, however, it seems that mentioning these protections to border officials can be considered antagonism, and can limit your ability to enter Israel. Those concerned about the security and privacy of the information on their devices at the border should therefore use technological measures in an effort to protect their data. They can also choose not to take private data across the border with them at all, and then use technical measures to retrieve it from abroad.
There is, however, little to prevent a scenario in which one’s email is searched, as refusal to allow the search may result in deportation. With that in mind, concerned travelers should think ahead and review their online accounts before traveling.
Why Can My Devices Be Searched at the Border?
Article 7 of Israel’s Basic Statute of Human Dignity and Freedom states that every person is entitled to his privacy, and that his property may not be searched, apart from where it is required under legal authority. This generally means that the government has to show probable cause that a crime has been committed and get a warrant before it can search a location or item in which you have a reasonable expectation of privacy; moreover, a recent Supreme Court ruling stated that there is no such thing called consensual search, and where there is no probable cause, the state cannot rely on a person’s consent in order to search in his possessions. But searches at places where people enter or leave Israel are subject to different statutes. The two applicable statutes are the Aviation Act (Security in Civil Aviation), 1977and the General Security Service Act, 2002; the two acts altogether provide two different state authorities the right to search on a person’s body and in his property. However, they do not refer to computer searches at all.
The Aviation Act allows security personnel, police officers, soldiers and members of the civil defense forces to search at border crossings if “the search is required, in [the officer’s] opinion, to keep the public’s safety or if he suspects that the person unlawfully carries weapons or explosives, or that the vehicle, the plane or the goods has weapons or explosives.”
Similarly, the General Security Service Act states that in order to prevent unlawful activities, secure persons or any other activity that the government authorized with the approval of the Knesset committee for the Shin Bet to perform, any employee of the Shin Bet (the service) may search a person’s body, property, baggage or other goods and collect information, as long as the person is present.
Only in extreme cases, where there is an object that needs to be seized for a vital role in the Shin Bet’s activity, can the Shin Bet also search without a person’s presence.
However, nothing in these acts authorizes computer searches. Recently, the Israeli Justice office proposed a new anti-terror bill, which is yet to pass through the legislative process. This Anti-Terror bill does request to correct the current General Security Service act to specifically state that computers may be searched.
How the Government Searches Devices at the Border
There are three government agencies primarily responsible for inspecting travelers and items entering Israel: the General Security Service (Shin Bet), The Customs Authority and the Immigration authority.
The law gives the Shin Bet and other officials a great deal of discretion to inspect items coming into the country. There is no official policy published in respect to border search of electronic devices and accounts. And when recently requested to comment, the Shin Bet stated that its acts are “according to law.”
Recently, the Israeli Foreign Ministry admitted that it used Facebook in order to create a blacklist of activists who were then—along with a number of uninvolved and mistakenly identified individuals—banned entry to the country amidst the Flytilla events. If you are active on one or more social networks and express opinions about Israel, you carry a greater risk of being profiled and selected for search.
Keep in mind that the Shin Bet can keep your computer or copies of your data for “the time required for the seizure.” There is no specific consideration regarding forensic practices and the ways that your computer files may be copied during the seizure. This is unlike the Israeli Criminal Procedure Order (Arrest and Search), 1969, which deals specifically with the forensic procedures of copying computer materials and requires two witnesses for any file duplication.
The Israeli Customs Authority, under Article 184, allows any customs official to search every person for contraband or drugs given probable cause. Moreover, the customs official may also request urine, blood or saliva samples and request persons to undress. However, nothing in the law allows them to search through computer materials.
In short, border agents have a lot of latitude to search electronic devices at the border or take them elsewhere for further inspection for a short period of time, whether or not they suspect a traveler has done anything wrong.
We do not have the exact numbers or methods of how such searches are handled, and the Shin Bet is exempt from the Israeli Freedom of Information Act.; However, the frequency of technology-oriented searches at the border may increase in the future. Researchers and vendors are creating tools to make forensic analysis faster and more effective, and, over time, forensic analysis will require less skill and training. Law enforcement agencies may be tempted to use these tools more often and in more circumstances as their use becomes easier.
Travelers should consider taking the same precautions outlined in EFF’s guide to carrying digital devices across the United States border.
June 25, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Electronic Frontier Foundation, General Security Service Act, Israel, Israeli Border, Jillian C. York, Jonathan Klinger, Shin Bet |
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The Bush administration detained and tortured suspected militants; the Obama administration assassinates them. Both practices not only visit more hatred upon the United States; they are also illegal. Our laws and treaties prohibit torture. The Constitution forbids the government from depriving any person of life without due process of law; that is, arrest and fair trial. Yet President Obama has approved the killing of people, many of whom were not even identified before the kill order was given.
Jo Becker and Scott Shane reported in the New York Times that Obama maintains a “kill list.” After consulting with his counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan, Obama personally makes the decision to have individuals executed. Brennan was closely identified with torture, secret prisons, and extraordinary rendition during the Bush administration. The Times story, based on interviews with three dozen current and former Obama advisers, reports that “Mr. Obama has avoided the complications of detention by deciding, in effect, to take no prisoners alive. While scores of suspects have been killed under Mr. Obama, only one has been taken into U.S. custody” because he doesn’t want to add new prisoners to Guantanamo.
The leak of the kill list angered Republicans, evidently because they believe it demonstrates Obama’s “strength” in foreign policy. Some progressives who do not fully understand the profound illegality of drone attacks find them preferable to the United States’ all out invasions of more countries. We all need to understand that the unlawful precedent the United States is setting with its use of killer drones not only undermines the rule of law; it also will prevent the United States from reasonably objecting when other countries that obtain drone technology develop “kill lists” of persons those countries believe represent threats to them.
On June 15, for the first time, Obama publicly acknowledged that his administration is engaging in “direct action” in Yemen and Somalia. Although the United States is not at war with either country, George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” has morphed into Obama’s “War on Al Qaeda.” Obama’s “war” has been used as an excuse to assassinate anyone anywhere in the world whenever the President gives the order.
But “there is not a distinct entity called Al Qaeda that provides a sound basis for defining and delimiting an authorized use of force,” according to Paul P. Pillar, deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center from 1997 to 1999. The United States is not at war with Yemen and Somalia. Even if Obama identifies certain people living in Yemen or Somalia as members of Al-Qaeda who are desirous of committing acts of terror against the people of the United States, there is no basis in law for our government to declare war on individuals it considers a threat. The United States has legal means to indict and extradite, both under U.S. and international law.
Since 2004, some 300 drone strikes have been launched in Pakistan. Twenty percent of the resulting deaths are believed to have been civilians. The Pakistan Human Rights Commission says U.S. drone strikes were responsible for at least 957 deaths in Pakistan in 2010.
In the three and one-half years since Obama took office, between 282 and 585 civilians have been killed, including more than 60 children. “The CIA’s drone campaign has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to rescue victims or who were attending funerals,” a new report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism found.
But, according to the Times article, Obama has developed a creative way to count civilian casualties. All military-age men killed in a drone strike zone are considered to be combatants, “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” As a result, Brennan reported last year that not one civilian had been killed during one year of strikes. An administration official recently claimed that the number of civilians killed by drone strikes in Pakistan was in the “single digits.” Three former senior intelligence officials told the Times that they couldn’t believe the number could be so low.
Obama, who has been targeting “suspected militants” (called “personality strikes”) in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, even killing U.S. citizens, has authorized expanded drone attacks – whenever there are suspicious “patterns of behavior” at sites controlled by a terrorist group. These are known as “signature strikes.” That means bombs are being dropped on un-identified people who are in an area where suspicious activity has taken place. This goes beyond the illegal practice of “targeted killing.” People are being killed without even being an identified target.
The administration justifies its use of armed drones with reference to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed just days after the September 11 attacks. In the AUMF, Congress authorized force against groups and countries that had supported the terrorist strikes. But Congress rejected the Bush administration’s request for open-ended military authority “to deter and preempt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” Deterrence and preemption are exactly what Obama is trying to accomplish by sending robots to kill “suspected militants” or those who happen to be present in an area where suspicious activity has taken place.
Moreover, in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, Congress specifically declared, “Nothing in this section is intended to . . . expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force [of September 2001].”
Drone attacks also violate well-established principles of international law. A targeted killing is defined as the “intentional, premeditated, and deliberate use of lethal force . . . against a specific individual who is not in the physical custody of the perpetrator,” according to Philip Alston, former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions. Targeted or political assassinations – sometimes known as extra-judicial executions – run afoul of the Geneva Conventions, which include willful killing as a grave breach. Grave breaches of Geneva are punishable as war crimes under the U.S. War Crimes Act.
Christof Heyns, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, expressed grave concern about the targeted killings, saying they may constitute war crimes. He called on the Obama administration to explain how its drone strikes comport with international law, specify the bases for decisions to kill rather than capture particular individuals, and whether the State in which the killing takes place has given consent. Heyns further asked for specification of the procedural safeguards in place, if any, to ensure in advance of drone killings that they comply with international law. He also wanted to know what measures the U.S. government takes after any such killing to ensure that its legal and factual analysis was accurate and, if not, the remedial measures it would take, including justice and reparations for victims and their families. Although Heyns’ predecessor made similar requests, Heyns said the United States has not provided a satisfactory response.
Heyns also called on the U.S. government to make public the number of civilians collaterally killed as a result of drone attacks, and the measures in place to prevent such casualties. Once again, Heyns said the United States has not satisfactorily responded to a prior query for such information.
Likewise, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recently declared that U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan violate the international law principles of proportionality and distinction. Proportionality means that an attack cannot be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage sought. Distinction requires that the attack be directed only at a legitimate military target.
The United States has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ICCPR states: “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” The Covenant also guarantees those accused of a crime the right to be presumed innocent and to a fair trial by an impartial tribunal. Targeted killings abrogate these rights.
Self defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter is a narrow exception to the Charter’s prohibition of the use of force or the threat of force to settle international disputes. Countries may engage in individual or collective self-defense only in the face of an armed attack. To the extent the United States claims the right to kill suspected terrorists or their allies before they act, there must exist “a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation,” under the well-established Caroline Case. Obama’s drone attacks do not meet this standard.
The United States’ resort to ever increasing targeted killings is a direct result of the “War on Terror” the Bush administration declared after 9/11. Bush declared a perpetual war on a tactic and claimed all Al-Qaeda and Taliban are terrorists who may be preemptively killed as a form of self defense, rather than being arrested and tried for criminal acts. Although he does not use the phrase “War on Terror,” Obama has continued and even extended this policy. It is the product of a powerful military industrial complex in the United States which sees the use of force as the first step to resolving disputes rather than a last resort, notwithstanding the strictures of the UN Charter.
This practice sets a dangerous precedent. Heyns opined that “any Government could, under the cover of counter-terrorism imperatives, decide to target and kill an individual on the territory of any State if it considers that said individual constitutes a threat.” Heyns also cited information that indicates “the attacks increasingly fuel protests among the population.” Heyns said the “lack of transparency” and “dangerous precedent” that drone attacks represent “remain of grave concern.”
Drone strikes are also counterproductive. They breed increased resentment against the United States and lead to the recruitment of more terrorists. “Drones have replaced Guantanamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants,” Becker and Shane wrote in the Times article. They quoted Faisal Shahzad, who, while pleading guilty to trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square, told the judge, “When the drones hit, they don’t see children.” Pakistani ambassador Zamir Akram told the Geneva Forum last week that the drone attacks are illegal and violate the sovereignty of Pakistan, “not to mention being counter-productive.” He added, “thousands of innocent people, including women and children, have been murdered in these indiscriminate attacks.”
Becker and Shane noted, “[Obama’s] focus on strikes has made it impossible to forge, for now, the new relationship with the Muslim world that he had envisioned. Both Pakistan and Yemen are arguably less stable and more hostile to the United States than when Mr. Obama became president. Justly or not, drones have become a provocative symbol of American power, running roughshod over national sovereignty and killing innocents.”
Ibrahim Mothana, who wrote an op-ed in the Times titled “How Drones Help Al Qaeda,” agrees. “Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair,” Mothana observed.
It is time to halt this dangerous and illegal practice.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her most recent book is The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.
June 25, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Christof Heyns, George W. Bush, John O. Brennan, Obama, Pakistan, United States, Yemen |
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Failure of North Carolina courts to remedy suppression of academic freedom part of troubling nationwide trend
The North Carolina Supreme Court decided in conference on June 13 to deny a Petition for Discretionary Review filed last December by film scholar Terri Ginsberg. The Petition asked the Court to reconsider a North Carolina Court of Appeals decision affirming a November 2010 lower court dismissal of Dr. Ginsberg’s lawsuit against North Carolina State University (NCSU). In October 2009, Dr. Ginsberg filed a complaint alleging violation of her right to academic freedom under the North Carolina constitution. Dr. Ginsberg had been denied a tenure-track position because of the University’s discomfort with her scholarly speech and writing critical of Israeli policy and Zionism and favoring Palestinian rights and self-determination. The Court’s Order to deny Dr. Ginsberg’s Petition offers neither an opinion nor a reason for the decision.
Dr. Ginsberg’s Petition was supported by an Open Letter sponsored by several national and international human rights organizations and delivered on February 7, 2012 to both the North Carolina Supreme Court and NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson. As of its closure on June 22, the Open Letter had accrued 1274 signatures. Dr. Ginsberg states in both of these documents that by ignoring her voluminous evidence of an academic freedom violation, the Court of Appeals set a dangerous precedent by which academic employers have been given carte blanche to suppress the politically unpopular speech of their faculty, to the detriment of North Carolina students and to public discourse generally.
Dr. Ginsberg’s appeal was rejected despite direct and circumstantial evidence that NCSU took employment actions against her for unconstitutional reasons. During depositions held in June 2010, NCSU’s witnesses, including Prof. Marsha Orgeron, director of the Film Studies Program, and Prof. Akram Khater, director of the Middle East Studies Program, admitted to having reacted negatively to Ginsberg’s supportive statements at a screening of a Palestinian film, Ticket to Jerusalem, during which she thanked the audience for attending and thereby supporting the airing of Palestinian liberation perspectives such as the views displayed in the film. Profs. Orgeron and Khater stated that Dr. Ginsberg’s comments caused them to worry that members of the audience would perceive the Film Studies and Middle East Studies programs as “biased.” Shortly thereafter, Dr. Ginsberg was forced to resign from the Middle East screening series that she had helped curate; NCSU then chose not to interview or hire her for a tenure-track position for which she had previously been ranked as the top candidate. She was rejected despite NCSU’s admission that she was more qualified than the candidate NCSU eventually hired, because her scholarship had “too much focus on Jewish/Israel,” in the words of one search committee member. The Film Studies Program did not purchase Palestinian films for her Spring 2008 course on Israeli–Palestinian conflict cinema, and she was shunned from further extra-curricular and departmental activities until her termination that May.
The Court’s dismissal is particularly troubling in the wake of Arizona’s recent outlawing of Chicano/a studies curricula in that state’s educational system, and as pro-Zionist groups in California are attempting to force California State University–Northridge to forbid mathematics professor David Klein from posting to his faculty website information about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in support of human rights for Palestinians.
Dr. Ginsberg says she has not given up on her quest for justice from North Carolina State University and encourages supporters to e-mail letters of protest to Chancellor Woodson (see sample letter) requesting that she be permitted a long-overdue campus grievance hearing (mail to: chancellor@ncsu.edu). Dr. Ginsberg also plans to approach BDS about issuing a boycott of NCSU. For more information about Dr. Ginsberg’s case, please visit the website Ginsberg vs. NCSU.
For more information, contact:
Rima Najjar Kapitan, Esq.
Kapitan Law Office, Ltd.
+1 (312) 566-9590
rima@kapitanlaw.net
June 24, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Film Studies, Israel, NCSU, North Carolina, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Supreme Court, Palestine, Randy Woodson, United States, Zionism |
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In most languages the terms “liberty” and “freedom” are interchangeable, but there is a fine distinction. Freedom is more general, implying simple exemption from any control or influence by another person or agency; liberty implies laws, a system of order and restraint.
One might say that liberty is the freedom to obey the rules.
Folks taken to task for social improprieties sometimes say: “Hey, it’s a free country.”
People who might know better if politics didn’t stink them up often say: “America is spreading freedom and democracy.”
Benjamin Franklin knew better, but that didn’t stop him from saying that people willing to give up freedom to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
“Land of the free, home of the brave….”
In his speech to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry concluded with, “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!” So let’s go from here with the term, liberty.
Especially since 9/11, our liberties have been under savage attack. The Constitution is strafed and bombed as the US is marched toward a fascist police state—even torpedoed by much the same forces that labor to cover up the attack on the USS Liberty back on June 8, 1967….
The world’s most sophisticated intelligence ship, the USS Liberty was a $40,000,000 Signals Intelligence platform (SIGNIT) with a crew of 294.
About 6 am local time, an Israeli reconnaissance plane spotted the USS Liberty just outside Israeli coastal radar. Throughout the day, more Israeli reconnaissance planes flew out and orbited the ship at least eight times altogether. Meanwhile, the flight officer who originally spotted the ship teamed with an air-naval liaison officer at Israeli air force headquarters, and they consulted Janes’ Fighting Ships. At 11:00 am they identified the ship as the USS Liberty.
At 2 pm Israeli fighter jets attacked the USS Liberty, initially targeting the command bridge, communications antennas, and the four .50 caliber machine guns placed to repel boarders. After those fighters spent their ordnance, consecutive new waves engaged, adding napalm to the rocket and 30 mm cannon fire. Intense radio jamming contributed to stifling the Liberty‘s calls for help to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
Thirty-five minutes into the air attack, fighters disengaged. Three Israeli torpedo boats closed in for a surface attack, launching five torpedoes—one struck the Liberty opposite its research spaces. The torpedo boats then moved up and down port and starboard, raking the ship with cannon and machine gun fire, targeting anyone who came above decks, destroying firefighting equipment and life rafts.
The Liberty’s defenseless crew eventually patched different systems together and got a distress message through to the Sixth Fleet.
The USS Saratoga and USS America both launched fighters to aid the Liberty; the message for them to destroy the attackers upon arrival was sent “clear” (not encrypted). The torpedo boats suddenly broke off their attack and began radioing the USS Liberty, asking if she needed assistance. An Israeli naval officer notified the US Naval Attaché at the embassy in Tel Aviv, and apologized for Israeli forces mistakenly attacking an American ship.
Then for the first and only time in our history, rescue aircraft were recalled before arriving at the attack site….
So, 17 miles off the coast of Gaza, after eight hours of aerial surveillance, Israel attacked the USS Liberty for two hours, killing 34 and wounding 173. Besides the torpedo and napalm damage, 861 holes the size of a man’s hand and larger were counted, plus thousands of .50 caliber machine gun holes. The SIGINT platform was so damaged the ship never again sailed on a mission. The USS Liberty was sold as scrap for $102,666.66.
Israel freely acknowledged that the ship was American, had remained in international waters; and claimed they never made positive identification before attacking.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent a letter to the Ambassador of Israel stating that we expected them to take disciplinary measures as required by international law, and that was it. There were no disciplinary measures—at least not in Israel. Closing off the affair was a rushed and phony American inquiry into the attack, plus threats to surviving crew members of “court-martial, imprisonment, or worse” if they exposed the truth. Perpetual pressure from the pro-Israel lobby in our country has kept this the only serious naval incident never to be investigated by Congress. To this day no surviving crewman has been allowed to officially and publicly testify about the attack.
Richard Helms, CIA Director in 1967, later wrote in his memoirs, “…there could be no doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty.”
In 2005, a request was issued to the Secretary of the Army, as Executive Agent for the Secretary of Defense, regarding investigation of war crimes committed against U.S. Military personnel, on behalf of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, Inc. High-level intrigues trumped the request, kept the top-secret lid welded over the truth.
What happened to the USS Liberty seems an excellent metaphor for what is happening to the liberty of Americans. Though torpedoed by the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012), the Constitution still floats. Will it be sold as scrap, like the USS Liberty?
The NDAA torpedo, with its warhead of provisions regarding indefinite military detention of anyone, without charge, nearly blew away the Bill of Rights. A green light for government to disappear American citizens? Sure, “suspicion” of some kind of “connection” with a terrorist group is a requirement for being disappeared, but the suspicion can be anything, even nothing but a whim, even nothing at all.
“Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”
The bottom line of the NDAA, beneath all the specific and carefully-worded incoherence: If there is something the government does not like about a citizen, whatever rights they might’ve still had are gone.
But just when it seemed the Constitution might sink in terms of protecting citizens from corporate government out of control, good news floats from the courts, blocking the NDAA—for now at least, pointing toward future missions? With such extensive damage, perhaps the only hope for the USS Constitution is dry dock, massive repairs, and further protection as the NDAA rises toward the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Congress and the Obama administration keep circling the remains.
~
Rand Clifford’s novels Castling, Timing, Priest Lake Cathedral, and Voices of Vires are published by StarChief Press, and will be available soon as e-books.
June 22, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | Israel, United States, USS Liberty, USS Liberty Veterans Association |
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Increased police brutality and the prospect of conservative politicians using public money to sue and bankrupt organizations they ideologically oppose – these are the likely outcomes of last week’s Constitutional Court judgment against protest organisers.
In a judgment which upheld a repressive clause in the apartheid-era 1993 Regulation of Gatherings Act, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng ruled that members of the public who suffer damages from protestors have the right to recoup their losses from whoever hosted the protest – whether the damages were caused by members of the organisation, or not.
There is no onus on the person suing the organisation to prove that the damages were caused by members of the protesting organisation – the mere fact that the damage happened during the march is enough in the way of proof for anyone to be able to claim damages from the organisers.
In May 2006, after a security guards’ strike by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) turned violent, then Cape Town mayor Helen Zille decided to sue for damages on behalf of individuals who had suffered losses from the strike.
Ever since then, the DA has been trying to get Parliament to pass their private members’ bill aimed at “holding unions liable for strike damages”. The Constitutional Court has now done their job for them, supported by ANC police minister Nathi Mthethwa who also weighed in on the side of the DA.
However, the judgment has a far broader reach. The head of the Freedom of Expression Institute’s law clinic, Mbalenhle Cele pointed out “assemblies, with all their potential for disruption, are often the only way for individuals to give voice to their grievances, and to do so effectively.” This is primarily because politicians only listen to the language of disruption. While unions normally follow the correct channels and apply for permission to hold marches, making their leaders easily identifiable as organisers, social movements and communities often protest spontaneously or together with other small organisation. If a small non-profit organisation or a refugee rights group happens to support one of these protests, will they be held responsible for damages as the easily identifiable party?
Unions survive off their members’ subscription fees and while some have made shady forays into the murky world of union investment companies, many unions have little reserve funds, using the bulk of member fees to cover legal costs and maintain basic offices. The DA’s hostility to organised labour and protestors in general is no secret.
The conservative opposition party has been unable to mount any effective propaganda campaign against the unions, which continue to organise high numbers of workers. Having failed to find a working class audience willing to adopt failed free market ideas, it is unsurprising that the DA would resort to finding means to financially cripple the unions – effectively the only way of silencing them.
The process of financially crippling the unions can now be accelerated by anyone with an interest in doing this – the DA, big business, some factions of the ANC and the intelligence services. Any of these groups can land unions with a R2 million damages bill simply by inserting undercover agents into a march with an instruction to cause damage to property. This is not a far-fetched notion – it has happened before and indeed, with a judgment like this already working in their favour, anti-union groups would be foolish not to use dirty tricks to finish the unions off altogether. The DA, big business, some factions of the ANC and the intelligence services are all aware that in marches of over five thousand workers, it would be difficult for participants to identify non-union members in their ranks, especially since the trade unions have a tradition of inviting supporters ranging from family members, neighbours, churchgoers, priests, and assorted leftists to their marches.
The judgment ignores the police track record of deliberately sparking violence during protests. In the judgment, Mogoeng said unions would not be held liable in the event of a policeman discharging his gun “by accident” into a crowd, causing a stampede. However, he made no mention of violent police who regularly go on the attack – deliberately and not accidentally – against protestors. The case of Andries Tatane, slain by police last year, is an example. The well-publicised case of the residents of Hangberg is another example.
When the people of this hillside community in Cape Town’s Hout Bay stood together to protect their long-standing community from gentrification, the police broke their own regulations by firing rubber bullets at close range into the residents’ faces, taking out the eyes of four people, and provoking pandemonium.
It is well-known that peaceful union marches are unlikely to end quietly because police normally attack the tail end of a march, or pick off a group of people on their way home who have become separated from the crowd. At a union march two years ago in Cape Town, police became extremely annoyed after workers burnt tyres across the road – even though there was no damage to property or person. The police later embarked on a chaotic armed, hunt of workers through the taxi rank – with the workers running for their lives and the police in hot pursuit, firing rubber bullets as they ran. The current culture of police brutality is likely to worsen as a result of this judgment.
The judgment also opens the way for politicians to use public money to promote their own political agendas. Mogoeng made much of the need to protect innocent bystanders who did not choose for their property or persons to be damaged. Yet in the SATAWU case, Zille said she herself instructed lawyers to sue the union on behalf of individuals whose cars and other property had been damaged during the march. These individuals received the assistance of the DA because the case dovetailed with the bill the DA was trying to push unsuccessfully through Parliament. Zille has never made a similar offer to pay for lawyers for the blinded residents of Hangberg to sue the police who shot their eyes out, and this was clearly an ideologically skewed use of public funds rather than a genuine defence of ordinary people.
The judgment also opens the way for politicians to attempt to claim damages even where nothing has been damaged. Zille was furious five years ago when 93 Cape metro police protested by travelling in a pre-planned convoy for two hours along the N2 highway, bringing traffic to a standstill. The protest was entirely peaceful yet if it happened today, the city could make an attempt to quantify the time spent by commuters in the traffic jam as money, and sue for these costs.
A similar scenario is already unfolding in Australia where unions are fined for every day of an unprotected strike. Under the guise of saving the public from “havoc and turmoil”, political leaders in New South Wales are currently seeking to fine unions the equivalent of R1.5 million for every day of a wildcat strike – raising the fine from the current R150 000 a day.
In Australia, workers are individually fined if they embark on unprotected strikes. Earlier this year, 13 companies that claimed to have been affected by a seven-day strike at a construction company sued more than 1000 Australian workers for striking. These workers were fined a total of R56 million, suspended for seven years – as long as they didn’t strike again during that time. In this case, private companies were able to argue that the strike had “disrupted work on a site of economic significance to the Australian economy”, the Australian newspaper reported last month.
The Mogoeng judgment in favour of the DA and police minister Nathi Mthethwa has clearly started South Africa down a similarly slippery slope.
~
Majavu is a writer concentrating on the rights of workers, oppressed people, the environment, anti-militarism and what makes a better world.
Read more articles by Anna Majavu.
June 21, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | African National Congress, ANC, Cape Town, Helen Zille, Mogoeng, South Africa |
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Just before a midnight deadline, the Obama administration filed a 50-page brief this evening defending the secrecy surrounding the “targeted killing” program. The administration writes: “Whether or not the CIA has the authority to be, or is in fact, directly involved in targeted lethal operations remains classified.” The case concerns a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU last year for records concerning the targeted killing program generally as well as the killing of three American citizens in Yemen last year.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU:
“The notion that the CIA’s targeted killing program is still a secret is beyond absurd. Senior officials have discussed it, both on the record and off. They have taken credit for its putative successes, professed it to be legal, and dismissed concerns about civilian casualties. If they can make these claims to the media, they can answer requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The public is entitled to know more about the legal authority the administration is claiming and the way that the administration is using it. The administration should release the legal memos that purportedly justify the targeted killing program, and it should release more information about the process by which individuals, including American citizens, are added to government kill lists. It should also release the evidence that led the administration to kill three Americans, including a 16-year-old boy, last year.”
“We continue to have profound concerns with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the President should be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts. That the administration believes a power so sweeping should be exercised in secret is astounding.”
Today’s filing comes after the government sought several extensions to respond to the ACLU’s lawsuit. In its last request for an extension, the government stated to the court that it needed further time to allow for “deliberations at the highest levels of the Executive Branch.”
The government’s brief can be found here:
www.aclu.org/files/assets/https___ecf.nysd_.uscourts.gov_cgi-bin_show_temp.pl_file10176016-0–17573.pdf
CONTACT: ACLU national, media@aclu.org
June 21, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom of Information Act, Jameel Jaffer, Obama administration, United States |
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