Israel plans to forcibly transfer 40,000 Bedouin citizens
Jillian Kestler-D’Amours – The Electronic Intifada – 16 June 2011
A new Israeli proposal that would forcibly transfer more than 40,000 Bedouin citizens into government-planned townships in the Negev (Naqab) desert has raised the ire of Bedouin communities and their supporters, who say that the plan is both discriminatory and ignores the Bedouins’ historic connection to the land.
“[The Israeli government thinks] that the Bedouin are now like enemies, not like citizens or humans. We feel really like criminals,” said Dr. Awad Abu Freih, the spokesperson and resident of al-Araqib, one of approximately 45 so-called unrecognized villages in the Negev.
“Now we are very angry and we reject this plan. We will not accept it. We are working all the time to explain to our communities that this plan is very dangerous, it’s not good for us and not good for the Jews, not good for the state, not good for anybody. It’s very, very stupid; [it’s] a stupid plan,” Abu Freih told The Electronic Intifada.
Prawer Report a continuation of previous displacement schemes
The Prawer Report — named after Ehud Prawer, the Director of Planning Policy in Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, who headed the committee that wrote it — is an implementation plan of the findings of another Israeli governmental report released in 2008.
Known as the Goldberg Commission, the 2008 report examined the issue of so-called “Bedouin settlement” issues in the Negev. It found that “there is no justification for the state to treat the Bedouin residents in these communities differently from the way it treats the rest of the citizens of the state” and suggested legalizing most the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev so long as the location of these villages didn’t overlap with existing land settlement plans for the benefit of the Jewish population.
Unrecognized Bedouin villages don’t receive basic services from the state, including access to water, electricity, paved roads, education and health care. It is estimated that 90,000 persons — nearly half of the total Bedouin population of the Negev — currently live in unrecognized villages.
Despite its mandate, the Prawer Report veers away from the recommendations of the Goldberg Commission. Instead of promoting recognition, it suggests relocating 40 percent of the Bedouin population presently living in unrecognized villages and moving them into expanded areas of the seven Israeli government-planned Bedouin townships.
These townships, built by the Israeli government in an attempt to concentrate the Bedouin population into specific areas of the Negev, suffer from a serious lack of services and employment opportunities. They are largely viewed as dormitory towns: residents only sleep there and are forced to go outside of the town for nearly everything else they need.
The report states that the Israeli government would offer compensation for only 50 percent of the land the Bedouin currently control and have settled on. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on 2 June that the cost of their displacement is estimated at between six to eight billion Israeli shekels ($1.7 to $2.4 billion USD), including 1.2 billion shekels ($356 million) for economic development in “recognized” Bedouin communities (“Netanyahu’s office promoting plan to relocate 30,000 Bedouin,” 2 June 2011).
“I think that they will go with all their force to implement it. We [will] have to accept it by power. It will be a lot of demolitions and very violent. [There will be] policemen and a lot of actions that the government will do against us. They will attack us,” Abu Freih said.
According to the same report in Haaretz, the amount of compensation Bedouin citizens will receive in exchange for their lands will be reduced as time passes, and “after a five-year period, land which has not been the subject of the claim process will be registered as belonging to the state.”
While Bedouin citizens make up 30 percent of the population in the Negev, they only take up 2 percent of the area’s total land. Further, should all the Bedouins’ land claims be accepted by the state — including the legalization of the currently unrecognized villages and counting the government-planned townships — the Bedouins would control only 5.4 percent of the total land.
An Israeli government vote on the Prawer Report was scheduled for early June yet was postponed due to political pressure from right-wing parties, who argued that the plan gives too much land to the Bedouin. If approved, Israel hopes to implement the Prawer Report within a five-year period.
No consultation with Bedouin citizens
Dr. Thabet Abu Ras is a Professor of Political Geography at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Director of the Naqab Project for Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. He explained that the Prawer Report cannot be implemented for a variety of reasons, including most notably the fact that Bedouin citizens were never consulted.
“Nobody asked the Bedouin what they want, and really the whole Prawer Report is against the desires of the Bedouins. It treats the Bedouins as unequal citizens,” Abu Ras told The Electronic Intifada. “I think the Bedouins have been invisible people in the last sixty years. Unfortunately, they continue to be invisible citizens of the State of Israel after 63 years.”
Abu Ras said that the Prawer Report only is a continuation of existing Israeli policies of forcibly displacing the Bedouins from their lands and moving them into an urban setting. This plan to urbanize the Bedouins began in the early 1960s, and built on the previous transfer of Bedouin populations after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
“Let us remember that the Bedouins are citizens of the State of Israel and they are supposed to be equal citizens in the State of Israel. I am asking, who can [gain] anything from the frustration of the Bedouins? The Bedouins are very frustrated. There is an issue of mistrust and at the same time, they are saying, ‘We are willing to talk with you. There is enough room for everybody in the Naqab, for Jews as well as Bedouins. The development of the Naqab should not be at our expense,’” he said.
“The way I read Prawer Report,” Abu Ras added, “is that they [will] uproot people from 25 villages, 40,000 to 45,000 people, and push them to the townships.”
Bedouin communities forced into underserved townships
In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe found that an Israeli ethnic cleansing operation against Bedouin tribes in the Naqab began in the summer of 1948 under then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
“The Negev Bedouin had inhabited the region since the Byzantine period, and had been following their semi-nomadic way of life since at least 1500. There were 90,000 Bedouin in 1948, divided between 96 tribes, already in the process of establishing a land-ownership system, grazing rights and water access,” Pappe writes.
“Jewish troops immediately expelled eleven tribes, while they forced another nineteen into reservations that Israel defined as closed military areas, which meant they were allowed to leave only with a special permit.”
Known as the siyag — literally the “fenced area” — this largely barren, restricted area sat south and east of the town of Beir al-Sabe (now known as Be’er Sheva), and accounted for only 1.5 million dunams of the total area of the Negev region (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters). In the early 1960s, the Israeli government attempted to urbanize the Bedouin population in the Naqab by building three towns, Tel al-Sabe (Tel Sheva), Rahat and Kseife, in which to concentrate them.
Today, nearly half the Bedouin population in the Negev lives in seven government-planned townships in the northern Negev. These towns lack basic infrastructure, including transportation, schools and employment opportunities, and are the poorest towns in the country.
By comparison, the Israeli government allocated 17 billion shekels ($5 billion) into its “Negev 2015” development plan, which was launched in 2005 and primarily benefits the area’s Jewish residents. The ten-year project, among other things, aims to “strengthen [Jewish] settlement in the Negev” and increase the area’s population by 70 percent, up to 900,000 residents (“Government Launches Negev 2015 Plan Website,” Israeli Prime Minister’s Office website).
According to Dr. Awad Abu Freih, the fact that Bedouin citizens are only offered the option of urbanization — while Jewish citizens can live in many different types of communities — highlights the system of inequality and discrimination that exists in the Negev.
“We feel that this plan will make it very obvious that there [are] two peoples in the Negev. The Jews have recognized villages and they have agricultural villages and kibbutzim, [but the state wants to] take the Bedouin and concentrate them in very, very small cities, closed cities, very poor cities,” Abu Freih said.
“When they destroy our village, they will put Jews in the same place and they will have water, education and everything. This is apartheid. [It’s] very obvious it’s apartheid. It’s a new racism.”
Fighting the Prawer Report
A new umbrella organization called “Recognition Now” has been recently formed to fight for Bedouin land and civil rights in the Negev and coordinate between the various human rights groups and activists working on these issues.
Abu Freih, who acts as the coordinator of this new campaign, explained that Recognition Now’s first priority is educating the various Bedouin tribes and communities about what the Prawer Report really means, and convincing them not to accept it.
“We will be in all the tribes, all the villages and we will call all the world to help us. Maybe we will call the [United Nations] to defend us from the government actions,” said Abu Freih, adding that the international community must get involved to protect Bedouin citizens from the actions and future plans of the Israeli government.
“I want [people] to know that Israel is not a democratic state. It’s very far from that. It’s a very racist state and we know that there’s ethnic cleansing. It’s happening now, it’s not in the history only,” he said. “We want help to defend [ourselves] from the actions of the military and police.”
Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jkdamours.com.
Israeli Occupation Authority holds 72-year-old MP in administrative detention
Palestine Information Center – 15/06/2011
RAMALLAH — The Israeli court of Ofer, near Ramallah, ordered the administrative detention of Palestinian MP Ahmed Al-Haj for six months, without any charge.
Ahmed Al-Beitawi, a researcher with the international Tadamun foundation, said that the same court also ordered the administrative custody of lecturer Mustafa Al-Shinawi for four months. Both are to appear in court next Sunday where the verdicts will be pronounced.
Al-Beitawi described the decisions as “illegal” since administrative custody is arbitrary incarceration with no legal justification and with no indictment leveled against the detainee. He added that the Israeli intelligence is the party controlling the period of detention for each detainee.
Both Haj and Shinar were taken from their homes on 7/6/2011 in a campaign of arrests aimed at foiling the reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas.
Hamas lawmakers in Nablus denounced the ruling against their colleague, saying that it proved the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) had nothing solid against Haj.
They stressed that the Israeli policy of abducting representatives of the people would not succeed in curbing the people’s democratic choice.
The MPs drew the attention to the old age of Haj and his bad health condition, holding the IOA responsible for any harm that comes to him.
Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Adel Al-Gazzar Returns Home to Egypt and Is Arrested
By Andy Worthington | 14.6.11
Yesterday, former Guantánamo prisoner Adel al-Gazzar (aka Adel El-Gazzar), who had been living in Slovakia since being freed last January from America’s notorious prison on Cuban soil, returned, for the first time in ten years, to his home county, Egypt, where he was promptly arrested.
This was not because of anything he had done, but because, as a critic of the regime, he had left the country in 2001, and had been in Pakistan, undertaking humanitarian work in a refugee camp when he was caught in a US bombing raid (which, with subsequent medical neglect on the part of the US authorities, led to him losing a leg). As a result, following his departure from Egypt, he had been given a three-year sentence in absentia by the Egyptian State Security Court for his alleged part in a supposed plot that was known as al-Wa’ad.
This, as the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm explained, was “the first major terrorism case in Egypt” after the 9/11 attacks, in which the defendants — 94 in total — were charged with “attempting to overthrow former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime and infiltrate Palestinian territory.”
However, the case “was widely condemned as an attempt by Mubarak to suppress his Islamist opponents,” and this was an interpretation that carried considerable weight, as “[m]ore than half of the suspects were subsequently released.”
From America, Adel al-Gazzar’s attorney, Ahmed Ghappour, “call[ed] for the charges to be dropped.” By phone from New York, he told Al-Masry Al-Youm, “I think primarily they should be dismissed on humanitarian grounds because of what he suffered.” That was an assessment of al-Gazzar’s time in US custody, but reflecting on the Egyptian side of his story, and the trumped-up charges that led to his in absentia sentence, he added, “Such cases were often used as a tool by the Mubarak regime to silence dissent.”
Al-Gazzar’s story, in his own words, can be found in an extraordinary interview conducted in Slovakia last year by former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, but to recap briefly, as Ahmed Ghappour explained in a press release yesterday:
Mr. al-Gazzar was handed over to the US while recovering in a Pakistani hospital from injuries sustained while volunteering with the International Committee of the Red Crescent on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. He was hit by a US air strike while helping refugees displaced by the onset of war.
In the midst of his recovery, he was transferred to a US prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was subject to severe beatings, exposure to freezing temperatures, sleep deprivation for days on end, and suspension by the wrists. He received no medical attention during his time in Kandahar, and as a result, his leg was infected with gangrene so severe that it had to be amputated.
Ahmed Ghappour stated, “Mr. al-Gazzar has literally lost life and limb as a result of his unlawful detention by the United States. The last thing he deserves is to return to prison for a sham prosecution that was initiated by the abusive Mubarak regime.”
Nevertheless, he told Al-Masry Al-Youm of his concerns that al-Gazzar would be convicted and imprisoned after another sham trial, even after the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s hated regime. “The Egyptians have a track record of abuse and one that we’ve seen continued in the post-Mubarak era,” Ghappour said, reflecting on the mixed record of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took over the government after Mubarak’s resignation in February — on the one hand, the announcement of the trial, in August, of former President Mubarak, his two sons Gamal and Alaa and businessman Hussein Salem, who will face charges of “intentional murder, attempted murder of demonstrators, abuse of power to intentionally waste public funds and unlawfully profiting from public funds for them and for others,” but, on the other, the sentencing of at least 7,000 civilians in military courts since Hosni Mubarak was ousted, a much higher number than before the dictator’s fall.
“I think there is a bigger picture here, to be honest,” Ghappour added. “The question is: how will the transitional regime receive him, considering that the prosecution was based on a political crime of dissent? Does Mubarak’s departure mark a game change for the post-9/11 cases? Will he be treated differently because he was in Guantánamo Bay?”
That question has not yet been answered. As Al-Masry Al-Youm reported, “Following his arrest, the officers allowed [al-Gazzar’s] wife and four children to meet with him and check up on him at the airport after his lengthy absence from the country. The authorities then proceeded to begin the legal paperwork needed to send Gazzar to the prosecution so they could determine their position regarding his case.”
Abdul Ghappour also explained that he had spoken with al-Gazzar on Sunday, as he was preparing for his flight. “He seemed really hopeful to come back home,” he said, adding, “Mr. al-Gazzar, you’d call him a true patriot. He loves Egypt and he has been dying to go back home for 10 years to be reunited with his countrymen and his family.” As his London-based lawyers at Reprieve also explained:
He had not seen his family, including his wife and four children, for a decade. Efforts by his family to visit him in Slovakia were thwarted. And, recently, his mother suffered a cerebral haemorrhage which has left her paralysed and requiring full time care.
It is to be hoped that Adel al-Gazzar will be released soon, as he has already suffered more than enough. Held at Guantánamo for nine years despite being cleared for release back in 2004, he then found himself imprisoned again — in a detention center in Slovakia, described by local media as “a police detention facility for illegal migrants.” He and two other men released in Slovakia were held there while the government failed to sort out their status in the country, obliging al-Gazzar to embark on a hunger strike to raise awareness of their plight and secure them proper housing and residential status, but as another of his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, explained:
This is the third time Adel has been punished for completely unsubstantiated allegations. [His] persecution … makes a mockery of everything the revolution stands for. Where is the new dawn? Justice and the rule of law must return to Egypt. We hope the Egyptian military will put an end to Adel’s decade-long ordeal.
This is my hope too, as it would be deeply disturbing if, after all he has gone through, and everything that was done to avoid him being tortured in Egypt, he were to end up abused by the successors to Mubarak’s reign of terror.
Dark ironies nevertheless pepper this case. At the time of his release from Guantánamo, for example, when the US government complied with his request not to be repatriated to Egypt, as he feared torture at the hands of the Mubarak regime, everyone who supported his release — relieved that he had been freed after a six-year wait — politely refused to point out how grimly ironic it was that al-Gazzar — and another cleared Egyptian, Sharif al-Mishad, who was released in Albania in February 2010 — couldn’t be repatriated because of fears that they would be tortured by the same torturers who had been some of the Bush administration’s closest friends when it came to torturing other prisoners seized in the “War on Terror.”
Two of those unfortunate prisoners were Mamdouh Habib, the Australian citizen rendered by the CIA from Pakistan, whose torture was personally directed by Mubarak’s spy chief Omar Suleiman, and Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a Pakistani religious scholar rendered to torture from Indonesia, where he had been sorting out his late father’s affairs, on nothing more than the vaguest of hunches that he was involved in some way with terrorism (which he wasn’t).
There were others, detailed in an account I compiled for the United Nations in 2010, and undoubtedly others whose stories have not yet surfaced, but the most celebrated prisoner sent by the US to be tortured in Egypt was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of a training camp in Afghanistan, who, after being picked up crossing into Pakistan form Afghanistan in December 2001, was sent to Egypt, where, under torture, he falsely confessed that two al-Qaeda operatives had been meeting with Saddam Hussein to discuss the use of chemical and biological weapons. Although he recanted his false confession, it was used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. As for al-Libi, after his usefulness was finally exhausted, he was rendered back to Libya, where Colonel Gaddafi disposed of him in May 2009, telling the world that he had committed suicide in a prison cell.
On Tuesday, the next step took place in Adel al-Gazzar’s case, as reported in the Egyptian media. Via Mohamed Za’er, the director of the Egypt-based Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners, Daily News Egypt explained that, on Tuesday, military prosecutors had referred him to “an appeals prison not usually used for political prisoners.”
Daily News Egypt also reported that the verdict against al-Gazzar was “contested … before the military court” on Tuesday, noting also that the court “is expected to look into the case within 60 days.” Mohamed Za’er explained, “If approved, al-Gazzar will be granted a re-trial, though it is no longer a crime to be a member in an Islamist group following the January 25 Revolution. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood now has an official political party after being banned for years.”
That ought to be a good sign, but in Egypt, still caught between the end of Mubarak’s rule and a hoped-for transition to free and fair elections, nothing is certain.
~
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK)
Harper targeted First Nations for increased surveillance, fears Native “unrest,” newly released government documents show
Money for housing on reserves slashed, money for surveillance of Natives increased
Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa (IPSMO) – June 13, 2011
Newly exposed internal documents from Indian Affairs and the RCMP show that shortly after forming government in January of 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the federal government step up intelligence gathering on First Nations to anticipate and manage First Nations political action across Canada.
Information obtained by the First Nations Strategic Bulletin through Access to Information requests reveals that almost immediately upon Harper’s taking power in 2006, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) was given the lead role to spy on First Nations. The goal was to identify the First Nation leaders, participants and outside supporters of First Nation occupations and protests, and to closely monitor their actions.
To accomplish this task, INAC established a “Hot Spot Reporting System.” These weekly reports highlight all those communities across the country that engage in direct action to protect their lands and communities. They include Tsartlip First Nation, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, Six Nations, Grassy Narrows, the Likhts’amsiyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, and many more.
“Rather than listening to the needs of First Nations communities Harper is making plans to use force to stifle the dissent that inevitably arises from chronic poverty and dispossession in Native communities,” said Russell Diabo, Mohawk policy analyst, in response. “First Nations education and housing is chronically under-funded, but policing and surveillance of legitimate Indigenous movements is always a priority.”
The documents reveal that First Nations are a closely monitored population who are causing a panic at the highest levels of the Canadian government.
Says Gord Elliot of Tsartlip First Nation, “Obviously trust and good faith are expected when working with INAC, the RCMP and other agencies of the Government. We are outraged to discover these same Ministries are spying on us. We were identified as a ‘hotspot’ because we had a roadblock demonstration to voice our concerns about the Treaty process and non-acknowledgment of Section 35 Constitutional Rights and Title.
We felt we had no choice because the Canadian Government won’t acknowledge our Constitutionally protected Aboriginal Rights and Title.”
Israel Prevents Jerusalem Mufti From Traveling To Jordan
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 12, 2011
Israeli Authorities prevented Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, from traveling to Jordan to participate in a conference in Jordan.
The conference, Sheikh Sabri was invited to attend, was organised by the Jerusalem Cultural Forum, and the Jordanian Engineers Union.
The Mufti intended to highlight the situation in Jerusalem and its holy sites amidst the ongoing Israeli violations, in addition to highlighting the dire situation of the Palestinians in the occupied city suffering violations by the occupation and the illegal settlement movement.
Conference organisers said that the conference aims at shedding light on Israel’s escalating violations that target the Arab and Islamic history and culture of the holy city, and to come up with ideas to preserve the historic city and its culture in order to solidify the existence of its native Arab and Palestinian population.
Israel provided no ‘justification’ for denying the Mufti his right to travel.
Pro-Israelis Turning U.S. into Islamophobic Police State
Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 10, 2011
The recent call by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer for increased rail safety funding and the creation of a “no-ride” list for Amtrak trains is yet another reminder of just who is stoking fear of Muslims in America.
In an interview last year with a Jewish radio talk show in New York, Senator Schumer said he believed that HaShem (an Orthodox Jewish term for “God”) gave him the name “Schumer” — which means “guardian” — so that he could fulfill his “very important” role in the U.S. Senate as a “guardian of Israel.” Presumably, Schumer’s God-given role also includes turning the country he is actually paid to represent — the United States — into an Islamophobic police state.
Americans wondering what happened to their freedoms since 9/11 need to understand the key role played by ardent pro-Israelis like Schumer in undermining their civil liberties under the guise of protecting them from terrorism.
On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a bill to establish the Department of Homeland Security. Since then, “the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress” has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans accused of providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, i.e. groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that are legitimately resisting Israeli occupation and aggression. Lieberman, who was Barack Obama’s mentor when he entered the Senate, has even proposed a bill which would give the president the power to kill the Internet in the event of a so-called “national cyber-emergency.”
Although it would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joe Lieberman, Michael Chertoff runs him a close second. A mere 45 days after the September 11 attacks, the infamous 342-page document known as the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law. It was co-authored by Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. Chertoff, whose mother, Livia Eisen, was an El Al air hostess believed to have had links to the Mossad, was appointed secretary of Homeland Security in 2005, after having been endorsed for the job by Senators Schumer and Lieberman.
Since he left public service in 2009, Chertoff co-founded the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm, whose clients include a manufacturer of full-body scanning machines. After a young Nigerian without a passport — the so-called Christmas Day “underwear bomber” — was allowed, in the words of Haaretz, to “slip through” security at Schiphol Airport by the Israeli security firm, ICTS International (which was established by former members of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet), the former Homeland Security chief was all over the mainstream media touting full-body scanners as the answer to America’s airline security problems.
On September 11, 2001, within hours of planes having struck the World Trade Center (recently leased by an extraordinarily “lucky” Larry Silverstein, a friend of not one but four Israeli prime ministers), the then former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak dropped into the BBC studios in London to interpret what the attacks would mean for travellers’ civil liberties. “In this area, we will suffer,” Barak confidently suggested. “It will not be so easy to go aboard an airplane in the near future. But we have no way but to stand firm facing terror. Otherwise, all our way of life will be threatened.”
Later that evening, Benjamin Netanyahu let slip that the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans was “very good” for Israel. In particular, the mass murder proved to be very good for an emerging sector of the Israeli economy. In “Laboratory for a Fortressed World,” Naomi Klein detailed the post-9/11 “explosion of Israel’s homeland security sector.” Writing in 2007, Klein observed: “Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion — an increase of 20 percent.”
Consequently, Americans concerned about what “homeland security” is doing to their civil liberties need to be asking: Exactly whose “homeland” and whose “security” is being protected by the likes of Schumer, Lieberman and Chertoff?
It certainly isn’t America’s.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst.
Bahrain to try 400 peaceful protesters
Press TV – June 10, 2011
Bahrain’s opposition party al-Wefaq says the Manama regime is to put nearly 400 people on trial over their alleged roles in peaceful anti-regime protests.
The party said that up to 50 people have already been sentenced, with penalties ranging from a short prison term to execution, Reuters reported on Thursday.
A Bahraini government official, who demanded anonymity, rejected the opposition’s statement saying al-Wefaq’s trial data was exaggerated.
“It’s much less than that,” he said, but did not specify any number. … Full article
Bahraini activist: Military courts illegal
Press TV – June 10, 2011
A Bahraini political activist says the regime’s decision to put on trial nearly 400 people in military courts for taking part in anti-regime peaceful protests is illegal.
“How can one hold military trials without the martial law, which has already been lifted,” Saeed al-Shehabi, leader of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, told Press TV in an interview Thursday night.
“These courts are trying civilian people while they should be tried only in civilian courts as per law,” he said.
“I know many people are being tried for taking part in peaceful demonstrations,” al-Shehabi stated. “So these trials will backfire.”
When asked about a UN report that said Bahrain has accepted a UN mission in the country to examine reports of human rights violations during protests, Shehabi said that the UN has failed in its test and it has so far done nothing despite several complaints from international human rights organizations of violations committed by the ruling regime.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has been urged by Bahraini activists to send a commission to Bahrain, but nothing has happened, the activist said. … Full article
Mohammad Mahjoub: The life of a security certificate detainee
By sara falconer | Rabble | June 1, 2011
It’s a fresh spring day in Toronto, and Mohammad Mahjoub is experiencing something for the first time in over a year: the simple pleasure of small talk.
Since March 2010, Mahjoub, a security certificate detainee, was forbidden to speak to anyone he encountered in the few hours he was allowed outside. That one condition has now been lifted, but it’s a small comfort against the daily deprivation he continues to endure, under the harshest house arrest conditions in Canadian history.
And the kicker? He hasn’t been charged with a crime.
In 1995, Mahjoub fled political persecution in Egypt, where he had been tortured and imprisoned without trial. He was granted refugee status by Canada in 1996, and settled in Toronto, where he married Mona el Fouli and later had two sons, Ibrahim and Yusuf.
In June 2000, Mahjoub was arrested on a security certificate, a controversial measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that was used to indefinitely detain five Muslim men, without charges or trial, on secret evidence. They became known as the Secret Trial Five.
A 2007 Supreme Court ruling abolished the process, calling it unconstitutional. Eight months later, the Conservatives created Bill C-3, re-introducing security certificates with few substantial changes. Bill C-3 also failed to address what many view as a fundamental issue with the process: that matters of national security have no place being legislated in immigration policy, but should instead be dealt with under the Criminal Code. But the bill passed, and no time flat, secret trials were back in business.
For over a decade, Mahjoub has attempted to contest the certificate, fearing torture or worse if he is deported to Egypt. Throughout the process, he has denounced the conditions of his detention, resorting to a 76-day hunger strike in 2005 and losing 110 pounds before he was hospitalized. In 2006, he and three other members of the Secret Trial Five were transferred to a specially constructed, multi-million dollar facility in Kingston dubbed “Guantanamo North.” Mahjoub went on another hunger strike, this time lasting for 93 days before the Federal Court ordered him released in Feb. 2007.
But the conditions of his release were so severe that he described his home as a prison, and his family as reluctant guards. “His family were forced to act as his sureties,” says his lawyer, Yavar Hameed. “When they reported information to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), that information was not taken at face value. The CBSA would try to find ways to find them in violation… It was a very adversarial process with Canada Border Services, making it impossible for anyone to lead a normal life.”
In March 2009, Mahjoub asked to be returned to Guantanamo North, rather than continuing to subject his family to the constant surveillance and pressure from the CBSA and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). In early 2010, following yet another hunger strike, he was again released on house arrest. This time, he opted to protect his family from his conditions by moving into a small basement apartment on St. Clair West in Toronto.
“There is no liberty by any means under these severe conditions,” Mahjoub said in a recent recording. “It has massive mental, physical and psychological impact on me and my family… I don’t know what to do after 11 years.”
One of his infrequent visitors is Murray Lumley, who first became aware of Mahjoub’s case through a small group called Toronto Action for Social Change. He attended rallies at CSIS headquarters and wrote letters to his MP and government ministers, and eventually became one of Mahjoub’s court-approved “supervisors.” Lumley helps accompany him when he needs something outside of his authorized area, such as a lawyer visit or a new fax machine. “I would like people to know what an honourable man Mohammad is,” he says.
Despite a recent detention review that relaxed his conditions slightly, Mahjoub is still held under surveillance that is completely unprecedented in the judicial system in Canada. He wears a GPS tracking bracelet at all times. A camera outside his door monitors his every move, and he is only permitted to leave the house for four hours a day, and only within a few blocks of his apartment. CSIS monitors every phone call — in fact, they were caught listening to protected solicitor-client phone calls between Mahjoub and his lawyer, contrary to a court order.
He has limited contact with his wife and young sons, which Lumley says has been very difficult. “It is quite amazing to me that they have been so resilient in the face of such abuse — that seems to go on and on… While they do complain of the length of time taken from their lives, they still live with some hope that this may one day end.”
If it all sounds a bit Orwellian… it is, says Hameed, who specializes in immigration and refugee law work as well as national security cases. He has been representing Mahjoub since last August, and is deeply familiar with the security certificate process, having assisted Adil Charkaoui’s legal team with their Supreme Court appeals. Charkaoui won his case against a security certificate in 2009.
A series of public hearings to determine the “reasonableness” of the certificate against Mahjoub are expected to continue until mid-July, when the in camera part of the process begins. Hameed’s job is complicated by the fact that he is only given access to a small portion of the evidence against his client for reasons of “national security.” “There’s an understanding of what the basic allegation is, but what we don’t know… is the source of the information,” he explains. “It’s kind of like a puzzle trying to put it together.”
He knows, for instance that Mahjoub is accused of being a high-ranking member of the Vanguards of Conquest, a militant Islamic group that seeks to overthrow the Egyptian government. What’s missing is the source of the “intelligence” that led to the accusation. Much of the secret evidence being used against security certificate detainees is believed to have been obtained using torture by foreign agencies. Last summer, in a significant court victory, the Federal Court ruled that part of the evidence against Mahjoub was probably obtained using torture, and could not be accepted.
“Based on the evidence we see publicly, there is a flimsy case against Mr. Mahjoub. It’s supported by innuendo; it’s weak,” Hameed says. Some of the “sources” in the case include Internet articles from foreign news services. “We’re not actually talking about things that have been investigated… The kind of information that passes for evidence in the public case is what we call hearsay.”
Hameed is also skeptical of any claims that Mahjoub poses a potential future threat to Canadian security. “The argument is that [Mahjoub’s] liberty, the fact of his liberty, would act as sort of a beacon of radicalization for persons who would be interested in supporting terrorist or Islamic extremist views,” Hameed scoffs. “We were quite shocked to learn that that’s what the case is against him, going forward. The absurdity of this process… That is so offensive to the character of what it means to live in a free and democratic society.”
You can sign a petition calling for an end to security certificates at www.justiceforharkat.com.
Sara Falconer is a Toronto-based freelance journalist.
The Obama Surveillance State
By Margaret Kimberley | BAR | June 1, 2011
The state security apparatus which came into being during the Bush administration is now supported just as strongly, if not more so, under president Barack Obama. There has been no let up, no change in course for a system which becomes stronger with each passing day and which faces almost no political opposition.
The Obama justice department recently asserted that it can withhold classified information from a federal judge. Federal judges have security clearances and are permitted to see classified information in cases brought before them. The Obama justice department says that only the executive branch has the power to determine what information courts ought to have. The government attorney asserted, “There is no right for the plaintiff to give the court classified information at all.” The federal judge was so stunned that she described herself as “literally speechless” over the government claim that she ought to be kept in the dark.
The case in question is a remnant of the worst abuses brought about by the Bush administration, involving the kidnapping and rendition of Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan, Italy in 2003. A former CIA operative with State Department cover is now suing the federal government because it did not protect her right to diplomatic immunity. That operative was found guilty in absentia in an Italian court and faces arrest should she ever travel to Europe again. Now the Obama administration is once again protecting the Bush abuses which its supporters thought would now be long gone.
This is not the only instance of the current justice department moving forward with Bush administration prosecutions. Thomas Drake is a former employee of the National Security Administration now charged with violating the Espionage Act. He faces 35 years in prison, having been accused of giving documents to a reporter. Candidate Obama said he would protect the rights of whistle blowers, but now as president he tries to send them to jail. The Obama administration has brought five Espionage Act prosecutions to court, more than all other past administrations combined.
Not content to defend Bush era abuses, and send whistle blowers to jail, Obama and Congress have extended the Patriot Act, without changes, yet again. Two Democratic members of the intelligence committee, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, were not only among those who voted no, but they also exposed how the act is being interpreted in a new and dangerous way by the administration. The Obama justice department has decided to interpret the act in a way which it will not reveal to the public. In other words, the government has a secret way of determining what is and isn’t legal but will not share that secret with congress or with the people. Orwell and Kafka would find new sources of inspiration with this president.
When George W. Bush was president, I and many others often used the word fascism to describe the growth of government powers and the diminution of our rights. Now that those very same assertions of executive power are being made by Barack Obama, should we not continue to raise the same concerns?
The sad fact is that the surveillance state has strong bi-partisan support and it is likely to only expand. … Full article
Israel Escalates Arrests, Summons of Palestinians
WAFA – June 1, 2011
NABLUS – Israeli soldiers raided several areas of the West Bank Wednesday at dawn, arresting eight Palestinians.
Seven military vehicles raided Awarta village east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, photographing buildings in the old parts of the village, especially abandoned houses there, according to the head of the village council.
At dawn soldiers also broke into a number of houses in Qalqiliya, north of the West Bank, arresting and transferring five Palestinians to Israeli interrogation centers.
Israeli forces broke into Azzun village, east of Qalqilya, and arrested a 17 year old boy after searching his home.
In Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers handed two men from Husan village, west of the city, summons to report to the intelligence in Etzion, said security sources.
Security sources told WAFA that Israeli soldiers arrested three teenage brothers from Hebron, south of the West Bank. Sources also said soldiers raided several villages surrounding the city, set up checkpoints and stopped vehicles to check identification cards.
File photo, credit Ma’an Images.
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Book Review
‘Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison’: A Tale of Two Diaries
By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 13, 2026
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary reveals a “mind-numbing” contradiction between what the former top U.S. infectious disease official knew about COVID-19 and what he told the public, senior White House adviser Peter Navarro, Ph.D., said last week on “American Thought Leaders.”
In his new book, “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison,” due out Oct. 20, Navarro compares Fauci’s private entries to his own pandemic-era diary, and uses what he calls “a tale of two diaries” to argue that Fauci should face criminal prosecution.
“I show, actually, how a prosecution can and should happen … at the state level, most likely,” Navarro said. “He should wind up in prison, and we’ve got the receipts in this book to put him there.”
Navarro said Fauci repeatedly acknowledged important facts in private, then publicly pursued policies that contradicted those facts — with devastating consequences.
“What he says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements that it’s mind-numbing,” Navarro said.
Navarro examines the lasting damage caused by lockdowns and other pandemic policies, and the ongoing toll of long COVID.
His book also addresses questions about vaccine safety, including why healthy young people faced COVID-19 vaccination mandates despite concerns about myocarditis, and why women were not warned about miscarriage risks linked to the shots. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trump asks Iran not to retaliate after he strikes Pickaxe Mountain – w/ Prof. Marandi
- Vice President J.D. Vance’s Deceptive ‘Antiwar’ Campaign Speech
- Iran: Palestinians’ rights must not be compromised in Gaza’s future; US, Israel to blame for Hormuz situation
- Ongoing tales of Syrian chemical weapons
- Moscow blasts UN for ignoring torture of Russian POWs
- Millions of Books Could Have Been Destroyed in Lebanon During Israeli Bombings
- Moscow warns of ‘hunt for Russians’
- Calling of an Angel: The True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine Called Essiac (1988)
- South Korean Assistance to the U.S. in the War with Iran: Between Allied Duty and National Interests
- Pharma- and Gates-Funded GAVI Seeks to Assure Parents
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli soldiers debunk Israel’s talking points
- In West Bank, Israeli settlers are totally out of control – Daily Update
- NPR investigation finds evidence of widespread fraud at mall kiosks tied to Israeli skincare brand
- Tucker Carlson exposes Israeli Lies about the Oct 7th attack, Charlie Kirk, and the U.S.
- Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian children since Oct 7th – over half spent time in solitary, many uncharged
- Israeli Analysis: Is Netanyahu Planning an ‘October Surprise’ Attack Before Israel’s Election?
- Israeli settlers brutally attack Palestinians and Washington Post female photographer, 65
- Words Have Changed, Occupation Continues: The Reality of the Gaza Ceasefire
- Gaza’s child amputees are growing faster than their prosthetics allow
- Israel keeps Palestinians struggling just to survive–Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
