By Glenn Greenwald | Salon.com | February 14, 2010
Ten American Baptists were arrested two weeks ago in Haiti on charges that they exploited the chaos in that country by attempting to smuggle 33 young Haitian children across the border without permission — either to bring them to a life of Christianity or (as some evidence suggests) to filter them into a child trafficking ring. National Review‘s Kathryn Jean Lopez is deeply upset by the plight of at least one of the detained Americans, Jim Allen, whom she contends (based exclusively on his family’s claims) is innocent. Lopez demands that the State Department do more to “insist” upon Allen’s release, and — most amazingly of all — complains about the conditions of his detention. She has the audacity to cite a Human Rights Watch description of prison conditions in Haiti as “inhumane.” Lopez complains that Allen was waterboarded, stripped, frozen and beaten has “hypertension,” was shipped thousands of miles away to a secret black site beyond the reach of the ICRC and then rendered to Jordan allowed to speak to his wife only once in the first ten days of his confinement, and was consigned to years in an island-prison cage with no charges denied his choice of counsel for a few days (though he is now duly represented in Haitian courts by a large team of American lawyers).
You know what else Human Rights Watch vehemently condemns as human rights abuses? Guantanamo, military commissions, denial of civilian trials, indefinite detention, America’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” renditions, and a whole slew of other practices that are far more severe than the conditions in Haiti about which Lopez complains and yet which have been vocally supported by National Review. In fact, Lopez’s plea for Allen is surrounded at National Review by multiple and increasingly strident attacks on the Obama administration by former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino for (allegedly) abandoning those very policies, as well as countless posts from former Bush speechwriter (and the newest Washington Post columnist) Marc Thiessen promoting his new book defending torture. Lopez herself has repeatedly cheerled for Guantanamo and related policies, hailing Mitt Romney’s call in a GOP debate that we “double Guantanamo” as his “best answer” and saying she disagrees with John McCain’s anti-torture views, while mocking human rights concerns with the term “Club Gitmo.” And National Review itself has led an endless attack on the credibility of Human Rights Watch, accusing it of anti-Israel and anti-American bias for daring to point out the human rights abuses perpetrated by those countries.
What’s going on here is quite clear, quite odious, and quite common. It goes without saying that because he hasn’t yet had a trial, Allen could be perfectly innocent, or he could be guilty of some rather heinous crimes — just as is true of Guantanamo detainees held for years without charges or a trial (indeed, even with Haiti virtually destroyed under rubble, Allen — unlike GITMO detainees — is receiving full due process). Why would National Review — which endorses far worse abuses when perpetrated on Muslims convicted of nothing — take up the cause of an accused child smuggler and possible child trafficker, and suddenly find such grave concern over detainee conditions? Or, to use their warped vernacular, which equates unproven accusations with guilt, why would National Review be advocating for the rights of child kidnappers and child traffickers? Because, as a Christian, Allen is deemed by National Review to deserve basic human rights, unlike the Muslim detainees whose (far worse) abuse they have long supported [in stark and commendable contrast to National Review, Southern Baptist leaders are also demanding that the Obama administration do more to secure the release of Allen and his fellow prisoners, but they at least have standing and credibility to do so, as the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the leading Southern Baptist ethicist all condemned Bush policies as “torture” which “violates everything we stand for,” although they did that quite belatedly].
All of this is reminiscent of the single greatest act of self-satire I encountered since I began writing about politics: in September, 2006, three Indonesian Christians were convicted in a regular Indonesian court of a brutal terrorist attack that left 70 Muslims dead, and they were sentenced to death. Michelle Malkin and various other right-wing agitators — who not only cheered on every radical Bush/Cheney denial of due process and punishment without trial for Muslims, but demanded even more extreme measures — righteously took up the cause of these Christian Terrorists, expressing “grave doubts raised over the fairness of the trial,” citing “irregularities” in the trial they received, and even calling upon the “International Criminal Court in Geneva” to intervene — seriously (this behavior from GOP Sen. Mel Martinez, in a different case, was quite similar). The very same people who have been demanding for years that Muslims be imprisoned for life, tortured and killed with no trials or charges of any kind suddenly become extremely sensitive to the nuances of due process and humane detention conditions — they start sounding like Amnesty International civil liberties extremists — the minute it’s a Christian, rather than a Muslim, who is subjected to such treatment. Lest anyone think these glaring double standards are driven more by nationality than religion, National Review — along with most of their comrades — supported the full denial of due process in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S.-born American citizen and Muslim who was tortured to the point of insanity, and it now does the same with U.S.-born American citizen and Muslim Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the U.S. is currently trying to assassinate.
The only thing worse than someone completely indifferent to human rights abuses when committed by their own government is someone whose concern for such matters is dictated by the religion or other demographic attributes of those whose basic rights are being denied. That’s the same mentality that leads our media to treat American journalists held by Evil Foreign Governments for a few weeks under dubious circumstances as screeching headline-making news, while ignoring almost completely those foreign (Muslim) journalists held by the U.S. Government for years without charges. How many Americans know and are outraged about Iran’s detention of Roxana Saberi, all while being completely ignorant of the numerous Muslim journalists held for years by the U.S., including a Reuters photojournalist, Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, finally released last week after being held by the U.S. military for 17 months with no charges and even after an Iraqi court ordered him released? It’s the same mentality that allows the U.S. Government, with a straight face, to issue reports condemning as “torture” the very techniques we used, to protest indefinite detention, extra-judicial killings and lawless eavesdropping when engaged in by other countries, and to demand that other countries prosecute their war criminals and torturers in the name of “the rule of law” (while our own are feted on TV shows and given regular newspaper columns to glorify the torture and other war crimes they implemented).
Would you rather be an American wrongfully accused of child trafficking even in the post-earthquake Haitian justice system (complete with lawyers, access to courts, and full due process), or a Muslim wrongly accused of Terrorism by the U.S. Government (and put in a black hole for years with no rights)? To ask the question is to answer it. The primary duty of a citizen is to protest bad acts by their own government. If you’re acquiescing to or even endorsing serious human rights abuses by your own government, then it’s not only morally absurd — but laughably ineffective — to parade around as some sort of human rights crusader when it comes time to protest the treatment of one of your own, however you might define that. It might produce some soothing feelings of self-satisfaction, but nobody will remotely take that seriously, nor should they.
UPDATE: Numerous commenters have argued that factors other than religion — such as American exceptionalism, race and Terrorism fears — play a role in these double standards. That’s undoubtedly true. As usual, it’s self-blinding, adolescent tribalism that is driving this behavior (my group is better), which is what I meant when I criticized those who endorse human rights abuses for Others but then “parade around as some sort of human rights crusader when it comes time to protest the treatment of one of your own, however you might define that.” I didn’t mean to imply that religion was the only factor at play here. It clearly isn’t. But in this particular case, it’s a significant one.
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February 14, 2010
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Civil Liberties, Supremacism, Social Darwinism |
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By Peter Sayer | Tech World | February 12, 2010
French lawmakers will vote next Tuesday on a proposal to filter Internet traffic. Part of a new security bill, the measure is intended to catch child pornographers, but critics say it won’t succeed. Once the filtering system is in place, though, it will allow the government to censor other material too.
The National Assembly has already spent two days debating the grandly titled “Bill on direction and planning for the performance of domestic security,” known as Loppsi II in French, with deputies voting to reject all the amendments that sought to limit the Internet filtration provisions.
The bill, though, is not so much a single direction, as more a patchwork of unrelated measures. It aims to increase the amount the police spend on “security,” multiply penalties for counterfeiting checks or credit cards, increase use of CCTV cameras, extend access to the police national DNA database, and authorize the seizure of vehicles driven without a license.
The bill also seeks to modernize the law to encompass the Internet, criminalizing online identity theft, allowing police to tap Internet connections as well as phone lines during investigations and targeting child pornography by ordering ISPs to filter Internet connections.
The bill requires ISPs to block access to any Internet address if authorities consider that this is required to prevent distribution of pornographic images of minors.
Deputies had sought to amend the text to require blocking only of specific URLs or documents, not of entire sites, so as to reduce “collateral damage,” and to require that a judge review the list of blocked URLs each month to ensure that sites were not needlessly blocked. Those amendments were, however, rejected, as was one making the filters a temporary, experimental measure until their effectiveness was proven.
Critics of the bill make clear that they, too, are against the distribution of child pornography – but that filtering is the wrong way to go about it.
Fabrice Epelboin, journalist and author of a report (in French) on the business of child pornography, warns that filtering URLs will have no effect, as distributors of such materials are already using encrypted peer-to-peer systems to deliver their wares.
And La Quadrature du Net, a lobby group promoting rights and freedoms on the Internet, accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of shamelessly exploiting the protection of childhood to censor the Internet.
“The securitarian machinery of the government is being deployed in an attempt to control the Internet at the expense of freedoms”, said Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.
In January, Sarkozy told members of the French music and publishing industries that authorities should experiment with filtering in order to automatically remove all forms of piracy from the Internet.
The government has declared the Loppsi II bill “urgent,” so instead of the usual cycle of four readings, after the National Assembly’s vote, it will go on to the Senate for a second and final reading.
Source
February 13, 2010
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance |
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Mr Bordaberry is currently under house arrest and in poor health
|
BBC | February 11, 2010
A former president of Uruguay, Juan Maria Bordaberry, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for his involvement in a coup in 1973.
He was convicted of the murder of two opposition supporters, whose bodies were found in recent years, and of the disappearance of nine others.
Bordaberry, now 81, was elected in 1971 and dissolved Congress two years later with the backing of the military.
He is currently under house arrest and suffering from ill health.
Bordaberry is the second former Uruguayan ruler to be sentenced in the last three months as the country tackles the legacy of years of dictatorship.
Thousands of people disappeared during Uruguay’s repressive military rule which finally ended in 1985.
Some 180 Uruguayans were killed during military rule, many of them in neighbouring Argentina.
Human rights groups say the killings were the result of secret co-operation between the military governments in power at the time in Uruguay and Argentina.
Last October former military ruler Gregorio Alvarez was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder and human rights violations.
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February 13, 2010
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Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance |
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PIC | 13-02-2010
Al-KHALIL — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) killed a Palestinian citizen from Al-Khalil city, south of the West Bank, in cold blood Friday evening, alleging that he tried to stab one of their soldiers.
Medical sources told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that Fayez Faraj, 41, was shot dead without warning by Israeli soldiers during his presence in the Shalala street in the city, noting that there were no clashes in the area.
The sources added that the IOF troops kidnapped the citizen despite the fact that he was seriously bleeding and took him to an unknown destination before declaring his death.
In a related context, the Palestinian center for human rights said in its weekly report that Israeli violations of international and humanitarian law escalated in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the week extending from 4 to 10 February 2010.
The report pointed out that during the week, the IOF troops wounded seven Palestinian civilians including two cameramen and a child in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and in Sha’fat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem.
In the Gaza Strip, IOF troops launched a series of aerial, naval and land attacks on civilian targets in Gaza. They also detained four fishermen for several hours, confiscated two fishing boats and bombarded Gaza international airport.
During the reporting period, IOF troops carried out at least 22 military incursions into West Bank areas and kidnapped 32 Palestinian civilians, including seven children, one woman, and two international human rights activists. They also detained 60 others in Sha’fat refugee camp.
On 10 February 2010, following the identification of a Palestinian who allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier near Za’tara checkpoint, south of Nablus, IOF troops stormed Al-Kheljan village, southwest of Jenin, raiding and ransacking a number of houses, including the home belonging to the family of this Palestinian, Mahmoud al-Khatib.
They ordered the family to vacate the house in order to demolish it and withdrew from the village at night after kidnapping six Palestinian civilians, including Al-Khatib’s four brothers.
The report also talked about settlement activities and Israeli settlers’ continued attacks on Palestinian civilians and property as well as the severe restrictions imposed on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank including east Jerusalem and the tight blockade on Gaza.
Source
February 13, 2010
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture |
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By Philip Giraldi | February 13, 2010
“I am a Roman citizen” was a proud boast in the first century A.D. It implied the obligations of citizenship but also guaranteed privileges and rights that would be observed and protected by the Roman government. Among those rights was the ability to demand one’s day in court to produce evidence if accused of a crime. No citizen could be tortured and the death penalty was reserved for cases of treason. Some might recall that the Roman citizen Apostle Paul of Tarsus, placed under arrest in Jerusalem, successfully claimed his right to appeal to the Emperor and ask for trial in Rome. He was duly transported to the capital city to be tried.
It was not so long ago that “I am an American citizen” might have had a similar resonance. Embattled farmers at Lexington and Concord fired the shot heard round the world, the start of the first successful revolution staged by a colony against a European monarch. The founders of the United States sealed the victory with a Constitution which was intended to guarantee in perpetuity the rights and freedoms that their fellow Americans had fought and died for. Those freedoms were enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment states that no American can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” And then there is the Sixth Amendment: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State,…and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”
Fast-forward two centuries to find that the United States Congress and a President, now defined by some as a unitary executive, have done much to dismantle the rights and privileges that once defined American citizenship. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution. It is better known as the Patriot Act I. Patriot Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the twin towers and was followed by the the Patriot Act II of 2006, the two laws together diminishing constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and freedom from the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of October 17th, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal to the process.
The Military Commission Act of 2006 followed the Patriot Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without providing access to a lawyer or charging with a crime. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even on information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information being used against them and cannot cross examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.
Those concerned about civil liberties could have predicted that worse might be coming and it has, it seems, finally arrived. On February 3rd Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told members of the House Intelligence Committee that the United States government can kill American citizens overseas who are “taking action that threatens Americans.” Blair reportedly was revealing a secret policy that has been in place since the Bush Administration. It is the ultimate irony that Blair is representing the new Administration in Washington headed by President Barack Obama, who had, during his campaign, opposed the infringements on liberties inherent in the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts. Instead of confining those Acts to the dustbin, Obama has continued them and has also strengthened his Administration’s ability to use the state secrets privilege to silence criticism and dissent.
Blair’s remarks ought to mortify every American citizen but instead have attracted very little critical commentary. They should be examined in some detail. He told the congressmen that the intelligence agencies and Department of Defense would “follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures that are very carefully observed.” That, in all probability, means that if actionable intelligence indicating that an American citizen who is suspected of ties to a sanctioned group is developed a US government lawyer and senior bureaucrat can get together and decide that he should be killed. As the criteria for that decision are secret there is no way to know if there is any kind of rational due process involved.
There are reported to be three American citizens who are on the current hit list, including US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who has been connected to the US Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan, responsible for the November 2009 Fort Hood Texas shooting incident, and also to Christmas underwear bomber Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Al-Aulaqi denies any connection to any terrorist conspiracy and the evidence that he or any other individual is actually planning to kill fellow Americans is subject to the usual problem, i.e. that intelligence can be and frequently is wrong or inadequate while divining the intentions of any individual is most often sheer speculation. It all comes down to an official deciding that someone is a terrorist without the government having to prove its case with the penalty for the unfortunate suspect being death.
Blair then went on to explain in more detail, saying “We’re not careless about endangering American lives as we try to carry out the policies to protect most of the country” adding “We don’t target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans.” A question from Representative Peter Hoekstra revealed the mindset behind the policy in asking what to “do when it comes to Americans who have joined the enemy.” Blair responded that the intelligence community will take “direct action” against terrorist citizens when “that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans.”
It doesn’t take a genius to see the flaws in the policy, beyond the semantic problems with an assassination program that protects “most of the country” and presumably leaves everyone else vulnerable. Few would dispute the US government’s right to kill someone who is acting in flagrante, either planting a bomb or participating with a group of armed insurgents to kill American soldiers or civilians. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a US citizen who is living overseas being accused of a capital crime based on secret evidence and being assassinated under orders of the President of the United States. He is not necessarily killed while engaged in an act that directly threatens American citizens but rather can be assassinated when he is asleep with his family, traveling in a car with associates, or having dinner in a restaurant. Anyone unfortunate enough to be near him will quite likely also die. And the suspect has no appeal in the process and no ability to have his day in court to demonstrate that the evidence against him might be wrong.
Anyone who has followed the intelligence narratives linked to the so-called global war on terror now-called overseas contingency operations realizes that intelligence is often flawed or deliberately faked. Most of those arrested on terrorism charges in the US are never charged as terrorists. Overseas, note how many civilians have been killed by drone strikes in AfPak. By one estimate in the Pakistani media, 700 civilians have been killed in Pakistan by drones in attacks that have killed only five militants while the Brookings Institute believes the ratio is more like ten to one. So to my mind, Anwar al-Awlaki and the others on the government hit list are innocent until proven guilty and all are entitled to their day in court, the same rights that I would like to enjoy if I were accused of a crime.
Blair also opens the door wide to extending the practice of killing Americans. He says that the US government can target anyone “involved” with a group that threatens to attack American targets. Well, involvement can mean anything from contributing to a charity that is tied to an organization that the US calls terrorist to sending a letter to the local newspaper defending a group’s actions. Where does it stop? And Blair’s claim that the US government is not interested in targeting free speech is essentially hollow because his own elastic definition of his authority permits him pretty much to go wherever he wants to when it comes to killing whomever he presumes to be a terrorist.
Obama’s decision to assassinate Americans overseas without any due process might well be viewed as an inevitable development from the established practice of killing foreigners using hellfire missiles fired from unmanned drones in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The United States has not declared war on any of those countries yet it reserves to itself the right to attack and kill local residents based on information that it does not subsequently have to reveal. This process is given a legal fig leaf by the US assertion that anyone connected to a terrorist group can be killed anywhere in the world and at any time. It assumes that in such matters the United States has extraterritorial jurisdiction, a claim that no other nation makes and which might reasonably be contested by those on the receiving end. It also does not require the President of the United States to prove his case that someone actually was a terrorist.
The role of the Washington as the Lord High Executioner for the world is tough to reconcile with the high idealism of the Founders as expressed in the Bill of Rights. It also begs the question of where it might go from here. Now that the government is not being challenged in its belief that it can assassinate American citizens anywhere overseas it is perhaps not too much to suggest that killing Americans at home will also become more acceptable to a public that has been properly prepped through fear of terrorism. Indeed, some might argue that Waco and Ruby Ridge demonstrate that that process is already far advanced. Dennis Blair’s comments should serve as a wakeup call for all Americans who care about their liberties, but it is possibly too late. The tepid reaction in the media and from congress reveals that just another few deaths, even if they are American citizens, really don’t matter very much anymore.
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February 13, 2010
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite |
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CQ Politics | February 11, 2010
The Senate may vote on a second temporary extension of several controversial counterterrorism authorities as part of the jobs bill unveiled Thursday.
The draft bill carries language that would extend until Dec. 31 three expiring provisions of the antiterrorism law known as the Patriot Act.
The three provisions were set to expire at the end of 2009. But neither House nor Senate Democratic leaders evinced any appetite for tackling a substantive rewrite of the law last year. In December, Congress cleared a short-term re-authorization until Feb. 28, as part of the fiscal 2010 Defense appropriations bill.
One of the expiring provisions allows the government to seek orders from a special federal court for “any tangible thing” that it says is related to a terrorism investigation. Another allows the government to seek court orders for roving wiretaps on terrorism suspects who shift their modes of communication.
The third provision allows the government to apply to the special court for surveillance orders involving suspected “lone wolf” terrorists who do not necessarily have ties to a larger organization. That authority was first enacted as part of a 2004 intelligence overhaul law. In September, the Justice Department told lawmakers that the provision had never been used.
The administration wants lawmakers to pass a long-term reauthorization of all the expiring provisions, with as few changes as possible. House and Senate Republicans also favor that approach.
What little legislative battling there has been so far has been both a partisan fight and an intramural one among House and Senate Democrats.
The lack of congressional focus on the issue last year frustrated civil libertarians who wanted lawmakers to undertake a broader review of counterterrorism laws enacted during George W. Bush ’s presidency.
If lawmakers reauthorize the expiring provisions until Dec. 31, they would avoid having to address the issue until after the November midterm elections.
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February 12, 2010
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Civil Liberties |
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By Seriously Free Speech | February 11, 2010
Israel’s siege of Gaza has made it a “closed zone” – no access, no exit, cut off from the world. By attempting to shut down criticism of Israel’s practices, Canadian supporters of the government of Israel are creating another “closed zone” in Canada – in which criticism, open debate, and freedom of expression will not be allowed.
Who is doing this? Quietly, without authority from Parliament, an all-party group which calls itself the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA) has been formed to investigate antisemitism in Canada. Not antisemitism as it is traditionally understood: discrimination against or denial of the right of Jews to live as equal members of society. (Members of this Coalition are well aware that traditional antisemitism exists only among fringe groups in Canada.)
Instead, their focus is on something they label as the “new antisemitism” — which they define as criticism of the State of Israel!
WHAT IS THE CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY COALITION TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM?
Whenever criticism of Israel increases, as it did in the wake of Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon and after the 2009 Gaza massacre, organizations supporting the State of Israel insist that this is a symptom of a “new antisemitism”. This argument is designed to deflect attention from Israel’s real crimes by smearing those who criticise Israel.
The CPCCA, which is integral to the effort to protect Israel from criticism, was formed in March, 2009. It is comprised of twenty-two Parliamentarians, including members of all four parties in the House of Commons. Jason Kenney, the Harper government’s Minister of Citizen, Immigration and Multi-Culturalism and the Conservative government’s point person on Israel, and Irwin Cotler, former Liberal Justice Minister and long time supporter of Israel, are ex-officio members. (For a full list of committee members and more details on this committee go to http://www.cpcca.ca)
The CPCCA was publicly launched on June 2, 2009 with a call for written submissions “to consider evidence on the nature of antisemitism….and consider further measures that might be usefully introduced”. It received more than 150 submissions. Contrary to commitments made by CPCCA’s executive director Monica Kugelnass, however, most of these submissions have not been posted on its website. Nor has the CPCCA fulfilled its commitment to reveal the source of its funding.
CPCCA Working Group of the Seriously Free Speech Committee, PO Box 57112, RPO E. Hastings St., Vancouver, BC V5K 1Z0
Website: http://www.seriouslyfreespeech.ca Email: info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca
CREATING A CLOSED ZONE IN CANADA*
Seriously Free Speech Committee Honourary Members Include: Ali Abunimah Tariq Ali Dr. Federico Allodi The Rev. Robert Assaly Omar Barghouti Michael Byers Noam Chomsky Libby Davies VANCOUVER – In a direct attack on freedom of expression, media giant Canwest has launched an unprecedented civil lawsuit against Vancouver-area activists for “conspiring” to *Yani Goodman, The Closed Zone, animation on the seige of Gaza, http://www.closedzone.com
WHAT IS THE CPCCA UP TO?
The CPCCA began public hearings in Ottawa on Nov. 2, 2009. Almost without exception, none of the many organizations that submitted briefs critical of the CPCCA’s mandate or which criticized the notion of a “new antisemitism” were invited to make presentations to the inquiry panel. Meanwhile, representatives of organizations which did not submit briefs, including university presidents and representatives of police departments, were called as witnesses. Clearly the CPCCA anticipated that these submissions would support their preordained conclusion that the new antisemitism was a large and growing problem in urgent need of legislative response.
The CPCCA will issue a report at the conclusion of these hearings and “anticipates that the Government will respond to this report no later than the fall of 2010”. The Coalition’s stated objective is to include criticism of Israel in an expanded version of existing Hate Crimes legislation. In addition, consideration is being given to doing something similar with respect to Canadian Human Rights legislation. Canada, viewed by Israel as one of its strongest supporters, could then provide a model for similar legislative undertakings in other countries.
WHAT IS AT STAKE?
The essence of the “new antisemitism” campaign is an attempt to conflate discrimination against Jews – something which is as illegitimate as any other form of racism and discrimination and must be opposed – with criticism of the State of Israel, its actions, or its governing ideology, Zionism. It is the view of CPCCA ex-officio member Irwin Cotler, Israel is “the collective Jew among nations.” From this perspective, criticizing Israel is the same as discriminating against Jews.
At a time when racism and bigotry against many communities in Canada — First Nations, Muslims, South Asians and Chinese, Haitians among them – constitute a much greater problem than antisemitism, it is not clear why the Coalition has chosen to focus its attention solely on the latter.
The CPCCA accepts some criticism of Israel may be legitimate. But it also declares that criticism of Israel as a Jewish State – rather than a state where all citizens enjoy equal rights – is inherently antisemitic. That calling Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian citizens apartheid is antisemitic. And that supporting the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign by those determined to change Israel’s behaviour is antisemitic.
Ironically if this expanded definition of antisemitism becomes legislation, it will be possible to criticize the actions of the Canadian government but not those of the government of Israel. Just the fear of being prosecuted is likely to create a “chill” on both university campuses and in the media. But why should Israel be the one country in the world we are not allowed to criticize?
Moreover, branding those who criticise Israel as “antisemitic” is part of a campaign to help organizations such as the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and B’nai Brith — which provide uncritical support for Israel – put themselves forward as the only legitimate representatives of Canadian Jews. While there are many Jewish organizations and individuals, both within Israel and throughout the world, whose views on Israel differ dramatically from those of the CJC and B’nai Brith, the CPCCA is not interested in hearing from those voices.
The SFSC insists that criticizing Israel is not antisemitic and that restricting debate on the illegal occupation of Gaza and the apartheid nature of Israel society will only allow the continued oppression of the Palestinian people and make a mockery of political free expression in Canada. If we keep silent about the CPCCA, even a document like the one you are reading may ultimately be considered illegal.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Become informed. Go to seriouslyfreespeech.wordpress.com/cpcca/ to learn more about the CPCCA and read submissions by the Seriously Free Speech Committee and other organizations.
• Send us your email address at info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca and be kept up-to-date.
• Contact your MP and tell them you are opposed to their parties participating in the CPCCA.
• Help us spread the word about the CPCCA. Invite us at info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca to speak to your union, community group or church.
CPCCA Working Group of the Seriously Free Speech Committee, PO Box 57112, RPO E. Hastings St., Vancouver, BC V5K 1Z0
Website: www.seriouslyfreespeech.ca Email: info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca
February 12, 2010
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Supremacism, Social Darwinism |
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Current law prohibits ambiguous sorts of help — “training,” “personnel,” “expert advice or assistance” and “service.”
By Adam Liptak | New York Times | February 10, 2010
WASHINGTON — Ralph D. Fertig, a 79-year-old civil rights lawyer, says he would like to help a militant Kurdish group in Turkey find peaceful ways to achieve its goals. But he fears prosecution under a law banning even benign assistance to groups said to engage in terrorism.
Ralph D. Fertig, a civil rights lawyer, is challenging a law that bans even benign assistance to groups said to engage in terrorism.
The Supreme Court will soon hear Mr. Fertig’s challenge to the law, in a case that pits First Amendment freedoms against the government’s efforts to combat terrorism. The case represents the court’s first encounter with the free speech and association rights of American citizens in the context of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks — and its first chance to test the constitutionality of a provision of the USA Patriot Act.
Opponents of the law, which bans providing “material support” to terrorist organizations, say it violates American values in ways that would have made Senator Joseph R. McCarthy blush during the witch hunts of the cold war. […]
“Congress wants these organizations to be radioactive,” Douglas N. Letter, a Justice Department lawyer, said in a 2007 appeals court argument in the case, referring to the dozens of groups that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department.
Mr. Letter said it would be a crime for a lawyer to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a designated organization in Mr. Fertig’s case or “to be assisting terrorist organizations in making presentations to the U.N., to television, to a newspaper.”
It would be no excuse, Mr. Letter went on, “to be saying, ‘I want to help them in a good way.’ ” […]
Mr. Fertig is president of the Humanitarian Law Project, a nonprofit group that has a long history of mediating international conflicts and promoting human rights. He and the project, along with a doctor and several other groups, sued to strike down the material-support law in 1998.
Two years earlier, passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act had made it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the State Department had designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.” The definition of material support included “training” and “personnel.” Later versions of the law, including amendments in the USA Patriot Act, added “expert advice or assistance” and “service.”
In 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright designated some 30 groups under the law, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Khmer Rouge and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The United States says the Kurdish group, sometimes called the P.K.K., has engaged in widespread terrorist activities, including bombings and kidnappings, and “has waged a violent insurgency that has claimed over 22,000 lives.”
The litigation has bounced around in the lower courts for more than a decade as the law was amended and as it took on a central role in terrorism cases. Since 2001, the government says, it has prosecuted about 150 defendants for violating the material-support law, obtaining roughly 75 convictions.
The latest appeals court decision in Mr. Fertig’s case, in 2007, ruled that the bans on training, service and some kinds of expert advice were unconstitutionally vague. But it upheld the bans on personnel and expert advice derived from scientific or technical knowledge.
Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the consolidated cases in October. The cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, No. 09-89. The court will hear arguments on Feb. 23.
David D. Cole, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Mr. Fertig and other challengers to the law, told the court that the case concerned speech protected by the First Amendment “promoting lawful, nonviolent activities,” including “human rights advocacy and peacemaking.”
Solicitor General Elena Kagan countered that the law allowed Mr. Fertig and the other challengers to say anything they liked so long as they did not direct their efforts toward or coordinate them with the designated groups.
A number of victims of McCarthy-era persecution filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to remember the lessons of history.
“I signed the brief,” said Chandler Davis, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, “because I can testify to the way in which the dubious repression of dissent disrupted lives and disrupted political discourse.”
Professor Davis refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954 and was dismissed from his position at the University of Michigan. Unable to find work in the United States, he moved to Canada. In 1991, the University of Michigan established an annual lecture series on academic freedom in honor of Professor Davis and others it had mistreated in the McCarthy era.
Mr. Fertig said the current climate was in some ways worse.
“I think it’s more dangerous than McCarthyism,” he said. “It was not illegal to help the communists or to be a communist. You might lose your job, you might lose your friends, you might be ostracized. But you’d be free. Today, the same person would be thrown in jail.”
A friend-of-the-court brief — prepared by Edwin Meese III, the former United States attorney general; John C. Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer; and others — called the civil liberties critique of the material-support law naïve.
The law represents “a considered wartime judgment by the political branches of the optimal means to confront the unique challenges posed by terrorism,” their brief said. Allowing any sort of contributions to terrorist organizations “simply because the donor intends that they be used for ‘peaceful’ purposes directly conflicts with Congress’s determination that no quarantine can effectively isolate ‘good’ activities from the evil of terrorism.”
Mr. Fertig said he could understand an argument against donating money, given the difficulty of controlling its use. But the sweep of the material-support law goes too far, he said.
“Fear is manipulated,” Mr. Fertig said, “and the tools of the penal system are applied to inhibit people from speaking out.”
NYT
February 11, 2010
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By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – February 11, 2010
Palestinian reporters, either working for local or international agencies, were repeatedly subjected to attacks by the Israeli army, but recently such attacks witnessed a sharp increase leading to injuries, damage to equipment, and to preventing them from performing their duty.
Two of the reporters, Ata Oweisat and Mahmoud Oleyyan, work for the al Quds newspaper.
Another wounded journalist, Ahmad Gharabely, works for the French Press Agency.
Diala Jweihan, a reporter and camerawoman working for Al Quds Net was hit in her back by a concussion grenade, she lost consciousness and was transported to al Maqassed Hospital in Jerusalem. She was reportedly burned across her back, upper legs and right arm.
CNN cameraman, Karim Khader, was hit by a rubber-coated bullet fired by the army.
Samir Abu Gharbiyya, a reporter working for al-Jazeera English, was hit in the head by a stone thrown by a Palestinian meant for an Israeli soldier.
Israeli soldiers are said to have made attempts to destroy the cameras possessed by the attacked journalists.
Several reporters were also subjected to repeated attacks by Israeli soldiers during invasions targeting Burin and Iraq-Burin village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Soldiers violently attacked Ashraft Abu Shaweeh, Hasan Al Ateety, Abdul-Rahim Qosabny, Nidal Eshtiyya, Ala’ Badarna, Rami Sweidan, Ja’far Eshtiyya and Aref Tuffaha.
Another reporter, Nasser Eshtiyya, was hit by a stone thrown by a Palestinian during clashes with Israeli soldiers invading Dir Nitham village.
The Palestinian Journalists Forum condemned the Israeli treatment of reporters, citing the numerous ongoing violations of their rights.
The Palestinian Journalists Forum called upon the International Journalists Forum, human rights and legal groups to intervene and stop the violations and attacks against reporters.
February 11, 2010
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Saudi Arabia is planning to introduce regulations that include licensing internet news sites in a bid to bring them under government control
Carlyle Murphy | The National | February 08. 2010
RIYADH // Saudi Arabia is planning to introduce regulations, including a licensing requirement, for its indigenous internet news sites, which have become a key fixture in the kingdom’s active online community.
The draft regulations, still under study, would require internet-based news sites to request a government licence and to respond to complaints about their content that are received by the ministry of culture and information.
“We want them to feel that they are under our umbrella,” Abdul Rahman al Hazza, spokesman for the ministry, said in a phone interview yesterday.
Mr al Hazza referred to the new rules as “guidelines for the e-press”, and said the idea is to help the electronic media with staffing and financing and give them “somebody to talk to” if they have problems. “It’s going to be simple and easy.”
Asked if the new rules would involve censorship, Mr al Hazza replied: “Not that much.” Mainly, he added, if there are complaints about something written at an online news site, “we just look at it”.
A report last year in the Saudi Gazette said the draft regulations also cover “appointment conditions for editors-in-chief, granting permits to journalists, and invitations to cover news events”.
A 2007 law already subjects online writers to criminal penalties for such things as defamation.
The planned regulations, which Mr al Hazza said are still two to three months away from being finalised by the ministry, are an effort to bring online news sites such as Sabq, Alweeam and A’ajel under government control in much the same way that the country’s traditional daily newspapers are regulated.
It is not clear if news sites like Elaph.com, which is London-based but has a Riyadh office, would also have to get a licence.
Saudi newspapers are licensed by the government and can be temporarily stopped from publishing if they print something upsetting to a government official. But this has been rare in recent years, during which the Saudi print media has been encouraged to report more critically on social and economic problems. There is considerable self-censorship, however, as the media stay away from sensitive issues.
Although the draft regulations under consideration do not apply to bloggers, there are concerns that the government eventually will try to regulate them as well.
“They are not talking about blogs” right now, observed one veteran Saudi blogger, Ahmed Ba-Aboud. “But eventually they will get to us. It is a concern.”
Mr Ba-Aboud, 38, a management consultant in the kingdom’s Eastern Province city of Dhahran, said the government does not understand that online media are attracting readers because they are not controlled like traditional newspapers. “There’s no way I’d send anything I write to the government to censor it,” he said. “That’s not how the internet works.”
Ahmed al Omran, who blogs at http://www.saudijeans.org, was caustic about what he called the ministry’s “dumb idea to regulate so-called electronic media”.
“Ironically, some owners of news websites are actually pushing for this law,” Mr Omran lamented in a posting last month.
“They argue that it would make it easier for them to get funding and make money from advertising. What about their independence and freedom that could be threatened by the new law? Well, apparently these things are not high on their agenda.”
Saudi Arabia’s sprightly blogging community includes both Saudis and foreigners writing in both Arabic and English. It also boasts one of the region’s highest proportion of female bloggers – about 46 per cent, according to a 2009 study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. About one-third of the kingdom’s population regularly goes online.
The community’s latest arrival showed up February 2, when Mr Ba-Aboud launched a new English-language blog so that outsiders can learn more about “regular people like myself”.
Most foreigners know certain kinds of Saudis, Mr Ba-Aboud said in an interview, including “extremists like Osama bin Laden”, “rich people” and “people related to the government”.
But the voice of ordinary Saudis “does not reach around the globe in a similar magnitude”, he wrote at the new site, http://alternativesaudivoices.wordpress.com.
It will be a sort of communal blog in that Mr Ba-Aboud has invited anyone to contribute a posting, and as co-ordinator, he will post them on the site. Only those that “call for hate or violence” will be rejected, he added.
In an interview last November, Mr al Hazza, the ministry spokesman, said the new regulations arose partly because ordinary citizens “don’t know where to go” to complain about something written at an online news site.
“The problem we have is that there is no government department to refer to … Nobody to evaluate their job to see if they are doing wrong or right.”
Censorship “is not the idea” behind the new rules, he said. “The idea is to regulate.”
Mr al Hazza said a decision will probably be made in the next couple of weeks about whether the new regulations shall be issued by the minister of culture and information, Abdel Aziz al Khoja, or be sent to the Shoura Council for action.
Meanwhile, anyone wanting to send Mr al Khoja a comment on the new rules can reach him at his personal page at Facebook
cmurphy@thenational.ae
February 10, 2010
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By Terri Saunders | Ottawa Sun | February 10, 2010
The Canadian government had little concrete evidence when it declared an Ottawa man a national security threat, an intelligence expert suggested Tuesday.
Wesley Wark, an expert in international intelligence and security, told a federal court he believes officials with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had little to go on when they arrested and jailed Mohamed Harkat in 2002 and kept him in jail for three-and-a-half years on a security certificate.
CSIS officials have already testified they considered Harkat, an Algerian native who came to Canada as a refugee in 1995, a threat to national security based on information Harkat had ties to international terrorist organizations such as an Egyptian Islamic group, Le Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) and Al-Qaida.
Wark said the CSIS report that forms the basis of the government’s case against Harkat contains “no concrete evidence” Harkat was associated with any known terrorist organizations, pointing out some of their allegations against him are based solely on media reports.
“It’s like trying to grab at thin air,” said Wark. “It’s a paper trail you can’t follow.”
Wark pointed to one source the CSIS report cites to show Harkat’s connection to the Egyptian group known as AGAI — an Italian news article which reported an address book found at a safehouse during an investigation into a French terror cell contained the name Mohamed Adnani, one of the names CSIS claims Harkat used as an alias.
Wark said he found nothing in the report which proved such an allegation.
“There’s no explanation as to why they believe Adnani and Harkat are one and the same person,” said Wark. “Harkat never spent time in Egypt. How he would have become a member of AGAI is not explained.”
Wark also suggested the government’s assertions Harkat was sent to Canada as an Al-Qaida sleeper agent are not supported by evidence. He said there’s no clear link between Harkat and Osama Bin Laden’s core network or any affiliated terrorist groups.
“Very little evidence has come to light in the post-9/11 world that sleeper cells do exist,” said Wark. “The fear they might exist is understandable, but evidence is an entirely different thing. With time, you have to wonder if that fear was reasonable.”
terri.saunders@sunmedia.ca
February 10, 2010
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Ibrahim Jassam
BBC | February 10, 2010
American forces in Iraq have released an Iraqi freelance photographer held in detention for 17 months without charge. Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, who worked for Reuters, was arrested in September 2008 in a dawn raid on his home.
The US said the photographer was a “security threat”, but all evidence against him was classified secret. An Iraqi court had ruled in December 2008 that there was no case against him and that he must be released, but the US military refused.
“How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again.” Mr Jassam told Reuters.
According to Reuters, the US accusations were based on his “activities with insurgents”.
“The term ‘insurgents’ in Iraq generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups, like al-Qaeda. Jassam is a Shia Muslim,” the news agency said.
The US military has detained a number of Iraqi journalists working for international news organisations, but none have been convicted. It has been criticised by press freedom organisations such as Reporters Without Borders.
February 10, 2010
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