Outrage as Ukrainian witch-hunt site leaks personal info of ‘terrorist-collaborating journalists’
RT | May 12, 2016
Governments, NGOs and journalists across the globe have condemned a leak of personal data of more than 4,000 media staff, accused by pro-Kiev activists of “collaborating with terrorists” for their reporting from war-torn eastern Ukraine.
The names on the list include people working for respectable outlets, such as news agencies AFP, AP and Reuters, broadcasters BBC, CNN, CCTV, Deutsche Welle and Al Jazeera, newspapers, including the New York Times, Gazeta Wyborcza and Kyiv Post, news websites Vice News and Daily Beast and many others. RT journalists are on the list too.
“This is a very alarming development which could further endanger the safety of journalists, who report on issues of public interest and they should not be harassed for doing their job,” said OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović.
Some of the journalists, whose data was leaked, have complained they have started to receive threats.
“After being accused of ‘working for the terrorists’ and having their personal data, phone numbers and emails made public, they started receiving phone calls and emails with threats, and some Ukrainian politicians have called for these journalists to be labeled ‘enemies of Ukraine’ and to prevent them from working in the country completely,” an open letter, from Kiev-based journalists representing local and international media, stated.
“We are aware that details of staff accreditation from a wide range of media organizations – including the BBC – have been hacked. We have taken immediate and appropriate action to protect privacy and security,” said the BBC.
Publication was condemned by a number of governments, international organizations and media organizations. EU envoy to Ukraine Jan Tombinski said that while the leak was published by a privately-run website, he held the Ukrainian authorities accountable for endangering journalists and said the database should be blocked.
The website that leaked the personal data is called Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper). It purports to be fighting separatism and terrorism and publishes personal data of anyone its contributors consider enemies of Ukraine. Mirotvorets was founded in January 2015 by Georgy Tuka, who now serves as a deputy to the minister responsible for dealing with rebel-held areas and refugees. Among its high-ranking supporters is Anton Gerashchenko, an MP and aide to the interior minister. The website’s partners include the Security Service of Ukraine and the country’s Interior Ministry.
The project has caused controversy in the past. At least two Ukrainian public figures, writer Oles Buzina and former lawmaker Oleg Kalashnikov, were killed days after their home addresses were published by Mirotvorets. Last year, Gerashchenko called for leaking the personal data of Russian soldiers and officers taking part in the counter-terrorism mission in Syria, so that Islamic State sympathizers could find and kill them.
The latest leak includes data of journalists and NGO employees, who have been given accreditation by the de facto authorities of the rebellious eastern Ukrainian regions over the past two years. Gerashchenko said the data was obtained as a result of a hack, at least a month before publication.
The Interior Minister’s aid praised “patriot hackers” for exposing “a powerful propaganda machine that has an impact on par with the propaganda by [Nazi Germany’s] Goebbels or Stalin” and demanded more budget money to fight it.
Accompanying the leak, which was first posted on May 7, but widely disseminated this week, was a statement claiming “these journalists are cooperating with the militants of a terrorist organization.”
Derek Monroe, independent reporter and writer, who has received death threats from people unhappy with his reporting on the Ukraine crisis, told RT that serious measures should be undertaken in order to protect journalists, as the information can now “trickle down everywhere” and “once it’s comes out of the box, it’s very hard to put back.”
“What happened in Kiev is not only illegal, but is an outrage,” Monroe said.
Investigative journalist Russ Baker said the fact that journalists might nowadays “by definition” be regarded as enemies points towards a significant growth of extremism.
“The situation in the Ukraine is particularly striking because the fact that these people even think that a journalist going to an area makes them an enemy just indicates how extremism has risen to a rather staggering level. Journalists always go to war-zones, they always go to places where there is conflict, and to think that by definition that makes them unfair or somebody that needs to be threatened is pretty staggering,” Baker told RT.
Read more:
Top Ukraine official backs idea ‘to help ISIS take revenge on Russian soldiers in Syria’
US Congress Wants New Federal Agency to Fight Russian, Chinese ‘Propaganda’
Sputnik – May 12, 2016
A dozen members of the US House of Representatives have introduced a new bill proposing the creation of an entire agency meant to ‘counter Chinese and Russian propaganda’, The Washington Examiner reported.
The ‘Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act’, the political news publication explained, would create a new federal agency reporting to the State Department called the Center for Information Analysis and Response.
The center, The Washington Examiner added, “would analyze ‘government information warfare’ and ‘disinformation efforts’, and work to ‘expose and counter’ those operations when they are directed against US national security.”
The legislation, a bipartisan effort coauthored by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, claims that Russia and China are “us[ing] disinformation and other propaganda tools” to undermine US initiatives around the globe.
“As Russia continues to spew its disinformation and false narratives, they undermine the United States and its interests in places like Ukraine, while also breeding further instability in these countries,” Kinzinger said, introducing the bill to Congress on Wednesday.
For his part, Congressman Lieu added that “from Ukraine to the South China Sea, foreign disinformation campaigns do more than spread anti-Western sentiments – they manipulate public perception to change the facts on the ground, subvert democracy and undermine US interests. In short, they make the world less safe.”
Kinzinger emphasized that a new federal agency to fight this threat would give Washington “a unique opportunity to respond to further manipulation by encouraging the free flow of truthful information,” which “can prevent conflict and ensure future stability.”
If the bill is approved and the agency is created, the Center for Information Analysis and Response will see US ‘information officers’ dispatched to promote an “independent press” in countries “deemed vulnerable to foreign propaganda and disinformation campaigns.” The agency will also be tasked with ‘exposing’ and countering information operations directed against US interests by creating an alternative narrative.
It’s unclear how exactly the new agency will be able to help Washington’s global propaganda and counter-propaganda effort. The Broadcasting Board of Governors already receives over than $750 million annually for funding of broadcasters including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and other media across the Middle East and Latin America. When taking account of additional contributions from private individuals including George Soros and his Open Democracy Foundations initiatives, it’s unclear how much more the State Department can really squeeze out of its anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda machine.
Read more:
Building the Echo Chamber: Is There Free Press in the US?
Huxley’s Brave New World Nightmare is Becoming a Geopolitical Reality
Dieudonne Barred by Free Speech Loving Canada!
Penny For Your Thoughts | May 11, 2016
Of course, I’m being completely facetious. The only speech that is acceptable here is state approved speech- And Canada hates freedom, anywhere. Anywhere at all. That’s why Canada is a NATO member, killing people globally, particularly in the Middle East/Asia area in order to redraw borders for their latest insane episode of playing global overlord alongside the US and the UK. Canadians need to wake up to the reality.
Dieudonne blocked from entry by Canada Customs:
Canada Customs allowed George Bush into the nation years ago. Despite thousands and thousands protesting across the nation- And that man is a real criminal. The blood soaked kind. Dick Cheney was ok for Canada too. Real criminals? Canada let’s them in. And wines & dines them!
But not Dieudonne. A comedian. No blood or torture or mass death on his hands.
As mentioned in my earlier post, Will Free Speech Loving Canada allow Dieudonne to Perform at His Sold Out Shows?, the Jewish Lobby, you know the one that doesn’t exist and is powerless, here in Canada, had Dieudonne in their sights… They were locked and loaded, looking for another kill. Another trophy for their collection of rights denied to the non Judiac masses.
And gloating all the while!
Dieudonne Barred from Entering Canda.
Canadian border services agents in Montreal sent comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala back to France.
It also came in the wake of more than two weeks of pressure on Ottawa by Jewish groups to keep Dieudonné from entering Canada
Early news items regarding Dieudonne’s Canadian visit were very clear, very clear, that it was the ‘usual suspects’ that were gunning for the comedian. The media marched in lockstep and the dumbed down masses believe that this man is a “criminal” Any law can be made to turn anyone into a ‘criminal’ ya bunch of dunderheads!
So, I shake my head in disgust at the level of control a small minority of persons exerts on everyone else in this nation.
I laugh at a Mayor who says “When you promote hatred, you promote social division,” speaking of the comedian Dieudonne, but not about the Jewish lobby here in Canada.
– A lobby that stomps regularly on the rights of others. – Those who had chose to see Dieudonne were deprived of their right to be entertained as they saw fit
– A lobby that cries wolf far too often. Dieudonne being just the most recent case
– A lobby that has the ear of (or a lot of dirt on) way too many politicians in this country.
– A lobby that promotes hatred and division by demonizing/smearing others the lobby does not approve of
-A lobby whose very existence is for the express purpose of social division. Looking after the interests of the followers of Judaism and their interests ONLY- That is social division Denis Coderre!!!
When the interests of one group supersede and/or impede on the interests of everyone else, that is socially divisive.
Bnai Brith looking to Ban Dieudonne from entering Canada
“B’nai Brith in Montreal is trying to block the entry into Canada of French comedian Dieudonné”
Canadian Jews Opposed to French Comedian’s Planned Performances
Jewish groups in Canada are mobilizing against the controversial French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala,
The Jewish Lobby didn’t hide their goal or agenda. It was right out in the open.
Western Kim-Phobia & The Danger of War
By Caleb Maupin | New Eastern Outlook | May 11, 2016
In almost every US aligned Gulf State, you can find an autocratic monarch who rules over a small, oil-rich corner of the world via an outdated, pre-democratic legal system that grants him absolute authority. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarch with dictatorial powers, was married to 30 different women, by whom he has fathered a total of 35 children. The recently deceased King Abdullah, now replaced by Salman, was a serial human rights violating autocrat who routinely beheaded people for “insulting” him, and he was certainly not alone.
If investigative journalists in the Western press bothered to dig, they could most certainly find out the shocking details about the wealthy aristocracies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Jordan. The US-backed oil monarchies of the Middle East are known to have rooms full of trafficked sexual slaves from around the world, and to preside over populations with no human rights or freedoms.
Due to the fact that the decadent and oppressive Gulf state monarchs are allies of the United States, sell oil to Wall Street and buy weapons from the Pentagon, Western media mostly ignores their undisputed and well documented scandals and atrocities.
However, when reporting on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Western media reports every rumor and unsubstantiated claim as undisputed truth. Everything said by defectors from the northern part of the Korean peninsula is believed and uncritically repeated. Western media has embarrassed itself more than a few times in the past years, by repeating allegations that are so obviously false and easily disproven, that they must be quietly retracted.
The claim that women in the DPRK are forbidden from riding bicycles was ripped to shreds with video from inside the country. The Korean Workers Party actually prides itself on its advancement of women, with women winning Olympic gold medals and playing a prominent role in the military. The outrageous claim that the DPRK executes people by “feeding them to wild dogs” was traced to a satirical Chinese publication.
Unlike the US-aligned autocracies in the Middle East, the DPRK has a constitution and elections. Even though the Korean Workers Party promotes dialectical materialism and atheism, there are freely practicing Christian churches all throughout the northern half of the Korean peninsula. Even the DPRK’s harshest critics admit that the country has “universal housing” (no homelessness), and that it has completely wiped out illiteracy. These facts alone show that the DPRK, regardless of its flaws, is a much more humane and human rights-respecting society than Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, and many other US aligned regimes.
The special, obsessive demonization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Western media, rightly called “Kim-Phobia” is not just an insult to journalistic integrity. Kim-phobia could have catastrophic consequences, not only for the Korean peninsula, but for the entire human race. US media has selected the “North Koreans” for demonization and isolation for special, strategic reasons.
“Human Rights” Testimony Given Under Duress
If mainstream US media were to start slandering Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping by saying they were cannibals or child molesters, it’s not guaranteed that many people would automatically believe it. The governments of both Russia and China have enough respect and credibility, as well as economic ties to the United States, that such false claims would be widely dismissed and refuted. While some rightists and non-thinking war-hawks are tempted to believe whatever slanderous allegation is made, a very large percentage of the western populace would question such claims.
Likewise, wild and extreme claims against Raul Castro and the leadership of Cuba would face similar scrutiny. While the Tea Party and many Cuban exiles in Miami may accept any anti-Cuban propaganda, with many Americans visiting Cuba and prominent celebrities praising its healthcare system, not all anti-Cuban allegations are merely accepted as fact.
However, the outrageous statements and accusations against Kim Jong-Un and the Korean Workers Party can be routinely passed on without any scrutiny or filter. Why?
With tens of thousands of US troops on its border and under an economic blockade, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is focused on military defense, not the information war. Very few Westerners visit the northern part of the Korean peninsula. The country has made a point of strategically cutting itself off from the Western press and the Internet for military purposes. Because of these unique circumstances, Wolf Blitzer and Don Lemon can pretty much say anything about Kim Jong-Un and the Korean people without anyone fact-checking them.
The bombardment of anti-DPRK propaganda has become very effective. For example, the United Nations held hearings about “Human Rights” in the DPRK in Seoul. At these hearings, person after person stood up and accused the government in the North of horrific atrocities. What the media ignored while reporting on the human rights hearings was that this testimony was given under duress.
The government in southern Korea has its infamous “National Security Laws” which have been condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other bodies. Under the National Security Laws, anyone who says or writes anything that could be interpreted as supporting or speaking positively of the DPRK can be imprisoned for decades.
These laws are not symbolic, but routinely enforced against anyone who dares utter a positive word about Kim Il Sung, Communism, Socialism, or US atrocities during the Korean war. For example, Park Geun-Jung was sentenced to 10 months in prison for activity on social media. Park is not a Communist, and was obviously being sarcastic with his tweets about his northern countryfolk, but this did not prevent him from being locked up.
The United Nations Human Rights hearings in Seoul were a violation of the UN’s own procedures. The UN received what was essentially coerced testimony from people who knew they would be imprisoned and possibly tortured if they said anything other than “North Korea is hell on earth.”
THAAD and War Danger
The United States is now installing a huge missile system in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. This is the latest measure in the “Asian Pivot” of the US military. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system’s installment has garnered objections, and not only from the DPRK. China and Russia have also raised deep concerns.
Why would China and Russia be concerned about the THAAD system? Essentially, this system gives US forces in South Korea the ability to strike both Russia and China, and to deflect any retaliatory measure.
Southern Korea can be used as a base, not just to attack the north, but also Russia and China. The THAAD system shields US missile launchers from any response, and would allow the US to continue unloading its missiles onto Russia and China.
China and Russia both now have hypersonic gliders, which could probably penetrate the THAAD system. However, it is very disturbing that the United States is looking to make south Korea, where tens of thousands of US troops are stationed, immune from Russian or Chinese retaliation. If the United States and the “Republic of Korea” are not planning an attack on Russia, China, or the DPRK, why prepare southern Korea for such a thing?
The excuse of the United States and the south Korean regime for this highly provocative move against the two largest countries in the world is “Crazy Kim made us do it.”
US audiences have been psyched up by “The Interview”, “Red Dawn”, and “Olympus Has Fallen”, along with press reports saying bizarre, unsubstantiated things like “Kim Jong Il Claims to have invented the Hamburger” into believing that the DPRK is somehow bent on world conquest. In reality, all the DPRK asks for is the peaceful democratic re-unification of the peninsula.
The anti-Kim obsession of the western press is serving to justify US preparations for war in Asia. US weapons and military personnel are pouring, not just into southern Korea, but also into the Philippines, Indonesia, and other parts of the world.
Meanwhile, US troops and military equipment are being deployed into Eastern Europe. Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania, all of which have been gutted by neoliberalism since the collapse of the USSR, are now having their homelands turned into launch pads for a third world war.
The United States is surrounding Russia and China with troops, and continuing to describe any defensive move by the two countries as “aggression.”
In such a context, hostilities on the Korean peninsula, with the USA supporting the south and Russia and China supporting the north, could easily spin way out of control. With the DPRK as such an easily demonized target, a single spark could easily light up the entire world.
The “Kim-Phobia” of the US media is very strategic. Hipster journalism about “crazy Kim” has very important public relations value for the Pentagon as it escalates its presence in Asia.
Progressive minded human beings should see how dangerous this is. “Kim-Phobia” could be setting the stage for World War Three, as more and more weapons and US military personnel pour into the region.
Attorney-client privilege denied to us, used by Feds to keep the law secret
PrivacySOS | May 9, 2016
How do you spell chutzpah? I submit an alternate spelling: O-B-A-M-A D-O-J.
How the Obama administration interprets the phrase “government transparency,” in three acts.
Act One: Secret Law
The Obama administration is trying to keep secret a 2003 Office of Legal Counsel memo outlining how federal intelligence agencies interpret “commercial services agreements” between telecoms and their customers. The memo, which the ACLU seeks in a FOIA lawsuit, likely outlines the government’s legal position on how intelligence agencies can access information held by telecommunications companies. Senator Ron Wyden, who from his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee has routinely warned Americans of unconstitutional intelligence activities, has said the government’s “opinion is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law, and should be withdrawn.”
Wyden has also publicly stated that the DOJ misled a federal court during its legal fight to keep the memo secret. In a March 2016 letter, Wyden wrote that a DOJ memorandum of law filed in the case contains a “key assertion” that is false. “This assertion appears to be central to the DOJ’s legal arguments,” Wyden wrote.
Now the DOJ has fired back at Wyden, asserting in a brief in the ACLU lawsuit that the Senator’s claims about this “key assertion” were “wholly erroneous” and “based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the law.” The Justice Department claims the administration can keep the legal memo secret because it is not “working law,” but rather confidential legal advice. According to the DOJ, even though an agency may rely on an Office of Legal Counsel memo “by acting in a manner that is consistent with the advice,” the memo doesn’t necessarily “establish agency policy,” meaning it’s not “working law”—which is subject to public disclosure—but instead confidential legal advice.
(As Wyden noted, the DOJ “isn’t denying that this opinion is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law”; instead, it’s arguing that the legal memo at issue doesn’t constitute law.)
To repeat: The government is arguing that even if agencies “rely” on an OLC memo and act “in a manner consistent” with its advice, it isn’t law. Instead, it’s private legal advice, which just so happens to be something the government can keep secret from the public.
Act Two: Limitless Surveillance
In April 2016, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released parts of a November 2015 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion about how the FBI, NSA, and CIA use information collected pursuant to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. (The FISA Amendments Act, signed into law in 2008, put congress’ stamp of approval on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.) Section 702 of that statute allows the intelligence agencies to warrantlessly wiretap Americans’ international communications, as long as Americans or people within the United States are not “targeted.” Part of that statute requires that the Attorney General and ODNI prepare annual reports, called “certifications,” to be reviewed by FISC judges. These certifications include information about how, why, and under what circumstances intelligence agencies “minimize” information about non-targets or US persons caught up in its dragnets.
The recently released November 2015 FISC opinion describes some of these minimization procedures in detail. Among them are procedures related to the capture, dissemination, and use of attorney-client privileged communications. The opinion reveals that the FBI can disseminate attorney-client privileged communications as long as the FBI’s lawyers approve it. The rules require the FBI to “advise recipients that the dissemination contains information subject to attorney-client privilege, that the information is being disseminated ‘solely for intelligence or lead purposes,’ and that it may not be further disseminated or used in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding without the approval of the AG or the Assistant AG for National Security.”
In other words: The US government allows itself to warrantlessly wiretap our international communications and even use our attorney-client privileged communications for intelligence purposes, as long as it doesn’t disclose to criminal defendants or courts that it has done so.
Act Three: Upside Down World
The US government refuses to disclose a legal memo that likely describes how intelligence agencies spy on our communications, claiming that the memo isn’t “working law” but instead constitutes “private” legal advice. Secret law is thereby justified by attorney-client privilege. In this case, the attorney and the client are one in the same: the executive branch.
At the same time, the government gives itself the power to warrantlessly wiretap, retain, disseminate, and use for intelligence purposes our attorney-client privileged communications—so long as the fact of agencies doing so never becomes public. Surveillance of attorney-client privileged communications is justified, as long as it remains secret.
Secret law, secret surveillance. Attorney-client privilege for government lawyers advising government agencies about government policy. No attorney-client privilege for ordinary people, who will likely never learn that the FBI or NSA has warrantlessly obtained their confidential communications.
Only in an upside down world could this administration choose this path, having called itself the “most transparent administration” in history.
4 members of Egyptian satire troupe Street Children referred to prosecution for ‘insulting the state’
Ahram Online | May 10, 2016
Four members of Street Children (Atfal Shawaree), a satirical performance art troupe, were referred Tuesday to a Cairo prosecution on accusations of inciting protests and publishing videos that insult state institutions, a judicial source told Ahram Online.
The artists were arrested on Monday and are being held at Cairo’s Sayeda Zeinab police station prior to the referral to Heliopolis prosecution.
On Sunday, the group’s sixth and youngest member, Ezz El-Din Khaled, 19, was ordered to be released on EGP 10,000 bail pending investigation into charges of inciting protests and publishing videos that insult state institutions.
Prosecution appealed the decision to release Khaled on Monday. The appeal was rejected on Tuesday and the 19-year-old was released.
Khaled was arrested from his home on Saturday evening.
The six-member performance group gained popularity among youths for their videos in which they that mock societal norms as well as the discourse of government officials and supporters.
Street Children released their first video in January 2016. The troupe’s last video was another satirical titled “Sisi is my president.”
Israel may force Palestinians to raise Israeli flag on Nakba Day
MEMO | May 10, 2016
Culture and sports centres in Israel, including Arabic institutions, should be made to raise the Israeli flag on Nakba Day, a senior minister has said yesterday.
Israeli Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev instructed the ministry’s Director General Yossi Sharabi to put together an initiative that would see institutions raising the Israeli flag, YnetNews reported.
The news site reported informed sources saying: “Personal judgment should not factor in here.”
If Regev’s proposal is approved by the Knesset, it would force Al-Midan Theatre in Haifa and the Doha Stadium in Sakhnin, whose population is predominantly Arab, to raise the Israeli flag.
Since she took office, Regev promised to promote the Israeli flag’s prominence.
Majd Atwan, 22, sentenced to 45 days imprisonment for Facebook postings
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – May 10, 2016
Majd Yousef Atwan, 22, a young Palestinian woman from Al-Khader village, Bethlehem, and a recent beauty school graduate, was sentenced by an Israeli Ofer military court to 45 days imprisonment and a 3,000 NIS ($794) fine for posting on Facebook, which the Israeli military occupation deemed “incitement.”
Atwan is one of approximately 150 Palestinians detained and imprisoned for social media postings, including the case of Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian poet from Nazareth being prosecuted for poetry posted online. She was arrested in a 2:00 am army raid on her family home on 19 April, which was invaded by occupation soldiers. She is one of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and nearly 70 women and girls.
Sheikh Raed Salah begins nine-month prison term for “incitement”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – May 9, 2016
Sheikh Raed Salah, Palestinian leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, began a nine-month jail term for “incitement” on Sunday, 8 May. He arrived at the jail with dozens of supporters, and said that “this prison sentence will not deter us from maintaining the defence of [Jerusalem’s] Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Since 1996, Salah is the leader of the northern wing of the Islamic Movement, which organizes Palestinian citizens of Israel. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the movement banned last year, sparking widespread protest and condemnation. Salah has been imprisoned in the past for incitement and related charges; this imprisonment is related to a 2007 rally against Israeli construction work near Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Salah arrived for his sentence at Beersheba prison, and was then transferred to Nafha prison by Israeli occupation forces. He has repeatedly stated that his imprisonment is an attempt to shut down Palestinian defense of Al-Aqsa from attacks by settlers and the Israeli government.
He served as mayor of Umm al-Fahm between 1987 and 2001. In 2010, he participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aboard the Mavi Marmara, the ship attacked by Israeli special forces who killed ten Turkish and American activists, as the armed forces took over the ship and prevented it from breaking the siege of Gaza.
In 2011, Salah was targeted during a visit to the UK for deportation and exclusion. Arrested in the UK, he was kept in the country until March 2012 fighting the charges, which he eventually defeated in a significant court victory.
Extremist settlers attack Palestinian human rights activists in Hebron
Ma’an – May 8, 2016
HEBRON – A group of extremist Israeli settlers on Saturday attacked two Palestinian human rights activists in the Tel Rumeida area in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, video footage showed.
Human Rights Defenders spokesperson Badee Dweik told Ma’an that settlers attacked Emad Abu Shamsiya and Yasser Abu Markhiya, who work with the group’s Hebron office. The two were taking footage of extremist settlers carrying rods near Palestinian homes in Tel Rumeida in Hebron’s Old City.
Abu Shamsiya, who serves as coordinator of the group in Hebron, said the settlers “were preparing to attack and intimidate Palestinian residents, especially children,” and that he rushed toward the scene with Abu Markhiya after they heard children screaming.
Their video shows a group of three settlers, two boys and one adult, begin to pass by. The adult settler can be heard saying in Hebrew, “if you take footage of me I’m going to kill you.” The children approach Abu Shamsiya and Abu Markhiya and order them to put down the camera before the adult strikes Abu Shamsiya.
“They punched me and broke my camera,” Abu Shamsiya told Ma’an, highlighted that Israeli soldiers were watching when the settlers attacked him and his colleague without intervening.
Dweik told Ma’an that attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers against activists attempting to document settler attacks on Palestinian residents have increased recently, especially after footage captured by Abu Shamsiya in March of an Israeli soldier shooting and killing Abd al-Fatah al-Sharif while he was lying motionless on the ground stoked widespread international criticism.
A day after release of the video, Israeli settlers gathered outside the home of Abu Shamsiya in Hebron to threaten him.
Tel Rumeida — where Shamsiya’s house is located and the site both Saturday’s incident and al-Sharif’s killing — has long been a flashpoint for tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and military, and is location to an illegal Israeli settlement.
Mistreatment of Palestinians in the Hebron area has been common since the city was divided in the 1990s after a US-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinians inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The majority of the city was placed under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while the Old City and surrounding areas were placed under Israeli military control in a sector known as H2.
The area is home to 30,000 Palestinians and around 800 Israeli settlers who live under the protection of Israeli forces. Hebron residents frequently report attacks and harassment by the settlers carried out in the presence of the forces.
Reporters Without Borders – not independent but “strictly linked to US foreign policy”
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | May 4, 2016
Reporters Without Borders has published the latest 2016 report on press freedom where Britain has fallen yet again with the organisation making the following statement about press freedom in Britain:
“Terrorist attacks have led to the adoption of draconian security legislation. The government reacted to the London public transport bombings in 2005 with a Terrorism Act the following year that restricts freedom of expression. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) adopted in 2000 allows the authorities to obtain the phone records of journalists in cases of threats to national security. Worse still, despite a law protecting the confidentiality of sources, the police have since 1984 been able to ask the courts to order media outlets to hand over unpublished journalistic source material “in the interests of justice.”
It is hardly surprising that Britain has fallen 4 places in 2016 behind such countries as; Tonga, Belize, OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States), Samoa, Ghana, Suriname, Namibia, Jamaica, with Burkino Faso and Botswana just behind, given recent legislative actions by the Conservative government since 2010.
The Guardian revealed in January 2015 that the British intelligence agency GCHQ described journalists as a “potential threat to security” and that huge quantities of emails of many journalists were among interceptions that went as far back as 2008. It was only the result of the Edward Snowden leaks that as many as 70,000 emails from journalists captured by Britain’s surveillance agency became known.
On the 15th October, Gordon Raynor, Chief Reporter at The Telegraph said– “Investigative journalism will be stopped dead in its tracks and local newspapers may be driven out of business when new laws restricting Britain’s free press come into force next month.” He continues – Media organisations face “the most substantial threat to press freedom in the modern era” as a result of the “menacing” laws passed in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.
An independent report into the implications of the Crime and Courts Act, which came into force on November 3, says that The Telegraph’s landmark investigation into what turned out to be the most explosive political scandal in decades over MPs’ expenses would have been all but impossible under the new regime.
Britain sitting at number 38 flatters reality.
‘Freedom of Press’ is published by the US-based Freedom House, an NGO established in 1941 that has been ranking countries worldwide since 1980 in relation to democracy, human rights and press freedom. In May 2014 it reported that Britain has slipped down the global rankings for freedom of the press to 36th place.
According to Freedom House, “only 13 percent of the world’s population enjoys a free press—that is, where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures.” Although Britain is ranked as safe in press freedom terms one has to wonder given the very heavy handed behaviour by the government at The Guardian over the Snowden files and state surveillance over journalists more widely.
Meanwhile, without any sense of shame, US President Obama, the leader of the ‘free-world’, having presided over continual declines in press freedom sees the USA drop to a pitiful 41st place has the Whitehouse Briefing Room release the following statement (first paragraph):
“On World Press Freedom Day, we thank the journalists around the world without whom democracy could not flourish and whose courageous work helps hold authorities to account. These are the men and women who work to ensure that debate on public issues can be, in the words of Justice William Brennan, “uninhibited, robust, and wide open.”
One glaring component missing from all these so-called press freedom reports is that the biggest economic trade deals in the history of humanity are due to be signed in 2016 …. in total secrecy. In the EU, the European Commission is making the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal even more secret than any normal person would think possible by the introduction of a new rule last year that means politicians can only view (some selected) TTIP text in a secure ‘reading room’ in Brussels. That is, of course, only after their mobile phones, memo pads, and pens have been taken away and two guards ominously placed in the room to ensure no notes are taken. And even then only after signing confidentiality agreements that threaten prosecutions for any leaks.
In the US, the same ‘reading room’ exists. As The Independent reports:
“In the basement of the US capitol, there is a room, a locked soundproof room, and the only people allowed in this room are US senators, and they can’t bring their assistants, they can’t bring their phones, they can’t even take notes in there. Inside this room is not the codes for our nuclear weapons, it’s not CIA files, it’s not the documents that tell us an alien landed in Roswell. No, in this room is the text of a trade deal (TTIP).”
Press freedom?? This type of secrecy, designed by corporations and the unelected politicians of the EU Commission would have made Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany proud. The EU Commission have now become completely independent of the politicians who represent the 508 million citizens of the 28 nation bloc where millions sign petitions and protest on the streets, get arrested and/or fined in their thousands and yet remain unheard. This is extreme press freedom censorship in every sense of the word. It says something when citizens have to rely on people like Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Edward Snowden for any real information on the matter – and both of them are in hiding from British and American police.
And so we come back to RWB who that as it turns out, is financed by none other than the US Congress and by various agencies tied to the US government – who coincidentally are conducting the talks on TTIP.
As GlobalResearch reports: “If we go to the RWB website to find who stands behind these self-anointed judges of world press freedom, we find nothing. Not even their board of directors are named, let alone their financial backers. Their annual published Income and Expenditure statements give no clue who stands behind them financially. RWB’s former Secretary General Robert Menard admitted that the budget for the organization was provided by “US organizations strictly linked with US foreign policy.”
Unfortunately, Reporters Without Borders are pretty much in the same boat as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists amongst many others who have thoroughly important sounding names but in the end prove to be little more than propagandists for their masters.
We asked Reporters Without Borders why there had been no mention of TTIP in any of their reports. At the time of publication, we have received no reply.
‘EU Stays Silent on Erdogan Press Crackdown’
Sputnik – May 8, 2016
Two journalists from Turkey’s leading newspaper Cumhuriyet have been sentenced to five years in prison for revealing state secrets, but the case against them is purely political since the footage they published only confirmed what everybody already knows about Ankara’s activities in Syria, Turkish journalist Zeynep Oral told Radio Sputnik.
Two prominent Turkish journalists, Can Dudar and Erdem Gul, were sentenced on Friday to five years ten months and five years in prison, respectively, for publishing footage that appears to show Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) smuggling arms to opposition groups in Syria.
However, the charges of terrorism and espionage that were levied against them are baseless because the supposed state secret that they divulged has been well known for some time, Zeynep Oral, President of PEN Center Turkey and a columnist for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, told Radio Sputnik.
“In fact both Can Dudar and Erdem Gul were put on trial for spying and terrorism, for attempting to put down the government and so many things, they were even prosecuted as terrorists, but the court acquitted them of all of these.”
“They are only being punished for what they have written. The court insisted that they have revealed ‘state secrets.’ Those secrets are not secrets; everybody knows about them, there are tons of publications about them, it’s not a secret any longer, this has already been published before.”
Oral believes that the current state of journalism in Turkey is the worst she’s seen in her 45-year career, and has resulted from the government’s political interference in the media and arbitrary use of the court system.
“I have lived through three different military coups and in none of them was it so bad. At least when you had the military coups you knew what you could write, what was forbidden to write, what was not forbidden to write, what was permissible.”
“Now there is uncertainty, you can be prosecuted for anything you write. The same article can be written by different names and one will be prosecuted and the other will not be prosecuted. For me this is a completely political court case, it has nothing to do with justice,” Oral said.
At first the Turkish government claimed the trucks were only taking humanitarian aid to Syria, then changed their story and said they were providing arms for the Turkmen in Iraq.
“Then the Turkmen said no, we’re not receiving any arms from the Turkish government.”
“Then Mr. Erdogan declared, ‘I shall not let them go free, they’ll have to pay for this.'”
“I think the court obeyed the orders of Mr. Erdogan.”
Oral said that while Turkey has a secular constitution, religion has been playing a greater role in political under the current government.”In the last ten years we have made a lot of concessions in the field of secularism. The education is being changed, the law system is being changed. The president of the parliament is saying, ‘we should change our constitution and take away secularism.'”
“All the resonances are becoming more and more religious. Of course, for me, that is unacceptable, not understandable, it’s a counter-revolution I would say.”
Turkey has recently become important to Europe “for the first time” because of its deal over the migrant crisis, but while the EU expresses concern about authoritarianism there, it will not interfere in support of European ideals regarding human rights, particularly freedom of expression, Oral said.
“They are ready to do anything to save their profits, their territory, I won’t say their ideals.”
“Profits and benefits are more important than ideals, these days, for the EU.”
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MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
… It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella. – Read full article
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