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Those who aren’t Charlie

By Richard Seymour | Lenin’s Tomb | January 15, 2015

Unfortunately, there are a few troublemakers in our midst, people who aren’t Charlie, who need to be rooted out and dealt with.  As explained by Nathalie Saint-Cricq, chief political editor of France 2 (state-owned TV channel):

« C’est justement ceux qui ne sont pas “Charlie” qu’il faut repérer, ceux qui, dans certains établissements scolaires ont refusé la minute de silence, ceux qui “balancent” sur les réseaux sociaux et ceux qui ne voient pas en quoi ce combat est le leur. Eh bien ce sont eux que nous devons repérer, traiter, intégrer ou réintégrer dans la communauté nationale. Et là, l’école et les politiques ont une lourde responsabilité. »

“It is those indeed who are not “Charlie” who must be identified; those who in certain schools refused to observe the minute’s silence, those who “spout off” on social networks, and those who don’t  see that this struggle is theirs. Well, they are the ones that we have to identify and treat, integrate or reintegrate into the national community. Schools and the politicians bear a heavy responsibility in this regard.”

In fact (a correspondent tells me, referring to this article), the provisions of recent legislation (13.11.2014) on the monitoring and reporting of school pupils’ speech and behaviour appear to have been put into effect for the first time as the names of children who failed to observe the minute’s silence were reported by teachers or supervisors to the head, then to the rectorat – the regional education administration – and on to the police and prosecuting authorities, to be analysed by the intelligence services, who decide whether the facts in question are serious enough to warrant formal investigation of the pupil and his/her family and social network.

More widely, there are a series of arrests and sentences being handed down for “justification/glorification of terrorism”, including that of a 28 year old man diagnosed with learning disabilities.

If you are not Charlie, would you please speak up so that we can have you arrested and flung in jail, or re-educated?

January 15, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Watch Your Language!

(Even when speaking the undeniable truth)

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | January 14, 2015

Poor Tim Willcox, now terrorised for doing a professional job at the Paris anti-terror march.

In a live TV report the BBC’s Willcox was interviewing people in the crowd and talking to a Jewish woman about her fears of persecution. She said: “The situation is going back to the days of the 1930s in Europe.”

Willcox replied: “Many critics, though, of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”

She countered: “We can’t do an amalgam.”

Willcox said: “You understand everything is seen from different perspectives.”

The reporter’s remarks were widely criticised by viewers, with some calling for his resignation.

According to the Express, historian Simon Schama accused Willcox of “appalling hectoring” before tweeting: “Then he had gall to patronise her at the end – ‘you see people see it from all sides’. That Palestinian plight justifies anti-semitic murder?”

Uh?

Anyway, poor Tim has had to apologise. Why? Did he say something untruthful? Was it indecent?

BBC Watch commented, without explaining the conversational context, by quoting from the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” and implying that this was what Willcox had done. But Willcox was talking about the Israeli regime’s policy, right? Not the collective responsibility of Jews worldwide.

BBC Watch is linked to CiF Watch, which is “dedicated to monitoring antisemitism and combating the assault on Israel’s legitimacy”. And to CAMERA. All three have the same two editors.

Hadar Sela is Managing Editor. She “has lived in Israel for over three decades… and has written pre-emptive reports on several anti-Israel campaigns, including the flotillas and the Global March to Jerusalem in March 2012”. Funny, I thought the flotillas were bringing humanitarian aid to the desperate civilians cruelly imprisoned, blockaded and bombarded in the tiny enclave of Gaza. How is that deemed to be anti-Israel unless you’re a paranoid Zionist or one of the mindless criminal thugs imposing the blockade?

The other is Adam Levick, also Managing Editor of CiF Watch. He “made aliyah” in 2009. Aliya is moving your home to Israel. Since when did we or our national broadcaster take orders from a couple of Israelis?

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the self-styled “voice of British Jewry”, can usually be relied on to jump in on these occasions, and they obliged. Quoting the same antisemitism definition they go on to say: “Not only was this remark irrelevant – after all the target of Friday’s attack were not Israeli but French Jews – it also conflates Middle Eastern politics with the murder of innocent French Jews, and implies that there was some kind of justification for the attack. This was bad, biased reporting and an attempt to misrepresent the events of Friday afternoon… Please take the opportunity to complain about Tim Willcox. You can use the the BBC’s complaints procedure…”

This is so confusing. Israel demands to be recognised as the Jewish State and has just passed laws to that effect. It claims to speak and act for Jews worldwide. Inevitably Israel’s behaviour influences how Jews are regarded locally.

Tim Willcox will remember what happened to another good BBC man, Jeremy Bowen, who was put through the mangle a few years ago by the Zionist mafia, and his caved-in bosses, for honest reporting. No doubt they have tried to “re-educate” and re-program him. .

A kindly member of our group sent Tim a word of encouragement:

Thank you very much for saying publicly that Palestinians also suffer at the hands of Jews. I am sorry you have had to apologise; in my view those who need to apologise are those who do NOT say this at every opportunity.

I added:

I second Elizabeth’s remarks. Truth doesn’t count for much at the BBC any more, sadly.

Came the reply:

It’s been quite a heavy few days.
Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Tim

If you wish to tell the BBC what you think, here is the link  .

“Playing fast and loose with the language of the Holocaust”

All this is reminiscent of the flurry of outbursts early last year. The head of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Karen Pollock, succeeded in wringing an apology from a British MP for remarks in a parliamentary debate about what happened to Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and what is happening now to Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank.

Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, told the House that the suffering in Gaza was intolerable.

The state of Israel was founded because of what happened to the millions and millions of Jews who suffered genocide. Their properties, homes and land — everything — were taken away, and they were deprived of rights. Of course, many millions perished. It is quite strange that some of the people who are running the state of Israel seem to be quite complacent and happy to allow the same to happen in Gaza.

The issue is not just about Gaza; let us think about the West Bank and Jerusalem as well. Many Palestinians are being turfed out of their homes in Jerusalem. The Israelis are the occupying power in the West Bank, where they have got rid of Palestinian homes and replaced them with hundreds of thousands of settlements, recognised by the United Nations as illegal…. The policy pursued by the state of Israel is not helping to lead to a two-state solution…  Let us face it: if what is happening to Gaza, done by Israel, were happening to any other nation, the whole world would be up in arms, and rightly so.

Fair comment? Or something to apologise for?

As reported in The Guardian Ms Pollock accused the MP of making “offensive and inappropriate comparisons” about the Middle East. “We expect our politicians to speak responsibly and sensitively about the past and about events today. These lazy and deliberate distortions have no place in British politics… It is astonishing to think that anyone could visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, learn about the industrial nature of the Nazis’ murderous regime, even walk through a gas chamber – and then make these offensive and inappropriate comparisons.”

In the Jewish Chronicle Labour Friends of Israel director Jennifer Gerber strongly condemned the comparisons between the Holocaust and the situation in Gaza. “In her remarks, she [Qureshi] directly links Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people to the Nazis’ efforts to exterminate world Jewry. This is both deeply offensive to the memory of the Holocaust and its millions of victims, but also wilfully ignorant of the actual situation in Gaza. We would ask Ms Qureshi to apologise for her remarks, and to cease using such upsetting and offensive comparisons.”

Has Ms Gerber been to Gaza to see the “actual situation”? Ms Qureshi replied that she had not intended to draw a direct parallel especially as she had visited one of the most notorious death camps. “The debate was about the plight of the Palestinian people and in no way did I mean to equate events in Gaza with the Holocaust. I apologise for any offence caused.” She didn’t withdraw the remark, however.

Two years ago Liberal Democrat MP David Ward was in hot water for his “use of language” in condemning the Jewish state’s atrocities against the Palestinians while the horrors of their own suffering at the hands of the Nazis were still fresh in memory. He wrote on his website a few days before Holocaust Memorial Day: “Having visited Auschwitz twice — once with my family and once with local schools — I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.”

The sky immediately fell on him. Karen Pollock and Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, launched a vicious attack with Pollock claiming that Ward “deliberately abused the memory of the Holocaust” and his remarks were “sickening” and had no place in British politics.

Benjamin said he was outraged and shocked by Ward’s “offensive” comments. They demanded the party withdraw the whip. Such was the pressure that wobbly LibDem bosses appointed a team to lay down language rules, determine whether Ward was “salvageable” and then “re-educate” him.

After that, in Brighton, the Sussex Friends of Israel turned on MP Caroline Lucas. During a pro-Israel lobby day in Parliament Lucas accused Israel of “blocking humanitarian aid” and “humiliating” the people of Gaza. Simon Cobbs, a founding member of the Sussex Friends of Israel, told The Algemeiner: “The problem we have with Caroline Lucas is that she’s taken a side over and above her own constituency needs.”

Ms Lucas’s remarks were perfectly valid and there was no way Cobbs could deny it. He should have put his point to the 80 percent of Conservative MPs and MEPs who have signed up with Friends of Israel, an organisation that flies the Israeli flag in the British parliament and promotes Israel’s interests. Such activities are not only “above the needs” but very probably detrimental to the interests of their constituencies.

Then Colchester MP Sir Bob Russell, speaking during a debate on the national schools curriculum, put a question to Education Secretary Michael Gove about world history lessons, saying: “On the assumption that the 20th century will include the Holocaust, will he give me an assurance that the life of Palestinians since 1948 will be given equal attention?”

“These remarks are a shocking piece of Holocaust denigration,” said Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Jeremy Newmark. “There is simply no comparison between the two situations. It is worrying that so soon after the David Ward affair another MP thinks it is acceptable to play fast and loose with the language of the Holocaust in this context.”

Prickly Ms Pollock also pounced on Russell: “To try to equate the events of the Holocaust – the systematized mass murder of 6 million Jews – with the conflict in the Middle East is simply inaccurate as well as inappropriate.”

But, as everyone and his dog knows, it isn’t a “conflict”. It’s a brutal occupation and blockade in which millions of innocent civilians have been dispossessed at gunpoint and put to flight, or collectively punished for decades by a military force armed to the teeth with high-tech weaponry, and unable to move freely in their own country. BBC Watch should note that Israel is especially good at collectively punishing Gazans for the alleged crimes of Hamas.

As for the atrocities carried out in Nazi-occupied Europe and Israeli-occupied Palestine there is no equivalence in terms of scale. But some similarities are inescapable to those who go and see for themselves. The crucial message of the Holocaust, that such cruelty must never be allowed to happen again, seems lost already among those who are supposed to promote it.

And it’s that time of year again. Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK is 27 January. Stand by for more  prickliness, more ructions and more “re-education”.

Postscript

As I was signing off, news came in that MP David Ward had landed himself in hot water again  . The Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub has written to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg expressing “abhorrence” at “offensive and shocking” comments made by Ward about Netanyahu’s presence at the solidarity march in Paris on Sunday.

Ward had tweeted: “#Netanyahu in Paris march – what!!! Makes me feel sick”.

Taub writes: “At a time when leaders were united in condemnation of extremist atrocities, Mr Ward’s statement is a disgraceful attempt to politicise suffering, delegitimise Israel, and justify acts of terror.” He also said that “more shocking still is the continued impunity that [Ward] seems to enjoy from his party”.

Taub himself would do well to curb his language. Israel is in no position to lecture on extremist atrocities or impunity.  Many people, besides Ward, watching the march and Netanyahu’s antics must have kept a sick bag in reach. It was widely reported how the Israeli prime minister, who arrived uninvited (and, I hear, was actually asked to stay away), has been widely criticised for pushing his way to the front of the parade, positioning himself centre-stage, linking arms with the invited guests and waving inappropriately on such a solemn occasion to real or imaginary ‘admirers’ in the crowd.

On past form the LibDems will buckle and prostrate themselves before the Israeli bullies. Their spokesperson has already said the MP ‘s tweet was “clearly in bad taste”.

Poor David can look forward to more loony “re-education” in the LibDems’ house of correction, assuming they consider him “salvageable”. The party, however, isn’t. It’ll likely be wiped out at the coming general election.

January 15, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Persecuted French revisionist scholar: Charlie Hebdo Before and After

On the Contrary | January 14, 2015

Dr. Robert Faurisson, the courageous octogenarian dean of European revisionists who has been repeatedly beaten, prosecuted, jailed and heavily fined in France for publishing doubts about the authenticity of the sacred relics of Holocaustianity, offers his insights into the situation in France in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris.

_________________________________________________________________________________

To Michael Hoffman:

These killings in Paris, at the office of Charlie Hebdo and elsewhere – with 20 dead in all, among whom five were Jews – rightly arouse widespread indignation but Jewish organizations have immediately exploited this indignation for their benefit. They forget that, in large part, it’s been under the pressure of international and French-Jewish groups that France has hastily engaged in all sorts of military expeditions causing so many deaths in the Arab-Muslim world. They forget this country’s responsibility for the creation of the bogus “State of Israel” – soon afterwards arming it with nuclear weapons – and in the appalling fate of the Palestinian people since at least 1948; as well as the presence of Benjamin Netanyahu at Sunday’s rally in Paris which was an affront to an entire Arab-Muslim world. Jewish organizations in France live in anger and war; that being the case, how can they be surprised if their adversaries live in anger and war as well?

Such killings may bring to mind a number of murders committed by Jews who subsequently became “heroes” of Jewish history. On February 25, 1994 Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli army physician armed with an assault rifle, shot dead 24 Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron before being subdued and killed there himself. Goldstein’s nearby tomb is a pilgrimage site for many Jews.

The hysteria we are witnessing now in France, in this month of January 2015, has a precedent: that of May 1990 and the “profanation of the Carpentras cemetery” when Judaic graves were said to have been vandalized. It was the exploitation of that event that made it possible to intimidate the French parliament into enacting a law called “The Fabius-Gayssot Act” of July 13, 1990 — punishing by a term of imprisonment of from one month to one year and a fine of up to 300,000 francs (45,000 euros), along with several other sanctions — those who dispute “the existence of crimes against humanity” (that is, essentially, crimes against Jews), as defined and punished in 1945-1946 by a body that the winners of the recent war had dared to name the “International Military Tribunal” (three lies in three words) of Nuremberg. This law, totally contrary to the French constitution, came into effect by appearing in the Journal Officiel de la République Française of July 14, 1990, anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.

It was due to a fabrication on the part of the Socialist president of the French parliament, Jewish millionaire Laurent Fabius, which he conveyed to a national television audience, alleging that a Jewish cadaver in the Carpentras cemetery had been taken out of its grave and impaled through the rectum with a pole —  that the French were stampeded into outrage and indignation which was cleverly exploited: Catholic authorities rang the great bell of Notre-Dame in Paris as a sign of an extraordinary sacrilege having occurred. The Socialist French President François Mitterrand led a march through the center of Paris at the head of the vast crowd of demonstrators. We have now, on January 11, 2015, seen the same scenario repeated in the same place: the Catholic Archbishop having taken the initiative of ringing the Notre-Dame’s bells, and Laurent Fabius, architect of the suppression of the rights of freedom of expression of revisionists in France, in the front rank of the “protesting” dignitaries marching through the streets — our Socialist President François Hollande  together with Netanyahu — all supposedly in the cause of freedom of expression.

Moreover, those Jewish organizations pose as being in support of freedom of opinion and expression but, in reality, what they are demanding is increased repression against “Holocaust denial.” Revisionism has made significant progress in recent years here in France, thanks especially to the Internet. Certain Jewish organizations therefore, are working for laws aimed at the censorship of the Internet, of the Ferench-African comedian Dieudonné (who has some 80 legal proceedings pending against him), of the revisionists and of a number of other unbowed men and women.

In conclusion and for want of time, I shall allow myself just three remarks in response to the questions which you sent by e-mail: 1) the name Charlie-Hebdo has, apparently, nothing to do with Charles de Gaulle; it comes, I believe, from the Peanuts character Charlie Brown.

2) Gayssot is the surname of a former Communist MP and government minister, and the Fabius-Gayssot Act is sometimes called the “Faurisson Law” or “Lex Faurissoniana”; I have lost count of the times I’ve been ordered to pay fines or damages on the grounds of this law; other revisionists have been thrown into prison or, like Vincent Reynouard, a father of nine, will be returning to prison. For my part, I’ve endured ten physical assaults – of which eight took place in France. French police have carried out numerous searches and seizures, or attempted seizures, at my home. These police have often refused to protect me in the presence of threats and danger.

3)  I hope to be able, before long, to send you an English version of my nine-page article (with illustrations) which I wrote on December 31, 2014. It is entitled: In 70 years, no forensic study proving the existence and operation of the “Nazi gas chambers”! 

I dedicated this study to Professor Ben Zion Dinur (1884-1973), founder of Yad Vashem in 1953, who was forced to resign in 1959 for having preferred scientific history to Judaic memory.

http://robertfaurisson.blogspot.fr/2009/03/memoire-juive-contre-histoire-ou.html

I thank you, dear Michael, and congratulate you on the work you have done over so many years, and in such difficult conditions, for the just cause of historical revisionism.

Robert Faurisson, January 13, 2015

January 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Islamic Human Rights Commission cuts ties with ‘Orwellian’ British government

RT | January 14, 2015

One of the UK’s biggest Islamic organizations has refused to participate in future government talks on anti-terror legislation, claiming their contributions to policy are being overlooked.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit campaign, research and advocacy organization,” said the British government has been “uncompromising” in its efforts to “legislate away fundamental freedoms in order to tackle terrorism over the last 18 years.”

In a statement released late Tuesday, an IHRC spokesperson said: “Such input perversely allows the government to claim that it has carefully considered the views of civil society organizations, when in fact the final policies were always a foregone conclusion.”

The statement comes at a time when a number of British Islamic organizations feel marginalized by the government, and in some cases have been accused of being linked to terrorist activities overseas.

In November, the Claystone think tank said “more than a quarter” of British charities under investigation by the charity commission were working on Muslim-related issues, and criticized the government for “excessive” surveillance of Islamic charitable groups.

Analysis conducted by the think tank found that out of 76 charities currently being investigated, 20 were led by Muslims, including the civil liberties organization CAGE.

In December, the Demos think tank also said British charities working in conflict zones in the Middle East were being cut off from “millions” of pounds in funding due to counter-terrorism legislation, with some having their private bank accounts closed down completely due to “credit risk.”

Tom Keatingue, a director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and author of the report, said that the lack of financial access meant that charities were unable to carry out some medical projects overseas, or deliver adequate resources to vulnerable refugees.

The IHRC also hit out at the government’s Counter Terrorism and Security Bill, which is currently being debated in parliament, which the organization called “Orwellian.”

“The bill will introduce a raft of new measures to deal with terrorism and extremism in the UK. It is IHRC’s view that the current proposals are far and away the most Orwellian to date; they will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a police state.

“Alongside the raft of new laws, we have also seen the government introduce and broaden its PREVENT program, which is aimed at both gathering intelligence on the Muslim community using public sector workers such as teachers and doctors and trying to socially engineer a more compliant Muslim community by legally defining the range of beliefs/views its members are allowed to hold.”

IHRC spokesperson Arzu Merali claimed the government’s ramping up of anti-terror measures were marginalizing British Muslims, and risked turning the UK into a “police state.”

“The anti-terrorism laws have served only to create a sub-par legal regime without due process that targets Muslims. It also demonizes Muslims further, causing backlash and discrimination. Off the back of these processes, we find the UK turning into a police state with little protest. We must stop this slide into authoritarianism,” she said.

Last month, two well-known British Muslim charities, the Muslim Charities Forum and the Birmingham based Islamic Help lost their government grants after being accused by the Department for Communities and Local Government of being linked to terrorist groups.

Both organizations say they were “surprised, dismayed and angered” by DCLG’s decision, which they insisted were based on “unfounded allegations.”

January 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | , | Leave a comment

‘Snoopers’ Charter’ essential to counter terror threat – Home Secretary

RT | January 14, 2015

UK Home Secretary Theresa May has given her full support to the Communications Data Bill, colloquially known by its critics as the Snoopers’ Charter. She claims without it security agencies are unable to fully protect the public from terrorist attacks.

Giving her response to the Paris attacks in the House of Commons on Wednesday, May said it was imperative that surveillance agencies were able to intercept communications “where it is necessary and proportionate to do so” to monitor terrorist activity.

She also outlined further security measures put in place prior to and following the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

May acknowledged that during the time of the attack the government was reviewing the bill, and said that without the immediate implementation of the bill the security forces’ power was diminishing.

“Every day that passes without the proposals in the Communications Data Bill, the capabilities of the people who keep us safe diminishes,” she said.

“This important legislation will strengthen our powers to disrupt the ability of people to travel abroad to fight, and control their ability to return here … In particular, it will allow the relocation of people subject to Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures to other parts of the country.”

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg reaffirmed his party’s opposition to the bill on Tuesday. He claims the powers in the bill would “cross a line” and said privacy was a “qualified right.”

The LibDems made a move to block the bill in 2012, with Clegg saying no government would be able to store people’s personal correspondence while he was in power.

May used her speech in the Commons to reinforce the importance of the measures, saying the lack of cross-party consensus was hindering the implementation of the bill.

She further said its label as a “snoopers’ charter” was a misnomer.

“This is not – as I have heard it said – ‘letting the government snoop on your emails.’ It is allowing the police and the security services, under a tightly regulated and controlled regime to find out the who, where, when and how of a communication but not its content, so they can prove and disprove alibis, identify associations between suspects, and tie suspects and victims to specific locations,” she said.

She added that “it was likely” that such data was used during the Paris shooting, and said it was entirely necessary that UK security organizations have access to this data to prevent similar attacks.

During her speech, the Home Secretary reiterated points made previously by Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior figures in the wake of the Paris attacks.

She said the UK’s terrorist threat level would remain “severe,” meaning a terrorist organization “could attack at any point… without warning.”

January 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

ACLU Challenges Law that Outlaws Speech Causing “Mental Anguish”

By Noel Brinkerhoff and Steve Straehley | AllGov | January 14, 2015

A new Pennsylvania law has been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for trying to stifle the speech of those who cause “mental anguish” with their remarks.

Lawmakers adopted the Revictimization Relief Act (pdf) after Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, delivered a recorded commencement address to students at Goddard College in Vermont, where he had attended college. Faulkner’s widow said at the time that the speech was an “outrage,” but there was no evidence she attended the address, nor was there any mention of the murder or Faulker’s widow in the speech. Nonetheless, Republican state rep. Mike Vereb, a former police officer, proposed the legislation last Oct. 2, saying Abu-Jamal was continuing to traumatize Faulkner’s widow. Gov. Tom Corbett (R), who lost a re-election bid a couple weeks later in a landslide, signed the bill an extraordinarily short amount of time later, on Oct. 21.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania contends the law amounts to a “Silencing Act” on free speech. “Laws designed to silence anyone, even people society may find disagreeable, are unconstitutional and bad for democracy,” Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “This law reaches broadly, and could prevent innocent prisoners from seeking clemency, journalists from using sources to expose prison abuse and formerly incarcerated persons from speaking publicly.”

The ACLU was joined in the suit by journalists, news outlets and advocacy organizations, as well as four former convicts who fear the law will stifle their ability to speak publicly.

Abu-Jamal has become a cause célèbre for the right. President Barack Obama’s nomination of Debo Adegbile to be head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was blocked at least in part because Adegbile helped represent Abu-Jamal during his appeal.

To Learn More:

ACLU Lawsuit: PA Law To Silence Offenders’ Speech Violates First Amendment (by Andrew Staub, Pennsylvania Independent )

ACLU Calls PA ‘Silencing Law’ Prior Restraint (by Andrew Thompson, Courthouse News Service )

Civil Cover Sheet

Goddard Commencement (pdf)

If It’s Okay that John Roberts Defended a Mass Murderer, Why was Debo Adegbile Rejected by the Senate for Defending a Cop Killer? (by Steve Straehley, AllGov )

January 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia Adds 5 Years to Human Rights Lawyer’s Prison Sentence

Al-Akhbar | January 13, 2015

A Saudi judge has sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer to an additional five years in jail, after he refused to show remorse or recognize the court that handed down his original 10-year term for sedition.

Waleed Abu al-Khair, founder and director of watchdog group Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA), was sentenced last year to 10 years in jail on charges that included breaking his allegiance to King Abdullah, showing disrespect for the authorities and creating an unauthorized association.

The Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh also gave Abu al-Khair a five-year suspended sentence, fined him 200,000 riyals ($53,300), banned him from leaving the kingdom for a further 15 years after his eventual release, and shut down all his websites.

Abu al-Khair’s wife, rights activist Samar Badawi, said the court had decided on Monday to increase his sentence after an appeal by the public prosecutor, who had argued that the lawyer had failed to retract his views or express remorse over them. The judge accepted the request and increased the sentence to 15 years of imprisonment.

Badawi said her husband, who is 35, had long objected to the tribunal set up in 2008 to try terrorism suspects. It has since been used to send rights campaigners to prison.

“Waleed sees this court as lacking basic international standards for any tribunal and had objected to trying even terrorists in it, let alone rights activists,” she said.

Abu al-Khair has also been critical of a Saudi anti-terrorism law passed in early 2014, which is widely seen by activists as a tool to stifle dissent.

The anti-terrorism law says terrorist crimes include any act that “disturbs public order, shakes the security of society or subjects its national unity to danger, or obstructs the primary system of rule or harms the reputation of the state.” … Full article

January 13, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Israel: ‘Je Suis Hypocrite’

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By Rasha B. Foda • SHAREverything • January 12, 2015

140730-rami-rayan-journalistIt is no small irony that the West, who now so vociferously speak against the so-called “intolerance of Islam” (while practicing their own censorship), should seek comfort and support from Israelis, of all people, who now too eagerly sing the hymns of free speech, while being one of the most egregious perpetrators of violence against journalists the world has ever known. Indeed, last year alone, Israelis achieved the dubious honor of being named the world’s second most lethal state against journalists, according to the watchdog Reporters Without Borders. And that’s no small accomplishment given that thanks to ISIS, only war-torn Syria beat Israel, and apparently only because Syria is engulfed in armed conflict all year round, whereas all 15 journalists killed by Israel in 2014 (only 7 of which Reporters counted as having been killed on duty) were killed during the 50 days of Operation “Protective Edge.”

So basically, Israel is second only to ISIS, who they could have beat had their Operation against Gaza lasted a little longer. Meanwhile, israel never did anything to punish the IDF soldier who killed Welsh cameraman, producer, and director James Miller almost 11 years ago.

James_Miller_BBCThe documentary which Miller was making on the day of his death (Death in Gaza, released by HBO in 2004) depicts Miller and his colleagues leaving the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah refugee camp after dark, carrying a white flag. They had walked about 20 metres from the veranda when the first shot rang out.[15] For 13 seconds, there was silence broken only by Shah’s cry: “We are British journalists.” Then came the second shot, which killed Miller. He was shot in the front of his neck.[15]

That is one strange bedfellow to choose in championing the cause of free speech for journalists.

January 12, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Thought police’: Academic freedom threatened by anti-terror bill, MPs warn

RT | January 12, 2015

Universities should be exempted from new counter-terrorism laws because they will ‘restrict’ freedom of speech, the government’s human rights watchdog has said.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights said government plans to make universities legally obliged to refer suspected would-be terrorists to the authorities would undermine academic freedom.

Under the bill, Home Secretary Theresa May would be given authority to force universities to ban speakers who are considered “extremist.”

The warning comes before the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill’s second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

May’s bill, introduced to Parliament in November last year, is likely to receive boosted support in the wake of the terrorist attacks in France last week, which left 17 people dead.

Committee members are concerned about a legal duty that would require universities to refer students at risk of becoming terrorists to external anti-radicalization programs.

Universities would also be required to ban ‘extremists’ from speaking on campuses.

Parliament’s human rights watchdog, made up of MPs and peers, says it is “concerned about the implications for both freedom of expression and academic freedom as a result of the applicability of the proposed new duty to universities.”

Failure to comply with the new duties would result in direct intervention by the secretary of state, and “ultimately, a mandatory court order backed by criminal sanctions for contempt of court.”

The committee also argued that terms such as ‘extremist’ are ambiguous.

“Broad terms such as ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ are not capable of being defined with sufficient precision to enable universities to know with sufficient certainty whether they risk being found to be in breach of the new duty.”

Dr Hywel Francis, Labour MP and chair of the committee, said: “As open and rigorous debate about ideas is itself one of the most powerful tools in the struggle against terrorism, and the extremism which often breeds terrorism, this is surely counter-productive.”

Martin Hall, former vice-chancellor of the University of Salford, also voiced opposition to the proposed bill, calling it “draconian.”

Writing in the Times Higher Education on Thursday, Hall warned that such legal obligations on universities could “be used against opponents of fracking, or animal rights activists, or anti-nuclear movements, or any radical opposition to the status quo.”

“There is a danger of us being turned into a thought police,” he added.

Hall also cautioned against what he sees as a disproportionate response to terrorism by the state.

“Given that the 2011 census recorded 2.7 million Muslims living in the UK and that the Home Office is currently concerned about 500 individuals, there is a question of effectiveness and proportionality.”

The warning by the Joint Committee on Human Rights comes as Prime Minister David Cameron says he will re-introduce the ‘snooper’s charter’ bill if the Tories win the general election in May.

Speaking to ITV News on Sunday, he said: “We cannot allow modern forms of communication to be exempt from the ability, in extremis, with a warrant signed by the home secretary, to be exempt from being listened to.”

The Draft Communications Data Bill would require internet and mobile phone companies to maintain records – but not the content – of customer’s internet browsing history, email correspondence, phone calls and messages.

It was previously blocked by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the grounds it would infringe on people’s right to privacy.

READ MORE: Military intelligence get £100m anti-terror fund, hunt ‘self-starter’ extremists – Osborne

January 12, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Four Charged with Violating Utah’s “Ag-Gag” Law

By Ken Broder | AllGov | January 11, 2015

Four Californians stopped in Utah for taking pictures of agricultural buildings last September are apparently the first non-residents to be charged with violating the state’s controversial “ag-gag” law.

It has been against the law in Utah since 2012 to photograph agricultural operations, including the mistreatment of animals. Utah and a half a dozen other states have enacted laws to crack down on animal rights activists and others who have documented cruel and unsanitary conditions around the country.

The four, members of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), were each charged with one count of misdemeanor criminal trespass on agricultural land and agricultural operation interference, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. They said they were aware of the ag-gag law and were filming a documentary tracing pigs’ journey from Utah to a Los Angeles slaughterhouse.

Sarah Jane Hardt, one of the defendants, told the Tribune they planned to legally record events at the Circle Four pig farm from vantage points on public property, not surreptitiously. But someone ratted them out and deputies handed them citations. The other three charged are Robert Penney, Harold Weiss and Bryan Monell. Circle Four is owned by a Chinese company, the Shuanghui Group.

A lawsuit (pdf) challenging the statute as unconstitutional was filed in July 2013 by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and others. One of the plaintiffs, Amy Meyer, was arrested five months earlier after she used her cellphone to record images while on private property next to a slaughterhouse.

One of the pictures was of a sick cow being pushed by a bulldozer. The charge against her was dismissed after three months. Will Potter at Green Is the New Red says that the two Utah cases are the only ag-gag enforcements, nationally.

The Utah law defines four activities that are used by whistleblowers to uncover illegal behavior as, themselves, illegal: recording an image or sound without the operator’s permission; gaining “access to an agricultural operation under false pretenses;” asking for a job at a place for the purpose of making recordings; and making a recording while trespassing.

The lawsuit says the statute threatens groups like PETA as well as the investigators and whistleblowers they support:

“These statutes have the effect of criminalizing undercover investigative activities targeting agricultural operations, as well as the planning and assistance of such activity, thereby making the investigations and the journalism surrounding such events virtually impossible.”

The format for Utah’s ag-gag law was drafted in 2002 by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded conservative political organization that brings lawmakers and lobbyists together to draw up model legislation that can be adopted in multiple venues.

To Learn More:

California Activists Charged under Utah’s “Ag-Gag” Law for Photographing Pig Farm (by Jessica Miller, Salt Lake Tribune )

4 People Prosecuted Under #AgGag Law for Photographing Factory Farm from the Road (by Will Potter, Green Is the New Red)

Judge Won’t Toss Suit Challenging Utah’s “Ag Gag” Law (by Marissa Lang The Salt Lake Tribune )

An Overview of “Ag-Gag” Laws (by Jeff Zalesin, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)

Animal Rights Groups Sue Utah over Law Criminalizing Undercover Photography of Farm Abuse (by Matt Bewig, AllGov )

Animal Legal Defense Fund, et al v. Governor Gary R. Herbert and Attorney General Josh Swallow (U.S. District Court District of Utah Central Division) (pdf)

January 11, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Minnesota mom faces up to 2 years in prison for saving son’s life with cannabis oil

Trey-Brown-300x150

Trey Brown in the hospital due to his brain injury
Police State USA | January 9, 2015

MADISON, MN — A mother has been criminally charged for the efforts she took to save her son’s life with cannabis oil, and could spend up to two years in prison if convicted.

In 2011, eleven-year-old Trey Brown suffered a traumatic brain injury. Trey was struck in the skull with a baseball and put into a coma due to bleeding in his brain. When he finally awoke, he was “a shell of himself” and suffered from chronic pain, seizures, learning disabilities, and suicidal thoughts.

“I cry like every day before I go to bed,” Trey, now 15 years old, told CBS News. “Like my brain is about to blow up, cause there is so much pressure.”

Trey’s mother, 38-year-old Angela Brown, searched for ways to alleviate her son’s agony. He was put on 18 different pharmaceutical drugs but the problems persisted, and the side effects made him even more suicidal. He told his mother that he “didn’t want to live anymore.”

Mrs. Brown saw one final option: cannabis oil. Recently approved for medical use in a number of states, the oil has shown remarkable results in patients with pain and seizures. A doctor recommended the family seek the treatment in Colorado. So, in March of 2014, the family took a trip to Boulder, Colorado, to obtain a bottle of cannabis oil legally from one of the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries.

The results were incredible. Trey’s pain subsided and the migraines went away. The muscle spasms stopped, too. Trey was finally able to do better in school.

“It was a miracle in a bottle,” his mother said.

Trey continued taking the oil for about a month. The family’s good fortunate was soon stamped out by oppressive forces in their home state. Trey’s school became inquisitive about how the teen had shown so much improvement at school. Mrs. Brown — who describes herself as “an open book” — eagerly told his teachers about the successful treatment.

“I said ‘Well, I gave him an oil that we’d gotten from Colorado,’” Angela recalled to CBS. “‘It’s derived from a marijuana plant.’ And then you could feel the tension in the room.”

School administrators wasted no time in reporting Ms. Brown to law enforcement. She had technically broken the law by returning to Minnesota with the forbidden oil. The Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department arrested Angela Brown and she was charged with two gross misdemeanors, including child endangerment due to substance possession (609.378) and criminal jurisdiction which contributes to the need for child protective services (260C.425).

Trey’s oil was confiscated and his treatment ceased. The agonizing pain, swelling, and muscle spasms returned. “School was really hard again,” he said.

Ironically, the problem is not a refusal of the Minnesota state legislature to ease up on cannabis patients. In May 2014, Minnesota became the 22nd state to pass a medical marijuana law. The problem is that it doesn’t go into effect until July 2015.

But with Trey’s constant suicidal thoughts, Angela Brown said that her son could not wait for relief.

“I stupidly opened my mouth to the wrong people and I got turned in,” she said. “When people ask me questions, I’m an open book. It got me in trouble. The only thing I did wrong was open my mouth.”

The two gross misdemeanor charges could land Mrs. Brown in prison for up to two years and result in a $6,000 fine. Her children could also be taken away.

* * * * *

FOLLOW UP

The Brown family is now embroiled in legal problems and preparing to defend Angela’s actions in court.  Supporters have shown up to court hearings but the district attorney refused to drop the charges.

“This simply is not a situation where someone has endangered their child,” said attorney Michael Hughes, who filed a motion to dismiss on behalf of Mrs. Brown.  The judge reportedly has 90 days to decide whether to grant the motion.

“We are good hard working people that were just trying to save our son’s life. It has been a living hell since his injury and this just adds to our ever growing stress,” the Brown family stated on their GoFundMe Page — set up to raise funds for the Angela’s legal defense.

The family has indicated that they plan to move to Colorado to resume Trey’s treatment with cannabis oil. Whether Angela will be able to join them remains to be seen.

SPEAK OUT FOR THE BROWN FAMILY

Demand charges be dropped against Angela Brown.Chippewa County District Attorney’s Office (Montevideo, Minnesota)
D.A. David Gilbertson
Phone: (320) 269-7138

Provide feedback to the police for coldly enforcing unjust laws.

Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department (Montevideo, Minnesota)
Phone: (320) 269-2121
Email: Contact Form

(Photo Credit: Angela Brown)

January 10, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

If David Petraeus is actually charged, all of DC will finally find out how incredibly unjust the Espionage Act is

By Trevor Timm | Freedom of the Press Foundation | January 9, 2015

In a surprising development, the New York Times reported late Friday that the FBI and Justice Department have recommended felony charges against ex-CIA director David Petraeus for leaking classified information to his former biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. While the Times does not specify, the most likely law prosecutors would charge Petraeus under is the same as Edward Snowden and many other leakers: the 1917 Espionage Act.

It remains to be seen whether Petraeus will actually be indicted (given how high-ranking government officials so often escape punishment), and the decision now sits on Attorney General Eric Holder’s desk. But this is a fascinating and important case for several reasons.

First, all of Petreaus’s powerful D.C. friends and allies are about to be shocked to find out how seriously unjust the Espionage Act is—a fact that has been all too real for many low-level whistleblowers for years.

By all accounts, Petraeus’s leak caused no damage to US national security. “So why is he being charged,” his powerful friends will surely ask. Well, that does not matter under the Espionage Act. Even if your leak caused no national security damage at all, you can still be charged, and you can’t argue otherwise as a defense at trial. If that sounds like it can’t be true, ask former State Department official Stephen Kim, who is now serving a prison sentence for leaking to Fox News reporter James Rosen. The judge in his case ruled that prosecutors did not have to prove his leak harmed national security in order to be found guilty.

It doesn’t matter what Petraeus’s motive for leaking was either. While most felonies require mens rea (an intentional state of mind) for a crime to have occurred, under the Espionage Act this is not required. It doesn’t matter that Petraeus is not an actual spy. It also doesn’t matter if Petraeus leaked the information by accident, or whether he leaked it to better inform the public, or even whether he leaked it to stop a terrorist attack. It’s still technically a crime, and his motive for leaking cannot be brought up at trial as a defense.

This may seem grossly unfair (and it is!), but remember, as prosecutors themselves apparently have been arguing in private about Petraeus’s case: “lower-ranking officials had been prosecuted for far less.” Under the Obama administration, more sources of reporters have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act than all other administrations combined, and many have been sentenced to jail for leaks that should have never risen to the level of a criminal indictment.

Ultimately, no one should be charged with espionage when they didn’t commit espionage, but if prosecutors are going to use the heinous Espionage Act to charge leakers, they should at least do it fairly and across the board—no matter one’s rank in the military or position in the government. So in one sense, this development is a welcome one.

For years, the Espionage Act prosecutions have only been for low-level officials, while the heads of federal agencies leak with impunity. For example, current CIA director John Brennan, former CIA director Leon Panetta, and former CIA general counsel John Rizzo are just three of many high-ranking government officials who have gotten off with little to no punishment despite the fact we know they’ve leaked information to the media that the government considers classified.

So hopefully Eric Holder does the right thing and indicts Petreaus like he has so many others with far fewer powerful connections. As Petraeus himself once said after CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou was convicted for leaking: “There are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws.”

But if Petraeus does get indicted, perhaps we should start a new campaign: “Save David Petreaus! Repeal the Espionage Act!”

January 10, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

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