Taxpayer funded BBC censors “Palestine” from rap song
WPN | May 10, 2011
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has issued this important statement regarding the BBC.
BBC Radio 1xtra has removed the word ‘ Palestine ’ when playing a song by artist, Mic Righteous. In an extraordinary act of censorship, the word was filtered out of a recording as Mic Righteous sang the words ‘Free Palestine’, part of his song ‘Fire in the Booth’.
The censorship took place on the BBC show, Hip Hop M1X with Charlie Sloth, and the BBC has since issued a statement saying: ‘All BBC programmes have a responsibility to be impartial when dealing with controversial subjects…and an edit was made in this instance to ensure that impartiality was not compromised.’
Listen to the recording, with edit, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f15g4
There are several questions to be asked here of the BBC:
Is the word ‘ Palestine ’ controversial only when used in songs, or will the BBC be deleting it from all its programming?
Is the word ‘ Israel ’ similarly controversial?
How does the BBC decide what is a controversial subject? Which other news subjects does it deem to be controversial and worthy of BBC edits?
As a news organisation, how can the BBC report on news when it feels it has to censor ‘controversial subjects’ in order to maintain impartiality? All political news, by its nature, is controversial and excites a range of viewpoints – there is no consensus on anything political. Why is the BBC making this decision only over Palestine ? This in itself reveals the partiality of the BBC.
Is the BBC aware that Palestine is a geographical area and therefore can’t be controversial? If Palestinian leaders declare a sovereign Palestinian state in September, how will the BBC report on this if it considers the word ‘ Palestine ’ too controversial to be mentioned?
Is the BBC aware that the word ‘ Palestine ’ is recognised and used freely by MPs, and even by the Prime Minister, David Cameron?
When the band, The Special A.K.A, released its song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ in 1984, why were the words ‘Nelson Mandela’ not censored by BBC radio? Apartheid in South Africa was a controversial subject, and Mandela was still considered a terrorist by the UK and US governments.
While the BBC may have appeared to make itself look utterly ridiculous with this edit, the action itself reveals its ingrained bias against Palestine and is a serious matter.
It follows the BBC’s refusal to screen the DEC Appeal during Israel’s air, land and sea assault on a besieged Gaza in 2008/9, and its screening of the one-sided Panorama programme Death in the Med last August, which even the BBC’s own complaints panel found breached its guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in several instances.
You can take the following actions:
Write to the BBC via the complaints form on its website, and ask for a reply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/
Leave a message on the BBC’s message board under the Charlie Sloth programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f15g4
Write a letter for publication to the Radio Times: radio.times@bbc.co.uk By post: Radio Times, Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TQ
Get as much publicity for this song as possible – ask your local radio station, community radio station, hospital radio, student campus radio etc to play it
Write to the BBC and demand it plays the song without an edit: radio1.enquiries@bbc.co.uk Write also to your local BBC radio station.
I have another question: How will/would the BBC treat the Desmond Dekker former No. 1 single “Israelites” ? If they applied the same political censorship, there would be nothing left.
I tried to comment on the “song” (the tune is hard to whistle) but the BBC website was mysteriously “undergoing maintenance” and cannot be accessed.
This is a blatant case of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, always apparent, often covert, but in this case, astonishingly all too stark. The licence-payers should be aware of how their money is being spent.
At least as pertinent, is the fact that the BBC should realise its licence payers are adults, well able to make their own judgements on political partiality, and don’t need the BBC to do it for them.
Americans Are Living In 1984
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | LewRockwell.com | May 10, 2011
The White House’s “death of bin Laden” story has come apart at the seams. Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama’s Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility?
So far it has made no difference to the once-fabled news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which on March 9, eight days later, is still repeating the propaganda that the SEALs killed bin Laden in his Pakistani compound, where bin Laden lived next door to the Pakistani Military Academy surrounded by the Pakistani army.
Not even the president of Pakistan finds the story implausible. The BBC reports that the president is launching a full-scale investigation of how bin Laden managed to live for years in an army garrison town without being noticed.
For most Americans the story began and ended with four words: “we got bin Laden.” The celebrations, the sweet taste of revenge, of triumph and victory over “the most dangerous man on the planet” are akin to the thrill experienced by sports fans when their football team defeats the unspeakable rival or their baseball team wins the World Series. No fan wants to hear the next day that it is not so, that it is all a mistake. If these Americans years from now come across a story that the killing of bin Laden was an orchestrated news event to boost other agendas, they will dismiss the report as the ravings of a pinko-liberal-commie.
Everyone knows we killed bin Laden. How could it be otherwise? We–the indispensable people, the virtuous nation, the world’s only superpower, the white hats– were destined to prevail. No other outcome was possible.
No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept bin Laden alive for a decade. No doctors were on the premises.
No one will remember that Fox News reported in December, 2001, that Osama bin Laden had passed away from his illnesses.
If bin Laden beat all odds and managed to live another decade to await, unarmed and undefended, the arrival of the Navy SEALS last week, how is it possible that the “terror mastermind,” who defeated not merely the CIA and FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies along with those of America’s European allies and Israel, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, airport security four times on the same morning, etc. etc., never enjoyed another success, not even a little, very minor one? What was the “terror mastermind” doing for a decade after 9/11?
The “death of bin Laden” serves too many agendas that cover the political spectrum for the obvious falsity of the story to be recognized by very many. Patriots are euphoric that America won over bin Laden. Progressives have seized on the story to excoriate the United States for extra-judicial murder that brutalizes us all. Some on the left-wing bought into the 9/11 story because of the emotional satisfaction they received from oppressed Arabs striking back at their imperialist oppressors. These left-wingers are delighted that it took the incompetent Americans an entire decade to find bin Laden, who was hiding in plain view. The American incompetence in finding bin Laden simply, in their minds, proves the incompetence of the US government, which failed to protect Americans against the 9/11 attack.
Those who ordered, and those who wrote, totally incompetent legal memos that torture was permissible under US and international law, thereby setting up George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the possibility of prosecution, are riding the euphoria of bin Laden’s death by declaring that it was torture that led the American assassins to bin Laden. All of a sudden, torture, which had fallen back into the disrepute in which it had been for centuries, is again in the clear. Anything that leads to the elimination of bin Laden is a valid instrument.
Those, who want to increase the pressure on Pakistan to shut up about Americans murdering Pakistani citizens in Pakistan from the air and from troops on the ground, have gained a new club with which to beat the Pakistani government into submission: “you hid bin Laden from us.”
Those who want to continue to fatten the profits of the military/security complex and the powers of Homeland Security, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, use bin Laden’s second, or ninth, death as proof that America is being successful in its war on terror and that the war must continue on such a successful path until all enemies are slain.
Most ominous of all was the statement by the CIA director that bin Laden’s death would lead to new attacks on America and new 9/11s from al Qaeda seeking revenge. This warning, issued within a few hours of President Obama’s Sunday evening address, telegraphed the inevitable “al Qaeda” Internet posting that America would suffer new 9/11s for killing their leader.
If the Taliban knew in December 2001 that bin Laden was dead, does anyone think that al Qaeda didn’t know it? Indeed, no member of the public has any way of knowing if al Qaeda is anything more than a bogyman organization created by the CIA which issues “al Qaeda” announcements. The evidence that al Qaeda’s announcements are issued by the CIA is very strong. The various videos of bin Laden for the last nine years have been shown by experts to be fakes. Why would bin Laden issue a fake video? Why did bin Laden cease issuing videos and only issue audios? A person running a world-wide terrorist organization should be able to produce videos. He would also be surrounded by better protectors than a couple of women. Where was al Qaeda, which according to former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, consists of “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” Had these most dangerous men alive abandoned their leader?
The CIA director’s warning of future terrorist attacks, followed by a suspect “al Qaeda” threat of the same, suggests that if the American public continues to lose its enthusiasm for the governments open-ended wars, which are conducted at the expense of the US budget deficit, the dollar’s exchange value, inflation, Social Security, Medicare, income support programs, jobs, recovery, and so forth, “al Qaeda” will again outwit all 16 US intelligence agencies, those of our allies, NORAD, airport security, Air Traffic Control, etc. etc., and inflict the world’s only superpower with another humiliating defeat that will invigorate American support for “the war on terror.”
I believe that “al Qaeda” could blow up the White House or Congress or both and that the majority of Americans would fall for the story, just as the Germans, a better educated and more intelligent population, fell for the Reichstag Fire–as did a number of historians.
The reason I say this is that Americans have succumbed to propaganda that has conditioned them to believe that they are under attack by practically omnipotent adversaries. Proof of this is broadcast every day. For example, on March 9, I heard over National Public Radio in Atlanta that Emory University, a private university of some distinction, treated its 3,500 graduating class to a commencement address by Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security.
This is the agency that has goons feeling the genitals of young children and adults and which has announced that it intends to expand this practice from air travelers to shopping malls, bus and train stations. That a serious university invited such a low-lifer, who clearly has no respect for American civil liberty and is devoid of any sort of sense of what is appropriate, to address a graduating class of southern elite is a clear indication that the Ministry of Truth has prevailed. Americans are living in George Orwell’s 1984.
For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the “citizens” any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. As a perceptive reader pointed out to me, we Americans, with our “free press,” are at this point today: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”
A people as gullible as Americans have no future.
Soldiers arrest Hamas leader at Jenin checkpoint
Ma’an – 07/05/2011
JENIN — Israel’s army arrested a Hamas leader Saturday in the occupied West Bank, prisoners advocates said.
Khaled Al-Haj, 45, was passing through a military checkpoint at the entrance of Araba when he was arrested, the Ahrar prisoners center said. Al-Haj served as a spokesman for Hamas, and he was recently released from prison.
Soldiers had apparently installed the checkpoint to catch Al-Haj, specifically, the center said in a statement. Another person whose identity was not known was also taken to an unknown location, the prisoners group said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
Al-Haj is considered a prominent party official. He served as the movement’s spokesman in Jenin and represented Hamas in the factional coordinating committee that eventually led to a unity deal last week.
He has spent years in Israeli custody, including three without charge under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy. It allows Israel to jail Palestinians for six-month periods which can be extended.
According to the Ahrar center, the arrests were intended to thwart the unity deal.
On Friday, Israel’s army arrested five Palestinians in the same area.
An undercover unit raided Jenin refugee camp and seized Islamic Jihad leader Bassam As-Saadi, who had recently been released from prison after completing an eight-year jail term.
Soldiers forced family members into one room while they searched the house and eventually departed with As-Saadi, who was bound before being taken to an unknown location, his wife told Ma’an.
Four residents of a village near Jenin were also seized. They were identified as Hasen Mustafa Jaradat, Hussein Rafiq Jaradat, and brothers Hussein and Munteser Ahmad Jaradat.
An undercover unit joined the army in the operation, witnesses said. They fired bullets and stun grenades at homes, and soldiers beat several residents after cuffing them outside their houses.
The operation came a day after soldiers stepped out of a Mercedes with Palestinian license plates at 2 a.m. and entered the home of an Islamic Jihad leader in Arraba village.
Tareq Qadan, an Islamic Jihad leader in the north, was taken from his home in his night clothes by five soldiers and shoved into the unmarked car parked outside the two-story building, witnesses said.
His sister said Qadan opened the door when he heard shouts from outside. As soon as the door opened, she said, “five soldiers broke into the house and took his wife into one room, and my brother outside.”
She added Qadan had asked to see his ailing mother before he was taken away, and to notify his brother that he should keep watch over the elderly woman: “They refused his request and took him in his pajamas.”
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed at the time that there was one arrest carried out in the village. She declined comment on the nature of the operation and alleged use of an unmarked vehicle.
Record Number of Americans Targeted by National Security Letters
By Julian Sanchez | CATO | May 6, 2011
The latest report to Congress on the Justice Department’s use of foreign intelligence surveillance powers has just been released, and it shows a truly stunning increase in the number of Americans whose sensitive phone, Internet, and banking records were obtained by the FBI — without judicial oversight — pursuant to National Security Letters. In 2009, a total of 14,788 NSL requests were issued targeting U.S. persons — a number that excludes requests for “basic subscriber information” as opposed to phone or e-mail logs — and 6,114 different Americans were affected by those demands for information. In 2010, the number of NSL requests targeting Americans rose to 24,287.
What’s really shocking, however, is the number of people affected. A whopping 14,212 American citizens and permanent residents had records of their financial, telephone, and online activity seized last year. The previous record, set in 2005, was 9,475. Were you one of those 14,212? If so, what did the FBI get? Thanks to the gag orders that come with NSLs, you will almost certainly never get to find out. But even if the Bureau decides there’s no reason to continue investigating you, whatever data they obtained — lists of phone numbers, credit card purchases, financial transactions, e-mail correspondents, or IP addresses visited — are likely to remain in a massive government database indefinitely
This pattern suggests that the Bureau is doing broader but shallower investigation — sweeping more people into the information vacuum, but issuing fewer requests per person, presumably because the results of the initial request provide few grounds for further scrutiny. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of those people are not terrorists — and, indeed, are probably guilty of nothing more than a second- or third-degree connection to the subject of an investigation. Remember, as expiring Patriot Act provisions come up for re-authorization at the end of this month: These tools are fundamentally not about spying on terrorists. The government has always had ample power to do that. They’re about authority to spy on the innocent.
Bahrain Arrests Opposition Leaders After Public Criticism
By Jason Ditz | Anti-war.com | May 02, 2011
Following an interview on al-Jazeera TV in which he blasted the regime, opposition MP Mattar Ibrahim Mattar was arrested by the Bahraini government today, along with MP Jawad Ferooz, the Vice President of the Wefaq Party.
The two were key members of the Shi’ite Wefaq faction, which backed the public protests among Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority, and both resigned (along with every single opposition MP) to protest the crackdown against protesters.
The arrests came after Mattar told al-Jazeera that his faction was receiving threats from the regime since the crackdown ended the protests, including killing the detained brother of a Wefaq MP. He added that while the government backed off its proposed ban of Wefaq the group remains under intense pressure.
Human rights groups were quick to criticize the arrests, and expressed concern that the regime has not revealed where the two are being held. The Bahraini Interior Ministry confirmed the killing of the detained protester, insisting he was causing problems at the detention center.
Please See Your Doctor Should Viagra Lead to Rape
By Kathleen Wallace Peine / Dissident Voice / May 2nd, 2011
It has been evident for years that the American MSM has been sliding into the dark role of government policy facilitator, but at least until recently there was something of a muddled attempt to feign credibility. That pretense is now completely gone. Hell, forget journalistic credibility; we’ve entered an era of storytelling freakery that knows no bounds.
This weekend, in particular, a breathless story was circulated for consumption; it was derived from the Reuters syndicate. One of the “progressive” sites out there presented the story as such: “HORROR: US Envoys Say Gaddafi Troops Raping, Issued Viagra”. This is a perfect example why I could never be an editor for a beard faux progressive site. I would insist the article be “WTF: US Envoys Say Gaddafi Troops Raping, Issued Viagra” because that’s what that nonsense merits.
I am in no way trying to diminish or trivialize the sickening pathology of sexual assault in wartime or anytime; it is a hideous companion to the basketful of horrors that we see during times of fighting. The fact that we are somehow not too startled by stories of maimed bombing victims shows how numb we’ve let the hawks make us. For some reason, though, rape still has a bit of shock value so I suspect that is why it’s power was tapped into for this story.
It was said that Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN, made the bizarre allegation during a closed-door Security Council meeting. It has also been noted that there was no response to her statement. Now that I believe. Of course these types of stories make their way out into the world as they are intended.
The story is incredibly reminiscent of the babies being thrown from incubators tale which was remarkably effective in moving public opinion to enter into Gulf War I. As I’m sure most of the readers here have heard, that story was later proven to be fabricated. I wonder how much of the general population knows the real story in regard to this incident, however. If you don’t recall, this tale of dying babies was told by a 15 year old member of the Kuwaiti Royal family posing as an onlooker to the treachery. She was presented in an anonymous manner; it was said, so as to protect her family still in Kuwait. The girl was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador. She struck out with a breakthrough performance as she told of witnessing Iraqi soldiers tossing babies onto the cold floor to perish. Babies and Rape-they both pack a punch, especially if you aren’t a particularly creative PR strategist. Hey, if it works…
If you are like me, you recall the incident as being part of a Congressional hearing, quite official. At least that is how it plays out in my mind’s eye. The thing is, that spectacle was actually organized under a group called The Human Rights Caucus. It had all the appearance of an official Congressional hearing but none of the tedious details like “laws” against lying under oath to the actual body of Congress. This was pure performance art. Don’t feel bad if you were fooled, so was Amnesty International as they had to issue an apologetic retraction after being duped as well. The damage was done, and suddenly the girl was no longer available for questions.
When clownery like 15 year old best supporting actress performances can help goad a nation to war, I suppose the participants in future ad campaigns want to see how far they can go next time. You almost wonder if there is a competition among the PR firms to see how ridiculous the stories can get.
I would certainly advance the Viagra rapin’ maniacs as one of the goofiest attempts ever. Kermit Roosevelt they ain’t! They certainly couldn’t be accused of any finesse, but they’ve seen clumsy plots work out just fine in the past.
Of course rational people realize that it is highly unlikely that an erectile dysfunction medication would facilitate rape. If this theory holds water then I have great suspicions that those retired professional type guys … the ones who go around and ride motorcycles on weekends with pristine leather jackets. … you know- the ones who always have a trip to the vineyards planned…. Come on, you’ve seen them on the commercials! These are the guys who thought Dennis Hopper was still cool even after he did Ameritrade commercials. Well, they are all probably rapists.
I almost feel sorry for Pfizer Inc. (almost).
On the absolutely, insanely improbable (did I say minuscule) chance that this has any basis in fact — suppose one bat-shit crazy commander did hand out some Viagra — I can find no plausible way this could be a widespread issue of note. Of course sexual assault is a horrible issue, but I suspect PR guys decided to piggyback on that volatile and scary topic with some mayhem and nonsense to get attention. I do think they finally miscalculated this time, however.
This propaganda is so completely over the top that even the comments following the article seemed to show a glimmer of critical thinking on the part of the readers. This is amazing and rare these days. Overwhelmingly the story was rejected and mocked. We are seeing our media slide into a Soviet era TASS irrelevance. The readers may not know the real story, but they know they are being fed nonsense.
The purveyors of these tales seem to have no agenda other than to incite support for this latest war. They are not hindered by the fact finding that tainted yesterday’s quaint journalism. One is thankful that North Korean style radios haven’t been placed in all of our homes. You can turn down the propaganda but never turn it off. I’m sure our policy jackals view that setup with lust.
If only this jaded disbelief could have been present the last decade or so. It seems to have taken personal lifestyle threats to question the legitimacy of continuous war and that is a very sad commentary on the American soul. You take what you can get though, and for whatever reason, every day more Americans seem to be seeing through the adolescent war propaganda machine.
The startling revelation that bin Laden is dead should be treated with similar skeptical consideration. This comes at a time when support is certainly waning in regard to these military escapades. Early indications seem to paint a bit of a giddy celebratory sense in the average American, but it will be fascinating to see if this translates over into any enhanced support of the multi-platform wars. At this point we truly only know what they are telling us, and little has dripped out as far as detailed facts. They do claim to have a body– we’ll have to see what is released, but one thing is for certain: this is the big one in the arsenal, possibly held until truly needed to goad and frenzy up the population again. I’m sure the best PR team is handling this one!
There’s truly no way to know if bin Laden’s location was verified long ago, but the kill was not ordered until this time. The long standing bizarre audio releases certainly made his death seem likely many years ago, though. None of this is seamless. Hopefully some of the skepticism beginning to show in regard to idiotic stories like the Viagra rape tales will at least translate over into a lack of blanket support for increased worldwide “interventions” even in the atmosphere surrounding this latest announcement.
Sadly this growing awareness does not seem to indicate a groundswell of activism that is just around the corner. This is all new to those of us living during the imperial overreach of the day and it will be up to us to determine how best to channel this growing distrust Americans are incubating. These clumsy propaganda attempts may actually do more good than we can know if they open the eyes of those previously in a trance.
Kathleen Wallace Peine can be reached at: kathypeine@gmail.com
Israeli Occupation Forces Arrest Palestinian Writer Ahmad Qatamesh
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Right Association | April 26, 2011
In the early hours of dawn on Thursday, 21 April 2011, a large force of Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers raided the home of the prominent Palestinian writer and academic Dr. Ahmad Qatamesh (1) in Al-Bireh and arrested him.
An hour earlier, Qatamesh’s wife, 22-year-old daughter and two other female relatives, including a 14-year-old child, were taken hostage by Israeli troops in another apartment to compel him to surrender himself. He was led to “Ofer” detention center in Beitunia.
Ahmad Qatamesh was born in 1950 in a cave in Bethlehem to a refugee family expelled during the Nakba from the village of Al-Malihah, near Jerusalem. Qatamesh earned his diploma in Arabic literature from the UNRWA-run Teacher Training Center in Ramallah.
In 1992, he was arrested by a massive Israeli force in the presence of his then 3-year-old daughter. Accusing him of being a particularly “dangerous” national leader, the Israeli Shabak tortured and ill-treated him (2) for a hundred days, an experience that he articulately exposed in his well-read prison notes titled I Shall not Wear Your Tarboush (fez). After the Shabak failed to produce incriminating evidence, however, an Israeli military court issued an “administrative detention” order against him, in accordance with an emergency law that allows Israel to detain for renewable terms anyone under its jurisdiction without charges, trial or access to the charges against him/her. This unjust procedure was repeatedly condemned as a violation of internationally accepted standards of justice by leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International. (3)
Qatamesh’s detention was renewed continuously for almost six years, making him the longest serving administrative detainee ever. In April 1998, after a persistent public pressure campaign by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights activists and organizations, Qatamesh was finally released. (4)
Ahmad Qatamesh earned his master’s degree and later his PhD in political science from a Dutch university through distance learning, as he was under a travel ban by the Israeli occupation.
He then became a thesis supervisor for several Palestinian graduate students of the same university. He authored several books on diverse literary, political and philosophical topics, and he was a sought-after speaker in local universities and research centers. In 2010, he taught a course in the School of Humanities at Al-Quds University.
Qatamesh’s wife, Suha Barghouti, who is a board member of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organization and of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, as well as a Steering Committee member of the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), considered his arrest “an attempt to silence his critical voice and prevent his compelling vision for emancipation and self determination from spreading further in the Palestinian public.” She called on human rights organizations to pressure the Israeli authorities for his immediate release and held those authorities fully responsible for his safety and well being.
His daughter, Haneen, who is on a short break from her studies at the American University of Cairo, commented on her traumatizing experience of being held hostage by Israeli soldiers saying: “They tried to intimidate me by exploiting my deep agony over the idea of being denied my father again, but I firmly confronted them and reminded them of the fate of all colonial powers on our land. In response, their commander shouted that I was as ‘obstinate’ as my father.”
Gerarda Ventura, Vice President of the Euromed Platform of NGOs, expressed deep solidarity of European civil society with Palestinians like Ahmad Qatamesh, whom she called “one of the most sensitive and intellectual people I have ever met,” in their civil struggle for “freedom, justice and peace.”
The Addameer-appointed lawyer who visited Qatamesh the day after his arrest stated that he was not interrogated and that he was informed instead that he would get an administrative detention order. This indicates that the Shabak, again, lack any evidence to build a case against him and proves that he was arrested indeed for his writings and peaceful activism and not any “security” reasons as was claimed by the Israeli authorities.
Praising Ahmad Qatamesh as “an excellent writer, principled researcher and devoted human rights advocate … struggling for freedom and respect of fundamental rights,” Palestinian Legislative Council member Dr. Mustafa Barghouti condemned his arrest by Israel as “a shameless attempt at muzzling him in an unjustifiable attack on his freedom of expression.”
Ahmad Qatamesh’s family has appealed to international agencies and human rights organizations to work for releasing him and all the other Palestinian prisoners of conscience. They also called for ending the draconian policy of administrative detention, which is based on emergency regulations from the era of the British Mandate, as a blatant violation of freedoms and human rights, in particular the right to a fair and just due process.
1. Also spelled “Katamesh” and “Qatamish.”
2. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE02/004/1998/en/7090ae54-d9de-11dd-af2bb1f6023af0c5/mde020041998en.pdf
3. Ibid.
4. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/16/news/mn-39885/3authorities.
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Book Review
Shattered Dreams: The HPV Vaccine Exposed (2019)
By Christina England – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | September 4, 2026
… Gardasil received FDA fast-track approval in 2006, Cervarix followed in 2009, and Gardasil 9 was approved in December 2014 with more than double the aluminium adjuvant content of the original. The commercial context is specific. Merck was about to lose patent protection on Zocor and faced $18 billion in Vioxx injury claims from a cardiovascular drug the company had marketed while suppressing its own data showing a five-times increase in heart attacks. Analysts projected the global HPV vaccine market at $4 billion by 2011, contingent on government-funded national programs for teenage girls. The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act had already granted manufacturers complete liability immunity. By 2013, Japan had withdrawn its HPV vaccine recommendation after cataloguing severe adverse reactions in hundreds of girls. No Western government followed. The establishment position across the UK, US, Australia, and most of Europe held, and still holds, that the vaccines are safe and effective, that reported injuries are coincidental, and that cervical cancer prevention justifies the program. The book was published into this position, not against a vacuum.
Shattered Dreams sits alongside Mary Holland’s The HPV Vaccine On Trial and Viera Scheibner’s foundational vaccination work as part of the documented record on what has been done to a generation of teenage girls under the banner of cancer prevention. The full summary unpacks three specific findings: that Merck used the aluminium adjuvant itself as the “placebo” control in 92.5% of trial subjects, making it structurally impossible to detect excess reactions from the adjuvant; that Dr. Sin Hang Lee found HPV DNA fragments bound to aluminium in every one of sixteen Gardasil samples tested, and in the blood and spleen of a New Zealand girl six months after her third dose; and that in every country with high vaccination coverage, including Australia, the UK, Norway, and Sweden, cervical cancer rates have stopped declining and started rising specifically in the vaccinated cohort. Martínez-Lavín’s 2017 calculation puts the number needed to seriously harm with Gardasil 9 at 140, and the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one case at 1,757. Thirteen young women are seriously harmed for every one who benefits. The vaccine was approved on the basis of trials that could not detect what the trials were supposed to detect, and it is still being given to twelve-year-olds today. … Read full review
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- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
