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Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945

BBC – Compiled in 2003

Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.

At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups:

  • ‘A’ – high security risks, numbering just under 600, who were immediately interned;
  • ‘B’ – ‘doubtful cases’, numbering around 6,500, who were supervised and subject to restrictions;
  • ‘C’ – ‘no security risk’, numbering around 64,000, who were left at liberty. More than 55,000 of category ‘C’ were recognised as refugees from Nazi oppression. The vast majority of these were Jewish.

The situation began to change in the spring of 1940. The failure of the Norwegian campaign led to an outbreak of spy fever and agitation against enemy aliens. More and more Germans and Austrians were rounded up. Italians were also included, even though Britain was not at war with Italy until June. When Italy and Britain did go to war, there were at least 19,000 Italians in Britain, and Churchill ordered they all be rounded up. This was despite the fact that most of them had lived in Britain for decades.

Thousands of Germans, Austrians and Italians were sent to camps set up at racecourses and incomplete housing estates, such as Huyton outside Liverpool. The majority were interned on the Isle of Man, where internment camps had also been set up in World War One. Facilities were basic, but it was boredom that was the greatest enemy. Internees organised educational and artistic projects, including lectures, concerts and camp newspapers. At first married women were not allowed into the camps to see their husbands, but by August 1940 visits were permitted, and a family camp was established in late 1941.

That many of the ‘enemy aliens’ were Jewish refugees and therefore hardly likely to be sympathetic to the Nazis, was a complication no one bothered to try and unravel – they were still treated as German and Austrian nationals. In one Isle of Man camp over 80 per cent of the internees were Jewish refugees.

More than 7,000 internees were deported, the majority to Canada, some to Australia. The liner Arandora Star left for Canada on 1 July 1940 carrying German and Italian internees. It was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of 714 lives, most of them internees. Others being taken to Australia on the Dunera, which sailed a week later, were subjected to humiliating treatment and terrible conditions on the two-month voyage. Many had their possessions stolen or thrown overboard by the British military guards.

An outcry in Parliament led to the first releases of internees in August 1940. By February 1941 more than 10,000 had been freed, and by the following summer, only 5,000 were left in internment camps. Many of those released from internment subsequently contributed to the war effort on the Home Front or served in the armed forces.

As regards British citizens interned by the Nazis, in September 1942 the Germans sent 2,000 British-born civilians from the Channel Islands to internment camps in Germany. Another 200 were deported in January 1943, as a reprisal for a British commando raid.

In 1941-2 approximately 130,000 civilians from Allied countries living and working in colonies invaded by the Japanese were interned. These included men, women and children from the Netherlands, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. The camps varied in size; some were segregated according to gender or race but there were also many camps of mixed gender. One of the largest un-segregated camps was the Stanley internment camp in Hong Kong, which held 2,800 mainly British internees. Unlike prisoners of war, the internees were not compelled to work, but they were held in harsh conditions in primitive camps. Brutality by the Japanese guards was common and death rates were high.

Internment was also carried out in the USA after the Americans entered the war in December 1941. Some 100,000 Japanese-Americans living on the west coast of America were interned, often in very poor conditions.

April 17, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Prisoners Day Statement: In Struggle, Towards Liberation

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – April 17, 2016

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On 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the struggle of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails: struggling for not only their own freedom, but for the freedom of the land and people of Palestine. Palestinian prisoners struggle through torture, solitary confinement, abuse, repression, denial of family visits, arbitrary imprisonment and brutal racism on a daily basis. Yet they not only persist and exemplify “samidoun” – those who are steadfast – the Palestinian prisoners are leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement, and of the global struggle for justice and liberation.

Each year, on 17 April, in Palestine and around the world, Palestinians and supporters of justice in Palestine come together to review the situation of Palestinian prisoners and demand their freedom. It is an opportunity to renew our work and our activity to free Palestinian prisoners, and to examine the last year of struggle, inside and outside the prison walls.

Imprisonment has always been a weapon of colonialism in Palestine. From the British colonizers who suppressed Palestinian revolts through mass imprisonment, home demolitions, and execution – and who first imposed the “emergency law” of administrative detention used against Palestinians today – to the Zionist colonizers who for 68 years have imposed a system of occupation, apartheid, criminalization, racism and dispossession upon the Palestinian people, the colonizers of Palestine have imprisoned strugglers, leaders, fighters, and visionaries. Imprisonment targets all sectors of the Palestinian people: workers, strugglers, teachers, journalists, doctors and health workers, farmers, fishers; from Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine ’48; refugees in the camps inside Palestine and around the world – millions denied their right to return and yet pursued and imprisoned in international jails.

In the past year, as throughout this history of struggle, we have witnessed time and again the resilience, resistance and struggle of Palestinian prisoners. It is not only the case that thousands of Palestinians have been jailed since October 2015 in an attempt to stop the rising intifada in the streets and villages of Palestine; it is also the case that Palestinian prisoners are engaged in daily intifada, daily resistance, behind the prison walls. They are part of the struggle – indeed, leaders in the struggle – confronting occupation, colonialism, settlements, home demolition, land confiscation and extrajudicial executions.

From Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan, to Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, to baker and resistor Khader Adnan, to the strugglers of the “Battle of Breaking the Chains” – Nidal Abu Aker, Ghassan Zawahreh, Shadi Ma’ali, Munir Abu Sharar and Badr al-Ruzza – Palestinian prisoners have put their bodies on the line in hunger strikes, demanding not only their own freedom but an end to the system of administrative detention without charge or trial that currently holds approximately 700 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Today, Sami Janazrah, Fouad Assi, and Adib Mafarjah are on hunger strike against administrative detention. Eyad Fawaghra is refusing food, demanding an end to the denial of family visits. Shukri Khawaja is demanding an end to solitary confinement, joined by up to 88 other Palestinian prisoners expressing their solidarity in daily hunger strikes.

Today, 17 April, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are refusing food in a one-day hunger strike in support of prisoners in Nafha subject to violent attacks by Israeli occupation prison guards and special forces on 14 April. Throughout the prisons of the south, prisoners have joined across political lines in rejection of the violent raids that are a constant of Palestinian prisoner life in Israeli jails.

Statistics: Israeli jails hold approximately 7,000 Palestinian prisoners. These include over 400 children and 70 women prisoners, held in 22 prisons and interrogation centers. There have been 4,800 arrests since October 2015, including 1,400 children and minor teens. Approximately 700 Palestinians are held in administrative detention without charge or trial.

Women Prisoners: The number of women prisoners is now 68, including 17 girls under 18. Imprisoned in Hasharon and Damon prisons, injured women prisoners are being denied access to needed medical services and are instead supported by their fellow prisoners. The longest-serving woman prisoner, Lena Jarbouni, has been imprisoned since 2001. The youngest girl prisoner, Dima al-Wawi, is 12 years old. Khalida Jarrar. Palestinian parliamentarian, leftist and prisoner advocate, serving a 15-month sentence, is also among the women prisoners at Hasharon.

Administrative Detainees: Approximately 700 Palestinians are imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention by Israeli military order. Administrative detention orders are issued on the basis of secret evidence hidden from both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are indefinitely renewable and are often renewed repeatedly over years.

Sick and ill prisoners: Over 1,700 sick prisoners inside Israeli jails suffer from various diseases, worsened by ill treatment, delay and denial of medical care, and dismissal of medical issues. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners suffer from serious diseases, including cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, stomach ulcers and high blood pressure. There are 24 prisoners with cancer in Israeli prisons, and 23 Palestinians permanently confined in the Ramle Prison Clinic, infamous among Palestinian prisoners for its poor treatment. Some of them are unable to move from their hospital beds. Despite severe illness, they are consistently denied medical release or access to private physicians.

Child Prisoners: Over 400 Palestinians under 18 are imprisoned. Many are arrested in traumatic and violent night-time military raids on their homes, and Palestinian child detainees report very high levels of physical and psychological abuse and torture. Six children are held in administrative detention. Several Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 14 are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Recent reports from Defence for Children International Palestine and Human Rights Watch highlight the abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli detention, interrogation and imprisonment.

Former Prisoners, Re-Arrests and Pursuit: Former prisoners, including over 70 released in the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, are pursued for renewed arrest and imprisonment. Under Israeli Military Order 1651, released prisoners in an exchange face the reimposition of their original sentence at any time on the basis of “secret evidence.” As in administrative detention cases, Palestinian prisoners and their lawyers are denied access to this evidence, which can include allegations such as “association” or “support” for a “prohibited organization,” a category which includes all major Palestinian political parties. 47 former prisoners have seen their sentences reimposed under this order. The targeting of former prisoners does not only happen inside Palestine. The pursuit, attempt to extradite, and killing of Omar Nayef Zayed in the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria emphasizes the global nature of this targeting. Rasmea Odeh, Palestinian community leader in the United States, is threatened with imprisonment and deportation on the basis of her imprisonment – and torture – by Israeli forces in the 1960s and 1970s.

Torture is a constant reality of Israeli occupation arrest, detention and interrogation of Palestinians, including beatings, psychological torture, threats and insults, including threats of sexual abuse and violence and threats to family members; forced stress positions and shackling; sleep deprivation; long-term solitary confinement and isolation.

Palestinians are facing ongoing and increasing attacks. The extrajudicial execution of Palestinians under the control of Israeli occupation soldiers – including but not limited to the filmed and photographed executions of Abdelfattah Al Sharif and Hadeel al Hashlamoun – are a new attack on Palestinians that is part and parcel of the same system of terror and repression that carries out mass arrests and violent dawn raids on Palestinian homes. This comes alongside the ongoing imprisonment of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation soldiers. Some Palestinian corpses have been held for over 30 years. Today, the Israeli occupation forces continue to withhold 15 bodies of Palestinians. Nearly every week brings news of a new racist and repressive law being considered or enacted by the Israeli occupation: the “Law to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers” permitting forced feeding; lengthy sentences for stone throwing; the imprisonment of 12-year-old Palestinians; threats to execute Palestinian prisoners.

The imprisonment of Palestinians is a collective attack on the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. These are not individual cases, but part of the comprehensive attempt of a colonial power to erase and suppress the indigenous Palestinian people and their collective struggle. We see this in the criminalization of Palestinian political parties, all declared “prohibited” by military order, and the military courts and trials that convict Palestinians at a rate of over 99% on the basis of these military orders that govern occupied Palestine. We see this in the targeting of Palestinian student organizers and leaders like Abdullah Ramadan, Asmaa Qadah and Donya Musleh, the ransacking of student blocs’ offices and the attempt to disrupt the vibrant political life of Palestinian students on campuses. We see this in the increased threats of arrests or denial of residence made against Palestinian BDS organizers and activists building the international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. And we see this, of course, in the imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders like Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Marwan Barghouthi, Fateh leader; Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian parliamentarian and prisoners’ advocate; Hassan Yousef, Hamas leader and Palestinian Legislative Council member; and the countless local leaders targeted for administrative detention and military trials.

We see this in the imprisonment of over 18 Palestinian journalists – 43 in the past six months – and the forced closure of Palestinian TV and radio stations, and in the targeting of Palestinian researchers and human rights defenders like Eteraf Rimawi of Bisan Center, and also in the administrative detention of teachers like circus trainer Mohammed Abu Sakha, 24, who combined Palestinian identity with circus performance as he taught numerous Palestinian children.

We also see the targeting and imprisonment of Palestinians and strugglers for Palestine in international courts and prisons. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Arab communist struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in French jails for 32 years, despite being eligible for release for 16 years. Hillary Clinton – today a US presidential candidate – personally intervened to pressure the French state to overturn its own judiciary to keep him imprisoned. The interior minister who agreed to do so, Manuel Valls, today threatens and supports the prosecution of dozens of Palestine solidarity activists across France for calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state for its ongoing crimes against Palestinians. In the United States, the Holy Land Five are serving lengthy sentences for fundraising for charity for Palestinians among the Palestinian community. Rasmea Odeh, torture survivor and community leader, is facing imprisonment and deportation because of her time in Israeli prisons. Omar Nayef Zayed was pursued in Bulgaria for extradition and renewed imprisonment over 25 years after he escaped Israeli prisons, only to be found dead inside the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, where he had taken refuge, on 26 February.

Towards Liberation

Just as imprisonment is a collective experience, the resistance struggle for the liberation of the prisoners is also collective. As the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council noted in their statement for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, “The issues of prisoners transcends one of individual human rights; it is also one of collective rights of an entire people – the Palestinian people, who continue to be deprived of the right to self-determination and sovereignty.”

And so the struggle to liberate Palestinian prisoners – and all political prisoners – is not simply a struggle for an individual human right, but for collective liberation from occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism. This is one reason why this struggle finds such resonance with other struggles for justice and liberation, linked in collective confrontation of oppression, imperialism, settler colonialism, Zionism and racism.

The movement to boycott G4S, the British-Danish security conglomerate that provides security systems, equipment and control rooms for Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers – and youth imprisonment, migrant detention and deportation contracts in the US, UK and Australia – has grown even more in the past year. Palestinian prisoners and Palestinian civil society organizations joined with hundreds of international organizations to demand the UN stop doing business with G4S, a demand that has achieved clear victories in Jordan and elsewhere. In the United States, prison divestment movements challenging the mass incarceration of Black youth and other oppressed communities in the US have won divestment from G4S and the cancellation of its contracts at multiple universities. Indeed, the collective movements against G4S have garnered so much strength that the corporation announced that it would be selling off its Israeli subsidiary and exiting other “reputationally damaging” industries like youth incarceration in the US and UK within the next one to two years. At the same time, on a daily basis, G4S and its “security” technology continue to contribute to the insecurity and oppression of Palestinians and other oppressed people. The struggle to boycott G4S must continue until it is out of occupied Palestine and the prison business.

Palestinian prisoners called for “the inclusion of our cause, as prisoners of freedom and fighters for the freedom of our people, human dignity, and the right to a dignified life, within the program of the boycott movement as a major issue of paramount importance.” The struggle of Palestinian prisoners is an essential and powerful part of BDS and boycott struggles, and builds our solidarity and our responsibility to act in support of other oppressed peoples and communities.

As the Black4Palestine statement highlighted, “Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.”

The United States, European Union and Canada are complicit in the imprisonment of Palestinians, funding Israel and its military, supporting its military research and development and defending it in international bodies from prosecution or condemnation for its oppression of Palestinians. At the same time, these states are responsible for the detention and incarceration of migrants, the mass targeting, criminalization and oppression of Black communities, police repression, racist incarceration in countries throughout Europe, and the colonial repression of Indigenous people and communities. These policies represent one logic, that of imperialism.

At the same time, these forces are confronted by a growing movement of joint struggle against racist imprisonment and mass incarceration, in North America and around the world. Black communities, migrant justice movements, Indigenous movements and others have been leading powerful upsurges against the state repression, violence and incarceration targeting entire communities and oppressed peoples. Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists and organizations are involved – and must be more deeply so – in all of these critical struggles.

These powerful grassroots movements – including the movement for justice in Palestine – are witnessing breakthroughs on a popular level, witnessing real, mass public demand for an end to the policies of mass incarceration and the state violence of imprisonment and police repression. Prison divestment and abolition movements and demands are growing, gathering allies and support.

The movement to free Palestinian political prisoners – and to free Palestine – is a movement to confront settler colonialism, Zionism and imperialism. It is connected deeply to movements to free international political prisoners imprisoned by the same forces: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Ricardo Palmera, the political prisoners of the Philippines, of the Black Liberation Movement, and all prisoners jailed for their struggle for justice.

On 17 April 2016, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, it is critical to escalate the struggle; to consolidate and build on the victories achieved in the G4S campaign; to deepen our collective movements against mass incarceration, racism, police repression and state violence; to raise high the voices, ideas and visions of imprisoned Palestinians, leaders in the struggle for a free and liberated Palestine; and to do everything we can, at grassroots, popular and official levels, to support the demands of the Palestinian prisoners, to seek the freedom of the Palestinian people, and to hold accountable and prosecute the Israeli officials responsible for their oppression and torture in all international arenas, from prosecutions in the International Criminal Court to the international grassroots isolation of settler-colonial Israel through BDS campaigns.

We invite activists and organizations to build on and intensify their work on Palestinian prisoners in the coming year, as we seek to do this in our own organizing. We invite organizers to form Samidoun chapters in your own cities and areas, or to form Samidoun committees and subcommittees to work on Palestinian prisoners in your existing organizations. To join us, please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net.

April 17, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Mexican Federal Agents Implicated in Students’ Disappearance

teleSUR – April 14 2016

Two Mexican federal police officers allegedly participated in the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students, the National Human Rights Commission said Thursday, implicating national agents in the 2014 case for the first time, Agence France-Presse reports.

Jose Larrieta Carrasco, a commission official investigating the case, said the authorities should now look into a “new route in the disappearance” of the students.

Prosecutors have already charged municipal police officers in connection with the mass abduction in the southern city of Iguala on September 26-27, 2014.

But the governmental rights commission said it found an eyewitness who saw two federal agents near Iguala’s courthouse, where municipal officers had stopped a bus carrying 15 to 20 students.

The commission also said another local police department, from the town of Huitzuco, had a previously unknown role in the disappearance.

Many in Mexico, including the families of the disappeared, suspect that the police force was ordered to kill the student protesters by high level members of a local cartel.

April 16, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Children Behind Bars

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April 14, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

European parliamentarians urge release, EU action on case of Khalida Jarrar

Khalida-Jarrar

samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | April 12, 2016

23 Members of European Parliament directed a letter today, 12 April, to Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, expressing their “great concern with the arrest, detention and sentencing of the Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar.” Jarrar, a prominent Palestinian leftist, feminist and advocate for political prisoners, is serving a 15-month term in Israeli prison; she was arrested on 2 April 2015.

The MEPs called on Mogherini to raise Jarrar’s case with the Israeli government and demand her immediate release, that the issue of Palestinian political prisoners is raised and investigated, and that the EU mission in Israel and future EU delegations visit Jarrar and fellow Palestinian prisoners.

Further, they raised the overall situation of Israeli military courts, which convict Palestinians at a rate of over 99%, the transfer of Palestinian prisoners inside Israel, and new legislation threatening heavy sentences for children and stone-throwers, as well as the legislation allowing force-feeding of hunger strikers.

The letter, signed by members of the Socialists & Democrats (S&D), European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA), and Europe for Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) groups in the Parliament, highlighted the injustice of Israeli military courts and the nature of “prohibited organization” charges which deny Palestinian freedom of association and criminalize Palestinian politics. The letter discussed the nature of the charges against Jarrar, which focused on public political activity and speeches, and the use of alleged secret evidence to jail Jarrar and deny her bail.

Download letter here: Letter on Khalida Jarrar’s situation

April 12, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Door Bang

Defence for Children Palestine – January 28, 2016

Meet five Palestinian children who go to school in the Old City of Jerusalem, in close proximity to Israeli settlers and armed forces. Each child describes their daily experience of unease and even bodily danger, as they travel to and attend school.

Hadeel, a tender-hearted young girl, walks her younger sister to kindergarten every morning before heading to her own school. She shares her fear that settlers will enter the building and kidnap her, as her school’s front door faces the entrance to an Israeli settler compound.

“The settlers could easily open the door and walk into our school. I’m afraid,” Hadeel states.

Hamza shows the camera a scar on his chest, the result of an Israeli soldier shooting him with a rubber-coated metal bullet. Israeli forces passing in a jeep likewise shot Ahmad’s father with a rubber-coated metal bullet as he was walking his son to school.

Rashad, a student at Riad Al-‘Aqsa school, explains the he dropped out for a while because of recent political unrest. Now that he has returned, Rashad faces regular harassment from Israeli settlers while walking or riding the bus. Sawsan Safadi, international and public relations director for the Palestinian Ministry of Education, affirms that absences like Rashad’s are quite common and hamper Palestinian children’s education.

Despite these hardships, Mohammad continues to pursue his love of theater, setting up street performances for his friends. “[W]hen I’m acting, nothing can bring me down. I act freely.”

This short film by Mouv Media, L.L.C. was produced by Defense for Children International – Palestine and War Child Holland.

Join a growing global movement fighting for accountability, increased protections, and justice for Palestinian children. You can make a difference. Join us: http://www.dci-palestine.org/donate.

April 12, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Smooth Faces of Evil

smooth faces of evil

By Craig Murray | April 12, 2016

Many of you will recognise one of the faces in this photograph, Mark Regev. He is Israel’s new Ambassador to London and of course was the Israeli government spokesman who justified the massacre of more than 600 women and children in Gaza, and the murder of peace activists aboard the Mavi Marmara.

The other face of evil is Simon McDonald, head of the UK Diplomatic Service. You probably now think I am indulging in hyperbole. But no, I am not.

Simon McDonald was the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s Private Secretary at the time of the implementation of the British government’s extraordinary rendition and intelligence from torture programmes. When I became the only member of the UK’s senior civil service to make formal objection to these programmes, it was Simon McDonald who managed Jack Straw’s response in continuing to use torture.

I have indisputable documentary evidence of this, plain despite redactions by the British government censors (redactions which primarily remove all references to the CIA).

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It is put to me frequently that people like McDonald, who were merely implementing a policy of torture, are not evil. That of course is the age old “only doing my job” defence. As somebody who was sacked for refusing to go along with torture, I think I have walked the walk and can describe him as evil. It is also worth noting that, while McDonald meets all new Ambassadors to London, he went far further with Regev than with anybody else. He tweeted out their photo with the message “Happy to see Mark Regev newly arrived Israeli Ambassador, an old friend from Tel Aviv ten years ago.”

Ten years ago, when they were friends in Tel Aviv, was of course the year in which Israel invaded Lebanon and Mark Regev was the chief Israeli spokesman justifying that attack, with its mass civilian casualties. Regev also defended the bombing by Israel of a United Nations observation post.

It is hardly surprising McDonald and Regev became friends at this time, as Gordon Brown’s government were doing everything possible behind the scenes to assist the Israeli invasion. As I wrote at that time

I have just watched on television sixty bodies being buried in a mass grave in Tyre, victims of Israeli bombing. At the same time I saw the odious Kim Howells, Foreign Office minister, arguing that a ceasefire would not solve the problem.

British diplomats at the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York – people I know personally – are putting massive effort into working against a ceasefire. They have the ultimate weapon that they and the US can veto any resolution at the Security Council, but are bending their backs into heading the subject off the agenda.

I hope they are proud of their succesful efforts. For every hour they prevent a ceasefire, on average two more Lebanese children are dying. Israel claims now to have killed 100 Hizbollah fighters. Even if true, that means they are killing two children to every fighter.

McDonald and Regev. Torture meets child-killing. Don’t they make a lovely couple?

April 12, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marking Brazil’s Brutal US-Backed Military Coup 52 Years Later

teleSUR – March 31, 2016

As the possibility of a new threat against democracy looms over Brazil in the form of an unlawful impeachment against leftist President Dilma Rousseff, Brazilians remember a coup that kicked off a brutal 20-year-long military dictatorship. Similar military coups would follow in Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. Together with the support of the U.S. government and Paraguay, under General Alfredo Stroessner, the region would organize Operation Condor, a political repression and terror campaign to suppress opposition to their governments.

The following is an excerpt from the Brazil chapter of the book “Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions: The Future of 21st Century Socialism,” by Roger Burbach, Michael Fox, and Federico Fuentes (Zed Books, 2013).

In 1964, the Brazilian military dictatorship rolled in like a bad dream. President Joao Goulart fled to Uruguay, and with him went the hopes of progressive reforms. The first of 17 military decrees, or Institutional Acts, were issued.

Institutional Act 5, decreed by military president Artur da Costa e Silva on December 13, 1968, suspended habeas corpus and disbanded Congress. Inspired by the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and insurgent guerrilla movements in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, Communist Party militants went underground and formed armed movements against the dictatorship, including the National Liberation Alliance and the Popular Revolutionary Vanguard, which would later become the Revolutionary Armed Vanguard Palmares or VAR-Palmares.

Dissidents were tracked down, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, or worse. According to the 2007 report from the Brazilian government’s Special Commission on Murders and Political Disappeared entitled “The Right to Memory and the Truth,” 475 people were disappeared during the 20-year-long military dictatorship. Thousands were imprisoned and roughly 30,000 were tortured. More than 280 different types of torture were inflicted on “subversives” at 242 clandestine torture centers, by hundreds of individual torturers.

Current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was at the time a student activist who became active in the VAR-Palmares (among other guerrilla groups). She was captured by the Brazilian military on January 16, 1970, tortured, and imprisoned for two and a half years, for participating with the guerrillas. Within a few years the armed resistance to the Brazilian dictatorship had been largely eliminated.

Meanwhile U.S.-Brazilian relations became tighter than ever, as the United States worked to turn Brazil into a “success story” in the fight against communism. According to a five-and-a-half-year, 5,000-page investigation into the human rights violations of the dictatorship, entitled “Brasil Nunca Mais” (Brazil Never Again), CIA agents, such as U.S. officer Dan Mitrione, actively trained hundreds of Brazilian military and police officers in torture techniques, or what they called the “Scientific Methods to Extract Confessions and Obtain the Truth.” Several documented accounts reveal that Mitrione tested his techniques on street kids and homeless beggars from the streets of Belo Horizonte. Many of these techniques would be replicated across the region through the U.S.-sponsored Plan Condor, as Brazil’s neighbors also fell to military dictatorships.

This was the direction that the United States hoped the region would turn. Internationally, the military dictatorship broke off relations with Cuba and the Soviet block, and steered the country back into the U.S. sphere of influence (Cuba-Brazilian relations wouldn’t be resumed until 1986).

“Never had there been such ideological convergence with the United States,” wrote the former Brazilian Ambassador to the United States (1991–93), Ruben Ricupero, “not just in the perceived continuity and Cold War dangers, but in the acceptance of North American leadership and the feeling among Brazilian leaders that this was an inseparable and defining element in the internal struggle against communist subversion.”

Domestically, encouraged by the United States, Brazil liberalized its economy, pushed to increase exports, and opened up for foreign investment, but the economic model didn’t stick. Military President Costa e Silva steered the country back towards the import substitution model that would carry through the rest of the dictatorship. Meanwhile, ideologically, Brazilian military leaders continued their fight against the communist threat that would often place them even further to the right than U.S. officials.

April 11, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

International Day of Solidarity for Palestinian Prisoners – Paris, London, NYC, Toulouse

BDS France Toulouse, Coup Pour Coup 31, NPA31, Collectif Palestine Libre

As of March 2016, there are over 7,000 Palestinians, including more than 100 children, in Israeli prisons, in violation of international law which prohibits an occupying power to imprison in its territory the people of occupied territories.

Since 1967, over 750,000 Palestinians (20% of the total population and 40% of the male population) have been imprisoned by the occupation army. There is no Palestinian family that has been untouched by imprisonment.

toulouse-14avril201699.74% of Palestinians are convicted by Israeli military courts, the majority of these resulting from forced “plea bargains” (the accused must plead guilty or face a much higher sentence, in a context that they will certainly be found guilty)

Nearly 700 Palestinian prisoners are held under administrative detention, an arbitrary and illegal procedure that allows the Israeli army to detain Palestinians for a period of six months, indefinitely renewable, without charge or trial.

Among the detainees are Palestinian parliamentarians, including Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Marwan Barghouti, Fateh leader; and several Hamas lawmakers. In April 2015, Khalida Jarrar, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and advocate for prisoners’ rights, was arrested and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Lawyer and activist Shireen Issawi was convicted along with her brother Medhat Issawi, and sentenced to 4 and 8 years in prison respectively. Medhat Issawi was previosly imprisoned for 20 years!

Palestinian prisoners are subject to torture, sleep deprivation, lack of hygiene and medical care, confinement in tiny cells and sordid, humiliating treatment. A growing number are held in prolonged solitary confinement. Threats, intimidation and denial of family visits are all means of the Israeli occupation to silence the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people for land and freedom.

Many prisoners went on hunger strike, risking their lives to confront inhumane treatment; for example, Mohammed al-Qeeq ordered to administrative detention in November 2015 and after 94 days of hunger strike, securing his release in May 2016.

As part of the International Day of Solidarity for Palestinian Prisoners, we salute the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned for struggling against the apartheid and ethnic cleansing of their people. We also salute Georges Abdallah, communist activist for the Palestinian cause, imprisoned in France since 1984 for resisting the Israeli invasion of his country, Lebanon.

Let us unite for their release, to end the oldest military occupation in the world, to develop the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the criminal regime of Israel, to demonstrate and popularize the struggle of the Palestinian people.

We demand:
The release of all Palestinian prisoners
The immediate end of the blockade and siege of Gaza
The end of occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
The Right of return of all Palestinian refugees
The immediate release of Georges Abdallah

Palestine lives, Palestine will be victorious!

Rassemblement jeudi 14 avril 2016 à 17h30 Square Charles De Gaulle (Métro Capitole).

16 April, Paris: Rally in support of Palestinian Prisoners

Saturday, 16 April
3:00 pm
Place du Chatelet
Paris, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/229128724111169/

March via the Boulevard Sebastopol to the Place de la Republique, where we will hold a mass rally to support the 7000 Palestinian political prisoners. We will not forget Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the great defender of the Palestinian cause, held for 32 years in French prisons at the demand of Israel and the US!

Organizers: CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, Droits Devant, Children of Palestine, Palestine Nanterre, Saint-Ouen Palestine, Friends of Nablus, Collective for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah

16 April, London: Palestine Prisoners Parade

Saturday, 16 April
12:30 pm
Gower Street (Corner of Torrington Place)
London, UK
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/600881743402205/

On the occasion of Prisoners’ Day, we invite you to join us in solidarity with all Palestinians currently languishing in Israeli jails. We will march from Gower street to Trafalgar square along with another march that is being held that day (people against austerity). In keeping with the circus theme that has been used to raise awareness about Abu Sakha, a Palestinian clown currently held in administrative detention, we encourage people to come dressed as colourfully and clowny as you dare! We also encourage as many specific performers as possible (circus artists, musicians, dancers etc). If you have a specific tallent to perform, please get in touch at info@freeabusakha.com or private messaging to www.facebook.com/freeabusakha so we can coordinate the acts.

15 April, NYC: Celebrate resistance before Palestinian Prisoners’ Day

Friday, 15 April
4:00 pm
G4S Office – NYC (19 W 44th St)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1042793672451086/

On 17 April each year, Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian people, and the world mark the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners.

Commemorated since 1974, when the first Palestinian prisoner, Mahmoud Hijazi, was freed in a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian Resistance, 17 April is a day of protests, rallies, marches, forums and more to commemorate the struggle of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli occupation jails and demand their freedom.

We join with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in calling on organizations and people of conscience around the world to take action to to express solidarity and call for freedom for Palestinian political prisoners.

Over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in Israeli jails. More than 700 of them are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. The others face military courts which convict over 99% of the Palestinians that appear before them. Over 400 Palestinian children as young as 12 years old are held in Israeli prisons.

Every night, Israeli occupation forces conduct violent armed invasions of Palestinian villages, cities, refugee camps and homes, ransacking them and arresting dozens of Palestinians. This comes amid near-daily killings and extrajudicial execution of Palestinians by occupation forces, the demolition of the homes of the families of Palestinian prisoners, new racist laws targeting Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, and further escalating repression.

International action has seen some response: G4S, the British-Danish security corporation targeted for a global boycott because of its role in providing security systems, control rooms and equipment to Israeli prisons, has announced it is selling off its Israeli subsidiary and leaving the market entirely. However, it’s critical to keep the pressure on G4S until their equipment and security systems are no longer being used to imprison Palestinians, block their movement at checkpoints, or besiege Gaza.

G4S doesn’t only profit on the imprisonment of Palestinians, of course. Black student movements at Columbia University, the University of California and Cornell University have led in building campus boycotts and divestment against G4S because of its role in private imprisonment in the United States, especially of youth, and have won significant victories. Organizing with movements confronting imprisonment and racist oppression, including the Black movement and the prison divestment movement, is particularly crucial in confronting common oppressors.

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year also comes amid international repression of Palestinian organizing – for example, the attacks on BDS in France and the arrest and prosecution of BDS activists – and the imprisonment and persecution of Palestinians and fellow strugglers in international prisons, as in the cases of Georges Ibrahim Abdullah, the Holy Land Five, and Rasmea Odeh. Confronting racism and oppression of all forms comes hand in hand with confronting Zionist settler-colonial racism in Palestine.

After a regular, weekly protest of G4S on Friday, join Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as we rally with CUNY Prison Divest and NYC Students for Justice in Palestine on Sunday, 17 April to demand freedom for Palestinian political prisoners and an end to private, for-profit incarceration in the United States:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1718091051808038

April 10, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces carry out predawn raids, detain 2 students

Ma’an – April 8, 2016

salhab-shalaldehBETHLEHEM – Israeli forces detained six Palestinians including two university students from the occupied West Bank during predawn detention raids Friday, locals and Israel’s army said.

Locals told Ma’an that two members of Palestine Polytechnic University’s student council were detained in the raids, identified as Ibrahim Salhab from Doha and Salsabil Shalaldeh from Sair, both villages located near Bethlehem.

Locals added that Salsabil is the daughter of prisoner Sheikh Zawadi Shalaldeh who is currently held in Israeli prison.

Israeli forces also raided the town of Silwad in the Ramallah district and delivered an interrogation summons to former prisoner Malik Hamed.

Clashes erupted when Israeli military forces raided al-Duheisha refugee camp also near Bethlehem, with no initial injuries reported.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that four Palestinians were detained from al-Arrub refugee camp, one of whom was a suspected Hamas operative.

One suspected Hamas operative was also detained from Qalqilya, the spokesperson said, adding that the Palestinian detained from Sair was suspected for “illegal activities.”

Around 7,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to prisoners’ rights group Addameer.

The majority were detained in predawn detention raids carried out by the Israeli military, including in areas under full Palestinian jurisdiction according to the Oslo Accords.

Such raids often lead to clashes between locals and Israeli military forces entering their communities, regularly resulting in injury and sometimes death of Palestinian residents.

April 8, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces detain 4 Palestinian fishermen off Gazan coast

Ma’an – April 8, 2016

GAZA CITY – Israeli naval forces on Thursday detained four Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Rafah City in the southern Gaza Strip and seized their fishing boats.

Fishermen told Ma’an that Israeli forces opened fire on the fishing boats before detaining them, although no injuries were reported. They said the incident took place within the designated nine nautical mile fishing zone.

An official with the Agricultural Work Union, Zakariya Bakr, identified the detainees as brothers Iyad and Ahmad Omar al-Bardawil and brothers Bilal and Muhammad Jihad Musleh. He said two fishing boats were confiscated.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they were looking into the reports.

On Thursday, another two Palestinian fishermen were detained off the coast of Khan Younis after they allegedly passed beyond the designated fishing zone.

As part of Israel’s near-decade long blockade of the coastal enclave since 2007, Palestinian fishermen have been required to work within a limited “designated fishing zone” off the coast, which was extended to nine nautical miles last week.

Israeli forces regularly detain Palestinian fisherman off the coast of Gaza working within the fishing zone, generally for alleged security reasons. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Israeli forces detained 71 fishermen and confiscated 22 fishing boats throughout 2015.

The center said that Israeli naval forces also opened fire on Palestinian fishermen at least 139 times over the course of the year, wounding 24 and damaging 16 fishing boats.

“These attacks occurred in a time where the fishers did not pose any threat to the Israeli naval troops, as they were doing their job to secure a living,” the center said.

April 8, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

DCI: “Israeli Soldiers Abuse Children During Home Invasions, Arrests”

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC | April 7, 2016

dci-1Defense for Child International – Palestine Branch has reported that Israeli soldiers are systematically abusing Palestinian children, especially during invasions of their homes and while abducting them.

DCI said it documented many cases of abuse targeting Palestinian children after the soldiers stormed their families’ homes without any cause or justification, for both the invasions and the excessive use of force.

One of the cases is that of Ahmad Tamimi, 16, from Betunia town west of Ramallah, who was repeatedly beaten and assaulted by the soldiers after they invaded his family’s home to kidnap his uncle.

In a sworn affidavit, Tamimi told DCI that, on March 17, he was awakened by the very loud noise, shortly after midnight, to find eight Israeli soldiers surrounding his bed, in his own bedroom.

“For the first few seconds, I thought I was dreaming, but reality started sinking in when a soldier stared violently pulling me out of my bed, to drop me on the ground,” Tamimi said, “The soldiers then started kicking and beating me, and hitting me with their weapons while shouting in Hebrew. I started screaming and calling for my dad, while also trying to fend for myself, using my arms in an attempt to block their kicks and punches.”

“They tied my arms behind my back using plastic cuffs, and ordered to me to stand up and walk with them,” the child added, “I said I was unable to do so, and that is when one of the soldiers pulled me from my hair to force me to stand, then two soldiers grabbed me and forced me out of the room.”

The child also stated that one of the soldiers hit him with his rifle on his left cheek; he started feeling dizzy when the soldiers dragged him through the bedroom’s door, and started suffering severe pain.

After invading the home, the soldiers held the entire family in one room, and later moved Ahmad to the same room while handcuffed and his legs shackled, then they left the property after abducting his uncle, 30 years of age.

The family then untied their child and directly headed to the Palestine Medical Center in Ramallah; after examination, the doctors found various cuts and bruises to his head, forehead, left shoulder and right arm.

Since that incident took place, Tamimi has been afraid to sleep in his room alone, and constantly feels that the soldiers will surround and attack him again. He is always thinking about what they did to him, and is terrified of leaving home after dark.

On March 3, at least fifteen Israeli soldiers invaded, approximately at 3 at dawn, a home in the northern West Bank city of Jenin after smashing the front door.

The soldiers the grabbed Ahmad ‘Arqawi, 17, and his brother, 21, and started repeatedly pushing their striking against the walls.

“A soldier asked me about my name, I said Ahmad,” he said, “The soldier then slammed my head against the wall. I was in severe pain, and the soldiers forced my eight family members in the bathroom.”

“The soldiers dragged me out of my bedroom, tied my hand behind my back using plastic cuffs, and I could hear sounds of furniture being broken and destroyed by other soldiers searching our home,” he added, “Then three soldiers started kicking and punching me, and hitting me with their rifles, mainly on my head, chest and back. I started feeling dizzy, but they continued to shout and scream at me in Hebrew.”

One of the soldiers also pushed Ahmad’s head against every mirror in the bedroom, causing various cuts, especially on the right side of his head in addition to severe pain.

“They dragged me out of my bedroom to the living room, there; I saw many masked soldiers, and one of them forced me against the wall while strangling me,” the child added, “Another soldier brought a cup filled with water, and started pouring it in my mouth while the second soldier continued to strangle me while punching me with his other hand.”

The soldiers later dragged the child to the bathroom, where his family was held, and told him “look how your family members are screaming and crying, look at what we did to your family and your home – we wrecked it!”

They then forced him into the bathroom, with his family, and kidnapped his brother while repeatedly kicking, punching and beating him.

After the soldiers left the family home, and withdrew, the family called for an ambulance that took Ahmad to the Jenin governmental hospital, where he was treated for serious cuts and bruises in various parts of his body, including his head, face, shoulders and back.

April 8, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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