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Over 400 Palestinians Displaced in 6 Weeks

IMEMC News & Agencies – February 19, 2016

israel-demolishing-palestinian-home01Over 400 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been displaced due to Israeli demolitions during the first six weeks of, this year, a senior UN official said, Wednesday.

Coordinator for Humanitarian and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper, in a statement, called the number of demolitions “alarming.”

The number of Palestinians displaced in 2016 is already equivalent to over half of the total number displaced in all of 2015, the official said.

According to Ma’an, Piper called on Israel to immediately halt all demolitions in the occupied West Bank, which he said were in violation of international law.

“Most of the demolitions in the West Bank take place on the spurious legal grounds that Palestinians do not possess building permits,” Piper said.

“But, in Area C, official Israeli figures indicate only 1.5 percent of Palestinian permit applications are approved in any case. So what legal options are left for a law-abiding Palestinian?”

The UN documented 283 homes and other structures destroyed, dismantled, or confiscated between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15, many of which were located in the Jordan Valley.

The measures displaced 404 Palestinians, including 219 children. Another 1,150 Palestinians were also affected after losing structures related to their source of income, according to the UN.

The destruction was focused in 41 locations, many in Palestinian Bedouin or herder communities in Area C, the over 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control.

A number of demolitions carried out took place in Palestinian communities whose lands have been designated by Israel as “closed military zones,” where military exercises have historically been carried out in effort to drive Palestinians from their land.

Piper highlighted previous statements by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that Israeli zoning and planning policies are “restrictive and highly discriminatory.”

“International law is clear — Palestinians in the West Bank have the right to adequate housing and the right to receive humanitarian assistance,” said Piper.

“As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to respect these rights,” the UN official said.

Repeated calls by international bodies for Israel to cease the displacement of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory have done little in the past to stop ongoing demolitions or settlement expansion onto Palestinian land.

The EU, earlier this week, condemned Israeli policy regarding demolition and settlement expansion that the body said made the possibility for an independent Palestinian state impossible.

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sit-in in solidarity with Muhammad Al-Qiq at Birzeit University

Birzeit University | February 19, 2016

365407CBirzeit, Ramallah, Occupied Palestine – Birzeit University administration, Workers’ Union, and students organized a sit-in in solidarity with its former student and head of students council, Journalist Muhammad Al-Qiq, who has been on hunger strike since November 25 against his imprisonment without charges or trial.

Protestors called for immediate and unconditional release for Al-Qiq and all prisoners as key to the realization of justice and comprehensive peace. They demand all academic institutions and international organizations work together to promote and implement campaigns of boycott and sanctions against Israel and its illegal measures against Palestinians.

“Palestinian journalists have always been on the frontline, and Al-Qiq is now experiencing forceful and abusive measures from the Israeli occupation because he practiced his normal right of speech and freedom of expression”, Abu Hijleh added.

On behalf of the Workers’ Union, Salem Thawaba demanded that officials should urgently interfere to end Al-Qiq’s torture. He stressed the importance of unity and reconciliation for Al-Qiq whose health has deteriorated to the point of facing imminent death.

Representatives from the student council assured the student movements will never stop their solidarity events in support for Al-Qiq and all prisoners who are going through a legal struggle on behalf of the whole nation for the sake of the Palestinian cause.

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

150 allegedly ‘burned alive by Turkish military’ during crackdown on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)

RT | February 19, 2016

A member of the Turkish parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party has accused the military of atrocities in Turkey’s southeast, claiming they have ‘burned alive’ more than 150 people trapped in basements.

“In the Cizre district of Sırnak, around 150 people have been burned alive in different buildings by Turkish military forces. Some corpses were found without heads. Some were burned completely, so that autopsy is not possible,” Feleknas Uca told Sputnik, adding that “most” of those killed were Kurds.

While Uca’s statements have not been confirmed by RT on the ground, or independently verified by a third party, the MP warned that more people could face a similar fate as more than 200 people remain trapped inside buildings across the region.

“The situation in Diyarbakir is terrible. Its district Sur is seeing its 79th day of curfew. Two hundred people were trapped in basements and Turkey’s special forces won’t rescue them,” Uca said.

Turkish security forces have been trying to clear southeastern towns and cities of PKK members since last July, when a two-year cease-fire collapsed. Dozens of civilians continue to be trapped in basements in the Cizre district of Turkey’s Sirnak province. Despite an official announcement that the military op was concluded last week, the curfew remains in place.

The reports of the massacre first surfaced earlier this week when the ANHA news agency, reported the discovery of 115 bodies.

The corpses were so badly burned that relatives were only able to identify 10 out of the 115 bodies found in the Sur and Cudi neighborhoods of Şırnak’s Cizre district. According to the report, DNA samples were taken from the victims to identify the bodies.

The Today’s Zaman newspaper reports that as of last Thursday the Cizre State Hospital morgue had no space for bodies being brought in and they had been sent to other morgues in the region.

Also, last Thursday, Interior Minister Efkan Ala confirmed that targeting of the PKK in Cizre had been completed. On Sunday, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) announced the discovery of 31 bodies during searches in six buildings in Cizre. The army also said the military operations in Cizre, which started on December 14, had killed 659 PKK members.

Yet despite the completion of the operation, wounded people are reported to be still trapped inside basements. Kurdish Netherlands-based ANF News is reporting that DIHA correspondent is trapped with some 30 people underground, with women and children among the wounded awaiting medical treatment. Some are in critical condition.

Last month the Turkish Human Rights Foundation said more than 160 civilians had been killed since Ankara’s launched its crackdown on the PKK in August. Among those killed are 29 women, 32 children, and 24 people over the age of 60.

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

The UN and the Invisible Palestinian Knives of Allege-gate

By Vacy Vlazna | Dissident Voice | February 17, 2016

In Palestine, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was no United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

The SR, Christof Heyns, in the past 6 years, has never made a country on-site visit to Palestine to get first hand information on the hundreds of cases of Zionist perpetration of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the people of Palestine.

Not even the dozens of extrajudicial street executions of Palestinian children and youth carrying the invisible knives of Allege-gate since October 1, 2015 has impelled Heyns to rush to Palestine to ensure the zionist war criminals uphold Palestinian right to life.

In Palestine ‘alleged’ is a synonym for ‘extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary execution’.

Yes, there is a Palestinian youth intifada, and, yes, there have been acts of resistance to the illegal occupation involving knives, rocks, and cars that have taken some occupier-settler lives.

But the Zionist Occupation Forces (ZOF); i.e., military and police death squads are running amok in Occupied Palestine shooting, seemingly for grisly amusement, innocent Palestinian school children, workers, housewives and youth.

In a wimpy statement on 16 November 2015, SR Heyns welcomed the assurance of the Zionist “Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to the effect that Israeli security forces are prohibited from firing at a suspected assailant unless an immediate danger to human life cannot otherwise be prevented and that the use of fire must be proportional to the threat.”

You can be certain that the devastated parents of Wisam Qasrawi, 21 who buried their beloved child – transformed from family breadwinner into a martyr by lawless zionist bullets – know Wisam was killed in an indisputable and illegal extrajudicial execution.

indexWisam was born in a village, Misilya. It was described for the Palestine Exploration Fund (patron was Queen Victoria) by Royal Engineers’ surveyor Lieutenant Condor in 1881 as a village with ancient wells beneath it and a rounded hilltop above with extensive views north east across the great plain to Nazareth, west to Carmel, and to Jenin behind a neighbouring hill, ‘north west across a broad corn vale’.

Today, Misilya continues its ancient agricultural lineage of growing olives and cereal. Its 3000 residents are close-knit and mainly poor because of the crippling zionist occupation.

Wisam was outgoing, energetic, well liked and had lots of friends with whom he enjoyed playing playstation and billiards at the local cafe. Wisam also had an admirable sense of responsibility; he left school in year 11 to become the family breadwinner because his father had a severe back injury and his mother had small twins plus his other younger siblings to care for. Even while at school he worked as a part-time farm or building labourer to help out.

The early morning of Sunday, January 17th, gave no hint of impending tragedy. Wisam got dressed for his work at a brick/stone factory in Nablus, gave his mother the remaining money in his wallet and armed only with his mobile joined his mate who was giving him a lift as far as the Huwwara checkpoint. He was dropped off about 500 yards from the checkpoint.

Eyewitnesses reported that the heavily armed soldiers were calling out to Wisam, “Come on, come to us”. Wisam walked, relaxed and hands in the air, and at 50 metres military shots burst hitting his chest and head. Typically, he was left to bleed out and die.

Within 10 minutes, even before Wisam’s mate returned to Misilya, the Zionist news reported an alleged attempted stabbing at the Huwwara checkpoint with no soldiers injured (understandable).

By the afternoon the ZOF had made incursions into Wisam’s village, set up checkpoints and closed off the village which was in collective shock, helplessness, anger and mourning.

Wisam’s body was returned at night and respectfully given a martyr’s burial; the body is not washed as usual with scented water and wrapped in a shroud, but the martyr is buried in the clothes in which he/she died and the blood is left unwashed. According to a Hadith – on Resurrection Day, the Shahid’s blood -“Its color saffron, and its odor musk”.

With 68 years of the violent unrestricted bloodletting of martyrs, the scent of this holy musk is tragically Palestine’s oxygen.

Wisam is no more, just as Ehab, Khalil, Ahmad, Ruqayya, Dania, Nihad, Fuad, Naim, and all the other young innocent invisible-knife wielders, are no more.

The UN was set up to maintain international peace, security and human rights for all. In 68 years, the now 192 member states of the UN have not furthered one moment of peace and justice for the people of Palestine.

The Zionist state has over and over, day to day, blatantly violated every UN declaration and convention it has ratified and it has never been suspended or expelled from the UN:

A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

The UN is as fake as the fake knives of Allege-gate. Both are smokescreens for impunity for Zionist brutality and crimes against humanity.

Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Aceh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 and then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.

February 18, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Torture Isn’t a ‘Political Decision’ — It’s a War Crime

By Dror Ladin | ACLU | February 16, 2016

According to the psychologists who teamed up with the CIA to design, implement, and oversee the agency’s post-9/11 torture program, torture is just politics. That’s what James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, CIA contractors who profited enormously from torture, told a federal court last month.

Facing a lawsuit by three of their victims, the psychologists argued that courts can’t even hear claims of U.S. government torture — because judges can’t condemn torture “without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, U.S. policy on the war against al-Qa’ida.” In other words, Mitchell and Jessen argue torture is a political decision that the executive branch gets to make without any judicial oversight.

Mitchell and Jessen are trying to avoid answering for what they did. Last week the ACLU responded on behalf of our clients, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and the family of Gul Rahman. All three were kidnapped by the CIA and tortured and experimented upon according to Mitchell and Jessen’s protocols. Mr. Rahman died as a result of his torture, while Mr. Salim and Mr. Ben Soud were eventually released. None was ever charged with a crime by the United States.

As we explain in our brief, torture is unequivocally illegal under both U.S. and international law. Every branch of our government has recognized that the courts have an essential responsibility in enforcing the prohibition on torture. Over two decades ago, Congress expanded the judiciary’s existing ability to provide remedies to victims because “universal condemnation of human rights abuses ‘provide[s] scant comfort’ to the numerous victims of gross violations if they are without a forum to remedy the wrong.” The State Department has repeatedly claimed to international human rights bodies that our courts remain open to victims of torture.

Mitchell and Jessen argue that they should be immune from accountability to their victims — even though they personally made millions of dollars from CIA torture. They say that because the federal government has unique immunity from lawsuits, federal contractors should also be immune. But contractors don’t share the government’s immunity because they face a completely different set of incentives and restrictions than government employees. This case illustrates the dangers posed by contractors who seek profit at any cost.

The CIA itself belatedly acknowledged Mitchell and Jessen’s conflict of interest in the torture program that the contractors created and oversaw. But before that happened, the corporation they formed was paid $81 million by the CIA — or in other words, the American taxpayer. Our brief explains that, contrary to Mitchell and Jessen’s claims, they don’t get to torture with impunity.

Torture isn’t politics; it’s a crime condemned around the world. It’s essential that we hold accountable those responsible for torturing in our name. A critical step in that process is letting victims have their day in court.

Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and the family of Gul Rahman should get the chance to seek justice from the psychologists who tortured and experimented on them. Anything less would be unconscionable. Our country can’t turn the page on torture and put this shameful practice behind us until wrongdoers provide apologies and redress to the victims and survivors.

February 17, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

West Springfield police had to give up their grenade launchers

PrivacySOS | February 16, 2016

watertown1234Back in the summer of 2014, the ACLU of Massachusetts published a report about the militarization of the police. Based off of publicly available materials and documents obtained from government agencies through the public records process, the report found that Massachusetts police departments had acquired some highly unusual military equipment. The West Springfield police department, for example, got two grenade launchers from the US military. Fewer than 30,000 people live in West Springfield.

That same year, the national ACLU released its own report about police militarization. And just a few months later, the world watched in horror as protesters on the streets of Ferguson were confronted with tanks and sniper rifles.

The public debate around the militarization of the police led the Obama administration to issue new rules governing which kinds of weapons could be transferred from the Department of Defense to state and local cops. No longer would law enforcement agencies be allowed to receive, gratís, things like grenade launchers or tracked armored vehicles.

The new rules didn’t go far enough, but they trimmed the most ridiculous excesses of the 1033 program, which allows state and local police to acquire old military equipment for the cost of shipping it. Thanks to Obama’s changes, police departments in Massachusetts have had to give back some of their toys. The West Springfield police department no longer has two grenade launchers. Additionally, the Norfolk police and state Department of Corrections both gave back tracked vehicles, and the Clinton cops returned 27 bayonets.

Police in Norfolk don’t seem too concerned about having to give their armored vehicle back to the feds. The department is part of a regional SWAT effort called MetroLEC, which has an armored personnel carrier called a BearCat. That’s just one example of how, while the new regulations about military transfers to police are a step in the right direction, they alone won’t fundamentally change the culture of militarization at police departments nationwide.

That’s because police can obtain militarized police equipment through other programs, including federal grants from the DOJ and DHS. And it’s also because equipment is just one part of the police militarization problem. The other is policy.

As records obtained by the ACLU show, police militarization is largely driven by the war on drugs. While it’s great that the West Springfield police don’t have grenade launchers anymore, this victory won’t put a dent in the routine police practice of sending militarized police into people’s homes in the middle of the night to look for drugs. Obama’s equipment rules don’t address night-raids or no-knock warrants, or the use of SWAT teams to serve them.

So while President Obama’s recommendations and the ensuing equipment transfers are a step in the right direction, if we want our police to act like public servants instead of war fighters, we’ve got a lot more work to do. Of primary importance in that work is moving from rhetoric to action on the war on drugs, and ending it once and for all. After all, if we don’t want our police to act like soldiers, we should stop treating the bulk of their work like a war.

February 16, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

NYPD wants to make “resisting arrest” into a felony

By Cory Doctorow | boingboing | February 14, 2016

It’s no secret that “resisting arrest” is the go-to excuse for violence committed against suspects by corrupt cops — it’s practically a running gag.

But if NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton gets his way, resisting arrest will offer near-perfect impunity to his force’s most violent and sleazy officers, who will be able to threaten anyone who complains about gratuitous violence during arrests with long prison sentences and felony records.

The Commission has suggested that he will be able to curb abuses of the new powers by having the police investigate fellow officers who lay higher-than-average resisting arrest charges in the course of their duties.

In theory, a resisting arrest charge allows the state to further punish suspects who endanger the safety of police officers as they’re being apprehended; in practice, it gives tautological justification to cops who enjoy roughing people up. Why did you use force against that suspect, officer? Because she was resisting arrest. How do I know you’re telling the truth? Because I charged her with it, sir.

Consider a few recent would-be felons:

* Chaumtoli Huq, former general counsel to NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, who was charged with resisting arrest for waiting for her family outside the Times Square Ruby Tuesday’s.

*Jahmil-El Cuffee, who was charged with resisting arrest after he found himself on the receiving end of a head-stomp from a barbarous cop because he was allegedly rolling a joint. (“Stop resisting!” cops screamed at him as he lay helpless, pinned under a pile of officers.)

*Denise Stewart, who was charged with resisting arrest after a gang of New York’s Finest threw her half-naked from her own apartment into the lobby of her building. (They had the wrong apartment, it turned out.)

*Santiago Hernandez, who was charged with resisting arrest after a group of cops beat the shit out of him following a stop-and-frisk. “One kicks me, he steps back. Another one comes to punch me and he steps back…They were taking turns on me like a gang,” Hernandez told reporters.

*Eric Garner, who no doubt would have been charged with resisting had the chokehold from Daniel Pantaleo not ended his life first.

NYPD Has a Plan to Magically Turn Anyone It Wants Into a Felon [Andy Cush/Gawker]

February 15, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soldiers Push Man from Wheelchair following Shooting

IMEMC News & Agencies – February 15, 2016

A video released by a Palestinian, immediately after Israeli forces shot and critically injured a 14-year-old girl, shows Israeli forces assaulting bystanders.

In the video, an Israeli soldier pushes a disabled man in a wheelchair backwards, flipping the man and his wheelchair over. Two more Palestinians rush to the disabled man’s aide, while Israeli forces charge forward at other bystanders, setting off a stun grenade.

The video shows Israeli forces attacking and threatening Palestinians who were attempting to get near Yasmin al-Zarou, who was shot near an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron city, according to Ma’an.

February 15, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Army and Government at Loggerheads Over Cause of Attacks

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | February 12, 2016

Israel’s frantic cocoon-weaving entered a new phase last week, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government stepped up efforts to stifle the last vestiges of dissent.

The military censor’s office, a draconian 70-year-old hangover from British rule in Palestine, extended its powers over Israeli press and TV to prominent blogs and social media.

The government has also threatened to revoke the press cards of “journalists and editors who are negligent in their work” – aimed at those who depart too obviously from the official line.

These moves follow culture minister Miri Regev’s announcement of a “loyalty law” that will deny state funding to artists and cultural institutions that are not sufficiently patriotic.

The education minister, settler leader Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, is reportedly preparing a raft of measures: a ban on access for pupils to literature and theatre not in line with government thinking, cuts to already very limited pluralism education and a new civics textbook vilifying the Palestinian minority.

In this atmosphere of inculcated ignorance and prejudice, it is easy for Mr Netanyahu to persuade public opinion that the recent wave of Palestinian protests and attacks, which have left more than 160 Palestinians and 29 Israelis dead, is solely the result of “incitement” from Palestinian officials and media. The Israeli right suggests that Palestinians who stab or drive cars at their oppressors, most often soldiers and settlers, are easily inflamed into action by words that appeal to ancient prejudice.

As the Israeli public discourse grows ever more detached from reality, Israel’s military commanders sound like an oasis of sanity – at least, by comparison.

The Israeli army actually has an operational interest in understanding what drives the Palestinian attacks – both to better counter them and to quieten growing government pressure for drastic responses, ones that could trigger the collapse of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

The military have sent intelligence officials into Israeli prisons to interview Palestinians who were not killed during their attacks, including children as young as 13.

What the army has found should surprise no one. Palestinians feel desperate and hopeless about a situation in which their own and their families’ freedoms are tightly restricted by a seemingly endless Israeli occupation.

The Palestinians behind the attacks – “lone wolves”, as Israelis call them – are often also facing extreme personal crises: suicidal thoughts, financial troubles or grief from a relative or friend’s death at Israel’s hands.

Few have had any experience of Israelis beyond the soldiers who mistreat them at checkpoints and during raids on their villages, and the settlers who lord it over them.

These findings have provoked a widening rift between the government and military.

Mr Netanyahu and his allies, drawing on the Israeli right’s traditional “iron wall” philosophy of ruthlessly crushing Palestinian dissent, have demanded greater privations for those under occupation to make them submit.

Last week, the government responded to an attack on a checkpoint by a Palestinian security official that injured three Israeli soldiers by locking down Ramallah, the Palestinians’ current economic and political capital.

The army effectively overruled that decision the next day. Gadi Eisenkott, the chief of general staff, has repeatedly warned that collective punishment will only fuel Palestinian anger and increase attacks.

He argues that more permits for Palestinian labourers to work in Israel, improving the Palestinian economy, is “an Israeli interest and a restraining factor”. He also prefers nurturing existing ties with the Palestinian security forces.

The military doves, however, are no less deluded than the political hawks.

The politicians want a collective stick to beat the Palestinians, one that will only intensify the conflict. The military, on the other hand, want individual perks for good behaviour to perpetuate the status quo a little longer.

What neither side wishes to talk about is the framework that creates Palestinian despair and anger: the occupation.

The personal crises identified by the military that spur Palestinians to violence – debt, depression and the killing of a friend or relative – are not a stroke of bad luck befalling individuals. They are an inevitable by-product of the systematic abuses inflicted on an entire occupied population.

Lawlessness from land-hungry Jewish settlers, severe movement restrictions, home demolitions and “policing” by a hostile army ensure Palestinians live as a subjugated people, slaves to ever harsher repression.

Anyone who challenges Israelis’ bubble of illusions faces the Israeli government’s wrath, as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon found last month. When he pointed out the obvious – that it was “human nature to react to occupation” – Mr Netanyahu accused him of “stoking terror”.

Worse vitriol rained down on Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, when she made much the same point – and urged an investigation into the apparent executions of some of the Palestinians recently killed by the army. She was accused of “defamation” and officially barred from visiting Israel.

The blinkered assumptions of both Israel’s politicians and its generals mean neither can find a way out of the current mire.

Those who wish simply to perpetuate Palestinian suffering may triumph over those who would prefer to intensify it. Either way, Palestinians will continue to resist.

February 13, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama regime seeks to roll back human rights conditions on aid to Egypt

RT | February 11, 2016

Despite reports that state repression in Egypt is taking place on a greater scale than it has been for generations, the Obama administration is seeking to roll back human rights conditions Congress had placed on foreign aid to Egypt’s military.

The request, which was tucked into the Obama administration’s 182-page budget proposal, seeks foreign aid to Egypt’s military regime and “the sale of crowd control weapons to ‘emerging democracies.’” The discovery was made by The Intercept.

If the new proposal, which was released on Tuesday, is adopted, it would end a Congressional restriction stipulating “that 15 percent of aid to Egypt is subject to being withheld based on human rights conditions.”

Interestingly, Congress was able to temporarily waive those restrictions in a foreign aid bill in June of 2015, arguing it was in the national security interest of the United Station, according to Al-Monitor.  The conditions were that Egypt would have to hold “free and fair” parliamentary elections and take steps to foster democracy and protect human rights for an additional $1.3 billion in military aid to be released.

The US State Department issued a scathing report in May of 2015, arguing that “while Egypt had implemented parts of its ‘democracy roadmap’ the overall trajectory of rights and democracy had been negative.”

It pinpointed restrictions on freedom of expression, the press, and freedom of association, as well as lack of due process. It further said that “impunity remains a serious problem in Egypt.”

It was well known at the time the Egyptians were “infuriated” by the report.

Cole Bockenfeld, deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy, told The Intercept that the White House probably didn’t want to explain why it had to waive restrictions this year.

“They had to basically do an assessment. … Here’s how they’re doing on political prisoners, here’s how they’re doing on freedom of assembly, and so on,” Bockenfeld said.

The Guardian reported in January that Egypt has jailed more journalists than any other country on earth except China under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Three reporters were imprisoned, one forcibly “disappeared” and was later charged with being a member of a banned organization, and six were referred to judicial hearings because of their work.

Also in January, Italian academic Giulio Regeni, who was researching labor unrest and independent trade unions in Egypt, went missing during a security crackdown on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of Egypt’s revolution. His body was discovered nine days later by the side of the road marked with cigarette burns, bruising, and multiple stab wounds. The Guardian reported more than 4,600 academics worldwide have signed an open letter protesting his death and demanding an investigation into the growing number of forced disappearances. Egyptian officials appear to be cooperating with the investigation, according to the Italian foreign minister.

The budget also contains a request that would remove a provision from a law passed in 2012 in reaction to the Arab Spring protests that prohibits the transfer of tear gas and other crowd control weapons to countries that are “undergoing democratic transition.”

“It’s basically going to be free for all,” Husain Abdulla, executive director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain, told the Intercept when speculating on the results of the administration rolling back that provision.

Among the Middle Eastern countries seeking this equipment are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain – all of which are simmering with pro-democracy challenges.

February 11, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Egypt’s Foreign Minister defends mass imprisonment on US visit

Reprieve – February 10, 2016

The Egyptian Foreign Minister has defended his government’s mass imprisonment of political activists, and the use of lengthy pre-trial detention periods, during a visit to Washington DC to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry among other officials.

In an interview with NPR that aired today, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry defended the detention without trial of activists and others arrested at protests in 2013, saying that arrests only took place where protestors didn’t have ‘permits’. Asked why many protestors were still imprisoned and awaiting trial two years later, he said: “It is a long time, but I believe justice has to be given the opportunity, within the impartiality of the judicial system, to ascertain all of the facts and to pass a verdict”.

Mr Shoukry added that “no country” has a perfect human rights record, and that “there will always be ups and downs.” He said that “it is our intention to do everything possible to live up to those [human rights] standards and provide the rights of all individuals.”

Since taking power in July 2013, the Sisi government has overseen thousands of arrests of protestors, journalists and others, many of whom have been put through mass trials that fail to meet international standards. International human rights group Reprieve, which assists several prisoners in Egypt, recently established that between 2014 and the end of 2015, nearly 600 death sentences were handed down, the majority in relation to political charges.

Hundreds of other prisoners are enduring lengthy periods of pre-trial imprisonment; one trial involving 494 people has been postponed 12 times since it began in 2014. The defendants, including Ibrahim Halawa – an Irish student, who is being assisted by Reprieve – are currently understood to be undergoing torture, including forms of ‘crucifixion’ and electrocution. Mr Halawa is one of several prisoners in the trial who were arrested as juveniles, and who are being tried as adults in violation of Egypt’s Child Law.

Reprieve has previously written to Secretary Kerry, asking him to press the Egyptian government to end the use of mass trials and release prisoners who were arrested as juveniles.

February 10, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Militants attack Red Cross aid convoy near Damascus

Press TV – February 10, 2016

Foreign-backed militants have attacked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles carrying humanitarian aid to an area near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Militants opened fire on convoys from the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) trying to enter al-Mazaya district in Damascus on Wednesday, Lebanon’s al-Ahed news website reported.

A number of aid workers were injured in the incident and three of them are reportedly in a critical condition.

On Tuesday, the two relief agencies delivered some 6,500 food packages to a number of villages in the town of Souq Wadi Barada.

This came as Syrian forces made fresh gains in areas north of Aleppo. Local residents from the town of Tal Rif’at, which is located around 20 kilometers from the Turkish frontier, together with government forces freed some areas from foreign-backed militants affiliated to al-Nusra Front. At least two people were injured in the operation.

Kurdish fighters also took full control of the town of Meng, located north of Aleppo, Lebanon’s al-Manar television channel reported.

Reports also said that at least 16 al-Nusra militants were killed in Russia’s airstrikes on the coastal Latakia Province.

Elsewhere in the northeastern province of al-Hasakah, a bomb planted in a car went off. Following the blast, clashes erupted between Takfiri militants and army forces, during which a number of people were killed.

The Syrian military backed by volunteer forces has recently inflicted heavy losses on foreign-backed militants during mop-up operations on different fronts. Over the past few weeks, the Syrian forces have also gained more ground against militants north of Latakia.

The conflict in Syria began in March 2011 and has reportedly claimed the lives of more than 260,000 people with millions of Syrians displaced inside and outside the war-torn country.

February 10, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment