RT | August 24, 2015
Gold Coast police officer Sergeant Rick Flori may spend up to seven years behind bars for leaking CCTV footage showing his fellow officers brutalizing a young chef, Noa Begic, while he was handcuffed in the Surfers Paradise Police Station basement.
Flori, who leaked the footage of the dramatic incident to the Brisbane Courier-Mail, was formally charged with misconduct in public office after being summoned to police headquarters in Brisbane last week, the newspaper reported. The footage taken in 2012 shows police officers slamming Begic’s face into the concrete floor before the 21-year-old is shoved into the back of a van and brutally punched a number of times by one cop while another holds him.
The video then shows Begic’s blood being routinely washed away by a senior-sergeant who would later quit the force before any adverse findings were made by internal investigators. The senior-constable who threw the punches was only given a suspended dismissal, according to the Courier-Mail. The other two officers involved were reportedly not disciplined at all.
According to Sydney Criminal Lawyers, police allege that Flori, who had spent a quarter of a century in the Queensland Police Force until he was suspended earlier this year, committed the offence by ‘inappropriately obtain[ing]’ confidential surveillance footage from the police CCTV room.
Section 91A of the Queensland Criminal Code 1899 makes it an offence for a public officer, including a police officer, to release information gained as a result of their office. The prosecution must now prove that the act was done with the intention of dishonestly gaining a benefit for Flori or another person, or dishonestly causing a detriment to another person, Sydney Criminal Lawyers report.
The victim of the bashing, Begic, was arrested and charged with ‘public nuisance’ and ‘obstructing police’. The charges against him were later dropped and he won a confidential settlement from the Queensland Police Service, the newspaper reported. After his charges were dropped in June 2012, Begic said it would be “a disgrace” if the officer who leaked the video was punished.
A complaint has been made by Council of Civil Liberties (a voluntary organization concerned with the protection of individual rights and civil liberties) to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) which, according to Sydney Criminal Lawyers, is the same body that made the decision not to prosecute the officers involved in the bashing.
“How is it that the police who were shown on the video as belting the crap out of this particular person have not been charged and yet the person who has leaked it is now being charged with an offence which could put him in jail?” Deputy President Terry O’Gorman told the team of lawyers.
The acting chair of the CCC said she had asked staff involved in the incident to compile details about the matter.
“I accept that needs to be looked at and we agree that police excessive use of force is one of the top five problems with police and we will be looking at that,” she told ABC radio.
Last month supporters of Flori gathered outside the Southport Magistrates Court to praise the officer and show outrage over the four involved in the incident.
By Lana Habash | CounterPunch | August 21, 2015
Sometimes I love Republicans. They lay bare with such clarity what underlies and drives US foreign policy– the bottom line strategic interests without the pretense that more adept politicians use to justify US military aggression: the US government’s “concerns” about “human rights” for instance.
Take Syria.
John McCain laid it all out in his interview on CNN’s Situation Room in 2013:
“Look, the Middle East is about to erupt. This is turning into a regional conflict: Lebanon is destabilized, Jordan can’t — the king of Jordan can’t last, the conflict is spreading throughout the region, Hezbollah is all in. This is becoming a Sunni-Shia conflict . . . and it’s an unfair fight!” While arguing for more US military intervention in Syria, he goes on to say, “It’s a great blow to Iran — the greatest in twenty-five years, and they’re cut off from Hezbollah, which would mean that Hezbollah would die on the vine.”
It is strange to hear American politicians wring their hands about the instability of the Jordanian monarchy and its regime while pontificating about US intentions to “bring democracy to the Middle East.”
Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the increasing use of the human rights discourse by the United States as justification for US military aggression. In some cases, these human rights abuses (as in the case of Iraq) proved nothing more than Department of Defense propaganda that was later proved false. More recently, the Assad regime in Syria has been accused of such violations as torture and arbitrary arrest and detention, though the US hasn’t been above using these alleged services themselves. (US former CIA agent Robert Baer once said of US held prisoners, “If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria.”) The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has echoed these allegations about the Syrian regime. These alleged human rights abuses, the same ones that Jordan continues to perpetrate against its own citizens with impunity, have been used as justification for US military intervention in Syria, including the arming and training of rebel forces in Jordan by US troops, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 220,000 people and over 3 million refugees. These interventions have done nothing to advance the human rights of the Syrian people, but have achieved some strategic goals for the US and Israel: Hezbollah, the only player that poses a serious threat to American and Israeli strategic interests regionally, is now embroiled in a Syrian civil war, and as McCain stated, a “great blow” has been served to both Iran and Hezbollah.
Last year, at his confirmation as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by the General Assembly, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein spoke of his commitment to push forward human rights on the Asian continent. It has been hard to take seriously this pronouncement when the High Commissioner has used his office to support concrete measures that, not coincidentally, mesh with US strategic interests, while he remains silent about the human rights abuses in his own country, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, yet has one of the most abysmal human rights records in the world. The recent case of Amer Jubran reveals the entire spectrum of repression to which Jordanians are subjected.
Amer Jubran is an internationally known Palestinian activist, speaker and writer on the rights of Palestinians and against US and Israeli policies in the Arab world. He has also distributed information about US involvement in destabilizing Syria.
Jubran was arrested in Jordan on May 5, 2014, when 20 men in black military uniforms broke into his home in the middle of the night. He was held incommunicado by Jordan’s secret police, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) for 2 months at an undisclosed location, in violation of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A petition against arbitrary detention was filed on his behalf with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Nothing came of this.
Jubran was finally charged in August, 2014 under a new law that makes “harming the relationship with a foreign government” a crime of “terrorism.” The wording of this law is so vague that it criminalizes a broad range of political activities including journalism, in violation of Article 19 of the ICCPR, guaranteeing freedom of opinion and expression.
This same law was enacted one month after Amer Jubran’s arrest, also constituting a violation of Article 15 of the ICCPR, which stipulates, “No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offense … which did not constitute a criminal offense…at the time when it was committed.”
Jubran was tried before Jordan’s State Security Court (SSC), a military tribunal that fails to meet even minimum standards of judicial independence, violating Article 14 of the ICCPR, which guarantees the right to a fair trial by a “competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law.” Jubran’s defense team effectively proved the “terrorism” charges against him false, but the verdict of the SSC was reached without regard for evidence. The only evidence presented in Jubran’s trial was the coerced testimony of other defendants, also arrested in May, 2014, subjected to interrogation, and all of whom received reduced sentences of two to three years. Robert Baer also said: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan.” While Jubran was being detained incommunicado and “interrogated” he was threatened not only with imprisonment, but with being disappeared when he refused to infiltrate Hezbollah and act as an informant for the GID. He was recently sentenced to ten years of hard labor by Jordan’s State Security Court (see statement by Amer Jubran on his sentencing.)
The human rights abuses perpetrated against Amer Jubran are the rule in Jordan, rather than the exception. Jordan’s long history of the use of arbitrary detention and torture have been well documented by the UN. In 2013, the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report on Jordan, detailing a series of cases like that of Jubran in which basic political freedoms had been trampled. The report had a special section on the State Security Court:
“The Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee have repeatedly recommended that Jordan abolish special courts such as the State Security Court… The Committee reiterates its 1994 recommendation that the State party consider abolishing the State Security Court.” (Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, November 2013).
What has the UN High Commissioner done thus far to respond to these recommendations and push forward the issue of human rights in his own country? When asked during a press conference as to whether it was illegal to criticize the king in the press in Jordan, the Human Rights Chief replied, “Essentially, we believe we are still a family,” while plugging the king’s new book (USA Today August 13, 2014). The UN High Commissioner failed to mention Jordan’s long history of criminalizing speech and imprisoning journalists like Jamal Ayyoub.
Interestingly, Jubran has written nothing about the Jordanian regime. His writing has consistently concerned itself with the policies of the US and Israel in the region. This speaks to the new law of “harming relationships with foreign governments.” Mr. Jubran has stated that he was told directly by his GID interrogators that any decision made about him would involve “our American and Israeli friends.”
Recent revelations about NSA cooperation with Jordanian intelligence agencies underline the central role Jordan plays in the US and Israeli “security” regime for the region. Spying on Palestinians and providing intelligence about “high security targets” is perhaps the least of the services Jordan provides. The abuses of fundamental freedoms in Jordan are consistently carried out, as in Amer Jubran’s case, in the interests of protecting US and Israeli power.
Institutions like the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights are supposed to exist to guarantee the protection of human and political rights globally. The real test of the UN High Commissioner’s commitment to push forward the issue of human rights in Asia must begin in his home country of Jordan and will involve a confrontation not only with that regime, but with the nation states calling the shots. Will the UN High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein use the powers of his office to advocate for human rights, when those powers come in conflict with the US, Israel, and their regional allies? If not, then the term “human rights” has become nothing more than Orwellian doublespeak, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is just one more weapon in the military arsenal of US regional dominance.
More details about the case of Amer Jubran can be found at freeamer.wordpress.com.
Lana Habash is a Palestinian physician living in Boston, MA. She can be reached at defense@amerjubrandefense.org.
Press TV – August 22, 2015
Another Egyptian political prisoner has died while in custody, the third death in 48 hours and the 13th of the month of August.
Thirty-seven-year-old Ahmed Hamed, father of three children, was pronounced dead on Friday evening in a police station in the city of Faiyum, 100 kilometers southwest of the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Hamed, a supporter of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, lost his life just four days after being “kidnapped” by security forces in civilian clothes from the premises of his residence in Faiyum.
According to Hamed’s family and human rights activists in the city, he died of torture. No further details on his death have been released yet.
This is the third similar case in just 48 hours in Egypt. A 40-year-old man passed away in custody on Wednesday in a hospital in Matariya district in northeastern Cairo. He was detained 15 days before his death on charges of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Human rights activists in the Egyptian capital had said the man was only transferred to hospital when he was already in a very critical condition also due to torture.
Also on Wednesday, a 72-year-old inmate, serving a three-year prison term on similar charges, died in the Borg El Arab prison in Egypt’s city of Alexandria in the north.
The victim, who was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, lost his life due to purported medical negligence upon his return from a court session a day earlier, where he had appeared in a wheelchair.
At least 13 political detainees are now known to have lost their lives inside detention facilities in August alone.
Human rights activists emphasize that “deliberate and systematic medical negligence” on the part of prison authorities, torture, overcrowded prisons, and overall “unhealthy and inhumane” conditions imposed on more than 40,000 political prisoners in Egypt’s detention facilities are the causes behind the deaths.
Nearly 300 political prisoners have died in Egyptian detention facilities since then army chief and current President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ousted Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013 in a coup.
Sisi then launched brutal crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters and brotherhood members, leading to the killing of hundreds and the arrest and imprisonment of tens of thousands, many of whom have been sentenced to death and long prison terms in mass trials.
inminds – August 20, 2015
Date: Friday 21st August 2015 3pm-5:30pm
Location: Jordanian Embassy, Upper Phillimore Gardens, London W8 7HA (few minutes walk from High Street Kensington tube station), move to Israeli Embassy around 4:30pm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/947233385320459
Assalaamu Alaikum
Please join us as we hold two vigils this friday for Palestinian prisoners. At 3pm we will be outside the Jordanian Embassy demanding freedom for Palestinian father and human rights activist Amer Jubran who is facing a 10 years prison sentence in Jordan at the behest of Israel for refusing to betray the Lebanese resistance against Israel. Then at around 4:30pm we will move to the Israeli Embassy a few streets away to demand the unconditional and immediate release of Palestinian lawyer and hunger striker Muhammed Allan.
Muhammed Allan is again in a comma, breathing through a respirator, after having suffered brain damage whilst in Israeli custody. Muhammed launched his hunger strike on 15 June 2015 to protest Israel’s illegal practice of Administrative detention – of caging Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. He has been caged by Israel without charge since 6th Nov 2014 on never ending rolling detention orders. Allan ended his hunger strike after 65 days on 19th Aug after the Israeli Supreme Court on health grounds ordered the suspension of the administrative detention order against him. But Israel is still threatening to reimpose his administrative detention and imprisonment should he recover, its imperative at this time that we maintain the pressure and demand his immediate and unconditional release.
LATEST UPDATES ON MUHAMMED ALLAN
(courtesy Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network)
20th Aug: Reports state Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan again in a coma, on respirator
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/reports-state-palestinian-hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-again-in-a-coma-on-respirator/
19th Aug: Breaking News: Reports state Muhammad Allan has ended his strike after decision of the Israeli Supreme Court
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/breaking-news-reports-state-muhammad-allan-has-ended-his-strike-after-decision-of-the-israeli-supreme-court/
18th Aug: Muhammad Allan regains consciousness, pledges to continue hunger strike
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/muhammad-allan-regains-consciousness-pledges-to-continue-hunger-strike/
17th Aug: Muhammad Allan rejects attempt to forcibly deport him from Palestine as Supreme Court considers case
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/take-action-muhammad-allan-rejects-attempt-to-forcibly-deport-him-from-palestine-as-supreme-court-considers-case/
17th Aug: Israeli Supreme Court to hear petition for release of hunger striker Mohammed Allan
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/israeli-supreme-court-to-hear-petition-for-release-of-hunger-striker-mohammed-allan/
16th Aug: Palestinian doctor denied access to Muhammad Allan as he faces life-threatening infection
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/palestinian-doctor-denied-access-to-muhammad-allan-as-he-faces-life-threatening-infection/
14th Aug: Muhammed Allan on ventilator in coma; Palestinian prisoners under Israeli lockdown
http://samidoun.net/2015/08/action-alert-muhammed-allan-on-ventilator-in-medical-crisis-palestinian-prisoners-under-israeli-lockdown/
AMER JUBRAN – BACKGROUND
Palestinian activist Amer Jubran has a long history of being targeted for his activism on behalf of Palestine, first in the US and then in Jordan.
In the US he formed the “New England Committee to Defend Palestine” and in November 2002, two days after leading a demonstration in Boston calling for justice in Palestine, the FBI stormed Amer Jubran’s home and arrested him under the Patriot Act initially holding him without charge. When public outcry made it difficult to continue holding him they initiated deportation proceedings against him and he was deported to Jordan in January 2004 where he continued his activism for Palestine.
In Jordan he was under constant surveillance of the notorious Jordanian secret police. On 5th May 2014, 20 armed me in black uniforms stormed his home where he lived with his wife and four young children, smashing the doors and windows. The secret police abducted Amer, and for months he was interrogated at an undisclosed location without charge and without access to a lawyer.
Finally in August 2014 Amer Jubran was charged under a new law that didn’t exist when he was arrested, that makes “harming the relationship with a foreign government” a crime of “terrorism”. Last month on 29th July 2015 we was sentenced by a military court to 10 years hard labour, reduced from a 15 year sentence. Following his visit to Lebanon to speak an an Anti-Apartheid week function he was accused of working with the Lebanese resistance Hizbullah against Israel, hence ‘harming’ Jordan’s relationship with a friendly country. During his interrogation he was told by the secret police that any decision made about him involves “our American and Israeli friends”. Amer says it “all started when I refused to be a sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance. I was told then that I will be sent behind the sun for such a refusal. And frankly it is very easy for me to disappear behind the sun rather than to be well, outside but a sell-out and traitor. “. Essentially he is being persecuted and imprisoned because he refused to work for Israeli /Jordanian intelligence as an infiltrator and informant against the resistance.
BACKGROUND – ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
Muhammad Allan was on hunger strike to protest against Israel’s practice of Administrative detention. Administrative detention is a practice used by Israel to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. Prisoners are given rolling detention orders which can be anything from 1-6 months, renewable indefinitely. Such practice is against international law.
For example administrative detainee Mazen Natsheh has been locked up cumulatively for nearly 10 years without charge or trial. Muhammad Allan has in total been caged for 3 years under different administrative detention orders without charge or trial.
Detention orders are based on so called “secret information” which never needs to be produced, either to the detainee nor their lawyer. Administrative detention is often used to arbitrarily jail Palestinians where there is no evidence for a trial. It is also used for punishment as in the case of 8 Palestinian MPs who are currently caged in Israeli dungeons to punish them for their political stance.
Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer have documented “many cases where the detainees themselves will say that administrative detention is actually far worse than a fixed sentence, be that five years, ten years, 20 years, or whatever and why. With a fixed sentence, you know when you’re going home, a prisoner knows when he goes home. It could be ten years or 15 years down the line, but they know when they’re going home. Not with an administrative detention..” They have documented “many cases where prisoners or detainees have been literally leaving the prison, walking out of the prison with their bags in their hand after their administrative detention order has expired [with their family waiting on the other side] and the Israelis have handed that detainee another administrative detention order and they have to go back into the cell to recommence another administrative detention order. Now, this is a form of psychological torture for not only the detainee [but also] their families.”
Israel has on average issued over 2000 detention orders every year (between 2007 and 2011). Today there are around 450 administrative detainees. Most of them, like Muhammad Allan, having been transferred from the West Bank into Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, with their families being prevented from visiting them.
On 18th August 2015, 250 Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention in the “Negev” prison in the Naqab desert in the south of Palestine announced they will launch an open-ended hunger strike to defeat administrative detention. Their statement reads “the growing use of administrative detention.. represents a clear and explicit violation of all international conventions and human rights principles, where we are arrested for extended periods, for years continuously, at the mercy of a so-called “secret file,” where we have no right to defend ourselves. Administrative detention is a sword hanging over our necks, that eats away our flesh and blood and years of our lives without trial and without mercy.”
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
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JazakAllah,
Abbas Ali
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
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PrivacySOS – August 20, 2015
Today the ACLU of Massachusetts filed suit against two officers from the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority police department for civil rights violations against our client Mary Holmes. From the ACLU’s website:
In March 2014, Ms. Holmes was at the Dudley Square MBTA station in Roxbury when she saw Officer Jennifer Garvey scream at and shove an older Black woman. The situation worried Ms. Holmes so she tried to calm the woman and asked Officer Garvey to stop being so aggressive. When these efforts failed, she called 9-1-1 for help. In response, Officer Garvey and her partner, Officer Alfred Trinh, pepper-sprayed Ms. Holmes in the face, beat her with a metal baton, and arrested her, handcuffing her hands behind her back while forcing her to the ground.
“The MBTA has signs everywhere telling people ‘if you see something, say something.’ This is exactly what Ms. Holmes did. She saw something wrong, and she spoke out. We need more people to follow Ms. Holmes’ lead and do the same,” said Jessie Rossman, staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Unfortunately, the officers’ reactions are part of a broader, troubling trend, in which police officers mistreat individuals exercising their constitutional rights. It has to stop.”
See something, say something—unless it’s police brutality. That isn’t right. Stay tuned for more news on this lawsuit.
Sputnik – 20.08.2015
While four out of five Yemenis require humanitarian assistance amid the airstrikes and ground fighting in the country, UN agencies have still not received the funding from Saudi Arabia of $274 million pledged in April, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council Wednesday.
O’Brien noted the humanitarian assistance alone cannot meet all the needs of an entire country with a population of 26 million people, and that the response plan will only be funded at 33 percent even once the funds from Saudi Arabia are received.
“The civilian population is bearing the brunt of the conflict. A shocking four of out five Yemenis require humanitarian assistance and nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced… To date only 18 percent, some 282 million US dollars, of the $1.6 billion requested through the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan has been received. UN agencies have still not received the funding from Saudi Arabia of $274 million pledged in April,” O’Brien said in an open briefing.
Yemen has been engulfed in the military conflict between Houthis, the country’s main opposition faction, and government forces loyal to its president in exile.
A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been launching airstrikes on Yemeni areas under control of the Houthi militants since March under the request of the country’s president-in-exile.
The ongoing hostilities in Yemen have claimed the lives of at least 1,900 civilians and more than 4,000 have suffered injuries, according to the United Nations.
Some 21 million are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | August 19, 2015
The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that hunger striking Palestinian prisoner, 31 year-old Mohammed Allan, will be released from administrative detention… but only if medical tests show that he’s suffered “irreversible” damage as a result of his 65-day hunger strike. Apparently, a healthy Allan was a grave national security threat. While a near-dead Allan poses no such threat. While the Court has done the decent, humane thing, it erased any good will it might’ve generated by compelling Allan had to prove that his ordeal had caused damage to his body and mind so severe that it supported freeing him.
If he recovers and shows no sign of permanent damage, he could be rearrested and forced to serve the remainder of his term under administrative detention. Further, he could be rearrested at any time by authorities under a new order. Such is the caprice of the Israeli legal system regarding security offenses. Under administrative detention, a victim need not be charged with a crime. And such detentions may be extended for six month periods indefinitely. That is why prisoners have begun to resort to hunger strikes. Killing themselves seems to be the only message that moves the hardened Pharaonic hearts of Israel’s security services.
Israel was placed in this “awkward” position by a ruling from the national medical association refusing to participate in force-feeding him, which had been the prison service’s plan. After no doctor would agree, it had to let the hunger strike run its course. It is a pleasant surprise that the Israeli security police couldn’t mange to find a professional willing to perform such a ghoulish procedure. Keep in mind, that a number of countries including the U.S. do permit force-feeding of hunger strikers.
This is a cold, brutal judicial decision in line with a string of such judgments offered by this Court since a hardline majority took over in the past several years. Lest any apologists continue prattling about the liberal views and support for human rights offered by the highest judicial body as a counter to the racism of the legislative branch, the days of Aharon Barak are long past. Nor are we likely to see such a person on the court in the future.
That doesn’t mean the extreme right in Israel is any less angry at this Court. In fact, one minister said last week the Court should be “bulldozed.” Apparently, having a court that is obeisant to the right-wing policies of the government as this one is, isn’t enough. They want a Court that opens its sessions with the Likud anthem and swears allegiance to Rabbis Ginsburgh and Lior.
Ma’an – August 18, 2015
RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Authority security forces on Tuesday said that there was no evidence that Palestinians shot by Israeli forces in recent days, in two cases fatally, had stabbed Israeli soldiers.
In the last week, Israeli forces have shot three Palestinians, killing two, who they claimed attempted to stab Israeli soldiers or Border Police officers.
However, the spokesperson for the PA security forces, Major-General Adnan Dmeiri, said in a statement that Israel had provided no evidence to support its allegations.
He questioned the fact that in each case the Israeli army or police force investigated its own soldiers or officers, “without the interference of any other party.”
He said that the investigations had portrayed the Israeli soldiers and officers as “heroes.”
Dmeiri criticized the fact that the army and police force were both the investigators and the “executors” of Palestinians.
Most recently, Israeli forces shot dead a young Palestinian man on Monday afternoon after they claimed he attempted to stab an Israeli Border Police officer.
An Israeli army spokeswoman alleged that the Palestinian man approached Israeli Border Police officers at Tappuah junction, known to Palestinians as Zaatara military checkpoint, asking for “medical assistance.”
The spokeswoman said that he then pulled out a knife and attempted to stab an Israeli officer before he was shot dead.
She said that the Israeli police officer was lightly injured.
Two days earlier, Border Police shot dead another Palestinian after the army said he stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer near Beita in southern Nablus.
Rafeeq Kamil Rafeeq al-Taj, 21, was shot five times, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.
On the same day, Israeli forces shot and lightly injured a Palestinian man after he allegedly stabbed a soldier west of Ramallah. He was taken into custody following the incident.
Israeli media recently reported that the Israeli army had implemented new rules of engagement, requiring soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territory to hold their fire unless there is a genuine threat to their lives.
Previous rules allowed Israeli soldiers to use fire “warning shots” when their lives were not at imminent risk, and subsequently aim for lower extremities when engaging with Palestinians on the ground.
Since the beginning of 2015 Israeli forces have injured an average of 37 Palestinians a week, and killed a total of at least 25 Palestinians, according to UN figures.
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | August 15, 2015
In another case of mistaken identity that could have turned deadly, Los Angeles police held a pregnant woman at gunpoint while ordering her out of her pickup truck, making her walk to the middle of street with her hands in the air and yelling at her to get down on her knees.
LAPD said they were in fear for their lives because the woman, who is due to give birth next week, was driving a truck matching the description of a truck driven by a murder suspect.
They said that because the woman’s truck had dark, tinted windows, they were unable to determine if it was being driven by the man they were seeking or if it just happened to be one of almost six million registered vehicles in Los Angeles County that were not connected to the suspect.
The incident, which took place Thursday, was captured on video from an NBC L.A. news helicopter hovering overhead.
The video shows about a dozen cops training their guns on the woman as well as another female passenger who was also ordered out while they all remained behind their patrol cars in the name of “officer safety.”
The video also shows both the driver side and passenger side windows either open or without tints, but we don’t see the initial stop, which may have shown the windows closed – not that dark tints should excuse them for violating the woman’s rights like that.
However, they’ve already learned that they can shoot up a truck in a case of mistaken identity and not face charges.
After all, it was only in 2013 that LAPD cops shot up a truck driven by two women after claiming it matched the description of a truck being driven by a whistleblower cop turned cop killer named Chris Dorner.
Dorner had been driving a gray Nissan Titan. The women had been driving a blue Toyota Tacoma.
So naturally police began fearing for their lives, which is why they opened fire on the Tacoma, driven by a 47-year-old daughter, accompanied by her 71-year-old mother, both of them delivering newspapers in a residential neighborhood.
Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, ended up receiving a $4.2 million settlement. The cops ended up on paid desk duty for a while before returning to the streets.
Moments after that shooting, a Torrance police officer shot up another pickup truck thinking it was Dorner’s truck, but that was also a different make and color and driven by a man named David Perdue who looked nothing like Dorner. He ended up receiving a $1.8 million
settlement.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck determined the eight cops who left Carranza’s truck with more than 102 bullets violated department policy, but said he was not allowed to disclose what, if any, discipline they may receive because a state law protects cops’ personnel files from public eyes.
So with that type of job security, it is no wonder LAPD officers tend to shoot first and ask questions later.
LAPD have not released the name of the murder suspect they were seeking, who they say is also responsible for several burglaries in the area, nor the make and model of his truck, not that it would make a difference to them as we saw in the Dorner incidents.
The women, who also had two kids in the back seat of the truck, were released after police determined they were not the murder suspect. They are probably also eligible for a settlement.
MEMO | August 17 2015
Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip is ongoing, despite frequent reminders that it “withdrew” its settlers and army posts 10 years ago. Legally and practically it is still the occupying power and it remains inflexible.
For example, Palestinian territorial waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip as defined by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, should extend to 12 nautical miles (22.2 km or 13.8 miles) but the Israeli navy enforces a six mile limit, sometimes even five and a half miles, for Gaza’s fishermen. In addition, the Israeli occupation authorities often make petty and spiteful “security” excuses to reduce the already reduced fishing limit to three miles.
On top of that, Palestinian fisherman are harassed by the Israeli navy on a daily basis; their boats are fired upon, sunk and confiscated, and the fishermen themselves are often arrested if they are not killed or wounded in the process. All of this, of course, has an impact on the amount of fish caught off the Gaza coast, which should be a rich fishing ground. Catching more and larger fish requires sailing into international waters, as fishermen from other countries do.
Palestinian investors in Gaza have thus resorted to fish farming. Speaking to MEMO, Yasser Al-Haj said that he invested in this sector for personal gain as well as to ease the crisis in the Palestinian market. Although it is not regarded as a solution to the crisis, it can alleviate it.
Al-Haj’s newly-opened fish farm only produces one type of fish, sea bream. It is imported from Israel and then raised in this farm and others. He says that his farm produces 7 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s needs and sells about 250kg a day. One kilo of sea bream costs about $12.
For an ordinary middle-class citizen, this price is high, but for a poor citizen it is very expensive, given the average income in the Gaza Strip. The high price is set by many factors, including the price of fish feed from Israel, which is $1,850 per tonne, plus the issue of the power cuts suffered across the territory.
Fish farms require generators to keep the oxygen moving and water pumping continuously in the ponds. Yasser Al-Haj notes that he is unable to breed the fish in the sea because of pollution, which poses a danger to the fish and people who eat them. The sewage processing plants aren’t working due to the power cuts and lack of maintenance resulting from the Israeli blockade.
Images from MEMO photographer: Mohammad Asad
International Solidarity Movement | August 16, 2015
Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – On Saturday the 15th of August 2015, the villagers from Kafr Qaddum once again demonstrated against the blockage of the road leading to Nablus as well as the nearby Kedumin settlement. In solidarity with the local people there were a few international activists and journalists covering the demonstration.
The non-violent protest was immediately suppressed by the Israeli occupation forces shooting dozens of teargas canisters and live ammunition. Instead of the frequently used bad-smelling skunk water, the army drove a bulldozer into the village. This bulldozer destroyed the only water pipe in the village, leaving the people Kafr Qaddum without any connection to water until the pipe is repaired. Especially during the hot summer months, water is a scarce and essential good.
Murad Shtaiwi, one of the leaders of Kafr Qaddum Popular Committee, understands the damage to the water pipe as a way to collectively punish the village for its ongoing resistance. The costs of a new pipe have to be paid for by the municipality. As Murad explains, damaging the water pipe is a deliberate attempt by the Israeli army to suppress the support among the villagers to continue to protests and thus block future demonstrations.
MEMO | August 15, 2015
Some 2,799 Egyptians have been killed since the Egyptian authorities forcefully dispersed mass rallies in Cairo on August 14, 2013. The rallies were held as protest against the military coup which ousted the first every freely elected Egyptian president, an Egyptian rights group said on Friday.
Anadolu News Agency reported that the Egyptian Coordination of Rights and Freedoms stated that since June 30, 2013 until today, the Egyptian authorities’ varied methods of killing resulted in a large number of deaths.
According to the National Egyptian Council for Human Rights, on August 14, 2013, the Egyptian army and police dispersed the demonstrations against the military coup, killing 632 Egyptians. Meanwhile, national and international rights groups said the number of deaths was over 1,000.
Following the violent dispersal of the rallies, the Egyptian authorities adopted systematic killing, including torturing prisoners to death, liquidations and assassinations.
In June of this year, the Egyptian security forces assassinated nine unarmed Muslim Brotherhood leaders, claiming they were planning to make chaos in the country. The Muslim Brotherhood denied the accusations and stressed that the individuals were a team following up the families of Egyptians killed or wounded by the army and the police.
According to the report, which was divided into three stages, the first stage covered the period from June 30, 2013 until August 13, 2013, where 316 Egyptians were killed. The second stage covered August 14, 2013 until August 16, where 2007 Egyptians were killed. The third stage details the events from August 17, 2013 until August 12, 2015, where 476 Egyptians were killed.
Since the military coup against Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian authorities have been cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing it of “inciting violence and terror” in the country.
In December 2013, an Egyptian court designated the group as a “terrorist organisation” and ordered all of its leaders and members to be arrested and their property confiscated.
Hundreds of its leaders and members have been sentenced to death or life in prison since the announcement of that ruling.
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
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