A checkpoint in Hebron
International Solidarity Movement | January 14, 2015
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Checkpoints are numerous and inescapable in the H2 area of al-Khalil (Hebron), where thousands of soldiers guard around 600 Israeli Zionist settlers occupying heavily militarised settlement enclaves in the heart of the most populous Palestinian city in the West Bank. The Israeli military imposes numerous restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the neighbourhoods of H2, affecting people as they attempt to live, work, study, and travel through their city. Shuhada checkpoint, leading from the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida into Palestinian-administered H1, is one of the larger and more heavily manned checkpoints.
One Israeli soldier looked through the purse of a young Palestinian woman as her daughter looked on. Even Palestinian children too young to carry bags for a soldier to search are subjected to the everyday sight of their older relatives being stopped, searched, questioned and detained by Israeli forces. Over a period of a couple of hours on Tuesday afternoon, an ISM activist witnessed Israeli soldiers stop and search around fifty Palestinian children, women, and men.
Barbed wire and fences frame the entry way into Shuhada checkpoint, as Israeli soldiers patrol the heavily militarised passage between the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Tel Rumeida and Bab el-Zawiye.
A very young Palestinian girl took a moment to look up at the heavily armed Israeli soldiers standing in her path. Armed with enormous rifles, chests strapped with body armour complete with pockets full of stun grenades and tear gas, the soldiers looked incongruous on the otherwise quiet, sunny street.
“I don’t understand why people think we want war, we just want peace,” one Israeli soldier told an ISM activist. The absurdity of his statement, as he stood with his rifle beside the checkpoint, seemed entirely lost on him. Deploying eighteen-year-olds with M16s to search kids’ shopping bags and their mothers’ purses, giving them control over the lives of Palestinians trying to keep surviving in the neighbourhoods of H2 in al-Khalil, creates a situation which, though it may sometimes seem quiet, is anything but peaceful. The soldiers stop whole families at the checkpoint: mothers, grandfathers, sisters laden with shopping bags. This young girl stood waiting off to the side as the Israeli military checked to make sure her relatives did not pose a “threat.”
Photo credits – ISM
Charlie Hebdo and the hypocrisy of pencils
By Corey Oakley | Red Flag | January 12, 2015
It was Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight who tipped me over the edge.
To be fair, he wasn’t wholly responsible. If it wasn’t for all the lunacy that preceded him, I probably would have dismissed his cartoon as just another Herald Sun atrocity, more a piece of Murdoch-madness to be mocked rather than trigger for outrage. But context is everything. And after days of sanctimonious blather about freedom of speech and the Enlightenment values of Western civilisation, his was one pencil-warfare cartoon too many.
The cartoon in question depicts two men – masked and armed Arab terrorists (is there any other kind of Arab?) – with a hail of bomb-like objects raining down on their heads. Only the bombs aren’t bombs. They are pens, pencils and quills. Get it? In the face of a medieval ideology that only understands the language of the gun, the West – the heroic, Enlightenment-inspired West – responds by reaffirming its commitment to resist barbarism with the weapons of ideas and freedom of expression.
It is a stirring narrative repeated ad nauseam in newspapers across the globe. They have been filled with depictions of broken pencils re-sharpened to fight another day, or editorials declaring that we will defeat terrorism by our refusal to stop mocking Islam.
It is well past time to call bullshit. Knight’s cartoon made the point exceptionally clear, but every image that invoked the idea that Western culture could and would defend itself from Islamist extremism by waging a battle of ideas demonstrated the same historical and political amnesia.
Reality could not be more at odds with this ludicrous narrative.
For the last decade and a half the United States, backed to varying degrees by the governments of other Western countries, has rained violence and destruction on the Arab and Muslim world with a ferocity that has few parallels in the history of modern warfare.
It was not pencils and pens – let alone ideas – that left Iraq, Gaza and Afghanistan shattered and hundreds of thousands of human beings dead. Not twelve. Hundreds of thousands. All with stories, with lives, with families. Tens of millions who have lost friends, family, homes and watched their country be torn apart.
To the victims of military occupation; to the people in the houses that bore the brunt of “shock and awe” bombing in Iraq; to those whose bodies were disfigured by white phosphorous and depleted uranium; to the parents of children who disappeared into the torture cells of Abu Ghraib; to all of them – what but cruel mockery is the contention that Western “civilisation” fights its wars with the pen and not the sword?
And that is only to concern ourselves with the latest round of atrocities. It is not even to consider the century or more of Western colonial policies that through blood and iron have consigned all but a tiny few among the population of the Arab world to poverty and hopelessness.
It is not to even mention the brutal rule of French colonialism in Algeria, and its preparedness to murder hundreds of thousands of Algerians and even hundreds of French-Algerian citizens in its efforts to maintain the remnants of empire. It is leaving aside the ongoing poverty, ghettoisation and persecution endured by the Muslim population of France, which is mostly of Algerian origin.
The history of the West’s relationship with the Muslim world – a history of colonialism and imperialism, of occupation, subjugation and war – cries out in protest against the quaint idea that “Western values” entail a rejection of violence and terror as political tools.
Of course the pen has played its role as well. The pens that signed the endless Patriot Acts, anti-terror laws and other bills that entrenched police harassment and curtailed civil rights. The pens of the newspaper editorialists who whip up round after round of hysteria, entrenching anti-Muslim prejudice and making people foreigners in their own country. But the pens of newspaper editors were strong not by virtue of their wit or reason, but insofar as they were servants of the powerful and their guns.
Consideration of this context not only exposes the hypocrisy of those who create the narrative of an enlightened West defending freedom of speech, it also points to the predictability and inevitability of horrific acts of terrorism in response. Of course we will never know what was going through the minds of the three men who carried out this latest atrocity. But it is the height of ahistorical philistinism to ignore the context – both recent and longstanding – in which these attacks took place.
The idea that Muslim outrage at vile depictions of their religious icons can be evaluated separately from the persecution of Muslims in the West and the invasion and occupation of Muslim countries is the product of a complete incapacity to empathise with the experience of sustained and systemic oppression.
What is extraordinary, when even the most cursory consideration of recent history is taken into account, is not that this horrific incident occurred, but that such events do not happen more often. It is a great testament to the enduring humanism of the Muslim population of the world that only a tiny minority resort to such acts in the face of endless provocation.
In the days ahead, a now tired and exhausting theatre of the absurd will continue to play out its inevitable acts. The Western politicians who lock up their own dissidents and survey the every movement of their citizenry will go on waxing lyrical about freedom of thought. Muslim leaders of every hue will continue to denounce a terrorism they have nothing to do with, and will in turn be denounced for not doing so often or vigorously enough. The right will attack the left as sympathisers of Islamist terrorism, and demand we endlessly repeat the truism that journalists should not be killed for expressing their opinions. They will also demand that we accept that white Westerners, not Muslims, are the real victims of this latest political drama.
Meanwhile, Muslims in the West will, if they dare to walk the streets, do so in fear of the inevitable reprisals. And pencils aren’t what they will be afraid of.
Saudi Arabia Adds 5 Years to Human Rights Lawyer’s Prison Sentence
Al-Akhbar | January 13, 2015
A Saudi judge has sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer to an additional five years in jail, after he refused to show remorse or recognize the court that handed down his original 10-year term for sedition.
Waleed Abu al-Khair, founder and director of watchdog group Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA), was sentenced last year to 10 years in jail on charges that included breaking his allegiance to King Abdullah, showing disrespect for the authorities and creating an unauthorized association.
The Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh also gave Abu al-Khair a five-year suspended sentence, fined him 200,000 riyals ($53,300), banned him from leaving the kingdom for a further 15 years after his eventual release, and shut down all his websites.
Abu al-Khair’s wife, rights activist Samar Badawi, said the court had decided on Monday to increase his sentence after an appeal by the public prosecutor, who had argued that the lawyer had failed to retract his views or express remorse over them. The judge accepted the request and increased the sentence to 15 years of imprisonment.
Badawi said her husband, who is 35, had long objected to the tribunal set up in 2008 to try terrorism suspects. It has since been used to send rights campaigners to prison.
“Waleed sees this court as lacking basic international standards for any tribunal and had objected to trying even terrorists in it, let alone rights activists,” she said.
Abu al-Khair has also been critical of a Saudi anti-terrorism law passed in early 2014, which is widely seen by activists as a tool to stifle dissent.
The anti-terrorism law says terrorist crimes include any act that “disturbs public order, shakes the security of society or subjects its national unity to danger, or obstructs the primary system of rule or harms the reputation of the state.” … Full article
Minister leads UK-Egypt trade visit, despite human rights concerns
Reprieve | January 13, 2015
The UK has launched its biggest trade delegation to Egypt in a generation, despite widespread concerns about mass trials and death sentences handed down by authorities in the country.
The Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Tobias Ellwood, is this week leading a major UK trade delegation to Egypt in an effort to take advantage of what the Foreign Office has called “signs of recovery after recent turbulence.” In a statement late last year, the Foreign Office said that the UK was “by far the largest foreign investor in Egypt” and that UK firms in the country have enjoyed “continued profitably [sic] and growth… even in the difficult years” – an apparent reference to the 2011 revolution and subsequent 2013 ousting of Mohammed Morsi’s government.
The UK embassy in Egypt tweeted last week that the visit was “the biggest British trade delegation to #Egypt in more than 15 years”.
Scores of protestors have been arrested in Egypt since 2013 and put on trial en masse, with hundreds receiving death sentences in proceedings that have been condemned by the UN, rights groups and countries including the UK. Speaking last September, Prime Minister David Cameron said the Egyptian government must “ensure human rights are respected in Egypt.”
Legal organisation Reprieve has written to Mr Ellwood raising concerns about the timing and scale of the trade visit in light of an ongoing mass trial of nearly 500 people, who face potential death sentences if convicted by the Cairo court. Among them is an Irish teenager, 19 year old Ibrahim Halawa, who was arrested at a 2013 protest when he was 17, and legally a juvenile. Mr Halawa has been subjected to continued mistreatment during his 2 years of confinement in Cairo’s Tora prison. Last week saw the latest of several recent hearings in which he was not brought into the court.
Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, which is assisting Mr Halawa, said: “It beggars belief that the UK is taking a ‘business as usual’ approach to a country where hundreds of people, including children, face potential death sentences in farcical mass trials. If David Cameron’s proclamations about the need for human rights in Egypt are to be believed, why is his government boasting about its biggest trade visit there in 15 years?”
Israel punishing Palestinian prisoners by keeping them exposed in frigid weather
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | January 12, 2015
The Palestinian Prisoner Society filed an appeal with the Israeli High Court Saturday calling on Israeli authorities to provide adequate clothing and covers for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prison camps, as many of the prisoners are held in outdoor camps with no heat, in the midst of a severe winter storm. The appeal also included reports that the placement in outdoor cages was being used by Israeli interrogators as a form of torture.
The Israeli High Court denied the appeal, but Palestinian prisoner groups say that the practices are ongoing, and many Palestinian prisoners are facing death or severe frostbite as a result of the cold, sleet and wind.
Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, stated, “The Israeli occupation is using the extremely cold weather to kill the Palestinian prisoners as its interrogators expose them to the cold weather in order to extract confessions.”
In January 2014, during a similarly severe winter storm, the Israeli Public Defenders Office reported that Palestinian children were placed in an outdoor cage during the storm, writing on their website “During our visit, held during a fierce storm that hit the state, attorneys met detainees who described to them a shocking picture: in the middle of the night dozens of detainees were transferred to the external iron cages built outside the IPS transition facility in Ramla”.
The British Independent newspaper wrote at that time, “It turns out that this procedure, under which prisoners waited outside in cages, lasted for several months, and was verified by other officials.”
There has been no followup since last January to that report, and the practice of placing children in outdoor detention during the winter is apparently unchanged since that time.
Even those held in indoor facilities face the problem of a lack of heating in the prisons, and the cells where most prisoners are held are no warmer than the temperature outside, which continues to be below freezing.
Issa Qaraqe of the Palestinian Prisoner Society called on international human rights organizations to intervene on behalf of Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli authorities, which he says now number over 7,000.
More Palestinian teenagers shot by the Israeli military
International Solidarity Movement | January 12, 2015
Burin, Occupied Palestine – On Saturday, January 10th, Palestinian youths went out to play in the snow on Al-Sabeh Mountain in east Burin. A group of Israeli settlers approached the village as if to attack it, and clashes erupted between them and the youths. Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene and protected the attacking settlers. They shot two Palestinian youths, Mohammed Zacharia (15) and Abbas Jamal (18).
Mohammed Zacharia, 15 (photo by ISM)
Abbas Jamal’s father Jamal Asous, director of the Nur Shams refugee camp through UNRWA, spoke with ISM. He said that Zacharia’s brother, 18, has also been wounded in clashes with settlers twice and now might face three years in an Israeli prison. He also showed where Jamal was injured in his other leg in 2013 and had to have surgery – a large scar remains to testify of the ordeal. Having injuries in both legs is disastrous for Jamal, given he is studying to be a land surveyor.
Abbas Jamal, 18, with his father Jamal Asous (photo by ISM)
Violent attacks on Palestinians have become far too common throughout the West Bank. In the past few weeks, Israeli soldiers have shot several shepherds in Aqraba and fired volumes of tear gas at young schoolchildren in Hebron; settlers also attacked a 12-year-old in Nablus. As Asous conveyed in the hospital, children should be able to play, study and go about their lives freely without the constant threat of violence. It is their right.
Police asked to investigate G4S over Guantanamo role
Reprieve | January 12, 2015
British security firm G4S could be criminally liable for its involvement in Guantanamo Bay, according to a new complaint filed with the Metropolitan Police.
Legal charity Reprieve, which represents several Guantanamo detainees, has reported the UK company to police after learning of a $113 million (£71 million) contract for G4S to supply ‘base services’ at the US prison through its US subsidiary, G4S Government Solutions (G4S GS). The exact nature of the services to be provided under the contract is unclear, prompting concerns that the company could be complicit in rights abuses under way at the prison, such as force-feeding.
G4S sold G4S GS to an undisclosed buyer for $135m (£89m) at the end of last year, and Reprieve’s complaint argues that both the contract itself and the sale could amount to an offence under the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act.
127 men remain imprisoned without charge or trial in Guantanamo Bay, including British resident Shaker Aamer. The UK government has repeatedly said that Mr Aamer, who has twice been cleared for release, must be urgently returned to his British wife and children in London. Mr Aamer’s lawyers are urging the Prime Minister to secure his release during an upcoming US visit.
Kevin Lo, an investigator at Reprieve, said: “It is a scandal that, while British resident Shaker Aamer still languishes at Guantanamo, G4S has been seeking to profit from the sale of a contract that supports the abuses he and others suffer daily. No British firm should be profiting from a prison that UK ministers have rightly called a ‘shocking affront to the principles of democracy’. The authorities in the UK must hold G4S to account for its actions.”
Gazans shiver in ruined homes, tents after brutal storm
Al-Akhbar | January 8, 2015
Gazans who survived a brutal summer war are now struggling with the worst storm of the winter, as freezing rain and gale-force winds battered the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday.
At least ten Palestinians were injured in the Gaza Strip after a winter storm, dubbed “Huda,” hit the embattled coastal enclave, Gaza’s civil defense department said.
More than 96,000 homes were destroyed or damaged during the latest Israeli assault on Gaza, which killed more than 2,300 Palestinians during 50 days in July and August.
Gazans are now living by candlelight and wood fire because of electricity shortages, and rely on sandbags to stop their ruined homes from flooding. Some Gazans have sought shelter in the Sheikh Shaaban cemetery outside Gaza City, living in makeshift hut and tents.
Wael al-Sheikh, 37, lost his home last summer during an Israeli airstrike and now lives with his two sons in a tent pitched among the ruins. But with no access to electricity, it is impossible to fend off the cold.
Fearing that the winds of 80 kilometers per hour would simply blow their makeshift home away, they have sought refuge with relatives.
Imad Mutlaq’s home was also largely destroyed in the war, leaving the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls.
“We have no electricity or heating,” he said, describing the first night of the storm as “difficult.”
Thirty-year-old Mohammed Ziyad, a father of two young sets of twins, is trying to put on a brave face.
During a previous storm, the ground floor of the building where they live flooded, but this time he said the family was well prepared.
“We have stocked up on milk and nappies in case we find ourselves stuck indoors,” he said.
With or without a proper roof over their heads, everyone is facing the same problem: the chronic electricity shortages which has plagued the tiny, impoverished strip that is home to 1.8 million people.
Gaza’s sole power station, which was damaged during the war, is struggling with a severe lack of fuel and is only able to supply the enclave with six hours of power per day.
Raed al-Dahshan, head of Gaza’s civil defense, said his staff were facing “a difficult situation which was compounded by a lack of infrastructure” to help those suffering from the storm.
Gaza is also prone to severe flooding, exacerbated by a chronic lack of fuel that limits how much water can be pumped out of flood-stricken areas. The fuel shortages are a result of the eight-year-old Israeli blockade, which limits the import of other kinds of machinery related to pumping and sewage management that could help Gazans combat the floods. The most recent war has exacerbated the crisis.
In early November, flooding from days of torrential rains forced hundreds of Gaza City residents to flee their homes, as a massive week long storm flooded the city’s streets and homes with water and sewage.
Dispute over reconstruction funds
The Hamas resistance movement on Tuesday accused the Palestinian Authority(PA) of interfering with money earmarked for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said some ministers of the Palestinian national consensus government “admitted that the money allocated for Gaza reconstruction was being added to the PA budget.”
This confession, he said, “proves that the real reason behind the delay in reconstruction of Gaza is that the PA has been messing with the reconstruction money and exploiting the suffering of Gaza’s people.”
For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip – by air, land and sea – with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the coastal enclave.
More than 2,310 Gazans, 70 percent of them civilians, were killed and 10,626 injured during unrelenting Israeli attacks on the besieged strip.
According to the UN, the Israeli military killed at least 495 Palestinian children in Gaza during “Operation Protective Edge.” The al-Mezan Center for Human Rights puts the number at 518, while the Palestinian Center for Human Rights puts it at 519. All three figures exceed the total number of Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, killed by Palestinians in the last decade.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 3,106 Palestinian children were injured in the war. The UN estimates that 1,000 children will suffer a permanent disability as a result of their injury.
Moreover, the UN said as many as 1,500 children have been orphaned by Israeli attacks that killed their parents, while 6,000 children will have a parent with a lifelong disability.
In addition, 145 Palestinian families had three or more members killed in a single Israeli attack, for a total of 735 lives lost.
The assault ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement that called for reopening Gaza’s border crossings with Israel, which, if implemented, would effectively end the latter’s years-long blockade of the embattled territory.
However, Israel had repeatedly blocked the entry of building material, prompting the UN in September to broker another deal. The reconstruction of Gaza has yet to begin.
The Palestinian Authority has estimated that the rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to the Gaza Strip in October that the devastation he had seen was “beyond description” and “far worse” than that caused in the previous Israel-Gaza conflict of winter 2008-2009.
According to the UN, over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families.
(AFP, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)
Report: Israeli Occupation Forces killed six Palestinians last month
Palestine Information Center – January 8, 2015
GAZA – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) killed six Palestinians and kidnapped hundreds in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last December, according to a report released by the Hamas Movement on Wednesday.
According to the report, the IOF shot dead one Palestinian last month in Gaza while another died of wounds he had sustained during the last war.
Four Palestinians were killed by IOF gunfire in the West Bank.
The IOF also detained 327 Palestinians, including 58 children and four women, mostly from the West Bank.
During the reporting month, the IOF demolished 40 Palestinian homes, 10 commercial stores, 31 structures as well as one restaurant and one forge, and issued demolition orders against other homes.
The Israeli occupation authority, in turn, approved plans for the construction of 316 housing units in Jerusalem and annexed 321 dunums of Palestinian land last month.
The report also touched on some of the violations committed by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces during the month, stating that they detained 235 cadres and supporters of the Palestinian resistance, mostly from Hamas, summoned 151 others for interrogation, and extended the detention of 32 others.
Israel’s attorney general to charge Zoabi with incitement
MEMO | January 7, 2015
The legal advisor to the Israeli government declared yesterday his decision to file an indictment against the Member of the Knesset for the National Democratic Alliance Hanin Zoabi on charges of inciting violence and insulting a civil servant.
The public prosecutor had previously called on the government’s legal adviser, Yehuda Weinstein, to submit an indictment against Zoabi, following an altercation between Zoabi and a police officer during the trial of one of the detainees of the Nazareth demonstration following the death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir.
Zoabi will request a hearing session for her statements within 30 days, in accordance with the law, and the Attorney General will then decide if he will file an indictment against her.
The director of the Adala Center for Human Rights and Zoabi’s lawyer, attorney Hassan Jabarin said: “We will request a hearing soon, aiming at convincing the attorney general not to file an indictment against Zoabi. In my opinion, there are no legal grounds for the indictment or its trial, as the investigations with Zoabi focused on an argument between her and a police officer in a Nazareth court because of the way he dealt with minors who protested against the killing of Abu Khdeir.”
“Zoabi said, during the investigation, that her words came as a reaction to what she witnessed and amid a storm of emotions after seeing the police’s brutality in dealing with minors,” he explained.
Good Cop Blew Whistle on Corrupt Superior, She Was Fired for It. He got Worse, Was Just Arrested
Former cop says she wasn’t surprised when she found out that her prior superior was just arrested for sexual assault, while on duty.
By Cassandra Rules | The Free Thought Project | January 6, 2015
Dallas, TX– Officer David Kattner, a 26 year veteran of the Dallas Police Department was arrested in late December for sexually assaulting a woman on three separate occasions while in uniform and in his police vehicle.
The evening of his arrest, the officer had called the woman and told her where to meet him. The affidavit states that he had her perform a sex act on him while one of his hands was on his weapon and the other hand was down her pants, after showing her outstanding warrants and telling her he knew where her daughter lives. The woman believed this to be a threat to her and her daughter’s safety and complied.
The detectives were already on the scene and were aware the assault was taking place as it happened. Instead of stopping the attack, they waited until it was over and questioned the woman, who they describe as “a known prostitute,” as she went to leave the scene.
The 44 year old officer is currently on paid leave and out on bond as the investigation into his second degree felony continues. Oddly, the department refused to release any photo of the officer or his mugshot, stating they will not release it during the “on-going investigation” despite it already having been published in D Magazine in 2007.
The department is asking for any additional victims to come forward, and unfortunately it is likely there are many, due to the department’s own negligence.
Back in 2006, a then rookie officer named Shanna Lopez was terminated after she came forward and told one of her trainers that Kattner and three other Central police officers had systematically mistreated prostitutes, WFAA reports.
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1
“Those are real people,” Lopez said. “Each and every one of those people were not only degraded and humiliated and targeted and hunted on a nightly basis for years.”
Rookie officers go through several months of field training, and Lopez’ first trainer was Kattner. She alleges that she witnessed him filling out blank citations on prostitutes for minor violations like jaywalking before even leaving the station each evening.
Lopez explains that he was “seeding the field” with class C citations that would later become warrants. Kattner kept a notepad in his shirt pocket with the names of prostitutes and street-level criminals he regularly saw, as he needed to keep information such as their addresses and date of birth handy to complete the illegal citations.
From February 2006 through July 2006 over a quarter of the citations written by Kattner and three of his buddies were issued “at large” or “refused to sign.”
She describes Kattner and the two others as being obsessed with prostitutes, who were easy targets for them.
She explained to D Magazine in June of 2007 an evening where she was out with Kattner and an officer Nelson who had just taken a prostitute into the back of his police vehicle for a game he called “64 questions,” meant to demean the women.
“Give me the four reasons why you hate to f— niggers.” “Give me the four reasons you hate to f— spics.” “What are the three things you like to do every day?” he would ask.
After releasing the woman, Nelson told Lopez, “They know the routine. They do what we tell them. You break them down like that, and they’ll do anything you want. They’ll come when you snap your fingers.”
Eventually she brought what was happening up to a subsequent trainer, who explained that they cannot do that, and that it is illegal to write citations for people you never stopped or detained.
“He was like, why would he use that to write tickets, because usually you have someone in your custody and you write a ticket and there they go. I was like, ‘I don’t know; he’d write four or five tickets a night before we’d ever leave the station and then write a few more when we would be at Lew Sterrett while I’d be typing up my jail report, turn them in at the end of the night .’ He said he was the number one ticket writer at Central.”
The trainer told a sergeant what Lopez told him, and that’s when she claims everything changed and she began to be treated as though she was incompetent. She was called into a meeting with her current trainer and Sergeant Deborah Ann Branton where she was intensely scolded and told she has done nothing right. It was boggling, as she had received praise previously.
“I’ve heard you’ve been going around talking about illegal arrests and other activities by other officers,” Lopez recalls Sergeant Deborah Ann Branton saying.
Branton then proceeded to ask her if she ever tape-recorded any of the conversations. Unfortunately, Lopez had not. After she left the meeting she overheard Branton saying “This should be easy. Gayle did a good job of documenting it.”
Shortly before being terminated, Lopez was confronted by Kattner outside of Central Patrol.
“He said he had heard that I was going around saying he was writing tickets to people that don’t exist,” Lopez told WFAA. “He was like, ‘I will hunt you down and hurt you.’”
Lopez was terminated without proper explanation in October of 2006, despite having a glowing record and even receiving a commendation two days before her demotion in August.
After Lopez came forward another whistleblower came forward and two of Kattner’s buddies were fired, a third suspended, over their ticket writing scheme. Kattner faced zero repercussions.
According to WFAA, Lopez also was allowed to reapply to the department after signing a 10-page settlement agreeing not to sue the department over her earlier termination. She was rejected for rehire after background investigators wrote a detailing memo claiming — among other things — that she associated with gang members and street criminals and had dated a neighbor who was a gang member.
The December 17, 2007 memo stated that gang unit officers had obtained sworn affidavits attesting to those facts. But those affidavits were dated January 9, 2008 — more than three weeks after the date of that memo. Police officials told News 8 that they are looking into the date discrepancy.
Lopez denies the allegations detailed in the memo. She believes the department never had any intention of rehiring her.
It is truly unfortunate that honesty and being a decent human within the ranks is such dangerous business. The thin blue line makes calling out corruption something that can be done by only the truly brave and heroic, which many departments seem to be lacking. It is also unfortunate that the officers who are protected by their peers face no consequences and thus have no reason to modify their behavior.
Last month we reported on a heroic officer in Buffalo, NY who was punched in the face and fired after she stopped a fellow cop from choking a handcuffed man. The officer who assaulted her and the handcuffed man kept his job. He went on to later assault two other officers and was indicted for civil rights violations against four black teenagers.
Its time to start placing the discipline where it is deserved.
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British weapons and personnel doing much of the killing in Yemen
Press TV – June 18, 2019
A detailed report published by the Guardian newspaper has shown how Britain is massively contributing to Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen as it suggests that London is not only supplying the bombs that fall on Yemenis, but it provides the personnel and expertise that keep the war going.
The comprehensive report by Arron Merat published on Tuesday showed that Britain was doing much of the killing in Yemen as the country continues to provide Saudi Arabia with everything it needs to turn its southern impoverished neighbor into a graveyard.
“Every day Yemen is hit by British bombs – dropped by British planes that are flown by British-trained pilots and maintained and prepared inside Saudi Arabia by thousands of British contractors,” said Merat in the report. … continue
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