Soldiers assault a twelve-year-old Palestinian while settlers invade family rooftop in Hebron
International Solidarity Movement | August 3, 2013
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Saturday August 3rd was not a peaceful Saturday for the Palestinians in Hebron. At approximately 16.30 two settlers invaded the roof of the Abu Shamsiya family in Tel Rumeida, whilst three soldiers attacked a twelve year old boy in the street nearby.
When the settlers on the roof were approached by internationals and told that they were on private property and therefore had to leave, they refused and said they came there every week. The fact that they had entered a private home without consent of the family did not concern them, on the contrary they expressed that they felt it was their right. When asked to leave the settlers behaved aggressively by yelling and continuously refusing to do so. After having argued with internationals one of the settlers threatened to lie to the soldiers and say that they had been hit by the internationals. He argued that even though it was not true, the soldiers would believe him over the international activists.
As seen in the video below, in the meantime three Israeli soldiers assaulted three young boys just down the street. The soldiers started by harshly pushing one boy, afterwards they grabbed a second boy, Islam by the hair and kicked him. Thereafter a third boy ran to his house chased by the soldiers. When internationals asked why the military was chasing the boy, they lied and said the boys had been throwing stones. The boy said that he had simply ran because he was scared after having seen his twelve-year-old friend, Islam being brutally attacked by soldiers for no apparent reason.
These are not unusual events. The Abu Shamsiya family is often victim of settler and military harassment, the family’s roof is on street level and settlers often go there to throw stones, harass the family and break their property. Saturdays are particularly violent in Hebron, only last week both Abu Shamsiya and his son Muhammed were attacked by settlers whilst the military was watching, with Abu Shamsiya then being arrested on false charges while the settlers were freed without charges.
Hebron has large settlements in the middle of the city housing approximately 500 settlers some of whom are extremely aggressive and violent. Additionally there are 2500 Israeli occupation soldiers stationed in the city.
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CIA targeted rescuers of drone victims in Pakistan: Report
Press TV – August 1, 2013
The CIA unmanned aircraft deliberately targeted rescuers attempting to help victims of previous drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found.
A field investigation by the Bureau focuses on drone strikes in a single village in North Waziristan last year when the CIA was after Yahya al-Libi, an alleged senior al-Qeada member who was finally killed in one of the aerial attacks on June 4, 2012.
The CIA had at the time shown a video to Congressional aides in which only Libi is killed in a drone strike.
It was first in February 2012 that an investigation by the Bureau found that the CIA had conducted 11 drone attacks on rescuers of previous strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas between 2009 and 2011.
The tactic, called “double-tap” strikes, apparently stopped in July 2011 but new reports show that the CIA had resumed the strikes a year later.
Five double-tap strikes took place in mid-2012, killing 53 people and injuring 57 others. One of the attacks targeted a mosque, a report by Pakistani journalist Mushtaq Yusufzai, commissioned by the Bureau, found.
The US has always escaped from admitting that civilians have been killed in drone strikes. However, in investigation by legal charity Reprieve indicated that eight civilians died in a double-tap strike on July 6 2012 with the possibility of further civilian deaths in a July 23 attack.
“On both occasions [in July] our independent investigation showed a high number of civilians who were rescuers were killed in the strikes,” Shahzad Akbar, Islamabad-based lawyer, says, confirming the findings of Reprieve’s investigation.
UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Christof Heyns noted in June 2012 that double-tap strikes can be labeled as war crimes.
“If civilian ‘rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime,” he said.
Another UN official, Ben Emmerson QC, UN special rapporteur on torture, also agreed with his colleague. “Christof Heyns… has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view.”
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- At least 1 in 5 drone strike victims a confirmed civilian – leaked Pakistani records (alethonews.wordpress.com)
“I will keep trying to see my daughter until the day I die”
Fatma’s wrinkled face reveals the sorrow of a mother who has not seen her daughter for eleven years. Fatma Khalil Mubarak (78) lives in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Her daughter, Lamees Ahmad Mubarak (44), has been living in Hebron in the West Bank since she got married in 1988. The last time Fatma saw her daughter was in 2002. Since then, Lamees has been trying to visit her family in Gaza, but she has been denied access every time she applied for a visitor permit to travel via Beit Hanoun (“Erez”) crossing. Beit Hanoun crossing is the only access point for people from Gaza to travel to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and/or Israel.
Fatma explains: “My daughter Lamees went to Hebron with her husband when she got married in the ‘80s. She used to visit me frequently, and I used to visit her as my health condition was much better and crossing to the West Bank was much easier. However, since the Second Intifada, we haven’t seen much of her. The last time she came was in 2002, but she has never been able to come back again since.”
Several attempts have been made by both Lamees and her family to reunite since 2002; however, Lamees’ applications for a visitor permit to the Gaza Strip have always been met with refusal. “This year, we have applied twice so far, but in vain. The permit was refused again. We have not given up yet. I will keep applying for a permit to see my daughter until the day I die.”
Fatma’s urge to see her daughter gets stronger every day, especially due to her deteriorating medical condition as she suffers from heart disease and hepatitis. “I do not know why I’m deprived of seeing my daughter,” she adds. “She is my daughter and she only wants to come and visit me as I am very ill. Why is she always refused entry? She is not a threat to their security. She only wants to come so I can see her.”
“We have tried everything. The last time we applied, we attached a copy of my medical report certified by the doctors to attest to how poor my condition is, but even that did not work. The Israeli authorities refused to give her a permit again. We all thought that it would work and that she would finally manage to come.”
“The last time I went to visit Lamees in Hebron was seventeen years ago. Since I became very ill, it is hard for me to travel on my own. I do not even leave this house. I know that I might get a permit if I applied for one, due to my age and my medical condition, but what would I do with a permit when I cannot move and cannot go anywhere alone? My health condition does not allow me to. What if I died on the way? The Israeli authorities won’t allow my children to accompany me to the West Bank.”
Israel imposes a policy of territorial fragmentation on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The separation of the territories has had grave consequences on the fabric of society. It has influenced every aspect of the social life of Palestinian people. Fatma explains how the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip has further prevented her and her family from fulfilling her role as a mother and a grandmother. “Lamees got very sick recently. I could not go to visit her or look after her. None of her family could either. She is there on her own. Her father became very ill before he died in 2008. He wanted to see her, so we applied for a visitor permit, but the permit was refused. He died without seeing her, and she could not attend his funeral. Now, I have seven grandchildren whom I do not know. Two of my granddaughters got married, and I could not attend either of their weddings.”
The separation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has made the simplest family occasions very difficult. According to Fatma, Lamees was hoping to attend the wedding of her nephew in Gaza, which was planned for after Ramadan, in order to celebrate the happy occasion with her family. “We were getting ready to receive her at the wedding and we were expecting her. We were disappointed to hear that her permit had been refused again. No matter how many times she is denied permission to come, I am always hopeful that she will get the permit the next time and that I will see my daughter again. I cannot get used to the refusals. I will keep asking for permits again and again.”
Fatma recalls the days when Israeli restrictions on the movement of individual civilians via Beit Hanoun crossing were less strict: “In the past, when I applied for a permit, I would get it the next day. I would take a taxi from Gaza City to Hebron. We used to leave for Hebron in the morning and arrive before noon. It was only about an hour’s drive. Nowadays, it’s easier for me to see my daughter who lives in Norway than see my daughter who lives an hour away.”
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remain denied of their right to freedom of movement, and suffer greatly due to the restraints imposed upon travel via Beit Hanoun crossing. The restrictions were first imposed in 1994 and have become increasingly strict since the al-Aqsa Intifada. Eventually, the crossing was completely closed on 16 February 2006. Since then, Palestinians have been prevented from travelling via the crossing unless they fall under certain specific categories.
As a result, civilians in the Gaza Strip have been denied access to holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem to perform religious rituals. Students have been prevented from travelling to attend universities in the West Bank. Families are prevented from visiting their relatives in the West Bank and vice versa. Since the Hamas takeover in June 2007, the Israeli authorities have only permitted limited categories of individuals to travel via the crossing: patients in a critical state; international journalists; employees of international organisations;. These groups are allowed to travel via the crossing under limited circumstances, via complicated procedures, and are often subjected to degrading treatment.
The closure of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has imposed for six consecutive years, constitutes a form of collective punishment, in violation of international humanitarian law. As a consequence of the continued closure, travelling between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has been rendered virtually impossible for Palestinians, and entire families are now separated. The forced separation of families is in violation, inter alia, of Article 16 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 23 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which obliges States to protect the right to marry and found a family.
Palestine: Dividing Land, Erasing Identity in Qalandiya
By Malik Samara | Al-Akhbar | July 31, 2013
Qalandiya, a village on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem, has become a stark example of the crimes of the Israeli occupation. In the name of “security needs,” Israel has bisected the village, dividing both land and people, even splitting one family in two.
Ramallah – To the north of occupied Jerusalem, there is a small, isolated village with a population of no more than 1,100. But the village occupies a strategic position on the outskirts of Jerusalem, between several factories and vital installations, including Israeli military manufacturing sites.
The village is adjacent to the airport of Jerusalem known as Qalandiya Airport, which was built during the British Mandate. Today, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) wants the facility to become its official airport in a future Palestinian state.
The location of this village, like many others around Jerusalem, has made it vulnerable to Israeli military and settlement schemes, which always invoke the “security needs” of the Jewish state. Recently, Israel “annexed” the eastern part of Qalandiya into the areas falling behind the Green Line – the demarcation line marking the de facto border between Israel proper and the territories it captured in 1967.
But what Israel calls “annexation” is in fact a process to alter the route of the separation barrier, dividing the village in half – with only three homes in the eastern part annexed to the Jewish state and the remaining homes under PNA control. In other words, the village’s map changed overnight at the stroke of a pen. The village’s population, which has been living as a unified community for hundreds of years, is now subject to the whims of Israeli occupation officers.
Today, only three families live in the eastern part of the village, including two that carry the blue Israeli identity card, and one that carries the green Palestinian card, despite being related to one another. This is one of the many absurdities that come with the Israeli occupation, with members of the same family carrying different identification documents.
In the part of Qalandiya that has not been annexed, for example, some carry blue cards and others green cards, and though some are directly related to people in the eastern part, only blue card holders are allowed to go there to visit their relatives. “Even those who have permits to go to Jerusalem are not allowed to visit this area,” said Youssef Awadallah, head of Qalandiya’s village council.
In the annexed part of the village, the lives of the three resident families are now restricted by the occupation’s daily schedule. These residents are allowed to leave and return for only three hours each day through the checkpoint established by the occupation in the village, from 7 to 8:30 AM, then from 12:30 to 1 PM, and then from 4 to 5 PM.
But why did the Israelis sequester the eastern part of the village specifically?
Mahmoud Awadallah said, “The importance of this region has to do with its strategic position. The village is adjacent to the airport and the Atarot industrial park, as well as the strategic Route 443 and Atarot’s entrance. They did not want to put the wall directly along the route, and annexed this segment of the village to put the wall beyond it, in order to leave a buffer zone. The village is also close to a plant operated by Mata, an Israeli aerospace company that manufactures and upgrades helicopters.”
Curfews and Checkpoints
Among the families in the annexed part of Qalandiya, activist Mahmoud Awadallah’s family has the most intriguing circumstances, being the only family with Palestinian green ID cards. This means that the Awadallah family lives inside an Israeli “enclave,” in semi-isolation from the world.
This family cannot move freely within the Green Line, like the other two, or the West Bank, except during hours determined by the occupation. More often than not, the Israelis do not show any leniency for humanitarian or family emergencies. The Awadallah family embodies the occupation’s sharp disregard for the Palestinian lives.
Mahmoud Awadallah said, “One night, after the occupation authorities closed the village gates, my mother fell ill, but we were prevented from taking her to hospital. We had to wait until the next day before we could move her.”
Cars are not allowed to enter or leave the area, Awadallah added, and even those holding blue ID cards have to take a lengthy route to reach the second part of the village outside “visitation hours.” In other words, the occupation turns a five-minute journey between the two parts of the small village into a one-hour trek.
Even social relations between families now depend on the mood of Israeli occupation authorities. This includes marital relations, for instance, when one spouse carries an Israeli card and the other a Palestinian.
Youssef Awadallah said, “I carry the blue card, and I am forced to cross a large distance to get to the second part of the village. But what good is an ID card if I am isolated from my land and my relatives? I live in the eastern part, and my children and siblings live in the Arab part. Ever since the village was divided, our daily visits have stopped.”
Above all, what the area’s residents fear most is isolation from their families and surroundings in the event of a major escalation, when the entire region could be shut off.
Meanwhile, none of the petitions submitted by village residents to Israeli courts have borne fruit yet. Awadallah said, “So far, they have refused to respond or even consider the issue.” Now, the residents intend to go to the Israeli Supreme Court, to demand either full freedom of movement, or Jerusalem residence permits.
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How Zimmerman Could – and Should – Have Been Convicted Under Florida Law
By Rob Hager | Black Agenda Report | July 31, 2013
Many people are troubled by the idea that someone can willfully follow another person down the street, right to the person’s own home, have malicious intent, put the followed person in fear or apprehension, kill the person, and then not be held guilty of some criminal offense that includes at least some responsibility for the killing, even if perhaps unintended.
Juror B29 in the Trayvon Martin murder trial has expressed the feeling on behalf of the jury that many of us are also experiencing: “in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” she said. “George Zimmerman got away with murder … [But] the law couldn’t prove it.”
On the facts the jury knew, shouldn’t there be a law that can “prove it?”
Actually, there is such a law. In Florida: “A person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows [or] harasses … another person and makes a credible threat to that person commits the offense of aggravated stalking, a felony of the third degree.” Fla. Stat. § 784.048.
“Willfully [and] maliciously” are evidenced by Zimmerman’s own words to the police dispatcher. The word “repeatedly” is not defined in the Florida statue. But the statute does define the similar term, “course of conduct,” “[which] means a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose.” So “repeatedly” as used in the statute might simply mean “continuously” or “sustained.” George Zimmerman did sustain his following of Trayvon Martin “over a period of time, however short, which evidence[d] his continuity of purpose” in targeting Trayvon Martin to challenge his presence in the neighborhood. Indeed he repeated his following of Martin even after the dispatcher told him he did not need to do that.
Such stalking may be motivated to get the targeted person out of the neighborhood, to bully, to feel physically superior to another person for an ego boost, to look for a fight or confrontation, or any other reason. If it was intended to and did credibly threaten a 17 year old who is on the street alone at night, that is a felony in Florida. Zimmerman apparently had sufficient experience with such matters to know the effect his behavior would have.
Each state has different laws covering this issue. Before stalking or felonious menacing laws were enacted this offense would come within the general meaning of assault. Acts that are intended to and do put another person in reasonable apprehension of immediate physical harm constitute the common law crime and tort of assault. Following someone in a threatening way that puts them in fear or apprehension is one way of committing an assault.
Ohio’s stalking law contains additional detail that identifies the specific aggravating circumstances that generally concern people about the Trayvon Martin case.
Ohio law provides:
“2903.211 Menacing by stalking.
“(A) (1) No person by engaging in a pattern of conduct shall knowingly cause another person to believe that the offender will cause physical harm to the other person.
“B)(2) Menacing by stalking is a felony of the fourth degree if any of the following applies: …(d) The victim of the offense is a minor.
(e) The offender has a history of … other violent acts toward … any other person.
(f) While committing the offense … the offender had a deadly weapon on or about the offender’s person or under the offender’s control.”
This pretty well describes the specifics of the wrong that many are concerned that George Zimmerman actually did commit. Criminal law is intended to protect not just victims, but society’s interests. Society does not want people with a known propensity for violence going about the streets armed and stalking minors. This is independent of what he or the victim knew about these aggravating circumstances.
Felonious menacing or stalking may not be a serious enough crime to suit the circumstances of loss of life. But in Florida there is a very strict felony murder law that is designed to address just that concern, that when life is unnecessarily lost, even if unintentional, there should be heightened responsibility.
Felony murder laws assure that if Zimmerman started something unlawful – namely felonious stalking – that got out of control for whatever reason, resulting in loss of life, he must take some responsibility for that loss of life.
In Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982) the U.S. Supreme Court thought Florida set the level of that responsibility too high. In that case a robbery get-away driver was convicted under Florida’s felony murder law although he did not pull the trigger, did not touch a murder weapon, was not present at the murder scene, did not know about or discuss the prospect of the murders until after they happened, and so had no intent to kill. In the U.S. Supreme Court, four Republican dissenters would have allowed Florida to execute the driver for felony murder anyway, even though all he did was drive and had no intent to kill. But the majority preferred him to have actually participated in the killing in some way if he was to be executed for it, but also would not require evidence of intent to kill.
In Florida, aggravated stalking furnishes a predicate for felony murder. Fla. Stat. § 782.04(1)(a)(1.n) punishes any “killing of a human being … committed by a person engaged in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate … aggravated stalking.”
By repeatedly following and then confronting Trayvon Martin, was George Zimmerman attempting to communicate a credible threat to Martin, perhaps that Martin should leave what happened to be his own neighborhood?
Many people think that, whatever his motive, this is what Zimmerman did. Unless there is a civil suit or a retrial on this criminal charge, it will be difficult to determine whether this felony, more likely than not, did happen.
The criminal trial jury was not asked to decide that question. It was led astray by being asked to focus on the end rather than the beginning of the fatal encounter. As juror B29 said about the charges, “a lot of us that wanted to find something bad, something that we could connect to the law, because for myself he’s guilty. … But as the law was read to me if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally you can’t say he’s guilty. … As much as we were trying to find this man guilty…there was nothing that we could do about it.” Distraught about voting to acquit Martin’s killer, she said “I feel I killed him,” but pointed to “the choices that they gave us” as responsible.
If the criminal trial jurors had been given the choice to decide whether Zimmerman was engaged in or attempting felonious stalking prior the fracas that the jurors were asked by the prosecutors to decide upon, then exactly what happened during that fracas that caused the killing, which is not really knowable beyond a reasonable doubt in any event, becomes irrelevant. The purpose of felony murder is to attach responsibility for a killing not because of the killer’s intent or how the killing took place but because it was committed by a killer who was “engaged in” a felony like aggravated stalking. There can be no question that without Zimmerman’s original stalking neither the fracas nor the killing would have happened.
If Zimmerman had been charged with, and convicted of aggravated stalking he would also have been guilty of first degree felony murder, a capital offense in Florida. In that event, in our hearts we along with the jurors, could feel justice had been done. Instead we, like the jurors as reported by Juror B29, are left with the false impression that the law on the books is not written to protect us from a murderer who got a way with it.
But it seems like it is more the judicial system that failed us and the jurors in this case by failing to use the laws on the books. If that failure means the civil right of Trayvon Martin to walk the streets was denied with impunity, a result which makes the civil rights of all of us less secure, then a federal prosecution or retrial on these new charges would be appropriate. For double jeopardy purposes, it is not clear that first degree capital felony murder is a lesser included offense of manslaughter or second degree murder, particularly since stalking was not an element of the latter offenses.
Rob Hager is a public-interest litigator who filed a Supreme Court amicus brief in the 2012 Montana sequel to the Citizens United case, American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, and has worked as an international consultant on law reform and anti-corruption issues.
Rob can be contacted at http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=132806564HYPERLINK “http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=132806564&trk=hb_tab_pro_top”&HYPERLINK “http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=132806564&trk=hb_tab_pro_top”trk=hb_tab_pro_top
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Ex-CIA Agent Accuses Top Bush Officials of Approving Kidnapping in Italy and then Abandoning those who Followed Orders
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman | AllGov | July 31, 2013
A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer has gone public with claims that the George W. Bush administration agreed to an Italian trial of CIA officials for abducting an Islamic cleric in 2003, so that the president and other senior leaders would be protected from prosecution.
Sabrina De Sousa told McClatchy Newspapers that administration officials inflated the threat posed by Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, who was kidnapped by a CIA team in Milan and flown to Egypt, where he was held for almost four years without charges and allegedly tortured.
In November 2009, an Italian court tried 23 Americans, including De Sousa, in absentia for the kidnapping. All of the convicted received jail sentences of seven years, except for Robert Seldon Lady, the former Milan CIA station chief, who had his sentence increased to nine years after appealing.
During the trial, Lady told an Italian newspaper he was not guilty—but also indicated he may have been involved in the abduction. “I’m only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors,” he told Il Giornale.
The U.S. government refused to turn over any of those convicted. Lady was arrested in Panama on an INTERPOL warrant on July 18, 2013, but was returned to the United States the next day.
In her interview, De Sousa told McClatchy:
–Jeffrey Castelli, former CIA station chief in Rome, was the mastermind of the operation, and that he exaggerated Nasr’s terrorist threat to win approval for the kidnapping and misled his superiors that Italian military intelligence had agreed to the operation.
–Senior CIA officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, approved the operation even though Nasr wasn’t wanted in Egypt and wasn’t on the U.S. list of top al-Qaeda terrorists.
–Condoleezza Rice, then the White House national security adviser, also had misgivings about the case, especially what Italy would do if the CIA were caught, but she eventually agreed to it and recommended that President Bush approve the abduction.
De Sousa said her claims are based on classified CIA cables that she read before resigning from the agency in February 2009, as well as on Italian legal documents and news reports.
She denied being involved in the kidnapping, although she acknowledged that she served as the interpreter for a CIA “snatch” team that visited Milan in 2002 to plan the abduction.
“I was being held accountable for decisions that someone else took and I wanted to see on what basis the decisions were made,” De Sousa told McClatchy, explaining why she had delved into the CIA archives. “And especially because I was willing to talk to the Hill [Congress] about this because I knew that the CIA would not be upfront with them.”
She added that she did not possess any of the cables, seemingly in an attempt to avoid the CIA going after her for stolen classified materials.
De Sousa is one of only several former CIA officers who have spoken publicly about the Bush administration’s secret rendition operations. It has been reported that more than 130 people were kidnapped, many of whom were tortured at “black sites” in specially selected countries.
Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has admitted to involvement in the Nasr operation.
De Sousa accused the U.S. and Italy of collaborating in “scapegoating a bunch of people …while the ones who approved this stupid rendition are all free.” She also named the U.S. House and Senate intelligence companies as enablers of the cover-up, given their inaction in response to the information she gave them about the case, and their refusal to treat her as a whistleblower.
“Despite the scale of the human rights violations associated with the rendition program, the United States hasn’t held a single individual accountable,” she told McClatchy. “It’s always the minions of the federal government who are thrown under the bus by officials who consistently violate international law and sometimes domestic law and who are all immune from prosecution. Their lives are fine. They’re making millions of dollars sitting on [corporate] boards.”
De Sousa said she could face prosecution for speaking out. “You’ve seen what’s happened lately to anyone who has tried to disclose anything,” she said. “You have no protection whatsoever. Zero.”
To Learn More:
U.S. Allowed Italian Kidnap Prosecution to Shield Higher-Ups, Ex-CIA Officer Says (by Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy)
Lessons from Edward Snowden and Robert Seldon Lady (by Tom Engelhardt, Mother Jones)
Italy Imprisons Military Intelligence Chief for Helping CIA Kidnap Egyptian Cleric (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
Italy’s Highest Court Upholds CIA Kidnapping Convictions (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
Judge Rejects Diplomatic Immunity for CIA Agent Accused in Italian Kidnapping Case (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Israeli forces raid Cremisan Monastery in Bethlehem
IMEMC & Agencies | July 30, 2013
Witnesses reported that Israeli forces raided the Cremisan Monastery in Bethlehem late on Sunday [July 28]. The witnesses told the Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA) that Israeli soldiers broke into the monastery, held the people who were inside, and inspected their personal documents.
The Cremisan Monastery, founded in 1885 (Photo courtesy of cremisan.org)
The raid was condemned as a violation of the sanctity of places of worship, and a violation of international law. Under Human Rights Law, Israel must “ensure that religious places, sites, shrines and symbols are fully respected and protected”, and “take additional measures in cases where they are vulnerable to desecration or destruction.”
The Cremisan Valley area has been a hotbed of resistance against Israel’s annexation wall, because the Salesian Sisters of Cremisan Convent and the Palestinians of Beit Jala will soon be the annexation wall’s latest victims. The planned route of the annexation wall will separate more than 50 Palestinian families of Beit Jala from their agricultural land, and they will have only limited access to the land via an agricultural gate. Furthermore, the wall will separate the Salesian Convent from 75% of its land. The convent’s land, along with the monastery, will be on the Israeli side, whereas the convent and primary school will be on the Palestinian side.
To fight the planned annexation of their land, the Palestinians of Beit Jala and the Salesian Sisters of Cremisan launched a seven-year-long legal appeal that was supported by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols. However, on April 26, 2013, the Special Appeals Committee of the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court ruled in favour of the planned route of the annexation wall. The annexation wall is illegal according to international law and the fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.
According to the United Nations, 85% of the annexation wall is built illegally inside the West Bank, thereby annexing roughly 10% of its land.
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NZ journalist spied on after ‘inconvenient, embarrassing’ Afghanistan report
RT :: July 29, 2013
New Zealand faces allegations of spying on a journalist in Afghanistan with the help of US agencies over his coverage of NZ’s treatment of prisoners. Defense denies the allegations, while the PM says reporters can get caught in surveillance nets.
The New Zealand Defense Force (NZDF) has reportedly put freelance journalist Jon Stephenson under surveillance and collected phone metadata while he was working for US news organization McClatchy in Afghanistan last year, Nicky Hager with the Sunday Star-Times newspaper revealed.
Metadata can reveal information such as the location of the caller and the length of the call.
New Zealand opened a probe into the allegations.
Allegedly NZDF was able to track who Stephenson had called and who the people he talked to subsequently called, which created what is known as a ‘tree’ of the journalist’s associates. The goal was to identify Stephenson’s contacts and sources within the Afghan government and military.
The surveillance was reportedly put in place after the government became unhappy with his reporting about New Zealand’s treatment of Afghan prisoners.
Hager revealed that it was most likely the NZ’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) that monitored Stephenson, as it had posted staff to the US’ main intelligence center north of Kabul at Bagram and was capable of such monitoring.
Stephenson told Sunday Star-Times that there is “a world of difference between investigating a genuine security threat and monitoring a journalist because his reporting is inconvenient or embarrassing to politicians and defense officials.”
NZ Prime Minister John Key denied allegations on Monday stating that his country does not spy on journalists, but said there is a chance reporters could get caught in surveillance nets when the US spies on enemy combatants.
Key said that it is theoretically possible that if a journalist called a member of the Taliban who was being watched by the US, he or she could end up in surveillance records.
NZDF added that there is no evidence that its military or the US had spied on Stephenson.
“We have identified no information at this time that supports [these] claims,” acting Defense Force Chief Maj. Gen. Tim Keating said in a statement.
This is not the first run-in the journalist has had with the NZ’s government. NZDF earlier implied that one of the interviews Stephenson published with Afghanistan’s unit commander about mishandling of prisoners was fabricated.
Stephenson sued for defamation. During this month’s trial, the NZDF confirmed that the interview may have taken place. The trial ended with the hung jury.
Advocate groups were outraged by what has unfolded. The Human Rights Foundation told Sunday Star-Times it was an abuse of fundamental human rights.
“Don’t they understand the vital importance of freedom of the press?” spokesman Tim McBride stated. “Independent journalism is especially important in a controversial war zone where the public has a right to know what really happens and not just get military public relations.”
In the meantime, the NZ government admitted to the existence of a secret order that lists investigative journalists as potential threats to security and puts them alongside other spies and terrorists.
The confidential order, which was leaked to Hager, stated that investigative journalists “may try to acquire classified information, not necessarily to give to a potential enemy, but because its use may bring the government into disrepute.”
The order was first issued a decade ago and reissued in 2005.
The US National Security Agency (NSA) sometime shares information with NZ, as part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which also includes the UK, Australia and Canada.
The news comes as thousands of people marched to protest a new bill on Sunday that would grant the New Zealand government sweeping spy powers, giving the GCSB free rein to listen in on citizens’ phone conversations.
John Key has been playing down the nationwide protests, arguing that those involved in the mass demonstrations are ill-informed or have a political agenda.
The US involvement with global spying has grabbed the world’s attention after the whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked information the extent of US spy programs.
Holder’s desperate letter proves Mr. Snowden is in grave danger
By John Robles | The Voice Of Russia | July 28, 2013
The Attorney General of the United States of America Eric Holder has taken the unusual step of writing a letter to the Russian Federation essentially making promises that United States will do nothing unusual or in any way against U.S. law if the Russian Federation will just put aside its own norms, the Russian Constitution, international law and conventions and just, as the U.S. Ambassador put it, “return” Mr. Edward Snowden to the United States.
The Attorney General begins his letter by listing the “crimes” that Mr. Snowden is charged with ignoring the fact that the laws that Mr. Snowden is said to have broken are not crimes in the Russian Federation, or perhaps Mr. General is under the assumption that U.S. law somehow is something that the rest of the world must abide by and follow.
Judging from the real and documented history of the United States, the country possesses a total lack of respect or regard for international law and the laws of other sovereign nations, especially the Russian Federation. This is evident from the illegal invasions of sovereign nations, illegal torture programs, extra-judicial executions by drone and other means and with regard to Russia, the continuous illegal kidnapping and rendition of Russian citizens back to the United States.
I have been documenting these crimes for over a decade and have been the victim of similar U.S. ‘retribution”, so hearing the Attorney General preach to Russia about U.S. law as it is engaging in asking Russia to also set aside its Constitution, as the U.S. does, and engage in double standards and hypocrisy, is something nauseating to say the least.
The sheer hypocrisy that is evident in the U.S. actions surrounding Mr. Snowden and the level of desperation that the U.S. has shown are simply mind boggling in their breadth and scope.
Mr. Holder writes:
“Mr. Snowden believes that he is unable to travel out of Russia and must therefore take steps to legalize his status. That is not accurate; he is able to travel. Despite the revocation of his passport on June 22, 2013, Mr. Snowden remains a U.S. citizen. He is eligible for a limited validity passport good for direct return to the United States. The United States is willing to immediately issue such a passport to Mr. Snowden.”
The whole point, in case Mr. Holder has missed it, which it is obvious he has, is that Mr. Snowden has been granted political asylum in several countries and had wanted to travel to those countries. Not face death or torture at the hands of a government that has secret torture prisons, launches wars of aggression at every political whim, has off-shore indefinite detention facilities and engages in regular extra-judicial executions, just to name a few of the continuing violations of international norms that the U.S. is guilty of.
Such a government can and must never be trusted and that is a fact that can in no way be known better than by someone like Mr. Snowden who worked for the CIA and the NSA. So a one way ticket to America is not an option Mr. Holder. No one in their right mind would trust any of the assurances given by Holder, and Mr. Snowden is right, and moreover, has the right, to seek asylum and be protected.
Holder:
“We also understand from press reports that Mr. Snowden has filed papers seeking temporary asylum in Russia on the grounds that if he were returned to the United States, he would be tortured and would face the death penalty. These claims are entirely without merit.”
Again are we supposed to forget the last several decades of world history? Are we supposed to forget Manning who has been tortured, are we to forget Abu-Ghraib, Guantanamo and even ex Vice President Richard Chaney signing off on such torture techniques as “puncturing an eye” and “slicing a testicle”? Are we to forget case after case after case and report after report of other instances of torture, extra-judicial executions and even innocent men and women being executed when there was evidence that exonerated them?
Mr. Holder insults our intelligence.
“Second, Mr. Snowden will not be tortured. Torture is unlawful in the United States…”
It is interesting to note that he says “unlawful” and not “illegal” and this whole argument is absurd regardless of the wording because we know the U.S. renditions people all the time to countries where torture is legal and we know the U.S. has its own special off-shore torture prison at Guantanamo. Simply unbelievable.
The rest of the letter goes on to say that Mr. Snowden would be granted a fair trial blah blah blah… Yeah good one Mr. Holder, just like the NATO 5, Jeremy Hammond, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, everyone who has ever been droned, the hundreds of men at Guantanamo and let’s not forget how Trayvon Martin’s family got justice, etc. ad-nauseum.
The United States has become a rogue illegal nation and the continued persecution of Mr. Edward Snowden, a young man who exposed that rogue nation’s illegality against the world and its own citizens and more importantly Mr. Holder, against the very Constitution you are sworn to uphold, prove beyond all doubt that Mr. Snowden is in very grave and imminent danger.
Please don’t insult the intelligence of the world and the Russian Government by engaging in such ridiculous letter writing Mr. Holder. We all know that once Mr. Snowden is in your hands, and I pray for him that never happens, he will be interrogated using your “enhanced interrogation techniques” until he goes insane or kills himself and if he does survive he will be locked in solitary confinement under special observation until the day he dies, that is of course if he is not executed, as nothing will stop you from executing him once he is in your hands.
Will a letter from the Russian Government saying execution is illegal stop you if there comes a day when the switch is about to be pulled on Mr. Snowden? No. So why should your false guarantees force Russia to violate its own Constitution?
By the way Mr. Holder, how are Mr. Bout and Mr. Yaroshenko faring after you illegally renditioned them from third countries? Rule of law? Only when it is convenient for you and those in power. Mr. Snowden exposed your illegality, as did I and we know what happens to those who expose the illegality of the Imperial United States of America. Just ask Julian Assange.
And lastly, just in case Mr. Holder was not aware: The Russian Government knows what you are up to better than you think Mr. Holder, Russian officials and the Russian Government are not fools, after all Mr. Snowden won’t be the first American who has received asylum in Russia due to the illegality of the American state. He won’t be the first, because actually, I was.
The opinions and views expressed here are my own I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru.
Related article
US Prison Population Shrinking; States Ready to Sell Extra Prisons
By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky | AllGov | July 28, 2013
In what some experts say may be the beginning of the end for mass incarceration, the U.S. prison population declined for the third year in a row last year.
In 2012, the prison population shrunk by 1.7% (or 27,770 inmates), according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
The third consecutive yearly drop in prisoner numbers has been the result of fewer crimes and changes in state correctional policies. Many states are now relying more on probation and parole instead of locking people up.
Although the percentage decline might seem small, the fact that it followed decreases in 2011 and 2010 indicated the country is undergoing a “sea change” in criminal justice policy.
“This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration,” Natasha Frost, associate dean of Northeastern University’s school of criminology and criminal justice, told The New York Times.
Before 2010, the U.S. prison population increased every year for 30 years, from 307,276 in 1978 to a high of 1,615,487 in 2009.
The decline has not affected federal prisons, which are seeing record numbers of prisoners.
At least 17 states are selling or are considering selling some of their underutilized prisons. For example, in Pennsylvania, the state is looking to sell off two prisons that were recently emptied and shut down. A 40-building prison in Cambria County and a 32-building correctional facility in Westmoreland County are among 37 surplus state properties listed for sale.
According to BJS, 47% of prisoners have been incarcerated for non-violent crimes, such as property offenses, drug offenses and public order offenses.
Louisiana had the highest percentage of its population in prison last year, 893 per 100,000 state residents. In second place was Mississippi (717 per 100,000 state residents), followed by Alabama (650 per 100,000 state residents), Oklahoma (648 per 100,000 state residents), and Texas (601 per 100,000 state residents).
Maine had the lowest imprisonment rate (145 per 100,000 state residents), followed by Minnesota (184 per 100,000 state residents), and Rhode Island (190 per 100,000 state residents).
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“Shabbat shalom” – no peace for Palestinians in Hebron this Saturday
International Solidarity Movement | July 28, 2013
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Stone and egg-throwing, beating and kicking, headscarves torn off and an arrest based on two soldiers lying. This sunny Saturday in Hebron (Al-Khalil) was all about settler youth attacking innocent Palestinians and internationals while soldiers looked the other way.
Today, 27th of July, the Shabbat started as usual in Hebron with the settler tour through the Old City. A group of settlers surrounded by soldiers entered the Old City through the Peace Garden and went through the streets, preventing Palestinians from passing. The soldiers invaded several Palestinian houses in order to access the roofs. After an hour, the “tour” left the Old City through the entrance to Beit Romano settlement.
Later, at around 4pm, whilst walking down Shuhada Street international activists had stones thrown at them by two settler teenage boys. When they returned an hour later, they were attacked again by settler youths who jumped at them and violently pulled off their headscarves outside Beit Hadassah settlement. When the internationals complained to the soldier stationed at the nearby checkpoint, he showed no sympathy and said his job was only to protect the Jews living in Hebron.
About half an hour later, three international activists were passing by the Qurtoba School when a masked settler ran up the hill towards them, throwing eggs. One activist was hit in the face with two eggs whilst soldiers looked on from the watchtower above the school – they took no action against the settlers saying only “What do you want us to do?”
At around 6pm some settlers – who had previously been bathing in the Abraham spring close to the Islamic cemetery next to Shuhada Street whilst being guarded by a group of soldiers – tried to steal a home-made kite off two Palestinian kids. A Palestinian teenager managed to prevent them from taking it.
At around 6.30pm, a group of about thirty settler youths entered the property of the Abu Shamsiya family in Tel Rumeida. They threw stones at the family who were outside on the veranda preparing food for the iftaar fast-breaking meal. They also beat the 11-year old son of the family, Muhammad. When his father, Abu Shamsiya, went to the soldier stationed at the checkpoint just outside his house to complain and ask for help, the soldier simply told the settlers to go ahead and continue attacking the family.
A settler youth then ran up to Abu Shamsiya and violently kneed him in the stomach right in front of the soldier. Another soldier grabbed Abu Shamsiya’s wife Fayseh, who was filming the incident, by her hair and pulled her to the ground. The police, who happened to be parked in their car just up the road, finally decided to intervene. Abu Shamsiya complained against the two soldiers who had attacked him and his family and were complicit in the settler violence.
In a rare turn of events, the police believed Abu Shamsiya’s story – although the soldiers denied it – and took these two soldiers to the police station for further questioning. However, they did not arrest any of the settlers, who escaped into the Tel Rumeida settlement and the police chose not to follow them. The group of settler youths returned soon after and although Abu Shamsiya and various other eyewitnesses clearly pointed out the attackers to the police, they took no action.
Abu Shamsiya himself was later taken to the police station in order to file an official complaint and so that the police could examine his video footage of the incident. The Abu Shamsiya family were initially hopeful that this might lead to some positive result, but two hours later they got a phone call that Abu Shamsiya was now being detained in the police station on the charge of spitting at soldiers. Clearly the two soldiers whom he complained against wanted revenge and made up this story to incriminate him. His family is deeply worried and hopes he will be released by tomorrow.
During the same incident, which attracted a lot of onlookers outside Abu Shamsiya’s house, Palestinians, settlers and internationals alike, a settler woman who is notorious for being extremely aggressive and has attacked internationals and Palestinians on several occasions, started pushing and shouting at an international activist as well as pulling at her scarf to strangle her. This happened right in front of a group of soldiers who chose to just stand by and watch, and even mocked the international activist when she complained and asked whether they thought it was okay for her to get strangled in the middle of the street.
Although the settler attacks in Hebron are not always as numerous and severe as they were on this particular day, none of what happened today is new or unusual to the residents of Hebron. Hebron is the only West Bank city that has settlers living inside the city itself. It is home to a particularly extreme and aggressive settler community, numbering about 500, that constantly harasses, intimidates and attacks Palestinians with near impunity and the protection of about 2,500 Israeli occupation soldiers stationed in Hebron.
Update 28th July: Israeli authorities are demanding 1000NIS on bail to release Abu Shamsiya. He will have a court hearing soon (exact day still unknown).
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- Jabari family once again facing harassment from settlers and soldiers (alethonews.wordpress.com)
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From the Archives
Examples of hate speech by Israel against Palestine
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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