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Line up children, the COVID sniffing dog is here to judge you

Who thought this was a good idea?

BY VINAY PRASAD | OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS | APRIL 24, 2023

A recent paper in JAMA Pediatrics shows how badly adults dehumanized children. Before I explain, as background, I work as a health care provider in California. During the pandemic, I never had to asymptomatically test even during hospital work. No dog ever smelled me. Keep that in mind as I tell you about this. Because these Ca kids have more restrictions than doctors working in the hospital w the sickest patients!

Here is what researchers did. They trained the dog to sniff out COVID-19. Then, they lined up kids in school. Kids had to stand 6 feet apart. (Apparently they also had to mask — see pic). They had to face away from the dogs who smelled their ankle. If the kid had covid, the dog would sit down. Then all kids got tested with Binax, and researchers could see how the dog did.

It strikes me as a bit dehumanizing to treat children like this. Especially since ~100% would later go on to develop COVID. The vast majority would get COVID without getting a vaccine. Seems that lining them up in the schoolyard, and having a dog sniff them— something I have only been subject to in airports, where I assume they are sniffing for bomb residue or drugs— is a bit extreme.

I worry how a child might feel if they go to school feeling fine, and the dog sits down besides them. Their classmates— even thought they are told to face away— will still know. The dog will stop moving. And let’s be honest, kids will look around. Did they pull the kid from school then? Did any kids start crying? Seems messed up to me. Why did they have to do this with children?

Why do I note this: isn’t it something that not a single person flagged this idea and said: if we are going to do this, let’s do it for doctors or nurses, or at least adults. It is kinda fucked up to treat children like this, and future generations may look at us like we are out of minds. When they look back at the IFR in kids, they may think we are actually insane.

April 30, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

UK minister calls for tech execs to be jailed if they ignore censorship demands

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 23, 2023

UK’s Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has recommended jail time for social media bosses who refuse to remove “harmful” content from their platforms. The proposal is part of the authoritarian Online Safety Bill.

The bill would give broadcasting regulator Ofcom regulatory authority over social media platforms. The platforms would be required to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” based on protected characteristics like race, religion, gender, disability, and gender identity.

Citing the protection of children, Donelan said that social media executives who ignore the requirement and restrictions of the Online Safety Bill should go to jail, The Telegraph reported.

The measure would be used as a last resort for executives that “have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements” to remove content such as “disinformation” by a foreign state.

Currently, the bill would see companies fined up to 10% of global turnover for failing to comply with the censorship demands.

April 23, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Iran slams world’s inaction on deteriorating rights situation in West

Press TV – April 15 2023

Iran’s vice-president of the judiciary for international affairs has criticized international mechanisms for failing to take a position regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Western countries, saying international rights bodies are duty-bound to support and promote the key issue across the world.

In a Saturday letter to Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi said the world suffers from fundamental challenges and dilemmas regarding human rights which are mainly caused by those countries that “claim to be defending human rights and see themselves in the position of making demands from others and being immune from any criticism and responsibility.”

“The responsibility of the international human rights mechanisms in such conditions is fundamental to support and promote human rights, which must be fulfilled by respecting independence, impartiality, professionalism, and non-selectivity,” said Gharibabadi, who also served as the Secretary General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights.

He warned of adopting “politically-motivated and selective” approaches that does a great disservice and is detrimental to human rights, and erodes public trust in human rights mechanisms.

He drew the commissioner’s attention to situations in several countries, including France, Britain and Germany, over the last six months regarding the “right to freedom of assembly and of association.”

Pointing to massive public demonstrations in France in protest against the government’s policies, the Iranian rights official said, “Instead of listening to the protesters’ demands and trying to improve the situation, the French government resorts to large-scale violence to deal with the gatherings.”

Gharibabadi censured the French government for using anti-riot equipment, assaulting people, and arresting thousands of protesters as only part of the countermeasures.

Referring to Britain’s introduction of amendments to the Public Order Bill to increase police powers to deal with protesters at rallies, he said the “repression bill” leads to a “significant and unprecedented increase in the powers of the police force to impose undue restrictions on peaceful protests and … it criminalizes assemblies under the pretext of deprivation of public comfort and provides a sentence of up to 10 years of imprisonment.”

Gharibabdi pointed to a sit-in protest in Germany. He said over 3,000 German police and security forces arrested hundreds of political opponents under the pretext of plotting to stage a coup d’état.

“In yet another move, the German government seeks to pass a law that will expel its opponents from all government jobs under the pretext of extremism.” The top Iranian rights official said most European countries have been the scene of peaceful protests over the past months which were “suppressed and dispersed with the most severe attacks by law enforcement forces.”

Referring to the recent riots in Iran, Gharibabadi said,” Egged on by incitement and backing of particular states, media outlets and terrorist groups, the recent gatherings in the Islamic Republic of Iran deviated from their peaceful nature and morphed into riots, causing violations of the fundamental rights of citizens.”

On the contrary, he said, Iran took a responsible policy, and established an investigative committee to launch inquiries into the possible physical and financial damages and the violations of the rights of all parties.

The Iranian vice-president slammed the West and the United States for pursuing a politically-motivated approach and exploiting the Human Rights Council by establishing a so-called mechanism to investigate the riots in the country.

“The same countries that consider themselves supporters of the rioters in Iran are – both in law and in practice – committing the most heinous crimes to systematically violate the right to peaceful assembly.”

April 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 2 Comments

Guantanamo: Yemeni man will remain in prison despite US court ruling he is no threat

MEMO | April 13, 2023

A Yemeni man held in Guantanamo Bay for over 20 years without charge or trial will remain in detention despite a US court ruling that he does not pose a threat to the country. In an opinion yesterday over the ongoing case of Abdulsalam Al-Hela, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the authorities may not be allowed to keep a man imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay after he is no longer deemed a threat.

According to the Washington Post, Al-Hela, a businessman and tribal sheikh from Yemen, was captured in Egypt in 2002. He was held overseas for two years before being taken to Guantánamo. He has been contesting his detention in court since 2005 and was cleared for release two years ago.

Reporting on Al-Hela’s legal battle, the New York Times said that a Periodic Review Board in June 2021 approved the 55-year-old prisoner for transfer if the receiving country could fulfil security conditions. However, just like 10 other Yemenis at Guantanamo who have been approved for transfer, he cannot be repatriated because the US considers Yemen, which is in the middle of a civil war, to be too unstable to monitor his activities.

Since the latest ruling by the Periodic Review Board, major steps have been taken to end the war in Yemen. Delegations from Saudi Arabia and Oman have achieved “tangible progress” during peace talks with Yemen’s Houthi leaders currently taking place in the capital Sanaa.

The DC Circuit returned Al-Hela’s case to a lower court to decide whether he should be released because the US no longer considers him a security threat. However, it was determined that the fact Al-Hela can be released is irrelevant.

“The Biden administration continues to fight in court to detain an individual, who the government says it doesn’t want to detain, in a prison the president says should be closed,” a senior staff attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, J Wells Dixon, is reported as saying in the Post. 

The ruling raised “a significant legal question… does the Constitution allow the government to continue to hold someone without foreseeable end simply because it hasn’t made sufficient efforts to transfer them?” Dixon added.

Any future appeals court ruling on that issue could have an impact on 16 other detainees who are being held at Guantanamo despite being approved for transfer. Some have been in such limbo for over a decade.

April 13, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Panama detains and deports head of Brazil-Palestine Institute (Ibraspal)

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | March 18, 2023

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its solidarity with Dr. Ahmed Shehadeh after Panamanian immigration authorities at Tocumen International Airport detained and deported Shehadeh, the head of the Brazilian-Palestinian Institute (Ibraspal), on Thursday, March 16. The Panamanian officials confiscated and held his Brazilian passport while he was transiting at the airport on his way to the second conference of the Palestinian Federation of Latin America, taking place between 17 and 19 March in Barranquilla, Colombia, Ibraspal’s vice president, Sayid Marcos Tenório, said.

“Shehadeh was interrogated by Panamanian intelligence agents, possibly with the participation and support of U.S. and Israeli intelligence,” Tenório said. “The state of Panama is under American occupation. American and Israeli intelligence are targeting anyone working against imperialist Zionist policies.”

Palestinian community sources in Brazil reported that extensive contacts took place with the Brazilian authorities, as Alexandre Padilha (Minister of Institutional Relations), Paulo Pimenta (Federal Deputy) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened, as did the representative of the Brazilian Embassy in Panama, communicating with the Panamanian authorities until Shehadeh returned to Brazil after his deportation, where his passport was returned to him at Brasilia airport.

Shehadeh was detained and interrogated for many hours before he was told that Panamanian immigration authorities were deporting him back to Brazil rather than allowing him to continue his journey to Colombia and the Palestinian conference taking place there.

Rawa Alsagheer, Palestinian activist and member of Samidoun Network in Brazil, denounced the action of the Panamanian authorities. “This reflects a Zionist and U.S. attempt to target and disrupt the organizing of Palestinians in exile in diaspora, especially in Latin America,” she said.

Brazilian media and social media widely reported on the news of Shehadeh’s detention and deportation, and many Brazilian and Palestinian organizations denounced the Panamanian action. The Panamanian Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People also condemned the immigration authorities’ actions.

Brazilian organizations and parties are planning to visit Shehadeh to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rejection of the Panamanian authorities’ decision to prevent him from participating in the Palestinian Federation of Latin America’s conference.

March 19, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Indigenous Rebellion Continues as Post-Coup Peruvian Government Flounders

BY W. T. WHITNEY | COUNTERPUNCH | MARCH 10, 2023

Revived democratic struggle in Peru is well along into a second act. There was the parliamentary coup December 7 that removed democratically elected President Pedro Castillo and the “First Taking of Lima” in mid-January, embittered and excluded Peruvians occupied Lima and faced violent repression. Then on March 1 protests renewed as the indigenous inhabitants of Peru’s extreme southern regions prepared once more to demonstrate in Lima and would shortly be protesting in their own regions. The resistance’s make-up was fully on display.

Protesters throughout Peru were rejecting a replacement president and an elite-dominated congress and calling for early elections and a new constitution. They belonged for the most part belonged to Aymara communities in districts south of Lima extending from Lake Titicaca both west and northeast, into the Andes region.

Their complaints centered on wealth inequities, rule by a Lima-based elite, inadequate means for decent lives, and non-recognition of their cultural autonomy. Their support and that of other rural Peruvians had brought about the surprise election to Peru’s presidency in 2021 of the inexperienced Pedro Castillo. He had defeated Keiko Fujimori, daughter of a now imprisoned dictator and favorite of Peru’s neo-liberal enablers.

By March 1, residents of provinces close to the city of Puno were arriving in Lima to carry out the so-called “Second Wave of the Taking of Lima.” Demanding the de facto President Dina Boluarte resign, as of March 4 protesters had not been able to break through police lines surrounding key government buildings. The main action, however, was going on in the epicenter of police and military repression ever since Boluarte had taken office on December 7.

That would be the Puno area where most of the 60 deaths caused by violent repression have occurred, with 19 protesters having been killed on January 9 in Juliaca, a town 27 miles north of Puno city.

On March 5, violence was again playing out in Juli, a town 58 miles south of Puno, also on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Demonstrations along with roadblocks were in progress throughout the extended region, all in sympathy with the concurrent protests in Lima. Involved were indigenous groups, small farmer organizations, and social movements.

In Juli the demonstrators, confronted by military units and police in civilian dress, set fire to judicial office buildings and the police headquarters. The troops fired, shots came from open windows, and tear gas was released from a helicopter; 18 demonstrators were wounded.

Demonstrators blocking a bridge over a river prevented the entry of troops into the nearby town of Llave. Rains had caused flooding and in the process of swimming across the river, one of them drowned and five others disappeared.

Protesters captured 12 soldiers; community leader Nilo Colque indicated they were released after they admitted to trying to break the “strikes” but that they too opposed the military’s actions. Coolque predicted that soon 30,000 Aymaras would be descending on Juli and nearby population centers.

Aymara activists in Ilave announced a strike of indefinite duration. A “Committee of struggle” in Cusco announced the beginning as of March 7 of an indefinite strike in 10 provinces. The president of the national “Rondas Campesinas” (peasant patrols), said to represent two million Peruvians in all, announced a big march on Lima from all regions set for March 13.

Meanwhile Peru’s chief prosecutor has embarked upon an investigation of President Boluarte and other officials for crimes of “genocide, homicide resulting from circumstances, and causing serious injury,” that allegedly took place mostly in southern regions in the weeks immediately after her taking office.

There are these other developments:

* Peru’s Supreme Court on March 3 heard a proposal that the “preventive imprisonment of ex-President Castillo be extended from 18 to 36 months. Another court had previously denied his appeal for habeas corpus.

* The Congress as of March 6 looked to be on the verge of, for the fourth time, refusing to advance new presidential elections from April 2024 to sometime in 2013.

* The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a preliminary report accusing the new Peruvian government of excessive use of force against protesters.

* Polling results currently go one way: 77% of Peruvian reject the Dina Boluarte government, 70% say she should resign, 90% denounce Peru’s Congress. 69% favor moving general elections ahead to 2023, and 58% support the demonstrations. Most of those making up these majorities live in rural areas, according to the report.

The opposed sides in the Peruvian conflict are stalemated. Powerbrokers presently lack a government capable – willing though it may be – of providing structure and organization adequate for protecting their political and economic interests. Marginalized Peruvians are without an historical experience from which revolutionary leadership and strategies might have developed, such that now they might have direction and focus. The people’s movement there is not as lucky as counterparts were in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Now the U.S. government meddles with this state of precarious balance in Peru. And not surprisingly: it has long intervened militarily and is competing with China economically.

Speaking on March 1, State Department Ned Price did insist that in Peru, “our diplomats do not take sides in political disputes … They recognize that these are sovereign decisions.” He added that the United States backs “Peru’s constitution, and Peru’s constitutional processes.”

Even so, there is active interest hinting at more to come. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols on February 28 urged Peru’s Congress to expedite early elections and Peru’s president to promptly “end the crisis caused by ex-President Castillo’s self-coup.”

March 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

I was a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, but who is its biggest captive?

By Mansoor Adayfi | MEMO | February 23, 2023

It was 21 years ago this month that I was flown in the belly of a US cargo plane, hooded, blindfolded, gagged and chained in an orange jumpsuit, for over 40 hours. I didn’t know where I was being taken, or why.

My journey into the unknown started when I was sold to the CIA as an “Egyptian Al-Qaida general” in 2001 after the US invaded Afghanistan. I was 18 years old, and I am from Yemen. After I was imprisoned for around three months in a black site in Afghanistan, I was taken to Kandahar military prison, an airbase that served as a transit station to the unknown. I wasn’t the only one being held there.

When a huge cargo plane landed in Kandahar three weeks later, we all knew that some of us would disappear. Without being able to see, hear or speak, we were dragged to the first plane blindfolded, and then chained to the floor. It was a journey of pain and suffering. When the plane eventually landed, we hoped it would be the end to our suffering. It wasn’t. It was only the beginning of a longer, more brutal journey.

Soldiers never seem to get tired of the beating and shouting. When the second flight ended, it was still not the end of the journey. The US marines snatched and dragged me onto a bus, and then onto a ferry. Where was I going? The first clue came from the sea, which was the first friend who welcomed me. A marine shouted in English and an Arab marine translated: “You are under the control of the US marines!” They continued to shout and physically assault us for the rest of the way.

The ferry eventually docked and a bus took us on the final leg of the journey. We were disembarked by being snatched, one after another. I was forced to sit on my knees for hours. The duct tape over my mouth blocked my screams. Every cell in my body was screaming but no one could hear my cries. They could see the pain, and I felt like maybe their twisted humanity was screaming back, too.

After going through the processing station —where we experienced humiliation and degradation over and over again — soldiers dragged my naked body over sharp gravel to a cage where an IRF (Immediate Reaction Force) team piled on top of me and started removing the chains violently; then the hood, goggles, earmuffs and the duct tape. Soldiers shouted into my ears, “DETAINEE 441! STOP RESISTING!” Resisting? I was barely breathing. Without knowing it, what they did at that moment was introduce the word “resist” into my mental landscape. That’s what I needed to do; I just had no idea how.

At night, it took a while for my sight to come back, but it was still blurry. All I could see was an ocean of orange figures caged just like me, all I could hear were rattling chains, slamming doors, soldiers shouting in their loudest voice, “SHUT THE F**K UP, DON’T LOOK AT ME, LOOK DOWN, NO TALKING!” The dogs barking in the near distance sounded less aggressive than them. The barking never stopped. As in never. It sounded as though they were protesting at the inhumane treatment in their own way.

On my first morning in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp — for that is where I was — I took a long look around me. I found myself caged in a rose chain-link cage where even animals wouldn’t survive. There were many others there too. I could see swollen faces with bruises, black eyes, shaved heads and faces, split lips and bleeding wounds. We all looked the same. It was like a signature that the soldiers wanted to leave on us all. US President George W. Bush and his administration needed to prove that they were “winning” the “War on Terror”, so they called us the worst of the worst.

We were dragged to this unknown place from different parts of the world; some of us were sold for a bounty and some were handed over to the CIA by their own governments. It was the first time in history that such a thing was done: there we were; 800 men and children — yes, children — from 50 nationalities, speaking over 20 different languages, having different mindsets and cultures, snatched and flown to a dark hole hidden from the rest of the world. This American prison camp wasn’t even in America.

Everything was taken from us, and we became just orange figures with numbers printed on a bracelet locked on our wrists. Our captors stripped us of our freedom and imprisoned our bodies and wanted to control us and deny our humanity, but they failed to understand that what really makes us unique individuals are characteristics such as our names, values, relations, morals, beliefs, ethics, emotions, memories, language, knowledge, experiences, talents, feelings, dreams, nationalities and, of course, our innate distinctive humanity. These were part of another DNA, and a survival kit which the US government didn’t want to know about. They thought that they could control our bodies and freedom, but they would never control our hearts and souls.

Yes, we were isolated and disconnected from our families and the rest of the world, but even in America’s dark hole, life won. We created our own world. Yes, we were tortured and abused, but we also sang, danced, resisted and survived. Also, we soon found other generous guests at Guantanamo who came to visit us regularly, who challenged the US restrictions and never had CIA clearance to visit. They came to share our meals, to listen to us, and to tell us that everything will be okay. We became friends and families with the iguanas, cats, birds and banana rats.

Guantanamo started with a selection of Muslims from around the world, but it kept changing, evolving and growing. We lived through Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta, Camp 5, Camp 6, Camp Echo and others. We went through the torture programmes and abuse by interrogators, psychologists and a whole host of camp staff. We went on hunger strike to protest against the torture and injustice, only to be tortured more. We lived through all the years of Guantanamo: we lived through its Dark Age, its Golden Age, and back again to the Dark Age. With each year we grew older and our imprisonment only settled into us more deeply. Our captors got more creative in developing torture techniques to break us and to try to turn us into something we were not.

To survive through the darkness in that dark hole, we only had each other and whatever makes us human beings. We were fathers, husbands, brothers and sons from different parts of the world. Some of us were teachers, doctors, soldiers, commanders, journalists, lawyers, tribal elders, mafia men, poets and professors; and some were spies. We had no shared life before Guantanamo, nothing in common. At first, we started introducing ourselves to each other, and getting to know each other. I wish our captives had taken time to get to know who we really were as well, instead of just needing to prove that we were hardened terrorists.

The cycle of hardship and the torture we endured forged strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship that helped us to survive. We started developing a new shared life and a new “us” at Guantanamo. Our brains started constructing new memories, relations, knowledge and experiences, but everything related back to and was based on Guantanamo life. Sharing our knowledge, experience and culture with each other created a beautiful Guantanamo where we sang songs in different languages, danced dances from different cultures, and laughed and cried together. After years, we grew together and became part of each other’s lives and memories. Guantanamo became part of us and part of our life. Guantanamo kept growing, evolving and changing, feeding on our lives and humanity. With it, we grew old too.

We weren’t the only victims of Guantanamo: all Americans and America’s values and justice system were as well. There were many Americans who came to work in the detention camp, and they became victims too when they refused to abandon their humanity and treat us badly. Some took a stand against the system and were imprisoned; others were fired or demoted. We fought for them as much as we fought for each other because they were humans and victims too, regardless of their nationality or which side they were on. Injustice has no boundaries, colour or nationality. As we were living in Guantanamo, we didn’t want anyone else to experience it.

Through the Dark Age of 2002-2010, we protested and carried out hunger strikes for years. We fought back as much as we could; we learned from each other and taught each other. In Guantanamo’s Golden Age we learned English and art; we painted and we made ships, cabinets, trees, all from remnants of trash and leftover cardboard.

In Guantanamo, I grew up, from a young boy to a caged man. My world was Guantanamo and it’s where half of my life was taken, where days, months and years were the same.

Then after around 15 years, I was forced to leave Guantanamo the way that I was taken there, hooded and chained. When they came to tell me about my release, they told me, “You have no choice.” I made peace with Guantanamo in Guantanamo and made the decision that it wouldn’t change me; it’s part of me and of who I am.

The whole world agrees that Guantanamo is a stain on our humanity and one of the biggest human right violations of the 21st century. There are those who tortured and abused us at Guantanamo who are still bragging about their time there and their work. Their humanity was the first real victim of that place.

Despite all these reflections, though, Guantanamo hasn’t left us yet. Even today, there are 34 men still in Guantanamo, 20 of whom have been cleared for release. There are many calls for the closure of America’s black hole detention centre. For us, closing Guantanamo does not only mean shutting down the facility, but also there being full accountability for the US government for what happened there: acknowledgment of the cruel and inhumane treatment, a full and unreserved apology, and reparations for the victims.

Guantanamo symbolises oppression, injustice, torture and lawlessness. In this way, Guantanamo is now everywhere, and I can say — in the strangest of ironies — that even though we were prisoners of the US destructive “War on Terror”, the United States is and always has been a prisoner of its own violence. Guantanamo is yet another chapter of this violence and one whose legacy will live on long after the prison is closed. The United State of America itself is Guantanamo’s greatest captive.

February 23, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 2 Comments

Israel kills 10 Palestinians, injures a hundred in Nablus

MEMO | February 22, 2023

Ten Palestinians have been killed and over a hundred wounded this morning following an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

The Israeli occupation’s military stormed the city with armoured vehicles and blocked off all entrances before surrounding a home with two wanted Palestinians inside. Hossam Isleem and Mohammad Abdulghani, who were both killed.

The Israeli forces demolished the building while the two were inside; their bodies were later identified by the occuption’s forces. Israeli military sources claim the two Palestinians were involved in numerous resistance attacks against illegal Israeli settlements and in the death of a soldier last October.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that ten people were killed and 102 others were wounded as a result of gunfire by Israeli occupation soldiers.

Palestinian victims among the dead include 72-year-old Adnan Saabe Baara, 61-year-old Abdul Hadi Abdul Aziz Ashqar, 16-year-old Mohammad Farid Shaaban, 25-year-old Mohammad Khaled Anbousi and 33-year-old Tamer Nimr Minawi.

February 22, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | 5 Comments

Israeli soldier filmed assaulting Palestinian activist in occupied West Bank

This screengrab shows an Israeli soldier assaulting Palestinian activist Issa Amro on February 13, 2023.
Press TV – February 14, 2023

An Israeli soldier has been filmed assaulting a prominent Palestinian human rights activist in front of a famous American journalist in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil.

In a video posted on Twitter by Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker on Monday, the Israeli soldier is seen grabbing Issa Amro by his jacket and neck and throwing him to the ground. He then kicks Amro before being pulled away by another soldier.

“I never had a source assaulted in front of me until today when an Israeli soldier who stopped my interview did this … I can’t stop thinking how dehumanizing the occupation is on the young soldiers charged with enforcing it,” Wright, the author of The Looming Tower, wrote in a post on his Twitter account.

The Israeli military claimed in a statement that the incident occurred after the soldier, who was guarding a military post, asked the Palestinian activist who approached the post, to step away.

It further claimed that in response, the Palestinian began recording and cursing at the soldier, and that a verbal confrontation followed, which soon became a physical confrontation, during which the soldier hit the Palestinian.

However, Wright tweeted that Amro had done nothing to justify the “violent assault,” adding that the Israeli military is “misrepresenting” the build-up to the assault on the Palestinian peace activist.

“The soldier initiated the encounter, Amro did not curse him, [he] only asked to call his commander. Nothing to justify the violent assault that followed,” he said.

“Before the assault the other soldiers were afraid to intervene although I warned them it was getting out of hand,” he added.

Amro also posted several videos of the run-up to the incident on Twitter, saying the Israeli military has lied about what happened.

“I was detained outside the military post, I started shouting to bring the commander out, the soldiers refused to tell him, it was a trap for me by them. The commander came out only after I was beaten and grabbed by the throat and kicked and pushed on the ground,” he wrote n another post.

He said that the video is not just about the activist as it tells the story of every Palestinian in Palestine.

“It is not about Issa Amro, it is about the Palestinian women and children who are attacked frequently by Israeli soldiers and settlers. All Palestinians are living under Israeli occupation and apartheid. The video of the attack tells the story of each Palestinian in Palestine,” he added.

The Israeli military said the soldier was jailed for 10 days in a military prison following the incident.

Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has defended the soldier’s actions, describing the decision to put him in a military prison as a “disgrace.”

Amro, an engineer by profession, is a well-known human rights defender in his hometown of al-Khalil. He is the founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS), which aims to empower the Palestinian community in the face of Israeli settlers in the Old City of al-Khalil.

He was detained in November days after filming a soldier assaulting an Israeli activist during a visit by Israeli anti-occupation activists to meet Palestinian residents near the Old City of al-Khalil.

Israeli occupation soldiers and Israeli settlers have noticeably been escalating their attacks against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and other areas, in an attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians from their lands and make way for expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

All the settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions. – View videos

February 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 2 Comments

Israel ready to bomb Iranian aid deliveries to Syria: Report

The Cradle | February 10, 2023

An unnamed Israeli military official told Saudi Arabia’s Elaph newspaper on 9 February that Tel Aviv will not hesitate to bomb Iranian aid deliveries for disaster-struck Syria under claims that Tehran seeks to “take advantage of the tragic situation … to send weapons and equipment to Hezbollah.”

The anonymous official added Israel has “intelligence” to back up their claims, as the Israeli army has “intensified its monitoring by air, land, and sea of ​​everything that Iran is transporting to Syria.”

Iran has been one of the leading countries providing humanitarian assistance to Syria since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the country’s northwest region.

As of Friday morning, the death toll from the quake in Syria had surpassed 3,300 people.

As a result of western sanctions, aid deliveries for Syria have been largely hindered compared to the flow of aid entering neighboring Turkiye, forcing Damascus to rely on allied nations like Russia and Iran to assist survivors.

Israel’s newest threat comes just two weeks after its drones bombed three Iranian food trucks loaded with flour and rice as they headed from Iraq into Syria.

The trucks were attempting to legally enter Syria through the Al-Bukamal border crossing days after it was opened for commercial trucks for the first time since 2019.

Israel has previously prevented aid from arriving in Syria by bombing the country’s airports, using similar claims of “weapons deliveries” from Iran.

In September of last year, the UN Syria Commission decried Israeli airstrikes on Damascus International Airport “made it impossible” for the UN to deliver humanitarian aid to Syrians in need.

The attack on 10 June severely damaged the two runways at Syria’s main joint-use airport, crippling civilian air traffic in and out of the country. The statement came just days after Israel bombed Aleppo International Airport twice in the same week.

Israel regularly carries out illegal airstrikes inside Syria on what it claims to be Iranian or Hezbollah targets.

February 10, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | 2 Comments

European Parliament embraces war criminal Zelensky

Man in green receives standing ovation for his torture and murder of ethnic Russians

Frontnieuws | February 9, 2023

On Thursday, Reuters reported that Zelensky and his entourage in Europe “were told at a summit by several leaders of the European Union that they were ready to supply Kiev with fighter jets to help fight the Russian invasion.”

“The issue of long-range weapons and fighter jets for Ukraine has been resolved,” said Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. “Details to follow.” 

The “taboo” of sending weapons that can reach hundreds of miles into Russia will soon be broken, according to Reuters, the “news agency” that collaborated with the CIA , writes Kurt Nimmo.

“Mr Zelensky received standing ovations before, during and after his speech to European lawmakers,” reports The Hindu. “He held up an EU flag after his speech and the whole legislature stood in gloomy silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and then the European anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ were played.”

More an ode to mass murder.

Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, said the “next step” is to provide “long-range systems” and fighter jets to the ultra-nationalists. Metsola said the “reaction” to Russian efforts to denazify and disarm the Kiev regime “must be proportionate to the threat, and the threat is existential.”

Metsola, who was elevated to President of the European Parliament by a secret vote of MEPs (not European citizens), is taking the war to the next level.

The EU encourages the ultra-nationalist regime in Kiev to continue its ethnic cleansing, torture, rape and other war crimes in the Donbas and wherever Ukrainians dare to speak Russian, attend an Orthodox church, celebrate Russian traditions or speak out against atrocities committed by neo-Nazi thugs.

Metsola and her associates should be required to read “War Crimes by the Armed and Security Forces of Ukraine: Torture and Inhumane Treatment,” a second report on neo-Nazi war crimes in Ukraine by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The PDF document reveals in gruesome detail the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian state following the US government-orchestrated coup in Kiev that brought openly neo-Nazis to power.

From the data collected since the first report of the Foundation for Democracy Studies, it can be concluded that torture and inhumane treatment by the Security Forces of Ukraine (SBU), the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the National Guard and other formations within the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine, as well as by illegal armed groups, such as the Right Sector, have not only continued, but are actually increasing in size and becoming systematic.

According to the report,

The prisoners were electrocuted, and brutally beaten with various objects (iron bars, baseball bats, sticks, rifle butts, bayonet knives, rubber bats) for several days at a time.

Techniques widely used by the Ukrainian armed forces and security services include waterboarding, strangling with a “Banderist garrotte” and other types of strangulation.

In some cases, prisoners were sent to minefields for intimidation and run over with military vehicles, leading to their deaths.

Other methods of torture used by the Ukrainian armed and security forces include breaking bones, stabbing and cutting with a knife, branding with red-hot objects, and shooting various body parts with small arms.

The prisoners captured by the Ukrainian armed and security forces are held for days in freezing temperatures, without access to food or medical attention, and are often forced to swallow psychotropic substances that cause pain.

An absolute majority of prisoners are subjected to mock firing squads and threatened with the death and rape of their families.

Many of those martyred are not members of the Self-Defense Forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

The Human Rights Convention “prohibits torture in absolute terms regardless of other circumstances,” and the state that commits these violations “is responsible for the actions of all its agencies, such as the police, security forces, other law enforcement officers, and all other organs of state that have an individual under their control, whether acting by order or of their own accord,” the authors write.

In other words, there is more than enough evidence to convict the Man in Green and his ultra-nationalist associates of serious war crimes. In addition, the US government and the EU are guilty of supporting and facilitating the above crimes. Add to that the owners and managers of the war propaganda corporate media.

The EU-US war crimes collaborators are busy preventing Russia from protecting civilians in Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol, Melitopol, Kherson and Crimea. We can say that they are war criminals and apologists for neo-Nazi terror.

The following video is utterly disgusting: a war criminal and his collaborator in mass murder, torture and rape make a kissing face for the camera.

In a saner and less cruel world, both of these sickening creatures would be on a tribunal similar to the one that sentenced to death Martin Bormann, Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Julius Streicher, and other inveterate Nazis.

Copyright © 2023 translation  by Frontnieuws. 

February 10, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , | 2 Comments

Israeli troops commit massacre in latest raids on Jenin

Raids focused on Jenin but targeted many other areas across the occupied West Bank

The Cradle – January 26 2023

Israeli occupation forces killed ten Palestinians and injured at least twenty on 26 January during violent raids in the occupied city of Jenin and its refugee camp.

The raids began on the evening of 25 January and persisted into 26 January, in what is being described as “one of the deadliest days” in the West Bank since the start of last year.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), several have been detained throughout the raids and transferred for interrogation by Israel’s security service. As a result of the incursions, intense clashes broke out between Israeli troops and resistance fighters, several of whom sustained bullet wounds.

An elderly woman has also been reported among the dead, according to security officials. Eyewitnesses have referred to the situation as a “massacre.”

Those killed are Majeda Abdel Fattah Obeid (Umm Ziad), brothers Mohammad Ghneim, Nour Ghneim, and Ahmad Ghneim, Mohammad Mahmoud Sobh, Wassim Amjad Jaes, Mutasim Mahmoud Abou Hassan, Ezzedine Yasin Salahat, Abdallah Marwan al-Ghoul, Saeb Issam Azraqi.

The Israeli army cut off the power supply to the Jenin camp, while also blocking journalists and ambulance teams from entering. Health officials have said that injuries are continuing to accumulate.

“There is an invasion that is unprecedented in the past period, in terms of how large it is and the number of injuries … The ambulance driver tried to get to one of the martyrs who was on the floor, but the Israeli forces shot directly at the ambulance and prevented them from approaching him,” Wissam Baker, head of Jenin’s public hospital, told media.

Despite centering around Jenin and its camp, the Israeli raids also targeted several homes and refugee camps across the West Bank, including Ramallah’s Al-Amari camp and Jerusalem’s Shuafat camp, as well as the towns of Silwan, Sur Baher, Al-Tur, and Al-Isawiya.

In response to the Israeli aggression, the Palestinian resistance managed to down a drone as it was flying over the Jenin refugee camp.

According to reports, an Israeli soldier was killed and another injured in the confrontations. Another report says that the Jenin Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance movement detonated an explosive device inside an Israeli military jeep, resulting in “casualties in their ranks.”

“The military operation in Jenin was launched after intelligence from the Shin Bet about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement’s intention to carry out a major operation against Israeli targets … the operation aimed to arrest a prominent member of the movement,” Israeli media reported.

The military ended up withdrawing from Jenin, however, the injury toll is expected to rise.

January 26, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

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