US-made tear gas, manufactured by companies like Combined Systems Inc. (CSI), Defense Technology, and Nonlethal Technologies, continues to be used by governments including Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Bahrain and the United States to repress popular protest movements for social justice.
In response, human rights advocates will protest again on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 16th, 2012, outside CSI’s Jamestown, Pennsylvania headquarters (see past Protests against Israel’s tear gas use). In advance of the protest, reports indicate that CSI has replaced the Israeli flag that previously flew alongside the US flag outside its headquarters with a Pennsylvania state flag.
Strong evidence that CSI canister killed Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi
On December 9, 2011, in the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank an Israeli soldier inside an armored military jeep fired a tear gas canister at close range directly at the face of Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi during a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements on Nabi Saleh’s land. Mustafa died from his wounds the next day. Protesters did not manage to collect the actual tear gas canister fired at him. However, residents of Nabi Saleh have collected samples of the types of tear gas canisters that the Israeli army uses against Nabi Saleh’s weekly protests, including the specific type of tear gas canister – same size and shape – that hit Mustafa. The type of canister that killed Mustafa can be seen in the January 11 and 13, 2012, photos below taken in Nabi Saleh by Bilal Tamimi. The canister has a headstamp on it that reads CTS. CTS stands for Combined Tactical Systems, a brand name of Combined Systems Inc., in Jamestown, PA. Adalah-NY received these photos from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
CSI canisters and tear gas, shot by Israeli soldiers during protests against Israel’s settlements and wall on Palestinian land, also caused the deaths of protesters Bassem and Jawaher Abu Rahmah in Bil’in, the severe injury of protester Tristan Anderson, a US citizen, in Ni’lin, as well as severe injuries to many other Palestinian protesters (more information on these protesters).
CSI is the primary supplier of tear gas to the Israeli military as well as a provider to Israel’s police (and border police). Until a January 2012 change to it’s website, CSI listed Israeli Military Industries and Rafael Armament Development Authority as among its military customers and development partners (see old webpage). CSI’s founders, Jacob Kravel and Michael Brunn, are Israeli-Americans.
In addition to ubiquitous CSI/CTS canisters found at Palestinian protests, evidence of CSI sales and shipments to Israel is clear. An April 30, 2008, cable available through Wikileaks from the US State Department in Washington DC to the US State Department in Tel Aviv requests clearance for shipment to Israel’s police of the following equipment from CSI: 1,000 Rubber Ball Hand Grenades, 1,000 Tactical Grenades Flash Bang, 1,000 Sting-Ball Grenades, 1,000 Flash Bang Training, and 1,000 Super-Sock Bean Bags. The shipment was part of a larger $5 million agreement between the Israeli police and CSI. An Israeli government website shows that on August 4th, 2011, the Israeli police purchased 6 million shekels ($1.56 million) worth of stun grenades from CSI without issuing a tender.
The PIERS Export Database of US Trade activity is helpful in identifying CSI shipments of tear gas to a number of countries, including Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria (see further information below). However, searching PIERS does not turn up CSI shipments to Israel. The photo of a CSI container at right reveals two reasons. The bottom label in the photo shows that the tear gas container was shipped via Israel’s national airline El Al, and PIERS only tracks shipments by sea. Additionally, the bottom label shows the CSI container was sent to Israel’s Ministry of Defense by Interglobal Forwarding Services, in Bayonne, New Jersey. A search on PIERS for Interglobal Forwarding Services over the past year shows over 1,300 shipments, some evidently including tear gas, by Interglobal from the US to Israel’s Ministry of Defense. But the shipments are listed under Interglobal’s name, and do not show manufacturers’ names.
The US company Defense Technology has also provided some tear gas to Israel’s police (see information on Defense Technology in the Middle East and Oakland below, and a photo of a Defense Technology tear gas container in Jerusalem below).
CSI tear gas kills and injures Egyptian protesters
CSI tear gas is also the primary tear gas that has been used by the Egyptian security forces to repress popular protests for democracy in Egypt over the last year, causing protester deaths and injuries. Amnesty International highlighted the shipment of CSI tear gas to Egypt in its December 6, 2011, call for the US government to stop sending tear gas and weapons to the Egyptian government due to tear gas-related deaths and injuries to Egyptian protesters. Using the PIERS database, Amnesty International documented three specific shipments of tear gas from CSI in the US to Egypt in 2011 that were approved by the US State Department, despite the Egyptian security forces’ record of using of tear gas to kill and injure protesters in efforts to crush protests.
As additional documentation, a July 11, 2008, cable from the State Department in Washington DC to the State Department in Cairo available through Wikileaks requests information to finalize the shipment from CSI to Egypt’s Ministry of Interior of 20,000 CS Smoke Hand Grenades, 20,000 CS Smoke Long Range Cartridge, and 4,000 CS Window Penetrating Cartridges, together valued at $621,000.
CSI in the Middle East and worldwide
CSI canisters were also seen (for example at 27 seconds in this Tunisian video) and blamed for protester deaths in Tunisia. The PIERS database reveals an April 1, 2010, CSI shipment of 5.540 kilograms of “grenade cartridges” and “ammunition launchers” to Tunisia. PIERS also shows an April 8, 2011, shipment by CSI of 12,663 kilograms of “ammunition” to Algeria. There is some evidence of use of CSI tear gas by the Yemeni government against protesters.
Other CSI customers include the Netherlands and Germany (information available via PIERS), and (via Wikileaks) Guatemala, India, Timor-Leste, Hong Kong, Argentina, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Cameroon (via Israel), and Sierra Leone.
Defense Technology in the Middle East and Oakland
A Corporate Watch report shows that the US company Defense Technology has provided tear gas to Israel’s police. Defense Technology is headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, and is owned by the UK arms giant BAE Systems. BAE Systems also owns the US arms company Armor Holdings and bought Federal Laboratories, another US company that previously provided tear gas to Israel, and other countries, and was the object of protests and lawsuits during the first intifada (See section on Past Deaths from Israeli tear gas).
Tear gas canisters with Defense Technology and Federal Laboratories have also been used by the Yemeni and Egyptian governments against pro-democracy protesters.
The city of Oakland has also used Defense Technology tear gas in its efforts to stop popular protests by Occupy Oakland. Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen, a former US marine, was seriously injured when he was struck in the head by an Oakland police projectile, very likely manufactured by Defense Technology.
US government approval of and funding of tear gas shipments
There is clear documentation, and State Department confirmation that the State Department approves sales of tear gas to foreign governments by US companies as “Direct Commercial Sales.” A US State Department webpage shows many examples in different years of State Department regulated and approved Direct Commercial Sales by US companies of tear gas to countries like Egypt, Israel, and Bahrain. Wikileaks cables also confirm the US State Department approval process for US tear gas sales, as have a number of statements by the State Department. However, in US government records of the US’s “Foreign Military Sales” (FMS), sales of military items by the US government to other governments, use line item descriptions that are too broad to identify whether items like tear gas are being sold by the US government under FMS. Most importantly, because US military aid (“Foreign Military Financing” or FMF) is not reported transparently by the US government, it is not possible for the public to know whether or not the billions of dollars of tax dollars given as military aid to countries like Israel, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain are paying for US tear gas transferred to those countries through Direct Commercial Sales, or possibly through Foreign Military Sales.
January 15, 2012
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Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture |
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Ron Ben-Yishai, an Israeli journalist with close ties to the military-intelligence establishment, hints strongly that Israel’s Mossad is behind the spate of murders of Iranian nuclear scientists.
Earlier this week Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was killed in Tehran when assassins on motorcycles attached a bomb to his car. The campaign of murders, Ben-Yishai writes on Ynet, is aimed at “killing the brains” behind Iran’s nuclear program. He adds:
The assassination of Iranian experts is meant to deter other scientists, including foreign ones, from getting involved in such projects. The eliminations also slow down these projects and force Tehran to reorganize. Moreover, killing key figures in vital projects greatly embarrasses the Iranian regime and security forces. Such operations portray the establishment as an incompetent bunch that time after time fails in safeguarding vital interests.
Mossad fingerprints
And then under a subheading titled “Mossad fingerprints?” Ben-Yishai writes:
All indications show that a state organ is behind the assassinations. Only a state has the resources required to carry out the kind of operations executed in Iran. This includes investment in intelligence gathering that identifies the targets and prioritizes them, the investment of time and sophisticated means in preparing an operation against people or locations that are usually under heavy guard, as well as the recruitment and training of the perpetrators. National spy agencies are virtually the only ones that possess such capabilities.
For these reasons, the Iranians and the international media tend to point to the CIA or Israel’s Mossad as the parties responsible for the assassinations and blasts in Iran. However, official American and Israeli spokespeople have not claimed responsibility for such operations.
In fact, the United States categorically denied involvement in the latest killing. Only Israel refuses to deny it, although the Israeli military spokesman expressed satisfaction with the killing.
Israel is prime suspect
Ben-Yishai’s article although it does not directly confirm the Israeli role will only adds to indications Israel is responsible. Even The New York Times now seems to take this for granted. Scott Shane reported on 12 January:
As arguments flare in Israel and the United States about a possible military strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program, an accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyberattacks and defections appears intended to make that debate irrelevant, according to current and former American officials and specialists on Iran.
The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour.
Recall that Israel – which has a long history of carrying out murders and bombings all over the world – was caught red-handed murdering a senior member of Hamas in Dubai hotel room in early 2010.
January 13, 2012
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Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes |
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It’s exactly three years ago that the ins and outs of the overpopulated strip were sealed off by the Israeli military just as tightly as the entire “International Community” shut its eyes and ambivalently turned its back on a horrifying massacre that was in the making. And it’s three years ago that we’ve used up what little was left of our quota of sympathy and compassion towards the Palestinians and took our collective apathy to a whole new level.
Three years after the “unilateral cessation of military operations” on January 18th, 2009; and the Israeli apparatus of mass murder and annihilation is still roaring at the borders; ready to be initiated at a moment’s notice, the IOF is literally licking its lips, salivating at the chance of yet another vicious round of wholesale slaughter, its animalistic zeal for more bloodletting is as vigorous today as it was only three years ago –if not more-, Israeli political, diplomatic and military officials alike don’t seem to miss an opportunity to beat the war drums – and they do so with an almost reckless abandon.
The day starts and ends with the gloom of impending war amassing over Gaza; on December 27th, 2011 (third anniversary of the war on Gaza), Israeli army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz stated that another attack on the strip is “inevitable” while southern brigade commander Tal Hermoni was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying that another “varied and different military campaign” is being prepared, this is of course not counting the fact that targeted killings, aerial night raids and the occasional ground incursion have already become such horrible albeit daily realities in the strip.
Today, an entire population in Gaza is held hostage to dire living conditions and the Zionist state’s death grip, Israel’s heartless policy of meticulously calculating and determining the calorie-intake for Gazans is still the order of the day; university students are being robbed of their academic futures due to arbitrary travel restrictions, patients denied their right to treatment and systemic disregard for anything even resembling human rights still goes on apace.
Three years after the bombs fell; and Palestinians in Gaza –with so many cards stacked against them- are still trying to piece together the broken shards of their lives and entire families are still living through worn out photographs of their loved ones; those who lost their lives to Israel’s Casting Lead and the rest of the world’s self-incriminating silence.
Three years after the bombs fell; and new injustices heaped on top of ongoing ones. The piercing wail of sirens, keening voices of loss amongst the ruins of the strip still prevail till this very day in the little coastal enclave. Three years after the bombs fell; and the only justice the international community could afford to the people of Gaza was a meek report that was even disowned by its author.
Three years after the sky of Gaza was blanketed with all means of spiraling white phosphorous ammunitions; and the ground of the strip is still littered with leftover shells and unexploded bombs laying in wait for a second chance to claim yet more lives of Palestinian kids. Three years after the bombs fell; and living a normal childhood still remains such a rare feat for Gazan children as the sheer weight of life on Israel’s draconian terms takes its heavy toll on their fragile souls; deathly hues of the last war still take hold of their memories and the overcrowded makeshift classrooms are daily reminders of the horrors they’ve endured in that winter of 2008/2009.
Three years after Israeli “spectators” from nearby southern cities took to hilltops in groups to catch sight of the sky raining death and destruction on defenseless Palestinians, giggling, sharing laughs and passing their binoculars from one person to the next as they cheered enthusiastically for the “might” of the IOF as if the carnage unfolding right before their eyes was a mere sporting event; and killing is still a spectator sport for Israeli authorities, trigger-happy junior Israeli border officers still get their kicks from firing live rounds at Palestinian farmers attempting to harvest their crops near the “buffer zone” while hunting the Palestinians in their tunnels near the Rafah border with unmanned drones is still the “standard operating procedure”.
Three years after the bombs fell – almost one year after the dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was dissolved-; and the crushing weight of Israel’s blockade is still pressing hard against the chests of Gazans, the inhumane siege of Gaza –which has long outserved its theoretical usefulness, if there ever was any to begin with- has gradually morphed into this internationally condoned policy that the world has become, for all intents and purposes, far too comfortable to abandon; eventually this chronic passiveness has sadly maneuvered the Palestinians in Gaza into a seemingly unending life of siege and collective punishment, a life in which they have no choice but to literally tunnel their own way out.
Today “Operation Cast Lead” remains an open wound and a dark stain on the conscience of the world as its sense of morality and justice is rapidly waning and the value of a human life remains gravely skewed. Are Palestinian victims somehow not worthy of mass candle-lit vigils at dusk in honor of their memory? Will they ever have someone to recite each and every one of their names at their own “hallowed ground”? The images of the 22-day long massacre in Gaza are too strong to be forgotten; of grief stricken fathers digging the remains of their loved ones buried under the rubbles of what was once their house, of the injured wheeled into chaotic emergency rooms on office chairs, of unidentified bodies of dead children with the word “anonymous” scribbled in black markers across their tiny bellies at the morgue in the Adwan hospital and of doctors at al Shifa Hospital desperately performing CPR on little infants’ chests to no avail.
Unfortunately the media still has a blind spot when it comes to Gaza; screams of protest from Tunisia, Cairo, Benghazi and Sana’a have drowned out the incessant appeals to lift the blockade. Of course; plenty of exploits to be reaped from the Arab Spring nowadays, where -sadly enough- opportunism and gutter politics reign supreme, and so little time to do so.
Three years after the bombs fell; and it seems that Gaza will remain on the back-burner for a while; largely absent from our TV sets and daily dose of news bites, until perhaps Cast Lead II.
Ahmad Barqawi, a Jordanian freelance columnist & writer based in Amman, he has done several studies, statistical analysis and researches on economic and social development in Jordan
January 12, 2012
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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Washington, DC – Today, on the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the first detained men at the U.S. prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:
Today marks the tenth anniversary of indefinite detention without charge or fair trials at the prison at Guantánamo, and it is an anniversary that should not have come. The men indefinitely detained at Guantánamo have been abandoned by all three branches of government, but the primary responsibility for the prison remaining open lies with President Obama. On his second day in office, President Obama signed an Executive Order mandating the closure of Guantánamo within a year. Since then, his administration has in fact perpetuated and sanctioned the system at Guantánamo by continuing indefinite detentions without charge or trial, resuming illegitimate military commissions, and most recently, signing into law the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which substantially hinders the closure of Guantánamo by restricting the transfer of the remaining 171 detained men, over half of whom have been approved for transfer by every branch of government with a stake in the matter. Despite its promise of a new era of accountability and respect for the rule of law, the Obama administration has also repeatedly acted to block virtually any accountability for those who have planned, authorized, and committed torture at Guantánamo and beyond. On this day marking ten years of injustice at Guantánamo, we call on people of conscience everywhere to demand that the prison finally be closed and to intensify opposition to all unjust U.S. detentions and prosecutions conducted in the name of national security. We must also build opposition to the government’s covert and overt wars in a re-branded “War on Terror” which is being used to justify both military detentions and military strikes to the detriment of the safety and dignity of peoples in the United States and abroad.
In the morning, CCR hosted a briefing at the National Press Club entitled “Obama’s Prison: Guantánamo Turns 10.” The briefing featured CCR’s Executive Director Vincent Warren; CCR’s Legal Director Baher Azmy; Stephen Oleskey, co-counsel in the landmark Boumediene v. Bush Supreme Court case, who argued that the men’s right to challenge the legality of their detentions has since been effectively eviscerated; Rear Admiral John Hutson, a former military officer who supported President Obama’s 2009 Executive Order promising to close Guantánamo within one year and stood behind him as he signed it; and Colonel Morris Davis, a former chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo military commissions who ultimately resigned because of the injustices he witnessed. (Short statements by participants in the press briefing can be seen on CCR’s website here.)
The press briefing was followed by a large rally in front of the White House demanding the closure of Guantánamo led by a broad coalition of human rights organizations and activists including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness Against Torture, Amnesty International-USA, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. At this rally, Martha Rayner, an attorney who represents men detained at Guantánamo, read a statement signed by over a hundred habeas counsel denouncing the unjust detention of their clients and President Obama’s failure to close the prison. Ramzi Kassem, an attorney who represents men detained at Guantánamo and Bagram and a professor who directs the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project at CUNY School of law, spoke of the injustices within terrorism detentions and prosecutions that occur domestically in the U.S. and abroad. Talat Hamdani, mother of Salman Hamdani, an emergency medical technician who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks while helping people at the Twin Towers in New York City, also called for the closure of Guantánamo.
According to habeas counsel who had spoken with their clients, the men at Guantánamo were heartened by the planned protests marking the anniversary in cities across the U.S. and planned their own peaceful protests to coincide with the rally in DC and to demand the end to their continued indefinite detention without charge or a fair trial. They planned to protest by staging sit-ins and participating in a three-day hunger strike.
Following the rally, the demonstrators marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, led by 171 people dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods representing the number of men still detained at Guantánamo. They continued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, holding brief rallies at four locations to demonstrate the chain of responsibility that connects the White House, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court. … Full article
January 12, 2012
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Four years after an Israeli soldier used his sniper rifle to kill a Palestinian civilian from Bethlehem district visiting family in the Ramallah district; an Israeli court acquitted the soldier and claimed that there is not enough evidence to convict the soldier, adding that no charges were filed against the shooter, the Arabs48 News Agency reported.
Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B’Tselem, issued a report stating that it filed an appeal to the Israeli High Court, on August 08, 2011, and was informed that the officer who shot and killed Firas Qasqas, 32, will be sent to court. But the prosecution never revealed what charges will be filed against the soldier.
Qasqas was killed on December, 02, 2007, when an Israeli soldier used his sniper rifle to kill him despite the fact that he was hundreds of meters away, was not armed and did not pose any threat.
The incident took place in At-Teera village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah; Qasqas, from Batteer village near Bethlehem, and his family, were visiting relatives in At-Teera.
In February last year, B’Tselem filed an appeal demanding the Military Prosecutor’s Office to act against the soldier.
According to B’Tselem’s investigation, at noon on December 2nd, Qasqas and two of his relatives were walking in an open area near the houses of At-Teera village, and then a number of Israeli soldiers, 500 meters away, opened fire at them without any prior warning.
The three were unarmed, and did not act in any way that might look suspicious. Qasqas was shot in the back, and the bullet exited from his chest. His two relatives rushed him to a local hospital in Ramallah but he died of his wounds.
After the fatal shooting, B’Tselem repeatedly contacted the Israeli Military Prosecution, asking it to open an investigation into the shooting, and two months later, the Military Prosecutor ordered an investigation and B’Tselem helped in collecting the testimonies of the two witnesses, and provided the investigators all related documentation.
On August 18, 2011, the Prosecution announced that the Central Command of the Israeli Military had concluded all investigations, and decided that the issue of filing charges against the officer should be considered, and that a hearing will be conducted in order to listen to the testimony of the commander who ordered the soldier to open fire.
The Defense attorney of the officer (Morr) claimed that “there is no way to prove that the cause of death was that bullet”, and that “there is no proof that anybody was killed in the incident in question”.
He also claimed that the medical reports are incomplete, and do not include the autopsy report that indicated the exact cause of death.
The court then decided to close the file of Qasqas without any indictment against any soldier, and claimed that “despite the fact the soldiers opened fire in violation to the open-fire regulations in the area, yet, the soldiers act in a practical manner as they opened fire when they felt that they were in danger”.
It also said that “despite the fact that the decision to open fire was wrong, the act is not a crime and does not even constitute negligence”.
January 11, 2012
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Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture |
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Around midnight on January 10th two international, female activists were attacked by a middle aged settler woman living in the occupied area of Hebron.
After entering Shuhada Street, which is closed to Palestinians, the two women encountered a settler woman who threw a large rock at them unprovoked. When they turned to see their attacker, the woman kicked them and tried to choke them by their kuffiyehs, Palestinian scarves worn in solidarity. Both internationals called for help and screamed, but the Israeli soldier on duty some 30 meters away did not intervene. The settler woman once again picked up a rock to renew her attack.
Knowing that if they were to defend themselves they would face assault charges, the two activists chose to flee their attacker instead. The soldier did nothing to either prevent nor respond to the attack, and when the internationals asked him to call the police, the soldier said simply he did not see anything.
When asked about his indifference to the attack, the soldier answered, “What would you do if someone is bothering the h*ll out of you?” and, “I’m not allowed to leave the area around my checkpoint.”
When the police finally arrived, the same soldier translated since the police officer refused to bring along an English-speaker. The police and soldiers took advantage of the situation to make fun of, cat call, and attempt to flirt with the international women.
Although they were given a detailed account of what happened, the police wrote nothing down and gave no information about what steps would be taken to address the event or prevent future occurrences.
When it was obvious that the police were not taking down any details, the internationals suggested them to raid the area’s Israeli settler neighborhood in the same way as soldiers raid Palestinian neighborhoods when there is a suspicion of a stone-throwing. The internationals were told not to interfere or to instruct the police in how to do their jobs, and were then ordered to leave the street.
As the internationals walked home, a police car and army jeep drove up and continued at a walking pace, sandwiching the women in between the vehicles. As they walked the police continued shouting and whistling cat calls at the internationals.
Hebron or al Khalil is a Palestinian city in the south of the West Bank. A few hundred Israeli settlers occupy the very city center from within, in an area known as H2. The Israeli army has implemented a policy of apartheid and strict separation citing the protection of the Jewish illegal settlers. Movement restrictions affects tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and have led to the destruction of Hebron’s commercial center and mass abandonment of the area, and have forced people to leave their homes. Yet, the approximately 2000 soldiers stationed in the area do little or nothing to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which continue to escalate. In addition, Israeli soldiers control entries and exits of H2 with several checkpoints. In cases of emergency, Palestinians’ lives are sometimes left in the hands of their occupiers, since neither Palestinian ambulances nor police are allowed into the occupied area of H2.
The occupation is illegal under international law, and many reports have raised concerns of human rights violations against Palestinians living in the area. In addition, there are many accounts where the soldiers have either stood by or assisted settlers in attacks against Palestinian residents and homes.
Attacks on internationals are nothing compared to what Palestinians face on a daily basis. International Solidarity Movement views the recent attack and the failures of soldiers and police to intervene as a further escalation and approval of settler violence, intended to worsen already unbearable circumstances for Palestinians living under occupation.
Emma and Meriam are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).
January 11, 2012
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Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular |
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Citing Attorney-Client Privilege, Col. J.P. Colwell Tells Military Lawyers That Following New Prison Rules Would Be Unethical
NEW YORK – The top defense lawyer for the Guantánamo military commission system has ordered the attorneys under his command not to comply with rules issued by the Guantánamo prison chief that require Defense Department screening of all written materials lawyers want to send to their clients.
In an email sent Sunday and obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, Marine Col. J.P. Colwell, the chief military defense counsel for the commissions, informed all military commission defense lawyers that they were ethically obligated to refuse to follow the rules, which were issued last month. The email is available on the ACLU website.
“Col. Colwell joins an honorable line of Guantánamo military lawyers who have opposed superiors’ attempts, ostensibly in the name of security, to undermine longstanding rules necessary for a fair trial,” said Zachary Katznelson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “In seeking to force military defense counsel to cast aside their professional ethical obligations of client confidentiality, the new rules fly in the face of American justice and tradition. Once again, the government’s actions show exactly why these cases need to be in federal court where the rules are established, fair and effective.”
Guantánamo’s commander, Navy Rear Adm. David Woods, issued the rules on monitoring legal communications on Dec. 27. Under the rules, any information provided by lawyers that military censors found objectionable, such as communications about U.S. personnel who tortured the prisoners, could be kept from the prisoner and brought to the attention of the base commander. This would eliminate attorney-client privilege.
The new prison rules say that defense attorneys must agree in writing to the monitoring as a condition of communication with their clients. In his email, Colwell told military commission defense lawyers that they should not sign the monitoring agreement, and if they already had signed, then they should immediately withdraw from the agreement. Citing the ethics codes that govern every branch of the military, Colwell wrote that following the agreement and revealing such information would be “in violation” of rules for professional conduct.
The rules on communication monitoring issued by Guantánamo’s commander are available at:
www.aclu.org/national-security/orders-governing-logistics-defense-counsel-access-and-written-communications
More information on Guantánamo is available at:
www.aclu.org/close-guantanamo
January 11, 2012
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RAMALLAH -Israel on Tuesday confiscated 75 tents belonging to the Palestinian Authority and detained drivers delivering the tents, ministers said.
Israeli forces confiscated five vehicles delivering the tents to residents of Khan al-Ahmar near Jericho, the PA cabinet said in a statement.
The drivers of the vehicle and employees of the company contracted to deliver the tents were detained and taken to Beit El military camp.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld had no immediate comment but said he would look into the report.
Israel is planning to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin community near Maale Adumin settlement, and forces have already destroyed homes in the camp. Settlers have filed a petition for the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar’s school.
The PA cabinet said the confiscation of tents was in line with Israel’s plan “to extradite the residents from their area by destroying and confiscating all means of life.”
January 11, 2012
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As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at Guantánamo Detention Center, several thousand miles away sits another United States detention facility, less well-known but with a history perhaps even more gruesome. Obscured throughout the decade-long “global war on terror,” the detention center at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan is where two detainees died in December 2002. Initial autopsies at the time ruled both deaths homicides, according to a 2,000-page confidential Army file obtained by the New York Times. Autopsies of the two dead detainees found severe trauma to both prisoners’ legs. The coroner for one of the dead noted, “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.”
In January 2009, to much fanfare, newly-elected President Barack Obama signed a directive authorizing the closing of Guantánamo Detention Center. But a month later the new administration discreetly told a federal judge that military detainees at Bagram had no habeas corpus rights to challenge their imprisonment. At the same time, the Pentagon was moving forward on plans to build a new prison in Bagram, renamed the “Detention Facility in Parwan” (DFIP). This facility was designed to accommodate 600 prisoners under normal conditions and as many as 1,100 during a “surge.”
Today, President Obama has abandoned his inaugural pledge to close Guantánamo and there are more than 3,000 detainees at Bagram — five times the number of prisoners when the president took office — with a scheduled expansion of the facility by the end of 2012 to house up to 5,500 detainees. One troubling constant across the developments at Bagram is the presence and involvement of psychologists at these facilities, which clearly violate international legal standards for the treatment of detainees. Among the military psychologists present during the early years of the Bagram prison were Colonel Morgan Banks, Captain Bryce Lefever, and Colonel Larry James, notable for their key roles in formulating American Psychological Association (APA) much-criticized ethics policy on psychologist-assisted interrogations.
According to Banks’ biographical statement, he “spent four months over the winter of 2001/2002 at Bagram Airfield.” More broadly, Banks provided technical, consultation, and interrogation support to all Army psychologists. He also assisted in establishing the Army’s first permanent SERE training program. As for Lefever’s biosketch, it notes that he also served at the detention center at Bagram Air Base. He “was deployed as the Joint Special Forces Task Force psychologist to Afghanistan in 2002, where he lectured to interrogators and was consulted on various interrogation techniques.”
The third military psychologist, James, was the Chief Psychologist for the Joint Intelligence Group at Guantánamo when, according to his book, Fixing Hell, he flew to Afghanistan to transfer three juveniles who had been forcibly and arbitrarily detained at Bagram. James described these boys as “the most fragile . . . children [he] had ever met,” yet he oversaw their being loaded onto a cargo plane at Bagram Air Force Base, “bound [and] blindfolded,” for a flight that typically lasted over 20 hours. Others who appear to have been transferred from Bagram to Guantánamo that same day reported being chained around the waist, wrists, back and ankles and the intense pain of being unable to speak, see, hear, move, or even stretch or breathe properly. The boys were essentially kidnapped, and were returned home a year later, having never had access to legal counsel and having never been charged with a crime.
Public information about exactly what transpires at Bagram today is scarce. The BBC was allowed a rare, one-hour visit to the new Parwan/Bagram prison in 2010. The report noted that “Prisoners are kept in 56 cells, which the prisoners refer to as ‘cages’. The front of the cells are made of mesh, the ceiling is clear, and the other three walls are solid. Guards can see down into the cells from above.” These detainees were moved around in wheelchairs, wearing goggles and headphones to block sight and sound.
In 2011, Daphne Eviatar, an attorney for Human Rights First, interviewed 18 former detainees from the main facility in Parwan and was permitted to observe seven detainee hearings there. In her detailed report she noted:
After many years of completely denying detainees in Afghanistan the opportunity to defend themselves against arbitrary detention, the United States government has finally implemented a hearing process that allows detainees to hear the charges against them and to make a statement in their own defense. Although a significant improvement, these new hearings fall short of minimum standards of due process required by international law.” [Emphasis added.]
In a subsequent interview with CBS News, Eviatar stated:
[Parwan] is worse than Guantánamo because there are fewer rights…There was no evidence presented, there was no questioning of the government’s evidence, whether this person had done anything wrong, whether he deserved to be in prison. So that’s a real problem — you have a complete lack of due process.
And in 2010 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed the existence of a separate, second detention facility at Parwan. Many former prisoners have referred to it as the Tor Jail, translated as “Black Jail.” Nine former prisoners interviewed separately by the BBC spoke of almost identical treatment there: distressingly cold cells, perpetual loud noise, constant light, and, violating any sense of privacy, camera surveillance. One former prisoner said American soldiers made him dance to music to obtain permission to use the toilet.
Today, there are clear indications that psychologists continue to be involved in the detention and interrogation of detainees at Parwan/Bagram. Such activities stand in direct contravention of APA policy based on a 2008 petition resolution. Approved through a member-led referendum, this resolution prohibits psychologists from working in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights” (or if they are providing treatment for military personnel).
Significant evidence that psychologists are working at Bagram/Parwan in violation of APA policy comes in part from a symposium on “Operational Problems in Behavioral Sciences” sponsored by the United States Air Force Medical Service in August 2011. The first slide of the partially redacted powerpoint presentation on the “BSCT Mission” describes the role of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) as providing: “…psychological expertise and consultation in order to assist the command in conducting safe, legal, ethical, and effective detention facility operations, intelligence interrogations, and detainee debriefing operations” (OTSG/MEDCOM Policy Memo 09-053).
A later slide reveals that the current BSCTs at the Parwan Detention Facility are composed of a psychologist or forensic psychiatrist, who must be licensed for independent practice, and a “behavioral science technician.” Further confirming the presence of psychologists, a June 2010 newspaper article about Parwan by the military editor of the Fayettville Observer notes: “Air Force Maj. Colin Burchfield, 34, a clinical psychologist, observes the behavior of both detainees and guards on TV monitors.”
Disturbingly, and contrary to the APA’s 2008 referendum policy, one of the key documents still used to support the ongoing involvement of psychologists at the Parwan facility is an earlier 2005 report from the APA’s “Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security” (the PENS Report). The PENS Report, cited in the Operational Problems powerpoint presentation described above, endorsed psychologists’ engagement in detainee interrogations — despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations and practices that violate international law.
Six of the nine voting members of the PENS Task Force were on the payroll of the U.S. military and/or intelligence agencies. Five of these six served in chains of command that had been accused of the kinds of abuses that led to the creation of the Task Force, including the three psychologists linked to the early Bagram prison: Dr. Morgan Banks, Dr. Bryce Lefever, and Dr. Larry James. The PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists have an important role to play in keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective,” and the APA Board approved the PENS Report in a highly unusual emergency vote.
The APA’s claims that it stands strongly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are belied by the organization’s repeated failure to take assertive and meaningful action. There is no clearer example than the continuing participation of psychologists in detention and interrogation activities at the Parwan/Bagram prison — a site where international law itself is seemingly confined indefinitely to a small, dark cell.
But health professionals, human rights advocates, and intelligence professionals of conscience worldwide have refused to accept this status quo. One noteworthy and promising effort is an online petition campaign calling for the annulment of APA’s PENS Report. The initiative has been supported by many distinguished members of APA, as well as non-psychologists such as psychiatrists Robert Jay Lifton and bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles; scholar-activists such as Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky; attorneys who have represented Guantanamo detainees; eminent veterans of the intelligence community; and many other psychologists and human rights advocates. Please consider joining this call and signing the petition at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens.
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Trudy Bond is an independent psychologist, steering committe member of Psycholgoists for Social Responsibility, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. For questions, responses or media contact, please contact her at drtrudybond@gmail.com.
Roy Eidelson is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com.
Brad Olson is an assistant professor and co-director of the Community Psychology Ph.D. Program in downtown Chicago. He is President-Elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) and co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology.
Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He edits the Psyche, Science, and Society blog. Soldz is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and served as a psychological consultant on several Guantánamo trials. Currently Soldz is Past-President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility [PsySR].
January 10, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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In this book, translated from German, Murat Kurnaz, a German Turk, tells his tragic story. When only nineteen and an apprentice shipbuilder, while taking time off in Pakistan for religious study, he was hauled off a bus and imprisoned for a short time before being `sold’ to the US Administration for $3,000. This was a bargain – the Americans were offering $5,000 – $25,000 to locals for anyone suspected of being Taliban or Al Qaeda. With such tempting offerings, many innocent men – usually foreigners – were gladly exchanged for the money which converted into huge amounts in the local currency.
Murat was sent first to a prison camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan and then later to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In both places he was repeatedly and relentlessly tortured. Among other things he was constantly beaten, often for no reason, he was water boarded, he was electrically shocked on the soles of his feet, he was hung from the ceiling by his arms tied behind him for hours on end, he was deprived of sleep for weeks at a time, he was forced to stand for days, he was starved, he was force fed, he was put in an air-tight metal container and subjected to extreme heat and cold and of course there were the months of solitary confinement. In Guantanamo he came across prisoners as young as 14 and a few even in their 80s and 90s.
Like all the books on Guantanamo, there is almost a shock a page. Besides the main tortures listed above, what I found almost as deplorable was how vindictive, sadistic and cruel the soldiers were to the detainees in little ways, all the time and always there were endless lies. Also appalling were Murat’s descriptions of female soldiers in one of the camps, watching while naked male prisoners defecated in a communal bucket in the open pen. And in Guantanamo, scantily dressed young women rubbed themselves against him and made sexual suggestions. One wonders if their male superiors ordered them to do this or if they thought up these little torments themselves. But it should also be said that a few guards treated the detainees with basic decency.
At the end of the book we learn that the Administration knew 6 months into Murat’s capture that he was innocent, but kept him on, continued the torture and even made wild accusations against him – presumably to save face. After 5 years when he was finally to be sent back to Germany, on the way out they made a last ditch effort to make him sign a statement saying he was either Taliban or Al Qaeda or he must stay in Cuba. He refused.
How do we know all this is true? Having read so many similar accounts from so many prisoners of many different nationalities and languages, from different cell blocks, who could not have collaborated, I am convinced that what is described is essentially what happened. The Epilogue, written by his American attorney, Baher Azmy, a law professor in New Jersey, is excellent.
Murat was robbed of part of his youth with no explanation or apology so it is hardly surprising he felt compelled to tell his story. He finishes with – “We have to tell the world how Abdul lost his legs and how the Moroccan captain lost his fingers. The world needs to know about the prisoners who died in Kandahar. We have to describe how the doctors came only to check whether we were dead or could stand to be tortured for a little longer.”
January 8, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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Hundreds of French people have taken to the streets in the city of Clermont-Ferrand to denounce the police’s heavy-handed tactics against residents.
Over five hundred people attended the silent march on Saturday to show their support for Wissam El-Yamini, a thirty year old man who went into coma following his arrest on New Year’s Eve.
Scores of young residents also staged a sit-in protest outside the city’s police station, holding a banner that said “No one above law, stop burr, we are all with you Wissam”.
Wissam was violently arrested on the night of December 31 by two officers near a shopping center in the district of Gauthière.
According to the local police, Wissam went into coma after having a heart attack while he was being transported to the police station.
The incident has provoked violent riots across Clermont-Ferrand. During the last two nights, angry protesters set fire to more than thirty vehicles across the city.
January 8, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture |
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BETHLEHEM — Israel has been refusing to clear a minefield in the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, for decades, the village’s municipal council chairman, Jamal Sabatin, said.
He told Quds Press on Saturday that the minefield, which was planted in 1950, had killed six citizens and seriously wounded 15 others, who had their limbs amputated.
Sabatin said that the American society “Roots of Peace” had set up a plan on Friday to remove those mines but the plan was pending Israeli approval, charging that Israel has been adamantly refusing all plans to demine that field.
He said that international reports indicated that hundreds of thousands of mines were planted by the Israeli forces in various Palestinian areas.
January 7, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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On December 9, 2011, in the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank an Israeli soldier inside an armored military jeep fired a tear gas canister at close range directly at the face of Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi during a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements on Nabi Saleh’s land. Mustafa died from his wounds the next day. Protesters did not manage to collect the actual tear gas canister fired at him. However, residents of Nabi Saleh have collected samples of the types of tear gas canisters that the Israeli army uses against Nabi Saleh’s weekly protests, including the specific type of tear gas canister – same size and shape – that hit Mustafa. The type of canister that killed Mustafa can be seen in the January 11 and 13, 2012, photos below taken in Nabi Saleh by Bilal Tamimi. The canister has a headstamp on it that reads CTS. CTS stands for Combined Tactical Systems, a brand name of Combined Systems Inc., in Jamestown, PA. Adalah-NY received these photos from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
In addition to ubiquitous CSI/CTS canisters found at Palestinian protests, evidence of CSI sales and shipments to Israel is clear. An April 30, 2008, cable available through Wikileaks from the US State Department in Washington DC to the US State Department in Tel Aviv requests clearance for shipment to Israel’s police of the following equipment from CSI: 1,000 Rubber Ball Hand Grenades, 1,000 Tactical Grenades Flash Bang, 1,000 Sting-Ball Grenades, 1,000 Flash Bang Training, and 1,000 Super-Sock Bean Bags. The shipment was part of a larger $5 million agreement between the Israeli police and CSI. An Israeli government website shows that on August 4th, 2011, the Israeli police purchased 6 million shekels ($1.56 million) worth of stun grenades from CSI without issuing a tender.
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