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1500 deaths reported in India custody

Press TV – December 22, 2011

A human rights body says more than 1,500 people died in custody in India in 2010, most of them from being tortured.

According to the data released by India’s Human Rights Commission, most of the deaths in prison and police custody took place in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

After Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharasthra recorded most deaths in custody with 136 and 130 counts respectively.

Twenty-two custodial deaths were also reported from the capital, New Delhi.

This is while the Indian government routinely attributes deaths in custody to illness, attempted escape, suicide and accidents.

The New Delhi-based Asian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) said in a report released on November 28, 2011, that 12,727 also died in judicial custody across India between 2001 and 2010.

“A large majority of these deaths are a direct consequence of torture in custody,” the ACHR said. “These deaths reflect only a fraction of the problem with torture and custodial deaths in India.”

“Torture remains endemic, institutionalized and central to the administration of justice and counter-terrorism measures,” the report added, urging the Indian government to demonstrate the “political will” to end the abuse.

December 22, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Who stole Christmas?

Gaza Gateway | December 19, 2011

Christmas cheer came a bit early for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ (COGAT) announcement of goodwill gestures for Christians during the holiday season. It would appear that Santa has decided that 500 Palestinian Christians from Gaza who are under the age of 16 and over the age of 46 have been nice this year and so deserve a chance to visit family in Israel and the West Bank and participate in religious festivities at holy sites outside the Strip.

It’s a welcome gesture and certainly important that the principles of freedom of movement and freedom of religious worship, as well as goodwill, find expression in COGAT’s actions.

But a closer look at the goodwill gesture suggests that the Grinch – and not just Santa Claus – has been at work. In this year’s stocking for Gaza’s Christians is a rollback of their ability to access holy sites on the holidays, relative to past years: Israel has raised the age of those banned from traveling to 46 years old, rather than 35 years old, and has set a quota of just 500 people being allowed to travel, even though about 600 Christians traveled last year.

Whether they have been naughty or nice, at least two-thirds of Gaza’s approximately 1,500 Christians, including all those between the ages of 16-46 who are excluded from the gesture, won’t be able to celebrate the holiday with their family members who meet the criteria and do squeeze into the quota. That means a family of six, with mom and dad over the ages of 46 but with children aged 20, 16, 14, and 7 will either have to forfeit the chance to travel or the option of spending Christmas together.

Last year at Christmas, and even this past Easter, the criteria stipulated that those over 35 years of age could receive permits. It’s not clear why this Christmas only those over 46 can travel. Israel’s policy is even more restrictive for Muslims in Gaza: Muslims of any age can’t travel to holy sites, a policy approved in the courts earlier this year, so I guess we have to be grateful for small miracles. In any case, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

December 19, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Child in critical condition after being hit by Israeli settler bus

Ma’an – 18/12/2011

NABLUS – A child was seriously injured on Sunday after being run over by a settler bus on a road south of Nablus.

Palestinian official Ghassan Douglas said that a bus belonging to settlers hit Muhammad Munjid, a student at elementary school, while he was crossing the street.

Witnesses in Nablus told Ma’an that Israeli police had shut the road and were investigating whether the incident was accidental or not.

The child was taken to hospital and is in a serious condition.

Witnesses said that a group of settlers also exited the bus and attacked a man named as Fadi Ahmad Samara, 32, who was at the scene of the incident.

Settler attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians have increased by more than 50 percent this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli settlers number 500,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, living in Jewish-only communities that are illegal under international law.

December 18, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Palestine: Wave of Arrests since First Phase of Prisoner Exchange

Adameer | December 15, 2011

Ramallah – Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have arrested nearly 470 Palestinians since 18 October 2011, when 477 Palestinian political prisoners were released in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as part of the first phase of the prisoner exchange deal concluded by the Israeli government and Hamas authorities. This wave of arrests reveals that the exchange deal has not deterred Israel’s policy of detention of Palestinians; rather, Israeli prisons are being refilled with almost the exact number of Palestinians that were released in October. Even the released prisoners were not safe from harassment, as the IOF has regularly raided their homes, issued summons to meet with Israeli intelligence and re-arrested one individual.

The 470 Palestinians who were arrested between 18 October and 12 December include about 70 children and 11 women. The IOF continued to employ brutal methods of arrest, including the use of undercover Israeli forces, commonly known as musta’arabeen, who dress as Palestinian civilians in order to carry out ambushes and arrests of Palestinians from their homes and places of work. In many cases, joint army and intelligence raids occurred after midnight, where soldiers deliberately destroyed contents of the houses they were searching. Of the 70 children arrested during this period, the majority are from Shuafat camp in Jerusalem and Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem. In the past two weeks alone, 11 children were arrested in Shuafat and 10 in Dheisheh. Two of the 11 women arrested in the past two months remain in detention. One of the released women is Isra Salhab, a journalist who spent more than 20 days in Moskobiyyeh interrogation center. Six of the women were arrested during a demonstration outside Hasharon prison, where they were calling for the release of female prisoners not included in the first phase of the prisoner exchange. Three of these women were released shortly after their arrest, and three were sentenced to house arrest.

Political activists were especially targeted for arrest during this period. Approximately 150 arrests of alleged party members occurred, particularly including those whom the IOF claims are active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), some of whom received indictments issued against them, while others received administrative detention orders. The IOF has continued to arrest and renew administrative detention orders of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Two PLC members were arrested since 18 October, the administrative detention orders of 6 PLC members were renewed and one PLC member received a 30-year sentence. Furthermore, on 27 October, following a mass hunger strike protesting punitive measures against prisoners including the use of isolation, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) renewed the isolation order for Ahmad Sa’adat for another year. At the beginning of December, Ahmad entered his 34th consecutive month in isolation.

The IOF also continued to carry out arrests against human rights defenders in order to further repress the popular resistance movement. During the past two months, arrests of protestors participating in peaceful demonstrations occurred in almost all of the villages with an active weekly demonstration. These arrests include at least 2 from Bil’in, 3 from Nabi Saleh, 17 from Beit Ummar, 3 from Al-Ma’asara, 1 from Kufr Qaddum and 2 from Al-Walajeh, with arrests in East Jerusalem and the South Hebron Hills as well. In addition to these arrests, the IOF used extreme violence to disperse demonstrations, resulting in the death of protestor Mustafa Tamimi, 28, on 10 December. Mustafa was fatally injured when hit by a teargas canister in the head fired at close range by an Israeli soldier on 9 December, during the weekly demonstration against the Israeli settlements and Annexation Wall in Nabi Saleh. The arrests of human rights defenders, use of violence against peaceful protestors and threats to family members of activists are in clear violation of Palestinians’ right to freedom of expression and assembly.

In light of this heightened wave of arrests, Addameer is concerned about what will happen after the conclusion of the second phase of the prisoner exchange deal. The IPS has announced that 550 prisoners will be released on Sunday 18 December. Addameer calls for the implementation of the rights of released prisoners and urges the international community, including the United Nations and European Union, to intervene rapidly to prevent Israel from its continued practice of brutal and arbitrary detention.

December 16, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

The Criminal in Chief

By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO | CounterPunch | December 16, 2011

Liberals in Congress and in the general public have allowed their blind devotion to Obama obscure their understanding of the dramatic parallels between this administration and the previous one.  Obama’s high-minded idealistic rhetoric (which Bush also engaged in, it should be pointed out) may sound great to establishment liberals, but it masks the same contempt for the rule of law that was displayed so often in the Bush imperial presidency.  Now, Obama’s contempt for the Constitution is on display for all to see, although many will not like what they see.

Nowhere is this contempt for the highest laws of the land clearer than in Obama’s complete refusal to protect basic due process rights for alleged terrorists and detainees in the “War on Terror.”  Case in point: Obama’s commitment to illegally detain American citizens under the name of fighting terrorism (more on this in a bit).

Before getting into Obama’s most recent attacks on the Constitution, I should note that they are part of a larger historical pattern of contempt for basic civil liberties.  Count among Obama’s previous transgressions:

1. The decision to refrain from prosecuting the Bush administration for its many violations of the law, including the NSA wiretaps scandal, the Guantanamo-enemy combatant fiasco, the systematic lying about the reasons for war in Iraq, and the willful skirting of the Geneva Conventions as seen in the Abu Ghraib scandal, among other deceptions;

2. The decision to continue using rendition, where terrorist suspects would be sent to third world dictatorships to be interrogated, coupled with the absurd promise that these governments would no longer torture detainees (as they did under Bush), because the new interrogations were in service of the noble and selfless Obama, unlike Bush, who was a bad, bad man; and

3. Obama’s expanded “War on Terror” as seen in the Afghan surge, which would have been protested endlessly if it occurred under the Bush administration.

The Los Angeles Times’ reporting in early 2009 perfectly symbolized the naiveté of liberal aspirations for the president, as the paper reported on Obama’s tortured promise (no pun intended) that the CIA would continue to use rendition, but that foreign interrogators simply wouldn’t torture anymore.  Such a promise was outlandish on the face of it, since the whole point behind rendition is to outsource torture to allied governments which are better able to hide their use of torture in interrogations (this was the lesson learned at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, where U.S. interrogators were eventually implicated in coercive interrogations and torture).

As the LA Times optimistically reported at the time of Obama’s inauguration: “The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba… Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.  Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism… for taking suspected terrorists off the street.”  The LA Times continued: “Obama created a task force to reexamine renditions to make sure that they ‘do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture,’ or otherwise circumvent human rights laws and treaties.  The CIA has long maintained that it does not turn prisoners over to other countries without first obtaining assurances that the detainees will not be mistreated.”  Such naiveté was no doubt embraced by Obama supporters who wanted to believe that Obama could never engage in the kind of torture of detainees that so regularly characterized the actions of the Bush administration.

Now Obama appears to be ready to strengthen his contempt for the rule of law via his expansion of the enemy combatant system, while slyly refusing to refer to those detained as “enemy combatants.”   Much was made of Obama’s initial attempts (in 2009) to shut down Guantanamo and send detainees there to U.S. civilian courts, where they would be granted basic due process rights.  That plan was shut down by Democrats in Congress, which have long displayed their basic distaste for basic Constitutional and other legal protections for “terrorist suspects.”  Obama kowtowed to Congressional criminality in 2009, and is set to do it again this year.  As the New York Times recently reported, Obama has now abandoned his promise to veto the “military authorization bill” being considered in Congress, which threatens to extend denial of due process to American citizens who are suspected of terrorist activities.  Let me repeat that in case you missed it: Obama has now gone on record as openly supportive of denying American citizens (not only non-citizens) basic due process rights such as the right to trial, trial by peers, and right to legal representation.

As the New York Times reports: “The administration had threatened to veto versions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 passed by the House and the Senate, arguing that provisions would open the door for the military to perform policing functions inside the United States…But the bill includes a narrower provision, drafted by the Senate, authorizing the government to detain, without trial, suspected members of Al Qaeda or its allies — or those who ‘substantially supported’ them — bolstering the authorization it enacted a decade ago against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks…Another section would require officials to hold noncitizens suspected of being Qaeda operatives in military custody.”

Of course, the traditionally slavish U.S. media spared Americans the worst details of the new legislation.  The Guardian reports that the new law potentially “allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.”  Neither of these details was acknowledged in the New York Times’ report on the National Defense Authorization Act, to the delight of the Obama administration.

It’s truly tragic and sad that this “debate” over circumvention of basic rights granted in the Constitution has to be replayed yet again in the United States.  The Bush administration was rightly condemned for its complete contempt for the Constitution, but American liberals seem content to ignore these same transgressions when engaged in by Democrats.

For the record, there is nothing remotely controversial about the conclusion that denying citizens and non-citizens alike basic due process rights in civilian courts is illegal under national and international law.  As the Supreme Court ruled in the 2004 case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, military tribunals for terrorist suspects clearly violate basic protections granted under the Geneva Conventions, which require that suspects be tried in “regularly constituted courts.”  A regularly constituted court is widely understood to be the equivalent of a civilian court, conferring within it basic protections to confront accusers, benefit from a trial of one’s peers, and to be protected against hearsay, majority (rather than unanimous voting), and to confidential attorney-client privileges.  All of these protections are circumvented in military tribunals, which afford a far lower level of basic protections to the accused.  Such due process protections carry the force of domestic law, in light of the fact that the Geneva Conventions are U.S. ratified foreign treaties, and are protected under the Constitution’s “supremacy clause,” which places foreign treaties on par with national laws and the Constitution itself as the highest form of law in the land.  The Supreme Court also found that the Geneva Conventions protections for non-citizens (to have access to a trial in a civilian court) were protected via the Uniform Military Code of Justice, which also incorporates basic Geneva Conventions protections.

The outlawing of the “enemy combatant” designation and the indefinite detainment of non-citizens was also reinforced in the Supreme Court’s 2004 Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld decision, which declared the Bush administration’s detainment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo to be illegal and unconstitutional.  The Constitution states explicitly in the 6th Amendment that: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury… and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”  Critics will no doubt point out that the 6th Amendment refers to basic protections granted to those who are charged with crimes allegedly committed within (rather than outside) the United States.  This criticism is irrelevant, however, with regard to the new legislation being considered in Congress, which is set to apply to American citizens and their (alleged) illegal activities committed on U.S. soil.  Furthermore, the Constitution does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in the case of alleged crimes and due process rights, as addressed in the Fifth Amendment, which explicitly states that “no person [rather than no citizen]… shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”  This provision essentially makes illegal and unconstitutional any attempts by presidents or congress to deny basic due process to citizens and non-citizens.

Obama’s lawless infringements on basic Constitutional principles are (fortunately) opposed by a strong majority of Americans, who still maintain a commitment to the rule of law.  Polling on the denial of due process is in short supply, but what little evidence exists suggests strong rejection of the circumvention of the Constitution.  A 2006 poll published by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, for example, uncovers the following findings:

–       73 percent of Americans believe terrorism “suspects should have the right to request and receive a hearing.”

–       66 percent think that the “home government and families [of detainees] should be informed of their capture and location.”

–       73 percent feel that detainees “treatment should be monitored by the Red Cross or another international organization” to ensure that they are treated humanely

–       75 percent (contrary to Obama’s reliance on rendition and torture) feel that detainees “should not be tortured,” while 57 percent think that detainees “should not be threatened with torture.”

–       63 percent agree that “the rules for treating someone who is being detained because they are suspected of terrorist activities should be the same for citizens and non-citizens.”

–       57 percent feel “the United States should not permit U.S. military and intelligence agencies to secretly send terrorism suspects to other countries that are known to use torture.”

–       78 percent believe that it would be “somewhat” or “very likely” that these suspects “were tortured even if officials [as Obama has done today] say they would not be.”

American majority sentiment is very clearly opposed to the Obama administration’s continuation of the illegal attacks on the Constitution and basic due process rights.  We have an opportunity today to send a message to our members of Congress that denial of due process is unacceptable regardless of the party of the president.  Simply because Congress decides to initiate illegal acts doesn’t mean that they are any less unconstitutional.   Political elites may have no interest in this basic lesson, but that doesn’t mean that Americans have to accept such draconian, authoritarian arguments.  I strongly urge all those committed to the rule of law to contact their legislators in the House and Senate and urge them strongly to vote no against the authorization of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

To look up your members of Congress, see the following links:

For the House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

For the Senate: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

~

Anthony DiMaggio is the author of numerous books, including most recently The Rise of the Tea Party,  and  other works such as Crashing the Tea Party (2011); When Media Goes to War (2010); and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008).  He has taught American politics and International Relations in Political Science at a number of colleges and universities, and can be reached at: adimag2@uic.edu

December 16, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Palestinian village struggles against “quiet transfer”

By Emma Mancini | Alternative Information Center | December 14, 2011
al-aqaba-demolition
Three sisters, moments before a home demolition in Al Aqaba, in the West Bank (photo: flickr/frecklebaum)

Surrounded by two training military camps, in Area C, Al Aqaba’s population has gone from 1000 in 1967, the beginning of the Israeli military occupation of West Bank, to the current 300.

Al Aqaba is part of Tubas district, in the northeastern area of the West Bank, near the entrance of the Jordan Valley. A fertile land, rich with water resources, its geography attracted the attention of the Israeli Army which has used the area for military training of all kinds. Sami Sadiq, head of the Al Aqaba local council, explains, “Al Aqaba is surrounded by two military camps, used for the training of ground forces, tanks and air force. After the 1967 war, the village area was declared a closed military zone for ‘security reasons.’ Since that moment, they started building three training camps that host thousands of soldiers every year. They come here for one or two months and then they are sent to their respective units.”

“From 1971 to the present,” Sadiq adds, “the soldiers killed 13 Palestinians and injured at least 50.”

Sadiq is among them, having taken three bullets to his back. One is too close to his heart to be extracted. He has spent the past 38 years in a wheelchair. But, still, he continues to protest against the occupation.

After a petition was submitted by the residents of Al Aqaba in 2003, one of the three camps was closed: it was located exactly in the entrance of the village, making life impossible because of dangerous trainings and movement restrictions. But the two other bases remain and, Sadiq says, “The hills around Al Aqaba are a closed military zone. The aim of the Israeli Civil Administration is to declare the village a closed military zone, in order to force all the inhabitants to leave their own houses.

According to the Israeli law civilians are strictly forbidden from accessing closed military zones.

“The Israelis’ goal is obvious,” Sadiq says. “This land is very fertile and rich in water resources. They want to empty the area of its original Palestinian inhabitants and colonize it, confiscating the land and water.”

A “quiet transfer” is already happening, through demolitions, land confiscations, and the denial of basic services, such as running water.

“In Al Aqaba the water system doesn’t exist,” Sadiq says. “It has never been authorized by the [Israeli] Civil Administration, which has total control of the area: the village is forced to buy water tanks and to fill the wells. And the connection to the electricity network was allowed just three years ago. Before we were using a generator.”

“The oldest house in Al Aqaba dates back to 1930 [18 years before the state of Israel was established],” Sadiq continues. “Nevertheless, Israeli authorities accuse every single family of the village of building their homes illegally. So, they carry out demolitions. This year they destroyed Salam Street twice, in April and in September.”

95% of the buildings in the village are under demolition order. Among them the health center, the kindergarten and the mosque. A petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, submitted in 2004 by Al Aqaba residents in order to cancel the orders, was rejected on the 7 of April 2008. The lawyer for the village, Tusja-Cohen, asked a team of experts to come up with a new plan, to make the buildings “legal” under Israeli law and to obtain the required permits for the owners.

But the Court didn’t accept this petition and authorized the demolitions. The last ones date back on 15th of September: the Army destroyed two kilometers of the only road connecting the village to the Jordan Valley and demolished two houses along Salam Street. In addition, there are the land confiscations: “Thousands of dunams were confiscated by Israel in order to build the three military camps,” Sadiq explains. “During the trainings, the soldiers destroy olive trees and agricultural lands. It seems to be war [training]: once they simulated the fall of a plane.”

According to Sadiq, soldiers sometimes use houses and streets inside the village for military training, “Dozens of soldiers enter suddenly and exercise as though they are preparing for war in the middle of a city, between narrow roads. Over the years, this has caused Palestinian residents [to leave].”

House demolitions, land confiscations, lack of services, and accidental deaths due to military training have effectively depopulated Al Aqaba as many families have moved to Tubas and Nablus.

December 14, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Gingrich would “instruct” CIA to “hunt down” freed Palestinian prisoners

By Ali Abunimah – The Electronic Intifada – 12/11/2011

After declaring that Palestinians are an “invented people,” US presidential hopeful and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, has said that he would instruct the CIA to hunt down Palestinian prisoners released last October in an exchange negotiated by Israel and Hamas, presumably to kill them.

Gingrich made the comments in a conference call organized by the National Council Young Israel posted on YouTube by the website The Yeshiva World News, in response to a question about whether he had been in favor of the prisoner exchange:

I refuse to second guess the people of Israel doing what they believe is necessary both on a humanitarian level and out of their love for one of their children. I would say flatly that we made no such deal. I’m told that at least thirty of the people released were involved in killing Americans, and I would instruct the CIA to hunt down those thirty.

The comments can be heard at 19:51 in the YouTube recording of Gingrich’s interview.

Gingrich provided no evidence for his claim about the Palestinians being involved in killing Americans. Since the 1990s, the CIA has worked closely and openly with the Palestinian Authority both under the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But the CIA’s role has been to assist the Palestinian Authority to collaborate more effectively with Israel, rather than to carry out extrajudicial executions of Palestinians.

It is unknown how Israel would view the United States carrying out assassinations within territory it controls.

Support for settlements

In the interview, Gingrich also stated that he had no problem with Israel building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

December 11, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Israeli forces killed 19 Palestinian children in Gaza in 2011

Palestine Information Center – 10/12/2011

GAZA — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have killed 19 Palestinian children and wounded 200 others during attacks on the Gaza Strip in the course of 2011, medical sources said on Saturday.

Adham Abu Salmiya, the spokesman for the ambulance and emergency department, said in a statement that the youngest of those killed was two-year-old Malek Shaat followed by three-year-old Islam Quraqai.

He said that one third of the wounded in IOF attacks on Gaza in 2011 were children, noting that one of them, ten-year-old Yousef Al-Za’lan, was still in intensive care after the Israeli raid on Friday in which his father and younger brother were killed.

Abu Salmiya charged the IOF with deliberately targeting civilians especially children, adding that the IOF shelling of residential neighborhoods in Gaza at a late night hour has serious psychological impacts on children.

He asked all human rights groups and those concerned with child welfare to urgently intervene and pressure Israel to halt its crimes against children in Gaza and to secure a safe life for them.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers assault taxi driver at West Bank crossing

Ma’an – 10/12/2011

JENIN – Israeli soldiers manning a West Bank crossing to the Jenin village of Barta assaulted a taxi driver on Saturday.

Haitham Ibrahim Kabha, 37, is in al-Razi hospital suffering from bruising on his neck and back, a Ma’an reporter said.

Official news agency Wafa reported that Kabha suffered a fracture in his back.

“I was planning to go to Jenin through Barta crossing which is the only entrance and exit to the town,” Kabha, a taxi driver, said, but he was prevented from leaving by soldiers.

He then asked to speak to a senior official.

“When the officer came, he accused me of insulting a soldier. He asked me to step out of the car and with 8 other soldiers they beat me with their feet, hands and the back of their guns.

“After that I didn’t feel a thing until I woke up in the hospital,” Kabha said.

Kabha’s brother, Baha, said that despite screaming in pain, soldiers kept on beating him until he passed out. A Magen David Adom ambulance was close by but didn’t offer any help, Baha added.

“Israeli soldiers prevented any Palestinian ambulance from helping Haitham when he lost consciousness; they kept back the ambulance for half an hour until they were pressured by protests at the crossing,” he said.

The eastern section of Barta is completely enclosed by the separation wall and there are two crossing points to the village.

An Israeli military spokeswoman deferred calls to the Israeli Defense Ministry who did not answer a call from Ma’an seeking comment.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

No miracle yesterday in Nabi Saleh: Mustafa Tamimi murdered

Linah Alsaafin, Ramallah | The Electronic Intifada | 10 December 2011

“Ambulance! Ambulance!”

So far, there were three people who had suffocated from the tear gas, and three people injured by rubber bullets. I saw gas, and so assumed that it was another case of suffocation. But the cries got louder, urgent, desperate — quite unlike the previous calls. Along with those around me, we began running to where the injured person lay, 50 meters away.

Screams. “Mustafa! Mustafa!”

I ran faster. I stopped. The youth I was so used to, the same ones who were always teasing and joking and smoking, were crying. One turned to me and groaned, “His head. His head is split into two!”

My stomach plummeted and I forgot to breathe. Exaggeration, I thought. Impossible. Not here. More screams of “Mustafa!”

I saw the man lying on the ground. I saw the medic with one knee on the ground, his face a mask of shock. I saw his bloodied gloved hands.

Mustafa’s sister was screaming his name. I saw Mustafa. I saw the blood, the big pool of dark red blood. I saw the blood dripping from his head to the ground as they carried him and put him in a taxi, since the ambulance was nowhere to be found. I saw other the tear-streaked faces of other activists, and all I felt was numbness.

Mustafa’s sister Ola was still screaming, so I put my arms around her as she buried her head in my chest. I was babbling, “It’s ok, he’s gonna be fine, it’s ok” but she kept on screaming. Her screams and the disturbing reactions of those around me made my legs numb. Ola then left to go to the watchtower where the taxi with her brother was, and my state of shock crumbled as I gasped out my tears in the arms of my friend.

The first protester death in Nabi Saleh

Friday, 9 December marked the second year since the tiny village began its weekly demonstrations protesting the expropriation of their land for the neighboring illegal settlement of Halamish, and the confiscation of the village’s main water supply, the Kaws Spring. It also marked the 24th anniversary of the first intifada. Fittingly, it seemed only natural the Israeli army would react with more violence than usual. But never did we expect someone to be killed. It’s too awful to think about. Nabi Saleh has a population of around 500 people. Everyone knows everyone in this tight-knit community, so when one gets killed, a big part of us dies also.

Mustafa, 28 years old, was critically injured after Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister at his face, and died at a hospital after his treatment was delayed by the occupation forces who had invaded the village to repress the weekly demonstration.

One difference that distinguishes Nabi Saleh from other villages with popular resistance committees, like Nilin, Bilin, Biddu and Budrus is that no one has been killed, or martyred in the protests. Beaten up, yes. Arrested, ditto. But never a death. Until yesterday.

My humanity is only human

Just before Mustafa went into the operating room, some good news came through. He had not suffered any cognitive damages to his brain, although he suffered a brain hemorrhage. There was a chance his eye might be saved. Relief washed over us. We tweeted, “please #Pray4Mustafa.”

I had pictured myself going to Nabi Saleh the next day, not the following Friday. I had imagined sitting in a room with weeping women, after passing by the somber men sitting outside. I had envisioned a funeral and an inconsolable Ola with her mother. Thank God there was a reassuring chance he would be ok. We’d make fun of his bandaged face, just like we did to Abu Hussam when a rubber bullet hit him under the eye a few weeks ago.

Then I got the call that Mustafa had succumbed to his wounds.

My humanity is only human. I hate my enemy. A deep vigorous hatred that courses through my veins whenever I come into contact with them or any form of their system. My humanity is limited. I cannot write a book titled I Shall Not Hate especially if my three daughters and one niece were murdered by my enemy. My humanity is faulty. I dream of my enemy choking on tear gas fired through the windows of their houses, of having their fathers arrested on trumped-up charges, of them wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets, of them being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged away for interrogations that are spliced with bouts of torture.

The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. I screamed at them: “Nazis, terrorists, vermin, programmed killing machines.”

They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”

I thought of Mustafa’s younger brother, imprisoned all these eight months. I thought of that brother’s broken jaw and his subsequent stay in the prison hospital. I thought of Juju (Jihad Tamimi), he of the elfin face who arrested a few days ago with no rights to see a lawyer after being wanted by the army for more than a year. I shuddered to think of the reactions of these imprisoned men from the village — Uday, Bassem, Naji, Jihad, Saeed – once they received the news.

I got the call just after 11pm Friday night. I was sworn to secrecy, since his family didn’t want to make it public yet. Anger, bitterness and sorrow overwhelmed me. I cried at my kitchen table.

I hate my enemy. I can’t go to sleep. The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. They yells, the wailing, the groans, the sobbing all fill my ears like water gushing inside a submarine, dragging me further into a cold dark abyss.

I sought out religion as a source of comfort, yet it didn’t alleviate the anguish. His life was written in al-Lawh al-Mahfooz (The Preserved Tablet) since before he was born. His destiny was to become a martyr. How sweet that will be in the afterlife! But here on this earth, his sister is beside herself. His mother is hurting enormously. Her firstborn gone, no longer to drink the tea she makes or to make her laugh with his jokes.

The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. A bloody pulp on one side of his face. The pool of blood rapidly increasing. (Mama, there was so much blood.) His mouth slightly open, lying supine on the cold road. His sister screaming, her face twisted in grief. The young men weeping, looking like little boys again.

I hate them for making us suffer

I loathe my enemy. I will never forgive, I will never forget. People who say such hatred transforms a person into a bitter cruel shell know nothing of the Israeli army. This hatred will not cripple me. What does that mean anyway? Do I not continue to write? Do I not continue to protest? Do I not continue to resist? Hating them sustains me, as opposed to normalizing with them. Their hatred of me makes reinforces the truth of their being murderous machines. My hatred of them makes me human.

I can’t sleep. The shock flows in and then dissipates, before flooding back in again. I see no justification is implementing such violence on a civilian population, no sense in the point-blank murder of a man whose rights are compromised, and whose land is colonized and occupied.

Sure as hell, you will not be forgotten. You will become an icon, a symbol, and the added impetus for persisting and continuing your village’s struggle which reflects the plight of the average Palestinian for its basic rights, equality, and justice.

I hate them for making us suffer. Hating them will give me more strength to shatter their barbaric supremacist ideology, and to bring them under the heavy heel of justice. We’ve suffered so much. I hate them for not giving credit to our sumoud (steadfastness), and so continue to kill and dispossess and imprison and humiliate us.

They killed you, Mustafa. My insides crumple. You, in front of me. My tears are drawn from the depth of my wounded soul. You were engaged to be married. You were wanted by the army because of who you are: a Palestinian who resists the occupation he directly suffers from. I think of your father being denied a permit to be with you, of your mother who had to be granted permission by them to see you in the hospital. I think of your quiet, sardonic expression.

Your screaming sister. Your blood. Your murderers’ smiles.

Linah Alsaafin is a recent graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and was raised in England, the United States and Palestine. Her website is http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Where’s My Friend?


Walid with his children. (Photo: Via Sam Bahour)
By Sam Bahour | Palestine Chronicle | December 9, 2011

My friend is Walid Abu Rass. He is the Finance and Administration Manager for the Health Work Committees (HWC, at www.hwc-pal.org), one of the largest community health service providers in the occupied Palestinian territory. HWC serves over 500,000 patients/beneficiaries per year! More on HWC in a second.

I had not seen Walid for a while. We are both knee deep in Palestine’s daily rat race. About two months ago, Walid and his HWC colleagues called for a meeting of their circle of friends. They sought assistance. HWC was going through some financial hard times, especially with the financial crisis in Europe, where many of their donors are based.

Given it was close to the end of year, a season when I usually donate some time to assist a community based organization to fundraise, I offered to volunteer. Walid was my counterpart. During the past weeks, we were in daily phone and email contact, and every few days we met up to visit a potential local donor. Progress was being made. We then started to plan, with a few others, an end-of-year fundraising raffle. Plans were coming together, and there was excitement among the team and staff that we were taking our fundraising needs to our local community to compensate for the loss in European institutional funding. This is even more significant since HWC does not accept funding with strings attached (“conditional donor funds”), so they have to struggle just to keep the doors open in this tainted donor-driven market.

For nearly a week I was emailing Walid with no reply. This was not like him. He and I nearly live behind our keyboards. The deadline for the raffle details was rapidly approaching and if we did not get started, we would miss the end of year opportunity for fundraising. I started to think Walid was mad at me for some reason. I rethought our last few weeks of working together. There was absolutely nothing there to cause him to just ignore my calls; after all, I was his volunteer counterpart.

Then, last night I learned why Walid stopped replying to me. On November 22nd, Israeli occupation soldiers arrived at his home at 1:30 A.M. Walid lives in Ramallah with his wife, Bayan, and two daughters, Mais, 13 years old, and Malak, 4 years old, who were all frighteningly awakened during his arrest. Walid was taken into custody and transported in the bone chilling cold of the night to Israel’s Ofer Military Detention Center where hundreds of Palestinians are detained, the vast majority with absolutely no knowledge of why.

The Israelis have been arresting Palestinians nightly for years now. Israel releases a few hundred prisoners in a media frenzy and then, the same night, starts to refill its prisons, a few Palestinians at a time. Although, as per the Oslo Agreements, the Palestinian side is responsible for security inside the Palestinian cities, Israeli armed forces routinely—read nightly, every night—enter the cities in their armored vehicles in the middle of the night and arrest a dozen or so Palestinians from their homes. Walid was merely the latest victim of this kidnap-by-night strategy.

The routine then goes something like this. Within eight days he will be brought before an Israeli military “judge” for the sake of processing only, not deliberating. The entire kangaroo court then, without sharing the reason why the Palestinian detainee is being held, flashes the security card to justify not sharing information on why they have acted against a specific individual. Then the court slaps a six month Administrative Detention Order on the detainee. That means you sit in prison for six months for no reason at all. Walid has already been given just such an order.

Your wife, your children, your work, your end-of-year fundraising campaign, your 500,000 patients/beneficiaries, your life, all abruptly stop. Then, usually, that six month order gets extended a few times before you are released. Walid is not unacquainted with this Orwellian mess. He previously spent nearly five years in and out of detention, never once being charged with anything!

The Health Work Committees association is registered as a not-for profit organization with the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior and also has a Jerusalem registration since they work in Jerusalem as well. HWC employees over 300 persons and operates 14 clinics throughout the West Bank, providing primary health services via these health clinics, mostly in areas not fully covered by the Ministry of Health. HWC also has a community development aspect of their work and operate the following: Jadal Center for Culture and Social Development, Nidal Center (providing health education to East Jerusalem schools), Community Development Plan, Oasis Rehab Center, Community Based Rehabilitation, and the Elderly Care Nursery and Kindergarten. One of the success stories of HWC is its partnership with the Dunya Women’s Cancer Clinic.

All of these activities need health care administrators, of which Walid is one. At a time when the Israeli closure system is making life hell for Palestinians, especially those living in marginalized areas or areas directly affected by the Separation Wall, HWC is needed more than ever. Likewise, at a time when international organizations, like USAID, have dramatically cut funding and laid off staff from their heath care programs (such as Flagship) as punishment to the Palestinians for pursuing membership in UNESCO, HWC’s services are needed more than ever.

The era of silence is over. Also, over for me are the slogans that can’t be operationalized. Yes, we want all 5,000 or so Palestinian detainees released. Yes, the policy of administrative detention is inhumane and must end. However, these slogans, although needed at times, must be matched with action items. Each life being destroyed by the Israeli revolving door policy of detainment is a person with a name and a family and a job. And when the person is my friend or colleague, I refuse to swallow the fact that Israel has carte blanche to act above the law.

Help me get Walid back to his family and his desk so we can get back to the work of improving the Palestinian health care system. Consider contacting your local Israeli Embassy and any or all of the following and demanding his immediate release. Reference his name, Walid Abu Rass, and his ID # 9-9702819-6.

Judea and Samaria Region
Office of the Legal Advisor
P.O. Box 5
Beit El, 90631
via Israel
Tel:  +972-2-997-7071
Fax:  +972-2-997-7326

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street
PO Box 187
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91919
Fax: +972-2-651-2631 or +972-2-670-5475
E-mail: rohm@pmo.gov.il or pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Defence Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv 61909
Israel
Fax: +972.3.691.6940
Email: minister@mod.gov.il

For more information on Administrative Detention see ADDAMEER (Arabic for conscience) Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association at www.addameer.org.

– Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant from Youngstown living in the Palestinian city of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of “Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians” (1994) and may be reached via www.ePalestine.ps.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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