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Washington ‘hunts’ Russian citizens in third countries – Moscow

RT | December 19, 2021

Moscow has condemned the extradition of a Russian IT firm owner from Switzerland to the US. His lawyer said Washington wants to tie the man to alleged meddling by Moscow in the 2016 American presidential election.

The extradition of businessman Vladislav Klyushin is “another episode of Washington’s continuing ‘hunt’ for Russian nationals in third countries,” the Russian Embassy in Switzerland, told TASS on Sunday.

Spokesperson Vladimir Khokhlov said Moscow was “deeply disappointed” by the decision of a Swiss court to reject Klyushin’s appeal to block his extradition on Friday. The man was handed over to American police officers in Zurich on Saturday, who escorted him on a flight, according to Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice.

The software developed by Klyushin’s media monitoring and analytics company, M13, is used by Russian state agencies, including the federal government and Presidential Executive Office, according to the firm’s website. The businessman was detained by Swiss police in March during a family skiing trip, his lawyer, Oliver Ciric, told the media.

Swiss justice officials said the US accused Klyushin of insider trading that involved “tens of millions of dollars.”

Ciric believes the persecution of the businessman is politically motivated, and that he will face “inhuman and degrading treatment” when extradited to the US.

He told The Times in September that the charges of insider trading were being used as a pretext to transport Klyushin to the US. The lawyer said his client would likely be charged with heading an alleged Russian covert operation to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election and hack the server of the Democratic Party.

In the same interview, Ciric claimed that Klyushin had access to “certain security information” related to the Russian government, and rebuffed recruitment attempts by US and British intelligence agents in the past.

The lawyer said that Klyushin’s criminal case file has been sealed by a Massachusetts court, which is “quite unusual” for financial charges that are typically publicized by a US financial regulator.

US officials accused the Kremlin of seeking to influence the vote and hacking the server of the Democratic National Committee and an email account of John Podesta, who led Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump. Russia consistently denied these allegations. Klyushin has denied any involvement in insider trading and hacking.

December 19, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 1 Comment

Eight Palestinian students from Al-Najah University seized by Israeli occupation forces

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | December 12, 2021

On Thursday, 9 December, Israeli occupation forces seized eight Palestinian students at An-Najah National University after raiding their homes in pre-dawn invasions. Following the arrests, occupation forces then sent threatening text messages to fellow students at the university, warning them that they too would be arrested if they participated in the activities of the Islamic Bloc or other student blocs at the university.

The students seized by the Israeli occupation forces were: Hamza Tabanja, Hassan Tuffaha, Omar Shaksheer, Ayoub Dwaikat, Ibrahim Dwaikat, Ibrahim Abed, Anas Shtayyeh and Ibrahim Shalhoub. Several of the detained students had previously been jailed by the Israeli occupation and accused of participating in the activities of the Islamic Bloc.

Hundreds of Palestinian students are routinely detained by the Israeli occupation, especially those who are part of student organizations involved with campus political life. At Bir Zeit University alone, approximately 74 students were detained by occupation soldiers during the 2019-2020 academic year. They are among nearly 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners jailed by Israel. The work of student organizing, from holding book fairs to organizing events and participating in student elections, is criminalized by the Israeli occupation. Still more students are detained for joining demonstrations or posting on their social media profiles.

Palestinian students have been seized by Israeli occupation forces and abducted for their participation in the student movement in their homes, at their workplaces and on their campuses.

Once arrested, Palestinian students are routinely subjected to torture under interrogation — subjected to stress positions and stretched out over chairs, suspended from walls and forced to stand on tiptoe, deprived of sleep, cuffed and pressured on injured limbs, and beaten.

One of the most common charges is “membership in a prohibited organization,” typically referring to the student blocs. These represent the full spectrum of Palestinian politics. They organize lectures, book fairs, rallies and other campus events and participate in student elections. The charge sheets often refer to these standard activities of campus life, which are widely interpreted as a barometer for broader Palestinian political opinion.

These are not isolated cases, but a direct and collective violation of Palestinian students’ right to education, as affirmed in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  The targeted repression of students is just one facet of Israel’s crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people. … Full article

December 12, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 1 Comment

Papers reveal what CIA did to captives in Afghanistan

By Kit Klarenberg | RT | December 7, 2021

New published documents have shed fresh light on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program in Afghanistan, describing in alarming detail some of the extreme techniques used by officers that resulted in deaths in captivity.

In a recent legal filing, the lawyers of Abu Zubaydah – the Guantánamo Bay detainee almost tortured to death by the CIA, held without charge by the US for nearly 20 years – urged that their client be released, given Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and with Al-Qaeda are finally over.

Writing to a DC district court, they argued that these developments meant there was no legal justification for keeping him captive, and he must be immediately discharged. What the petition omits to mention, however, is that Zubaydah’s detention was, from day one, intended to be permanent in order to keep the CIA’s criminal maltreatment secret and ensure his abusers were insulated from prosecution in perpetuity.

In July 2002, four months after his capture in Pakistan, the Agency’s team in Afghanistan specifically sought “reasonable assurances” from superiors that he would “remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.” In response, a memo stated that there was “fairly unanimous sentiment” within CIA headquarters that Zubaydah “will never be placed in a situation where [he] has any significant contact with others and/or has the opportunity to be released,” and would “remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”

Langley’s desire for total omerta in all matters concerning its torture program is understandable, for a great many people have much to hide.

At the start of December, BuzzFeed published hundreds of declassified papers related to CIA Inspector General investigations into child sexual abuse by Agency staff and contractors. Buried among these was a May 2004 Special Review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, launched after Gul Rahman, an Afghan suspected of having militia ties, died at the ‘Salt Pit’ black site in Kabul 18 months prior.

It notes that Rahman was subject to sleep deprivation sessions lasting 48 hours, during which he was denied clothing “to cause cultural humiliation,” and subject to “hard takedowns” – a euphemism for “rough treatment.” Despite this, he remained uncooperative and provided no intelligence, only admitting his identity after several days “in cold conditions with minimal food and sleep.” A psychological assessment in November 2002 noted his “remarkable physical and psychological resilience,” and resultantly recommended “continued environmental deprivations” to get him to talk.

One afternoon that month, when food was delivered to Rahman, he reportedly threw a water bottle and his defecation bucket at guards, warning that he’d seen their faces “and would kill them upon his release.” When Salt Pit’s manager learned of this incident, he authorized ‘short-chaining’ the prisoner – tying his hands and feet to the floor so he could not stand or sit comfortably – naked from the waist down in his cell.

On the morning of November 20, Rahman was found dead. Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General found that Salt Pit staff had employed a number of techniques and “improvised actions” approved by neither the Department of Justice nor CIA headquarters. These included frequent freezing showers, at such icy temperatures they left the suspect unable to speak properly.

A psychologist present at Salt Pit recalled observing Rahman “showing the early stages of hypothermia” after being subjected to one such shower, and ordered guards to give him a blanket. Another contractor declared that these showers were a deliberate “deprivation technique,” deployed when it was perceived he was being uncooperative, and never for “hygienic reasons.”

Nonetheless, when asked by investigators whether cold was used for the purposes of interrogation, a nameless CIA staffer coyly responded, “not per se,” but acknowledged physical and environmental discomfort “was used to encourage the detainees to improve their environment.” They went on to argue that “cold is hard to define,” asking rhetorically “how cold is cold? How cold is life-threatening?’”

While the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program remains classified today, its 525-page executive summary referred to Rahman over 100 times. Details of his death were largely absent, although it was revealed that not only was no Agency staffer disciplined as a result of it, but Salt Pit’s manager – who was not a trained interrogator, and had a history of behavioral issues – was recommended for a $2,500 cash award for “consistently superior work” four months later.

An Agency Accountability Board eventually decided to take the mild step of suspending the most junior CIA officer involved for 10 days without pay, but even this was overturned by the Agency’s then-Executive Director Kyle Foggo, who wrote to the staffer personally to say, “while not condoning your actions, it is imperative, in my view, that they… be judged within the operational context that existed at the time of Rahman’s detention.” Foggo was subsequently jailed for fraud, having helped friends improperly profit from CIA contracts in Iraq.

The executive summary names Rahman as the only prisoner known to have died in CIA custody – although the Inspector General Review shows this to be untrue. It records how in June 2003, an Afghan citizen allegedly implicated in rocket attacks on a joint US Army and CIA position in the country’s northeast attended Asadabad Base “at the urging of the local Governor,” whereupon he was detained in a facility guarded by US soldiers for four days.

During his brief period in captivity, a CIA contractor “severely [beat] the detainee with a large metal flashlight and kicked him during interrogation sessions,” leading to his death. His body was then turned over to a local cleric and his family, without an autopsy being performed. Neither the contractor nor his Agency supervisor was trained or authorized to conduct interrogations, although he faced no penalty, bar his contract not being renewed.

The review also makes clear that a penchant for extreme violence among CIA staff in Afghanistan, and the impunity with which they committed crimes, wasn’t restricted to its assorted prisons in the country. For example, it records how in July 2003, an officer visited a religious school, to determine if any staff or pupils could offer information related to the detonation of a remote-controlled explosive device that had killed eight border guards a few days earlier.

A teacher reportedly “smiled and laughed inappropriately” while being interviewed by the officer, prompting them to strike the man twice in the torso with their rifle butt, then repeatedly kick him as he lay prostrate on the ground – the incident was said to have been witnessed by 200 students. In response, the CIA simply brought the officer back home, whereupon they were “counseled and given a domestic assignment.”

Still, the review cannot be considered comprehensive, for it merely reflects what incidents were officially recorded. Disturbingly, the document concludes by noting that while documentation of the capture, rendition, detention, and interrogation of “high value detainees” was “comprehensive,” documentation related to detainees of “lesser notoriety” was “far less consistent.”

As the CIA wasn’t compelled to document the capture and detention of all individuals until June 2003, the Inspector General was “unable to determine with any certainty the number or current status of individuals who have been captured and detained.” In other words, the question of how many detainees were actually murdered under the auspices of the CIA torture program remains very much open – which in turn means anyone who could shed light on the matter, such as Zubaydah, can never be at liberty again.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. 

December 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Media are gagging challenges to the Government’s Covid narrative

By Mark Sharman | TCW Defending Freedom | December 8, 2021

In his skyscraper office high above New York’s Sixth Avenue, Roger Ailes, then boss of the Right-leaning Fox News, was justifying his channel’s slogan, ‘Fair and Balanced.’

It was a well-rehearsed line. The rest of the US media, he said, were the liberal Left. ‘So we balance it  – and that’s fair.’

Later, an underling added that in America you chose the channel that best fuelled your own views. ‘It just depends on how you take your political medicine.’

On the flight home, I thought how fortunate we were in the UK, with a remit of impartiality in broadcasting; a duty to report fairly and evenly. Less than two decades later, I wonder what’s happened to those intrinsic values.

In all my years around newsrooms, decent journalists have seen it as their right and obligation to seek out the truth, to scrutinise and determine the facts. But on Covid-19, mainstream news outlets have seemingly kow-towed to the Government line, following the ‘official’ science.

Worse, opposing views have been ignored, blocked or summarily dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ or ‘misinformation.’ This is not honest journalism as I know it, especially at a time when the Government has extra powers of control over the population. I was taught early that the more someone pushed for or against a story, the more it needed investigating. So what changed?

It’s bad enough that Big Tech acts as the world’s censor, suspending or cancelling any accounts that carry unpalatable comments about the virus or the vaccines. But the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom has also muscled in.

The authority instructed broadcasters to be alert to ‘health claims related to the virus which may be harmful; medical advice which may be harmful; accuracy or material misleadingness in programmes in relation to the virus or public policy relating to it’.

When did it become the regulator’s job to determine debate on Government policy? In effect it discourages investigation of alternative views. And who decides what is accurate or misinformation anyway?

Some media outlets have their own ‘fact checkers,’ but I’m not overly encouraged that BBC News has a Specialist Disinformation Reporter (the title hardly suggests impartiality) or that Sky’s Digital and Forensics team compiled an article that begins: ‘Covid-19 conspiracy groups who have attempted to undermine efforts to bring the pandemic under control are increasingly sharing climate change misinformation.’

The terms prosecutor, judge and jury spring to mind – and try as I might, I couldn’t find any hard evidence that so-called ‘theories’ were bunkum. They weren’t proven either, but that’s not the point.

Maybe the root can be found in Event 201, a simulated global coronavirus pandemic exercise organised by the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, in October 2019.

Advice to world governments included ‘flood the media with fast, accurate and consistent information’ (some would say propaganda), while media companies, for their part, ‘should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritised and that false messages are suppressed, including through the use of technology’.

We’ve certainly witnessed less-than-overt Government behaviour.

In her best-selling book A State of Fear, Laura Dodsworth charts how proven psychological techniques influenced the Government in frightening and intimidating the population, ‘nudging’ us to comply over Covid. And how mainstream media acted as cheerleaders in weaponising that fear.

It should make uncomfortable reading for any news executive.

Our Government is supposed to serve us, not use fear tactics to bring us to heel. As an industry, we should challenge the narrative much more rigorously, starting with the numbers. At least the BBC carries the small print, that deaths are from any cause within 28 days of positive test. However, these quickly become Covid deaths on many daily score charts. It’s inaccurate reporting. Or should I call it misinformation? Or again, propaganda?

Now the shame-and-blame game has shifted to the unvaccinated (I prefer vaccine-free), those ‘radical anti-vaxxers … spreading fake news’ according to Austria’s Chancellor as he introduced compulsory vaccination.

When did it become acceptable to persecute people who stand up for that most basic of human rights, that of their own body autonomy?

Why are we not outraged that our neighbours in the Netherlands, ordinary citizens, are shot by their own police? Or that Australians are beaten and shot by rubber bullets, or incarcerated in what has become a police state?

Are we ready to accept such a reaction on the streets of London, Birmingham or Sheffield? What angle would the MSM take, police violence or mob rule? Which way would the scales dip?

A recent protest, not widely reported, saw thousands of people marching through London; students, medics, teachers and ex-servicemen, of all ages and races, people with genuine concerns for their children and their democratic freedoms.

They seek the truth and nothing but the truth about the virus and, particularly, the safety of the vaccines. And they have deep convictions that the truth is not forthcoming from the Government or from broadcasters and newspapers.

And that’s the point. If the media continue to stifle alternative views that flourish on various social sites, and continue to follow the censorial state narrative instead of encouraging healthy open debate, they are fuelling the very ‘conspiracies’ they seek to dismiss.

December 7, 2021 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Subjugation - Torture | , | 1 Comment

New Zealand Prime Minister: “There’s Not Going to be an End Point to this Vaccination Program”

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | December 7, 2021

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has candidly revealed that “there’s not going to be an end point to this vaccination program.”

Yes, really.

“So long as there’s people who are eligible who haven’t been vaccinated, we’ve got work to do,” said Ardern.

“Do you know, I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied so long as there’s someone who is eligible and hasn’t been (vaccinated),” she added.

“There’s not going to be an end point to this vaccination program,” the Prime Minister revealed, while calling on people who got jabbed six months ago to come back for another shot.

Ardern delivered the message while adopting her familiar passive-aggressive smiley mannerism, as seen many times before when she casually revealed the next step in COVID authoritarianism.

People who fail to continually get vaccinated will face the same fate as those who have continued to resist compulsory shots, they’ll be out of work, face social ostracization and God only knows what else in the future.

Enjoy your lifetime booster shots and enjoy not being able to travel, visit a restaurant or eventually go in a shop if you miss out on just one.

Remember, if you don’t take the Pfizer jab for life, you’ll never be “fully vaccinated”.

It truly never ends.

December 7, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 2 Comments

Punishing doctors is actually punishing patients

By Chris Leitch, Leader, Social Credit | December 5, 2021

The [New Zealand] government’s refusal to let GPs, midwives, and other specialist medical staff who are unvaccinated continue to work has no medical foundation and is simply punishment because of their refusal to be vaccinated.

That situation has nothing to do with patient safety.

It is now firmly established that both vaccinated and unvaccinated medical professionals can pass on corona virus to their patients so barring those unvaccinated from working is actually punishment of their patients as well.

A GP could have up to 25 people of mixed vaccination status in his home celebrating a birthday, yet those same 25 people could not attend his medical practice and consult him on their medical issues.

A midwife could have up to 25 people of mixed vaccination status in her home celebrating a christening yet she is unable to attend to the birthing needs of the pregnant mothers and expectant fathers in that same group professionally.

A dentist could have 25 people of mixed vaccination status in his home celebrating a house-warming yet those same 25 people cannot attend his dental surgery for treatment on their teeth.

Not only has the government’s medical mandate taken away the livelihoods of those health professionals but more importantly it is punishing patients by denying them the ability to get the medical care they need from the people they choose to provide it.

If the government was serious about patient safety, as it says it is, then it would allow patients to sign an acknowledgement of risk and consent form – the very same process that patients go through before an operation in hospital – and then let them consult the medical professionals they wish in the premises they wish.

Those medical professionals can then get back to work doing what they are highly trained for and what we desperately need them to do – provide the health care their patients deserve.

Given that both vaccinated and unvaccinated medical professionals can pass on corona virus to their patients, anything less will simply prove that punishment, not patient safety, is the reason for denying patients access to their chosen medical professional.

A sample consent form is below.

Disclaimer:

Social Credit is not against vaccination.

Social Credit is not aligned with Voices For Freedom or any other similar organisation.

Social Credit does stand up for the right of people to choose the medical treatment they deem appropriate and that includes vaccinations.

Social Credit does stand up for the right of people to refuse medical treatment should they so choose.

Click here to view sample consent form

Please support this petition against the coercion of children to get the jab

Rebecca Lawrence started this petition to Jacinda Ardern:

Children as young as 12 are now being excluded from their hobbies, recreational activities and school activities due to the vaccine mandates.

The 12-17 year old age group is not susceptible to serious adverse affects from covid-19. This age group IS susceptible to mental health issues – we have one of the worst statistics in the world. Sports and activities can help maintain good mental health. Being excluded from these activities could increase the likelihood of depression and anxiety within this age group.

The vaccine has not be tested for long term effects, so it’s unclear whether it will cause harm to these kids in the future. Short term effects show adverse reactions to the vaccine are relatively high in the age group compared with the older age groups.

It is fundamentally WRONG to exclude children based on their / their parents health choices

No exclusion of Children under 18

December 7, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

LIFE INSIDE AN AUSTRALIAN COVID PRISON CAMP (CENTRE OF NATIONAL RESILIENCE)

CLOSE CONTACT SUSPECT HAYLEY HODGSON DESCRIBES 14 DAY INCARCERATION

See also:

Camp Australia: The brochure vs reality

December 5, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | 6 Comments

France sends military police to Martinique amid vaccine mandate protests

RT | December 1, 2021

France has sent police reinforcements to overseas territory Martinique, after riots broke out in response to a mandatory Covid-19 vaccine policy for healthcare workers.

Around 70 armed French police officers, known in France as gendarmes, arrived in Martinique on Tuesday to tackle the violent protests, which were marred by arson, looting, and vandalism.

French Minister of Overseas Territories Sebastien Lecornu said in a press conference that “social dialogue is not possible without a sound basis and that sound basis is the re-establishment of freedoms… and our capacity to re-establish order.”

Civil unrest broke out after France imposed a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in Martinique, which has reported low vaccination rates amid high levels of mistrust in the government and faith in natural medicine

As a result of the riots – which included an attack on the residence of France’s most senior official on the island – France revealed on Friday that it would be postponing its vaccine mandate.

Lecornu has blamed Martinique’s vaccine hesitancy on the island’s culture, saying, “I don’t want to stigmatise but the mistrust over vaccines is cultural.”

Protesters, however, say they are unable to trust officials with their health after previous cases of misconduct – 95% of adults in Martinique have traces of a pesticide with links to cancer in their blood after it was consistently sprayed on the island for several decades.

Martinique was colonized by France in 1635 and has remained under French control despite independence efforts.

December 1, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians’ life under Israeli occupation: Israeli soldiers describe their actions in Hebron

If Americans Knew

Israeli soldiers describe their actions in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank, and of Israeli settlers living there – from the film by Israeli director Rona Segal, “‘Everyone’s a Suspect.’ Six Former Israeli Soldiers Speak on Their Time in Hebron.” See the full film at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/op…

Segal says: “I joined the army when I was 18 years old. Military service is mandatory in Israel (with few exemptions) and we’re instructed to never doubt its necessity. But I wanted to make films, so I maneuvered my way into the Israel Defense Forces’ film unit. “The army is where I learned the craft of filmmaking, and making the short documentary above allowed me to go back to those years. But now, as an independent filmmaker, I have a different perspective, a perspective that most 18-year-olds simply don’t have. “Here, ex-soldiers share their accounts of day-to-day operations on the ground in Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank. They offer a view that has rarely been seen by the public.”

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U.S. politicians from both parties vote to give Israel over $10 million per day of Americans’ tax money. For more information on this issue see https://ifamericansknew.org/

An Israeli rubber-coated metal bullet cost Izzuddin, 14, his right eye

Defence for Children Palestine

On April 9, 2021, Israeli forces shot 14-year-old Izzuddin al-Batsh in the right eye with a rubber-coated metal bullet while he was working at his uncle’s vegetable market in the old city of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank. Several months later, Izzuddin recounts the difficulties he faced to receive treatment and what his life is like now with an artificial eye.

November 22, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

PATRIOT PURGE, PART 1

TUCKER CARLSON | November 2nd, 2021

November 19, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 4 Comments

Secret Israeli dossier contained no proof to declare Palestinian NGOs ‘terrorists’

RT | November 4, 2021

A classified dossier which Israel used to brand six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist outfits reportedly contains no concrete evidence to prove their involvement in violent activities or to otherwise justify the designation.

The document, which bears the logo of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, is the result of its inquiry into six West Bank civil society groups accused of securing foreign funding for a Palestinian militant group.

Despite the severity of the charges, however, Israel has yet to publicly release any evidence backing up its decision to brand the NGOs as terror organizations. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz prompted international backlash last month after he officially placed a terror designation on the six groups on the basis of the Shin Bet investigation.

Accessing the dossier, The Intercept and Israeli outlets +972 and Local Call found that the information used was based chiefly on interrogations of two accountants from another Palestinian NGO, the Health Work Committees, which was also labelled a terrorist organization last year.

The accountants’ lawyers told the outlets that Israeli authorities had “distorted” their testimonies, which were allegedly gathered under threats to family members and harsh interrogation methods that might be considered “torture.”

Shin Bet reportedly used a single statement from one accountant, about forging fake receipts for Health Work Committees, to accuse the other organizations of being involved in a similar scheme to fund the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militant group. The men apparently described a number of educational and humanitarian initiatives which could be affiliated with the organization as “PFLP activities,” but they did not describe any financing of violent activities.

The outlets said that none of the testimonies cited in the 74-page dossier were backed up by any documents or receipts. The dossier was apparently delivered in May to a number of EU countries that have funded the organizations, prompting independent audits and public criticism from Dutch and Belgian ministers, who stated that the allegations did not contain “even a single concrete piece of evidence.”

“Since the Europeans didn’t buy the allegations, [Israel] used unconventional warfare: declaring the organizations terrorist groups,” Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer representing Al-Haq, one of the accused Palestinian NGOs, told The Intercept. He added that the charges were a “political [attack] under the guise of security.”

Meanwhile, senior officials from two unspecified European countries told the outlet that since Gantz’s announcement, Israel has ignored all requests for more information. While the Israeli Ministry of Defense did not comment, two US sources told the outlets that an Israeli delegation had presented similar dossiers on Capitol Hill.

The six NGOs accused by Israel are Al-Haq, Addameer, Bisan Center, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Defense For Children International-Palestine and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

November 5, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 1 Comment

Here’s what’s wrong with Israel branding human-rights groups ‘terrorists’

By Eva Bartlett | RT | November 3, 2021

The Israeli government has designated several human-rights groups ‘terrorist organisations’ in a blatant attempt to further cover up the crimes they commit against the Palestinian people.

On October 22, Israel branded six respected Palestinian human-rights groups “terrorist organisations,” outraging the UN and the wider global community. This, coming from a state that imprisons and kills Palestinian children, and murders uniformed medics.

On the Israeli Defense Ministry’s list were Addameer, Al-Haq, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

The groups either document Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, which, in my opinion, routinely amount to terrorism themselves, provide legal support to targeted or imprisoned Palestinians, or work to empower Palestinian civilians. In what bizarre world can they be deemed “terrorist groups”?

A joint statement by leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem and numerous other Israeli and Palestinian rights organisations described the ministry’s action as “a draconian measure that criminalises critical human-rights work,” and noted the importance of documentation, advocacy, and legal aid for the protection of rights worldwide. “Criminalising such work is an act of cowardice, characteristic of repressive authoritarian regimes,” it said.

A number of UN special rapporteurs have condemned the decision as “a frontal attack on the Palestinian human-rights movement and on human rights everywhere.”

Meanwhile, Israel continues to attack unarmed protesters with rubber bullets, live ammunition and tear gas; approve new buildings in illegal Jewish colonies on Palestinian land; and bulldoze centuries-old Palestinian graves in Old Jerusalem; and Israeli colonists continue to brutalise Palestinian civilians, as they have long done. And, of course, Gaza remains under a cruel blockade – the longest lockdown in the world. The roughly two million Gazans barely living in the territory are deprived of the most basic essentials, including urgently needed medical supplies, and Israel guns down and abducts their fishermen, often destroying their boats.

But, no, according to the state responsible for these and countless other acts of terrorism, the “terrorists” are the human-rights groups. This is the state that not only abuses and murders Palestinian civilians, and flattens entire neighbourhoods of Gaza, deliberately destroying vital infrastructure, but also occupies Lebanese and Syrian land, violates Lebanese airspace, and routinely illegally bombs Syria.

This is not the first time Israel has harassed Palestinian (and Israeli) rights organizations.

The children’s agency, DCIP, is “an independent, local Palestinian child-rights organisation dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.” In July 2021, prior to its “terrorist” designation, its main office was raided by Israeli forces.

At the time, DCIP described the raid as “the latest act by Israeli authorities to increasingly push forward a campaign to delegitimise and criminalise Palestinian civil society and human rights organisations.” They also noted this was a campaign that has been on the rise in recent years, “advanced by a network of rising nationalist Israeli civil society organisations and associated organisations elsewhere, with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

With the minister of defence designating such groups as “terrorists” and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supporting the delegitimization campaign, it is not credible to argue the persecution is not coming from the Israeli government itself.

For one of the other listed groups, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Israel’s targeted harassment caused the Dutch government to cease funding. Israel’s 972 magazine reported on this, saying “for years, a global network of Israel advocacy groups had been lobbying European governments to cut off funding to UAWC, a group that assists Palestinian farmers to cultivate and remain on their land, market their produce, and develop water infrastructure.”

Some of the work UAWC had done in recent years, the article noted, included establishing “52 cooperatives in the West Bank and Gaza, [and] rehabilitating almost 10,000 dunums of Palestinian land that were under threat of confiscation by Israeli authorities in Area C.”

It also planted nearly two million trees, and developed connecting routes amounting to almost 700km in distance. “UAWC also worked to provide better water access to Palestinians in Area C, where water and sanitation services are regularly interrupted by Israeli settlement expansion,” the article also said.

My experiences in Gaza, volunteering for years with impoverished Palestinian farmers and farm labourers coming under Israeli live fire on a near-daily basis, demonstrated to me that the work of groups like UWAC is essential to help farmers rehabilitate destroyed farmland. These are people simply trying to eke out an existence, being maimed and murdered by Israeli fire while doing so, their farmland and wells bulldozed and destroyed, their crops burned.

I also have some experience with the work of DCIP, which documents Palestinian child detainees in Israeli prisons, including children in solitary confinement, as well as children killed by Israeli soldiers or colonists. Without groups like this documenting these crimes, advocating for the children becomes all the more impossible. Clearly, this is one of the reasons Israel has made the outrageous terrorist designation.

But DCIP also helps sick and injured Palestinian children get medical care. The group helped rehabilitate a terribly injured, bedridden, 16-year-old Palestinian teen I met in a Cairo hospital in July 2008, months after an Israeli soldier shot him in the spine.

In March 2008, Abdul Rahman Abu Oida went to the roof of his home, checking the water tank to see why the family suddenly had no water, and was shot in the spine by an Israeli sniper hiding on another rooftop.

As I later wrote, “The bullet destroyed three vertebrae; the shot left Abed paralysed in a puddle of his own blood until his 13-year-old brother, 15 minutes later, found him and dragged him downstairs. Ambulances were prevented from accessing the area. Abed lay untreated for three hours before he reached a hospital in Gaza City.”

In the Cairo hospital where I met him, he was emaciated, with appallingly large bedsores on his backside and feet. These festering bedsores would be the cause of other ailments which plagued him and eventually caused his death. Through a contact at DCIP, Abed began to get proper treatment for his original wound and the consequences of the bedsores.

Although he survived the 2008/9 Israeli massacre, including Israel’s attack on the rehabilitation hospital in which he and 60 other patients were, in 2014 he finally passed away. But without DCIP’s intervention, Abed would surely have died not long after I met him in 2008.

I have written many times about the crimes Israel has perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, including sniping at medics and killing and maiming still other medics, including with dart bombs – both war crimes – as well as assassinating children and infants, and firing white phosphorus on civilian areas. These are all just from my personal documentation in the span of a few years.

Without people to document these crimes, Israel’s actions could be even more monstrous than they already are.

Last May, in an attempt to prevent journalists from reporting its war crimes, Israel precision-bombed key media buildings in Gaza (which it had previously done in 2009, 2012, and 2014).

Throughout occupied Palestine, the work of human rights groups in documenting Israel’s crimes remains imperative, and the country’s continued harassment of these groups – including their “terrorist” designation – indicates the effectiveness of their advocacy and the determination of Israel to whitewash its crimes.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

November 5, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 3 Comments

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