Six killed in Yemen clashes
Press TV – February 20, 2011
At least six people have been killed in clashes between pro-democracy protesters and forces loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime.
Four people lost their lives during protests in the southern port city of Aden on Saturday, and a student was killed in the southern city of Taiz, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Another student demonstrator was killed near the Sana’a University campus in the capital on the same day. The 16-year-old youth was shot dead while government supporters armed with guns, batons, and rocks were trying to break into the campus.
Yemeni security forces reportedly did not intervene.
There were also a number of incidents on Friday.
According to witnesses, at least three pro-democracy protesters were killed on Friday and dozens of others injured during clashes with security forces in Aden’s Khor Maqsar district.
A hand grenade hurled into a crowd of demonstrators in the city of Taiz killed two people and left at least 25 more injured.
And Saleh supporters armed with batons and axes attacked a pro-democracy demonstration and wounded at least four protesters in Sana’a on Friday.
Friday’s deadly violence came a day after Yemeni riot police opened fire to disperse thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in Aden, killing four protesters and injuring 17 others.
In Sana’a, 40 people were injured after Saleh loyalists armed with guns attacked a crowd of protesters on Thursday.
Saturday marked the ninth day of pro-democracy protests in Yemen.
Yemenis, angered by corruption and unemployment in the country and inspired by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, are demanding that Saleh step down after 32 years of autocratic rule.
Last week, Saleh again said that he would not run in the 2013 presidential election and would not hand over power to his son.
Three fishermen shot dead in northern Gaza
Ma’an – 17/02/2011
GAZA CITY — Three Palestinians were shot dead in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Israeli military officials informed Gaza authorities.
The three were said to have been killed near the evacuated Doget settlement, north of Beit Lahiya. A Palestinian official in Gaza said he was informed that the men were shot allegedly sneaking into Israel.
Medics were alerted and permitted by Israeli forces occupying the border region to enter the “no-go zone” to retrieve the bodies, spokesman of the higher committee of ambulance and emergency services Adham Abu Salmiya told Ma’an.
The same official told AFP that no weapons were found near the bodies of the men.
Beit Lahiya residents said they heard a helicopter flying and shots fired at approximately 2:15 a.m.
The retrieved bodies were transferred to the Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, where medics identified the slain as Jihad Fathi Khalaf, 20, Tal’at Ar-Ruwagh, 25, and Ashraf Eqtefan, 29.
Initial inquiries revealed that at least two of the men were fishermen. Relatives later confirmed that all three worked on the sea.
The Israeli military spokesperson’s office released a statement late Thursday morning, saying the military had “thwart[ed a] terror attempt.”
The statement said a “number of Palestinian militants approaching the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip,” were identified by soldiers occupying the area, adding that the men were apparently trying to plant explosives.
“Thwarting the attempt, the force fired at the militants, hitting three of them,” the statement continued.
Workers shot, injured
Two additional incidents, medics said Israeli forces fired on two workers from the cement factory in Gaza City, injuring both in the legs as they collected stone aggregates separately east of Gaza City on Thursday.
Medics said both were taken to the Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City with moderate injuries.
An Israeli military official confirmed two incidents at 10 and noon respectively, when individuals approached the border area. Both were told to retreat from the 300-meter no-go zone, a spokesman said, and when they did not pull back warning shots were fired, then fire was directed at the legs of the workers.
Bedouins Barricaded in Cemetery as Israel Demolishes Village for 17th Time, Injuring Children
By Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center | 16 February 2011
The residents of the Bedouin village Al Araqib were forced from their land for the 17th time Wednesday (16/2) and barricaded inside the village cemetery, as Israel continues its ethnic cleansing efforts in the Negev.
Israeli forces arrived in the early hours of the morning and immediately began shooting rubber bullets at the residents. When the first round of shooting subsided, the Special Forces pushed people from their homes and began demolishing the village for the 17th time.
When residents of Al Araqib protested, the Israeli authorities again shot them with rubber bullets, resulting in injuries. Three children were taken by ambulance to the hospital, according to Awad Abu Frieh, the village spokesperson.
The Jewish National Fund, an active participant in forcing Bedouin from their land, bulldozed the property and began working the land for the planting of a peace forest.
Israeli forces used such excessive violence Wednesday morning that residents fled their homes and entered the adjacent cemetery. JNF bulldozers then approached the cemetery in an attempt to also destroy the Bedouin burial place.
The residents of the village are currently barricaded inside the cemetery, watching as their homes are once more destroyed and hoping the cemetery is not next. All of the exits have been closed, and the bulldozers are circling the site.
One week ago (10/2), women and children of the Bedouin village of Al Araqib were beaten and gassed by Israel forces, in an attempt to halt the 16th demolition of their homes and property.
Three residents were also arrested, including a sixteen year old, and they have been in jail since. There was a court hearing for them Wednesday (16/2) morning in Beer Sheva, and their detention was extended for at least another day.
Another resident was arrested in the village Tuesday night (15/2), and is currently being held by the Israeli police, though the reason for his arrest is unclear.
Israeli forces and Jewish National Fund workers entered the Bedouin village and again destroyed the residents homes, and continued preparing the land for the planting of a “peace forest”.
Following last week’s demolition, six residents, four women and two children, were hospitalized at the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva.
“The police harshly beat the women and children who were standing in quiet protest, they simply beat women and children…I stood alongside a woman who was beaten by four police officers, actual fists in her face, ears and neck, in addition to kicks until she almost lost consciousness…people are sitting on the ground, in the rain, and not moving, women and children. The police shot stun grenades and foam bullets directly at the women, at point blank,” reported Tamar, an activist who was present in the village.
Arab MK calls on police to release murder victim’s body to family
Palestine Information Center – 16/02/2011
NAZARETH — Arab MK Jamal Zahalka called on the Israeli police to release the body of Hossam al-Rawaidi to his family to be buried alongside their deceased in Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities not only persecute the living in Jerusalem, but also persecute the dead, he said in a letter to the Ministry of Homeland Security on Tuesday.
”What right do Israeli forces have to impose the burial site of the deceased? Burial according to all races and religions is the right of the family and no one has the right to impose on them a place they don’t want or deny them burial at the site it deems.”
”It is unreasonable that the body remains without being buried for six days. This is a crime over the crime of murder committed by extremist Jews in Jerusalem.”
Rawaidi was brutally murdered last Thursday when a band of Jewish settlers intercepted him on his way home from work and proceeded to use abusive language against him and another man. One of the assailants used a Japanese sword in a deep laceration to Ruwaidi’s ear that stretched to his neck killing him. The second victim was assaulted after trying to block the attack.
Police have placed tough conditions before releasing Ruwaidi’s body to his family, denying permission for his burial before 10:00pm and with the help of more than ten people. They later became more stringent and ordered that he be buried outside of Jerusalem claiming a Jerusalem burial would lead to clashes.
The Ruwaidi’s have refused to bury him outside of Jerusalem and insist on receiving his body to be buried in the holy city and prayed over in the Aqsa Mosque.
Bahrain crackdown on protests slammed
Press TV – February 15, 2011
The United Nations human rights chief has slammed Bahrain’s use of “disproportionate force” against peaceful demonstrators, urging an immediate end to any violent crackdown.
“I urge the authorities to immediately cease the use of disproportionate force against peaceful protestors and to release all peaceful demonstrators who have been arrested,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.
On Tuesday, large crowds of Bahraini protesters poured into the streets of the capital, demanding a regime change in the Persian Gulf kingdom. The call inspired by the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia came after two protesters were killed in clashes with police.
Fadel Salman Matrouk was gunned down in front of a hospital on Tuesday where mourners assembled for the funeral of the 20-year-old Ali Msheymah, who died of his wounds after police resorted to violence to disperse a protest in a village east of Manama the day before.
Pillay noted that both victims were killed by members of Bahrain’s security forces.
“Too many peaceful protestors have recently been killed across the Middle East and North Africa,” the UN rights chief regretted.
“Authorities everywhere must scrupulously avoid excessive use of force, which is strictly forbidden in international law,” said Pillay, calling for “prompt, impartial and transparent investigations where there have been breaches of this obligation.”
~
Bahrain Police Rampage
smohd92 | February 14, 2011
‘Saudi Arabia sending troops to Bahrain’
Press TV – February 15, 2011
Saudi Arabia is sending troops to Bahrain in a move to crack down on pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets in the capital Manama, a political analyst says.
The analyst told PressTV on Tuesday that Riyadh is sending its troops in an attempt to help King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa to crack down on the protesters.
Bahraini police have been using tear gas and batons to disperse the pro-democracy protesters in the Bahrain capital.
Three protesters have so far been killed due to police gunshot in the Shia village of Daih, in the suburb of Manama.
The last fatalities came as the protesters were participating in the funeral ceremony of another protester who lost his life earlier on Monday.
His death prompted the opposition to call for a vast participation at the funeral and to urge Bahrainis to escalate the pro-democracy protests.
Security forces have been deployed in force along the main routes into Manama in an effort to prevent a gathering that had been inspired by similar online initiatives around the Arab world.
Palestinian Quarry Ordered to Close Due to Settler Action
By Circarre Parrhesia & David Steele – IMEMC & Agencies – February 14, 2011
A Palestinian quarry in Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, is to close due to “enforcement activities” by the Israeli authorities.
Although Beit Fajjar is located deep in the West Bank, the area falls within zone C, and thus is under full control of the Israeli military. As a result, the quarry has been informed that it is mining on “State Land”.
An Israeli pressure group, the National Land Protection Trust, brought a case against the business to the Israeli High Court of Justice, which ruled against the company.
Shortly after this ruling, the Israeli military began ‘enforcement activities’, which “led to an almost complete cessation of quarrying in the unlicensed area”.
The authorities confiscated a large number of items in a series of raids last year. The National Land Protection Trust has vowed to prevent any attempts to license the quarry, due to the fact that nearby settlements had suffered from dust and noise.
Mining is one of the major economic contributors to the town, along with their agricultural industry, with over 20% of the West Bank’s mines found in Beit Fajjar alone.
On October 4 2010, a mosque in Beit Fajjar was set alight, by settlers, in the early hours of the morning. In addition to the arson, settlers left “price tag” graffiti near the entrance.
Israeli commander refuses to allow murder victim funeral
Ma’an – 13/02/2011
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities told the family of murder victim Husam Rweidi that his body would not be returned unless they agreed to a set of conditions, relatives said.
Husam Rweidi, 24, was stabbed to death Friday by a mob of Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem’s city center.
The victim’s cousin Firas Baydoun said Israeli authorities stipulated that his burial must take place at midnight, and that a maximum of 10 mourners could attend the funeral.
Baydoun told Ma’an that Rweidi’s body was being kept in the mortuary of Israel’s Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv.
An Israeli central commander said the family could not take Rweidi’s body to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for funeral prayers and Islamic rituals, Baydoun said.
“The body must be carried to the Al-Rahma cemetery directly,” the commander told the family.
Rweidi’s father refused the demands, and the Israeli commander eventually agreed that the funeral could be held at 8 p.m. But the commander insisted the body must not be taken to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The family is considering taking on legal council to challenge the conditions, and to ensure Rweidi is given a decent funeral, Baydoun said.
Israeli forces shoot 3 Gaza workers
Ma’an – 13/02/2011
GAZA CITY — Israeli forces shot and injured three Palestinian workers Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said.
A 19-year-old man was moderately injured, a Gaza medical spokesman said.
Earlier, Marhan Tanboura, 24, and Ashour Shukheidim, 29, were shot in the leg, medics said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers fired at Palestinians who approached the border and did not heed orders to stop. Forces identified hitting two men in the lower body, she said.
The men were collecting rubble from evacuated settlements near the Gaza border to sell as cement aggregates, medics said.
Cement is in demand to rebuild thousands of homes destroyed in Israel’s last offensive on the coastal enclave. Under Israel’s siege policy, most construction materials are banned from the Gaza Strip.
Israel declared a buffer zone along the border zone inside Gaza, which reaches deep into the coastal enclave, and Israeli forces regularly shoot at Palestinians who enter the area. Defense for Children International has reported that teenagers have been shot as far as 800 meters from the border.
But, with unemployment standing at 45.4 percent in the Strip according to a UN estimate, workers continue to risk entering the exclusion zone.
Israel extends administrative detention of Ayed Dudein for twelfth time
Palestine Information Center – 12/02/2011
NABLUS — Israeli intelligence has extended the period of detention of the longest running Palestinian administrative detainee Ayed Dudein for the twelfth consecutive time since his arrest, the Ahrar center for prisoners studies said.
The Israeli Supreme Court denied appeals submitted by Dudein’s lawyer requesting his release, claiming a ”secret file” was prepared against him and his release was a security concern for Israel, Ahrar center director Fouad Al-Khafsh said.
He has so far not received a fair trial.
In administrative detention since October 2009, Dudein, a father of six who works as assistant director of the Al-Khalil emergency department, has been in and out of Israeli prisons over the past 13 years. He has refused bargains by the Israeli Supreme Court that would have him exiled.
Dudein’s wife Umm Hamza contacted the Ahrar center complaining of years of instability since her husband’s arrest and frequent raids on their home.
Dudein is a prominent figure among Palestinian detainees and is respected by the country’s factions. One of his brothers serving a life sentence has been detained since 1992. His mother passed away two months back, but his detention kept him from bidding her farewell.
In Wake of Fourth Demolition, Tana Villagers Vow to Rebuild
PNN – 10.02.11
Nablus – On Wednesday, Israeli army bulldozers demolished all but the mosque in the tiny village of Tana, east of Nablus, because it did not have the required permits. On Thursday afternoon, the villagers began to rebuild. This is their fourth time.
A villager from Tana carries away part of his demolished home (PNN Images).
Thirty-five buildings in all were destroyed, most of them makeshift houses constructed of metal siding, pipes, and blue tarp. Now most of the roughly 200 villagers made homeless by the demolitions must move to nearby caves as winter winds and rain buffet this mountainous region of the West Bank. Livestock sheds were destroyed, so five thousand sheep are shivering.
Nobody, however, is leaving Tana.
“This is my life,” said one man, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals. “I was born here and I have my children here. I won’t leave.”
Many residents even laugh at the idea, saying if they wanted to leave they would have gone when the village was first demolished in 2005. Since then Israeli bulldozers have come back three times, most recently in December, when they destroyed the Tana schoolhouse, forcing villagers’ children to make the seven kilometer walk to the village of Beit Furik. Each time the reason is the same: the structures in Tana, which falls in the West Bank’s Israeli-controlled Area C, are unlicensed.
“Of course my house doesn’t have a permit,” said Radi Mahmoud Hamali, 64, the remains of whose house lie close to the small stone mosque, the only structure left untouched. “I cannot get a permit. It’s impossible. They just [demolished Tana] to take the land for the settlers.”
Radi Hamali prepares tea in a cave near his demolished home (PNN Images).
Two illegal Jewish settlements, Yitzhar and Makhoura, stand atop nearby hills. Both have been named as the sources of violent attacks on local Palestinian shepherds in the past. On January 27, Yitzhar settlers were suspected, but not arrested, in the shooting death of 18-year-old Adi Qaddous from the village of Iraq Burin. Residents in Tana suspect that the Israeli army—commonly seen as a powerful enabler—demolished the village to clear the land for further settlement.
At least on Thursday, however, Tana was not without friends. An Italian NGO has pledged to pay for and build a new schoolhouse. In the afternoon a convoy of UN and Fatah party vehicles stopped on the dirt road that runs through the village. Ghassan Douglass, the Palestinian Authority (PA) official in charge of filing settler attacks in the West Bank, spoke at the mosque and promised that both Fatah and the PA would help rebuild the village.
“We in the Fatah movement are all standing in support of these citizens,” said Douglass. He pointed to the caves in which the Tana villagers will have to live for the time being. “There are no hotels here, unfortunately.” The convoy moved on after about twenty minutes.
Down the hillside, Radi Hamali’s son and neighbor helped clear away the wreckage of pipes, twisted metal, and chicken wire that was his home. Hamali reckoned it will take him two days to set it up again. But there are other problems: the Israeli soldiers knocked over the water barrels and feeding troughs he used for his 150 sheep. One sheep is pregnant and sick. His wife is sick, he’s sick, and he’s sleeping in a cave.
Radi Hamali, 64, says he will stay on his land, “if God wills, until death.” (PNN Images)
“I say to Barack Obama, come and look at this!” he said. “This is my land, this is the land of my father, of my grandfather. I call on all Europeans to come help me, everyone in the West, everyone in the [Palestinian] Authority, all people and journalists. I will stay on our land, if God wills, until death.”
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Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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