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Security firm G4S confirms involvement in Israel’s occupation

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 7 January 2011

The Danish-British security firm G4S recently confirmed in a letter its involvement in the Israeli occupation and violations of international law — reported on last month by The Electronic Intifada.

After the publication of The Electronic Intifada’s report on 15 December 2010, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre asked G4S to respond to the investigation as well as a 28 November 2010 article published by Press TV (“‘Firm sold torture instruments‘”).

Within a week G4S replied, confirming that it had withdrawn from contracts providing security officers to residential settlements in the West Bank in 2002. “However, we continue to serve major commercial customers, for instance supermarket chains, whose operations include the West Bank,” the company stated (the letter can be downloaded from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s website).

G4S claims in its letter that the commercial clients in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank serve the general public. The company wrote that contracts include the provision of security officers to protect the premises of “commercial clients who serve the general public” in the occupied West Bank. However, G4S fails to address that Israeli settlements serve an exclusively Jewish population and are built illegally on occupied Palestinian land.

By providing security services to illegal settlement businesses, G4S facilitates Israel’s violations of international law. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed the illegality of the construction of the wall and settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. According to the ICJ, construction activities should stop immediately and the wall and settlements be dismantled.

G4S tries to downplay its involvement by stating that the number of security officers deployed in the West Bank is “generally less than twenty and currently stands at eight.” However, violation of international law remains a violation, no matter the size.

G4S further attempts to evade responsibility by stating that it does “not carry out police or military-style patrols anywhere in the West Bank.” The company provides security officers to protect police facilities “from time to time,” but they do not perform any kind of law enforcement or public security role, the company stated. G4S also confirmed it provided security equipment, including X-ray machines and body scanners, with associated maintenance services, to the Israeli police, prison service and Ministry of Defense. In its letter the company adds, “We do not control, nor are we necessarily aware, where this equipment is deployed as it may be moved around the country.”

The feigned ignorance about where the equipment is deployed is contrary to the detailed information mentioned in a G4S promotional brochure it distributed this summer.

In the brochure, published by the Danish watchdog DanWatch, G4S describes the supply of a perimeter defense system for the walls around the Ofer prison compound and the installation of a central command room to monitor the entire Ofer compound. In addition, the company writes it also provided all the security systems in Ketziot prison and a central command room in Megiddo prison (G4S delivers technology to Israeli prisons,” DanWatch, 21 November 2010).

G4S boasts that the three prisons can detain 2,700-3,700 “security” prisoners — the majority of whom are Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip illegally transferred to detention centers within Israel’s internationally-recognized boundary. International humanitarian law forbids an occupying power from transferring prisoners outside of the occupied territory and the conditions in Israeli prisons do not meet international legal standards. Accordingly, G4S’s involvement in the Israel Prison Service apparatus abets violations of international law.

G4S’s promotional material contradicts its claim that it does not know where its X-ray machines and body scanners are used. Who Profits? — a project of the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace — has also documented that G4S luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners are used at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank towns of Qalandiya, Bethlehem and Irtah. G4S also provided full body scanners to the Erez checkpoint at Gaza. Who Profits? told The Electronic Intifada that this information is published in G4S’s own website and brochures.

The ICJ affirmed in 2004 that Israel’s wall and checkpoint regime in the West Bank impede Palestinians of “the right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living” and are contrary to international law.

G4S also revealed in its letter to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre that it sells security equipment “with associated maintenance services.” In order to provide maintenance service, G4S presumably must know where the equipment is deployed. By providing maintenance service for years after the installment of the security equipment, G4S continues to facilitate Israel’s violations of international law.

Meanwhile, new research by Who Profits? shows that in 2009 G4S won a tender for providing central control rooms to all the prisons and detention facilities of the Israeli Prison Authority (“G4S Technologies will provide security systems for the prisons and the detention facilities of the Israeli Prison Authority,” G4S website). Therefore, G4S security equipment is deployed in every Israeli prison and detention facility.

G4S’s response to the revelations of its involvement in human rights violations shows the company is not heeding the responsibilities that come with its endorsement of the principles of the UN Global Compact. According to the first two principles of the compact — is a strategic policy initiative launched in 2000 for businesses that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices — G4S should support and respect the protection of international human rights within its spheres of influence and make sure it is not complicit in human rights abuses.

G4S can expect to come under pressure from the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement until it untangles itself from Israel’s brutal occupation.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate.

January 7, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

HRW Demands Criminal Investigation Into Death of 20 y.o Palestinian Patient Denied Permit By Israel

Human Rights Watch Report | IMEMC | January 07, 2011
Anas Saleh (Photo-IMEMC)

Human Rights Watch and other organizations have demanded a criminal investigation into the death of a 20 year old Palestinian patient who was denied a permit by Israeli Authorities to leave Gaza. The Israeli authorities insisted that an unconscious patient appear for questioning by the Israel Security Agency; the patient died in Gaza while waiting for a response.

On 5 January 2011, Adalah, in its own name and on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel and al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (Gaza), submitted a complaint to the Attorney General of Israel, Yehuda Weinstein, and to the Israeli Military Advocate General, Avichai Mendelblit, demanding the opening of a criminal investigation and prosecution of those responsible into the suspicious death of Mr. Anas Saleh, a 20 year old Gaza resident, who died on 1 January 2011 from liver disease in Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

Although the patient was in a critical medical condition, which was known to the Israeli authorities, Israel prevented his exit from Gaza for lifesaving medical treatment. Adalah Attorney Fatmeh el-Ajou filed the complaint on behalf of the victim whose case was followed and documented by PHR-I and al-Mezan.

The human rights organizations argue in the complaint that the denial of an exit permit in these circumstances is an act against the legal obligation to provide medical treatment to save the life of the patient, an act which brought about, or at least hastened, the death of the deceased.

The aforementioned act, or failure, raises the suspicion of manslaughter (section 298 of the penal law, 1977), and/or causing death by negligence (sections 304 and 309 (4) of the penal law, 1977) and responsibility for helpless person and violation of obligation of parent or of responsible person (sections 322 and 337 of the penal law).

In September 2010, Anas Saleh was diagnosed with a liver disease, Budd Chiari Syndrome (a clinical syndrome resulting from obstruction of the veins in the liver). Due to a lack of appropriate medical treatment in the Gaza Strip health system, his condition deteriorated into acute liver failure and hepatitis.

The patient was referred for lifesaving medical treatment to Muqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, and a hospital referral and appointment were in his possession for 26 December 2010. On 13 December 2010 the family presented a request, via the Palestinian Liaison Office, to the Israeli authorities in order to obtain an exit permit from Gaza.

Thirteen days later, on 26 December 2010, the patient’s hospital appointment date, the army informed the Palestinian Liaison Office that the patient must appear for interrogation by the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shabak) on 30 December 2010 to further consider his request. However, on that date the patient was already unconscious, in a comatose state, and could not appear at the interrogation.

This information was forwarded, according to the Palestinian health coordinator, to the Israeli military on that same day, with a request to speed up the request procedure and to issue an exit permit from Gaza urgently.

Paradoxically, despite the ISA continued to insist that the patient appear for questioning. According to the father’s testimony, on 28 December 2010 he received a telephone call from a man who introduced himself as an ISA representative, and requested that his ill son present himself for questioning on the following day. The father informed him that his son was in a coma and asked that he be allowed to leave for medical treatment without delay.

Throughout this process, medical documents substantiating the patient’s medical condition were transmitted to the Israeli authorities. A final medical document confirming the patient’s critical condition was sent on 29 December 2010.

The patient died in Shifa Hospital in Gaza 1 January 2011 at 18:00 (6 pm). Until today, no response to the request has been issued by the Israeli authorities.

Prof. Zvi Bentwich, PHR-I Chairperson states that the patient could have been saved had he been granted immediate entry for emergency surgery.

This is just one of many examples of Israel’s enduring intransigence towards residents of the Occupied Territories, which leads to unnecessary harm and in this case even led to a loss of life that could have been prevented.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma, from al-Mezan, states that: “The Israeli blockade has left thousands of victims suffering from the lack of medical care that is available only an hour away from them by car.” He added that, “Al-Mezan and PHR-I have followed the cases of hundreds of patients who have been restricted from urgent medical treatment outside of Gaza, many of whom died and some of whom were arrested or delayed for long periods of time.

“This situation is still causing inhumane conditions for the patients and, if it continues, it will result in grievances by many others.”

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, al-Mezan and Adalah are calling on the Israeli authorities to bring to justice those responsible for preventing 20 year old Anas Saleh from leaving Gaza for life-saving treatment and ultimately causing his death and take the necessary measures to prevent such occurrences in the future.

Israel must fulfill its legal obligations towards Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip and guarantee patients’ full access to medical treatment.

January 7, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

4,000 attend funeral of Hebron slain

Ma’an – 07/01/2011

HEBRON — At least 4,000 gathered Friday afternoon to attend the funeral of Omar Salim Al-Qawasmi, 66, executed by Israeli forces early that morning, in what military officials later admitted was a case of mistaken identity.

Hamas and Fatah officials joined in the event, hosted following the Friday prayers at a Hebron mosque. The joint participation followed a day of accusations by party officials, with Hamas accusing the PA of being responsible for the death, and accusing the government of coordinating with Israel ahead of the incident.

Al-Qawasmi was killed during an arrest raid that saw five Hamas men, who were released by PA forces the day before, detained by Israeli forces. He was the uncle of one of the men released and re-detained.

Hamas leader Aziz Dweik, former head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, spoke at the funeral, and called the incident a “stupid mistake,” and condemned the detention of the men, who had lobbied for their release with a weeks-long hunger strike.

Instead of the Hamas men, he said, “they shot an old man 13 times in the face.”

Dweik said Israel’s “message is clear, they want nothing for the Palestinians,” and accused the Israeli government of trying to sabotage unity efforts.

The release of six men on Thursday was done on order of President Mahmoud Abbas, after receiving requests from Hamas officials in Gaza, Damascus and a special call from a Qatari Emir asking for their freedom. Six were released, five were detained by Israel the following day. A sixth returned home to Jenin, where he remains free.

Hebron Governor Kamel Hamid, who congratulated the men on their freedom the day before, only hours after being mobbed by settlers in the Tel Rumeida area of the city, said “Israel wants to destroy Arab and Palestinian efforts for peace, it wants the settlers to run the place.”

Also present at the funeral was relative of the slain man, Khaled Fahd Al-Qawasmi, who holds the Ministerial post for Local Governance, members of the PLC with both Fatah and Hamas, faction leaders and PA security heads, who had been instrumental in securing the release of the men.

January 7, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israel’s killing zone in Gaza

Max Ajl, The Electronic Intifada, 6 January 2011
Palestinian farmers in Gaza working in the area of Israel’s deadly “buffer zone.”

Ahmed Qudaih was skinny, in blue Converse sneakers and a black leather jacket, his mustache oddly making him look younger, not older, than his 27 years. His voice was even, his face rigidly composed, like human stone, as we sat down with him in the martyr’s tent in Khozaa, a rural village slightly to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Young men moved up and down the rows of plastic seats with brass coffee pots and tiny ceramic cups and platters of dates. Ahmed agreed to speak briefly about how the Israeli military had just murdered his 19-year-old brother Hassan Qudaih in the village’s borderlands.

Ahmed said that a few hours before sunset on 28 December, Hassan had entered the area where two nights before, there had been a firefight between the Palestinian resistance and Israeli soldiers, who were accompanied by several Apache helicopters and tanks. During the melee, the soldiers killed Issa Abu Rok and Muhammad al-Najjar, fighters from the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They were also members of Hassan and Ahmed’s extended family. Hassan entered the area to look around, to search through it for anything that had been left behind after the bodies had been removed.

Ahmed said that a sniper sitting in a jeep abutting the border shot Hassan in the leg. Hassan treated himself, partially stanching the blood flowing from the wound. And then, according to Ahmed, “the [Israeli army] let him bleed slowly for the subsequent two hours, preventing any emergency vehicles, or his friends, from reaching him.”

His friends made repeated attempts to get close to Hassan, but were repelled by shots from the Israeli border patrol, and eventually incapacitated by a sort of “gas, which made them unconscious,” Ahmed said. Emergency vehicles from the Palestinian emergency services also repeatedly attempted to coordinate with the Israeli army to evacuate Hassan, but they were denied permission to do so, while Hassan continued to bleed, Ahmed explained.

After some time, Ahmed said, a beleaguered Hassan “took out his phone and tried to call for help.” Ahmed said it was at that point that the Israeli military “shelled him from a border-area tank, decapitating him.” Ahmed speculated that perhaps they tracked Hassan’s phone signal to the body. Hassan died instantly, his head apparently severed from his body.

Ahmed explained that “The area where they killed my brother is flat, free of any obstacles that could have blocked their view. The soldiers must have clearly seen that Hassan was a civilian, without any weapons, and shot anyway.”

A family photograph of Qudaih Hassan.

Ahmed showed us a picture of Hassan, as well as his shrapnel-damaged money case. He looked in the picture precisely like the young man he was, barely out of boyhood — frighteningly young — a stand-in for the stunningly young population of Gaza, more than 50 percent of which is under 18, and a wrenching reminder that war and siege on Gaza has meant war and siege on children.

Initial press reports, repeating information issued by the Israeli military spokespersons’ office, put Hassan amongst four other youth “planting explosives at the security fence.” However, subsequent investigations showed otherwise.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports that the five youth were roughly 300 meters from the fence, just on the edge of the “buffer zone” — the no-go area imposed by Israel covering a wide swath of land on the Gaza side of the boundary with Israel, in the east and north — when Israeli firing began. Relatives and neighbors agree: Hassan was unarmed and shot without provocation other than his presence in Israel’s unilaterally-declared “buffer zone.”

That buffer zone ruinously affects Gaza residents living in areas like Khozaa. Khozaa, and the whole rural area east of Khan Younis — which includes the towns and villages of Abasan al-Kabir, Abasan al-Saghira and al-Farrahin — have been the subject of numerous incursions, demolitions, shelling and shootings over the past several years, occurring with an increasing frequency in recent months. Homes with any exposure to the boundary with Israel are pocked with hundreds of bullet holes, and children are barred by their parents from playing in areas which are within the line-of-sight to the boundary after dusk.

Officially, the buffer zone is 300 meters wide, at least according to the leaflets the Israeli military dropped on all of Gaza’s hinterlands on 19 May 2009, showing a map of the Gaza Strip with clearly demarcated no-go areas. Unofficially, however, it extends as far as the bullets from Israeli snipers fly before they hit something.

According to a report put out by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 29 percent of Gaza’s arable farmland is inaccessible due to the belt of forbidden or dangerous land, which extends from 0.5-1 kilometer on the eastern frontier and 1.8 to 2 kilometers on the northern frontier.

In the southern governorates, the imposition of the buffer zone has hit agricultural production hard. For example, in the Khan Younis area, the administrative area of which includes the smaller zones to its east, agriculture and fishing-related activities plummeted from 24 percent of all jobs in the second quarter of 2007 to 7.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

If not enforced by physically present soldiers armed with sniper rifles, it is enforced by women soldiers manning remote-controlled motion-sensing machine gun turrets. The landscape there is marked by ditches, peppered by broken clumps of barbed wire. It’s a tableau of exposed dirt and sliced-off irrigation tubes. It looks like the war zone that it frequently is.

And soldiers often fire at anything that enters the buffer zone. Indeed, repeated calls to the Israeli military spokespersons’ office to ask how they made the determination that Hassan was a “militant” either were met with unfulfilled promises to call back shortly, or the response that “we can’t reveal that information for security reasons.” Nor has the Israeli military issued a correction in response to the repeated queries.

And the assault continues apace. Abd Alazeer Yousef Abu Rijla, Hassan’s uncle and the owner of the land where the young man was killed, described how on 29 December Israeli armor-plated bulldozers entered their farmland in Khozaa and ripped up the remainder of the crops growing there. The total area destroyed comes to about four dunums, or roughly 4,000 square meters. “We cannot go there anymore, even though we are three families that depend on that area,” Abu Rijla said. Although he said that he needed to return to his land, the area was far too dangerous for the time being.

Fifty-nine Palestinians were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military last year, 24 of them civilians, most in the buffer zone. The number of wounded — 220 — has been ten times that, with approximately forty of them occurring since the beginning of November. The tempo of rockets fired from Gaza has increased in response to ongoing Israeli provocations and pummeling, as well as the need to resist the 42-month-long siege.

Meanwhile, the next war slides in and out of view, as Israeli politicians and generals openly discuss timing and strategy. General Gabi Ashkenazi said that the Israeli military “holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip. We hope that the security situation in the south does not deteriorate, however the IDF [Israeli army] is preparing for any scenario” (“Ashkenazi: We’ll be ready if Gaza tensions escalate,” The Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2010).

Indeed, a cable released by WikiLeaks, dated 15 November 2009, confirms that planning for the next incursion began even while the Palestinians of Gaza were still sifting through the rubble of the winter 2008-09 invasion. Ashkenazi told a visiting American Congressional delegation that “I am preparing the Israeli army for a large-scale war,” likely against Hamas and Hizballah (“Israeli army chief was preparing for ‘a large scale war’,” Agence France Presse, 2 January 2011).

A few think this is just posturing, meant to tamp down rocket fire to a more tolerable level and more importantly, to incite massive and paralyzing fear amongst Gaza’s population. If so, perhaps it has worked: the resistance groups recently agreed to cease rocket fire for the time being, while most everyone I talk to in the streets worries that Israel will commemorate the biennial of the 2008-09 Gaza invasion by repeating it, while they grow tortuously frustrated by the stalled peace process.

“We are trapped here, and upset … there is nothing,” a meat seller in the middle class Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa told me, before giving me a ride home. Meanwhile, the subdued roar of F-16s is audible nearly daily here and there in the Gaza Strip, while on the horizon grey Israeli warships hulk in the steel blue sea and Israeli drones buzz overhead in the washed-out sky — watching, waiting, preparing and gathering information for the next massacre from the north.

All images by Max Ajl.

Max Ajl is a doctoral student in development sociology at Cornell, and was an International Solidarity Movement volunteer in the Gaza Strip. He has written for many outlets, including the Guardian and the New Statesman, and blogs on Israel-Palestine at www.maxajl.com.

January 6, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Justice for victims of the police

By Alessandro Tinonga | January 5, 2011

OAKLAND, Calif.–On New Year’s Day, nearly 100 people gathered at the Fruitvale BART station to remember Oscar Grant III and other victims of police brutality.

Grant died in the early morning of January 1, 2009, after he was shot in the back by BART cop Johannes Mehserle. The incident was caught on several cell phone videos that showed that Grant was face down on the ground, with his hands behind his back, and was unarmed when he was shot.

“Two years ago Oscar Grant was murdered up there,” said Jack Bryson, father of Grant’s friends who witnessed the shooting. My spirits are low since the courts passed the unjust sentence.”

Since Grant’s death, a deeply committed movement has pressed for justice–with mixed results. Following a public outcry, Mehserle was arrested and charged with murder. After the trial was moved to Los Angeles County, Mehserle became the first California officer convicted of a wrongful on-duty shooting. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to two years with credit for time served.

He will most likely be released within the next few months.

“You always hope your children will bury you, you never imagine you’d bury your children,” said Wanda Johnson, Grant’s mother. “I hope there will be no more cover ups and the police take responsibility. My heart bleeds everyday.”

As if to remind us that Oscar’s murder was not an isolated event by a “bad apple” (the story advanced by the media and local politicians), five people have been shot to death by Bay Area police in the past two months.

In November, Oakland police shot and killed a local barber named Derrick Jones. Despite early claims by police, Derrick was unarmed and was shot from the front.

The killing sparked outrage by the community and led to several protests. Members of the Jones family attended the vigil to support the family of Oscar Grant.

“We’re trying to make people more aware about what has happened with these murders,” said Frank Jones, Derrick’s father. “We have to stop the killings, that’s the number one thing. We are waiting for city hall but nothing concrete has happened.”

Relations between police and the community are severely strained. The public’s expectation of police accountability is so low that Police Chief Anthony Batts actually asked the FBI to investigate the shooting of Jones. If federal investigators step in, they will join investigations already underway in the Oakland’s internal affairs unit, homicide team and the district attorney’s office.

In another case, an unarmed woman recently was shot dead by San Leandro police in Oakland following a car chase. Police said that they were pursuing a stolen car which led to a crash in a residential neighborhood. Allegedly, the woman was shot for fear she would use the car to assault officers and escape.

However, a witness interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News said, “They [the police] crashed the car and right away he said, ‘Get out, get out,’ two times, and then he started dumping the whole clip on her. He actually reloaded when he was done.”

Despite Johannes Mesherle’s wrist-slap punishment, the recent string of shootings by police and a heavy police presence at the New Year’s Day vigil (including over a dozen patrol cars and an armored personnel carrier), everyone in the crowd stood firm in their commitment to achieve justice.

“We’re gathered here to remember…and celebrate life,” said Cephus Johnson, Oscar Grant’s uncle. “This is a time of celebration, reflection, and to embrace each other.”

A common message that most speakers related at the vigil is their optimism that the struggle will continue.

“It’s good we still got people out here,” said Bryson. “We won’t let things fade away.”

Cephus Johnson added, “[The] community still standing gives us the strength to keep fighting.”

 

See also:

Looking into the Background of the BART Execution

January 5, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Brutal Reprisals Against Peaceful GA Inmate Strikers Confirmed, Was One Victim Hidden For Weeks By Prison Authorities?

By Bruce A. Dixon | Black Agenda Report | January 5, 2010

Black, brown and white inmates in 6 Georgia prisons nonviolently locked themselves in their cells for several days beginning December 9, demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, adequate food and medical care, just parole decisions and access to their families. The peaceful inmate strikers, as we reported the following day, were already victims of brutal retaliation on the part of correctional officials, ranging from cutoffs of heat and hot water to unprovoked assaults by correctional employees upon prisoners.

It now appears that at least one inmate, Terrance Dean of Bibb County GA was brutally assaulted by staff at Macon State Prison on or about December 16 was so severely injured prison officials secretly evacuated him to a hospital in Atlanta without bothering to inform his family. It’s not known at this time which Department of Corrections officials authorized the secret evacuation, who decided not to notify Dean’s family of either his injuries or his whereabouts, or whether the prisoner was transported the roughly 130 miles to Atlanta via ground or air ambulance. The first word the prisoner’s family received of either the beating or Dean’s whereabouts was when they were contacted December 30 or 31 by the friends and associates of other prisoners on the outside. Neither the Department of Corrections nor Atlanta Medical Center, where the prisoner was held for about two weeks, has released any information about the extent of the prisoner’s injuries, his current medical condition, or how he was injured.

The morning of Friday, December 31, Dean’s sister, along with ACLU attorney Chara Jackson and GA state NAACP chief Ed DuBose representing the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner’s Rights showed up at the Atlanta Medical Center demanding to see the injured prisoner or at least have his whereabouts confirmed. After several hours of delay, correctional officials said his mother and sister, along with the attorney would be allowed to visit him at Jackson State Prison Sunday, January 2, but they offered no explanation of the reasons for his secretive transfer. Hospital officials also refused to offer any information on Dean’s injuries, even to his family, on grounds of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“We assume that state officials have a written policy requiring them to inform family members in the event of the serious injury of their loved ones in prison,” said the Georgia Green Party’s Hugh Esco. “If Georgia corrections personnel did brutally beat Terrance Dean, transfer him secretly more than a hundred miles from the scene of the crime scene and neglect to inform his family about his injuries or whereabouts they could be parties to a criminal conspiracy. The Green Party has written a letter to the outgoing and incoming governors asking them to look carefully at the events surrounding the case of Mr. Dean. We also note that the Department of Corrections promised access to the 37 prisoners whom it transferred as a result of the inmate strike that began on December 9. We hope this is a promise they keep, so that the public can get a complete and accurate picture of what goes on behind those walls.”

Dean’s sister, attorney Chara Jackson, and the NAACP’s Ed DuBose briefed the press at Atlanta Medical Center, including representatives from at least one local TV station repeatedly beginning at noon on Friday, and assured Black Agenda Report that they will attempt to see Terrance Dean at Jackson State Prison on Sunday, January 2. But as of nearly 24 hours later, on the morning of January 1, 2011 no corporate news outlet is publicly asking or answering any of the key questions around the assault on Terrance Dean, or what look for all the world like official attempts to conceal it from his family and the public.

“This is no surprise,” offered BAR executive editor Glen Ford. “For corporate journalists, a story without input from government or corporate officials is no story at all. For these so-called reporters, the story has a big hole in it as long as state officials decline to comment, even though official misconduct on the part of government IS the story. If the state declines to comment until Sunday or Monday, they will sit on the story till then. Establishment journalists are nothing if not disciplined and well-trained.”

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, based in Marietta GA, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Both Black Agenda Report and the Georgia Green Party are members of the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner’s Rights.

Background:

GA Prison Inmate Strike Enters New Phase, Prisoners Demand Human Rights, Education, Wages For Work

Video interview:

Elaine Brown on GA Prison Strike, December 14 Democracy Now Video Interview

And related video report:

Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for the UK’s Channel 4 originally aired in 2005.

January 5, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza twice overnight

Ma’an – 05/01/2011

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s airforce struck two areas in the Gaza Strip overnight, in what a statement said was a “response to this morning’s firing of a Qassam Rocket,” which allegedly hit outside Ashkelon on Tuesday.

According to the military, the sites targeted were a “Hamas terror activity center” in the central Gaza Strip and a smuggling tunnel in the south near Rafah.

While the military said “Direct hits were confirmed,” there have been no reports of injuries.

No resistance faction has claimed to have launched a projectile toward Israel since the evening of January 2.

In its statement, Israel noted that it “holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it,” and added that its forces would “continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel.”

Reports in the Israeli media last week said a meeting between factions in Gaza resulted in a decision to stem the flow of projectiles fired toward Israel.

Israeli officials have reported an increase in projectile launches toward Israeli targets from within the Gaza Strip, while a report from the country’s intelligence office said the number of projectile attacks by Gaza militants had sharply fallen in 2010.

January 5, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Facts contradict Israel’s assertions in Bilin death

Press release, Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, 4 January 2011

The family of Jawaher Abu Rahmah mourns during her funeral in the West Bank village of Bilin, 1 January 2011 (Oren Ziv/Activestills)

The following edited press release was issued by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee on 4 January 2010:

Since yesterday, the Israeli army has been promoting in the Israeli media a mendacious version regarding the events that led to the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah of Bilin on Friday, 31 December 2010. According to the army’s version, Jawaher was not injured by tear gas and was possibly not even present at the demonstration. The army spokesperson did not see fit to publish an official statement on the matter, instead passing the information to the media in the name of anonymous “army sources.”

The facts of the matter — which are supported by the testimony of eyewitnesses who were present at the demonstration, as well as by the ambulance driver who evacuated her to the hospital — contradict completely the army’s version:

Soubhiya Abu Rahmah, mother of Jawaher: “I was standing beside Jawaher on the hill that is near the place where the demonstration took place, when we were injured by a cloud of tear gas. Jawaher began to feel unwell from inhaling the gas and started to move back from the place; soon after that she vomited and collapsed. We took her to the nearest road, and from there she was evacuated by ambulance to the hospital, where she remained until her death. She was not sick with cancer, nor did she have any other illness; and she was not asthmatic.”

Ilham Fathi: “I was on the roof of my house, which is located a few meters from where Jawaher stood. When the cloud of tear gas moved in our direction, I went downstairs in order to close the windows. While I was closing one of the windows, I saw her lose consciousness from the gas and ran over to her, together with Islam Abu Rahmah, in order to pull her away. We picked her up together and carried her to my garden. We called for help and she began to vomit and foam at the mouth.”

Islam Abu Rahmah: “I was standing with Jawaher, her mother and my grandmother in order to watch the confrontation that was going on just in front of us, in the area of the fence. The wind moved the gas in our direction, making our eyes itch and tear up. After that she [Jawaher] began to cough and foam at the mouth. Soon after that she became weak and lay down on the ground. I succeeded in carrying her as far as the Abu Khamis home, about 40 meters in the direction of her house, but then she became terribly weak, vomited violently and foamed at the mouth. She was having difficult breathing and lost her sense of direction. We got a few women to help her by waving a paper fan over her face in order to provide some oxygen. After that she was taken to the hospital.”

Saher Bisharat, the ambulance who evacuated Jawaher: “We received Jawaher near the entrance that is parallel to the fence, which is where the demonstration was taking place. She was still partially conscious, answered questions, and said that she had choked on gas. I took her straight to the hospital” (See the Palestine Red Crescent Society report).

The army has also claimed that the reports about Abu Rahmeh’s injuries started to arrive only several hours after the incident, in the evening. That claim is contradicted by a tweet sent by the nongovernmental organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which reported the injury of Jawaher, including her name, in real time (see JVP’s Twitter feed). The tweet was sent at 2:36pm (4:36 am on the West Coast of the United States). Wafa, the Palestinian news service, published a report that includes the injury of Jawaher Abu Rahmah shortly after the event (Four civilians injured and Israeli journalist arrested in Bilin march“).

Also according to “army sources,” which remain anonymous, Jawaher Abu Rahmah suffered from a serious illness, possibly leukemia; the “sources” postulate that she died from a pre-existing condition rather than tear gas inhalation. Several sources reject that claim.

Dr. Uday Abu Nahlah: “Jawaher Abu Rahmah was employed in my home on a regular basis. On Thursday she was at work as usual, healthy, only one day before her death.”

Jawaher had an inner ear infection, which affected her balance, for which she was recently given a CT scan. The radiologist who performed the CT scan, Dr. Hamis Al Sahfi’i, confirmed that the brain scan was normal (see the CT scan results). Jawaher had a minor health issue involving fluids in her inner ear. Her physicians insist that she did not suffer from any illness or from any symptoms that might, if combined with tear gas, lead to her death.

There is not, nor could there be, any indication that Abu Rahmah had cancer; in fact, she was in good health. The director of the hospital refutes the claim that she died from a pre-existing condition:

Mohammed Aida, director of the Ramallah health center where Abu Rahmah received her care: “Jawaher Abu Rahmah died from lung failure that was caused by tear gas inhalation, leading to a heart attack. She arrived at the hospital only partly conscious, and then lost consciousness completely” (See the hospital’s official medical report [PDF]).

Mohammed Khatib, a member of Bilin’s Popular Coordinating Committee: “The army is trying to evade its responsibility for Jawaher’s death with lies and invented narratives that have no basis. They are spreading these lies and invented narratives via the media, which is not bothering to do basic fact checking. Our version is supported by named sources and with medical documents. In a properly functioning society, the army’s version, which has been spread by anonymous sources, would not be considered worthy of publication.”

January 4, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israeli troops– which killed 176 students, teachers in Gaza war– now raid Jenin university dorms

Ma’an 03/01/2011

JENIN — Israeli forces briefly detained one man after they entered the a university residence in Jenin, telling students they were searching for wanted Palestinians.

Soldiers also erected checkpoints around the city, targeting three Jenin-area villages.

Eight military units entered a dorm housing students from the Arab American University, onlookers estimated, but a security guard said he would not allow soldiers to enter rooms in the female dormitory.

When the soldiers reached the women’s dorm, a security guard prevented their access, witnesses said, [the soldiers] then detained him for over an hour.

Residents said troops also raided Kafr Ra’i and Fahma villages southwest of Jenin. Further, the army installed two checkpoints – one between Rummana and Zububa villages west of the city and another between Zabda village and the university, locals said.

An army spokeswoman said one new checkpoint had been installed near Zububa, but that it was later removed. She was not immediately familiar with raids in the area but said she would look into it.

No further detentions were reported.

January 4, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Settlers attack Hebron popular committee official

Ma’an – 02/01/2011

HEBRON — Settlers in Hebron attacked a Popular Committee official on Sunday, leaving him unconscious, witnesses said.

Azmi Ash-Shuyukhi was transferred by ambulance to Hebron’s government hospital after he was beaten while leading a solidarity tour near Yatta, south of the West Bank city.

After regaining consciousness, Ash-Shuyukhi said 10 settlers punched and kicked him, leaving cuts and bruises all over his body.

Israeli soldiers were present and witnessed the attack but did not intervene, he added.

Ash-Shuyukhi is the secretary-general of the local popular committee.

Meanwhile, journalist Naser Ash-Shuyukhi said settlers punctured the tires of his car while he covered events in the area.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem describes attacks by settlers against Palestinians as “routine,” but says Israeli authorities “employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward Israeli civilians who harm Palestinians.”

January 2, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

A Tiny Slice of the Palestinian Experience

By Alex Kane | January 2, 2010

Ramallah, West Bank–It’s a far cry from the daily checkpoints, beatings, tear-gassing and harassment that Palestinians have to go through, but today I can say that a tiny slice of the Palestinian experience became alive to me.

My arrival at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel early today was the start of a long trip down Israeli security harassment lane.  After I showed my passport to an Israeli immigration agent, I was taken to a holding room, where I joined Palestinians trying to visit family and other–mostly non-white–people.  Three hours later, I was taken to a separate room, where I was questioned by a bald Israeli who said he was from the Ministry of Defense.

They immediately knew that my back story of why I came to Israel was false, and I had to admit I planned on visiting the West Bank.  After that came questions about my trip last year to Gaza, who I met with there, what I wanted to do in the West Bank and what the delegation I joined today was all about.  Absurdly, the defense official hinted that I was suspected of “terrorism”–the term used by Israel and the U.S. to smear anyone who dissents against their inhumane policies of occupation and war.  The agent also was curious to find out why I–as a Jew–was on the “Palestinian side,” working “against my homeland and my father’s,” to which I responded that Israel is not my homeland, and that I was for the human rights of all people, including Palestinians.  While these questions were fired at me, pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres stared down at me, as if to mock me.

I was sent back to the holding room without my passport, where I spent the rest of my time sleeping, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (a perfect mood-lifter) and messaging Israeli blogger Didi Remez over Twitter with updates on what was going on.

Five hours later, after I though I was to be deported or detained, I was let out of the grasp of Israeli security on the condition that I not enter the Palestinian territories.  As I drove to Ramallah, I passed by countless West Bank settlements–with their gleaming lights–and Palestinian villages surrounded by the illegal colonies.  There was no discernible difference between Israel proper and settlement areas over the Green Line, something that I marveled at even though I knew that was the case.

And now I’m here, back in Palestine after one year.  One can only be amazed that the Palestinian people remain so strong and steadfast after enduring 62 years of Israeli security harassment far worse than what I went through today.

January 2, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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