Taliban slams UN report on Afghan civilian casualties
Press TV – February 19, 2015
The Taliban militants have censured the United Nations for what they describe as its “unjust and political motives” in attributing a rise in the number of Afghan civilian casualties in 2014 to the group’s militancy.
“The findings of the report are unjust and we refute them,” the Taliban militant group declared in a Thursday statement, claiming that Afghan government forces may have also contributed to the high civilian toll in the war-ravaged country in the past year.
The development came after the United Nations announced in a Wednesday report that 72 percent of the overall civilian casualties throughout Afghanistan were attributed to the Taliban and other militant groups.
“The United Nations does not show the crimes that the Afghan military under the Kabul administration is committing against civilians,” the Taliban statement further said.
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, more than 10,000 civilian casualties were recorded across the Asian country during 2014, reflecting a 22-percent hike compared to figures from the previous year.
“Rising civilian deaths and injuries in 2014 attests to a failure to fulfill commitments to protect Afghan civilians from harm,” said Nicholas Haysom, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special representative for Afghanistan.
The report, however, does not attribute any civilian casualties in the war-torn country to the US-led foreign forces, most of which withdrew from the country by the end of 2014.
Washington’s assassination drone strikes and other air raids and military operations conducted by the US-led forces have been widely blamed for large number of civilian casualties since the foreign troops began their military invasion of the country in 2001.
Afghan civilians have been bearing the brunt of the 13-year war in Afghanistan since the US-led occupation of the country under the pretext of a “war on terror.”
Briefing – Gaza: Life beneath the drones
By Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Corporate Watch | February 19, 2015
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Unpiloted aircraft, known as drones in the arms industry, have become Israel’s weapon of choice in its attacks on Gaza. In 2012 drones killed more people in Gaza than any other aircraft. In Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ attack, 37% of those killed died in drone attacks.
In 2013 Corporate Watch visited Gaza for two months to interview the survivors of drone attacks and human rights workers about the effect of living beneath the drones. The interviews tell the story of the survivors and highlights their calls for support from the global solidarity movement.
This briefing compiles the interviews and gives short profiles of some of the companies profiting from Israel’s drone wars: Elbit and IAI.
We hope that reading this briefing will inspire you to take action in solidarity with people living under siege in Gaza. As one survivor of a drone strike told us: “We do not need just words”.
Activists in UK occupy second Israeli owned arms factory
MEMO | February 17, 2015
A factory in Kent owned by Israeli arms company Elbit Systems was occupied early Tuesday morning by activists responding to the Palestinian call for solidarity and BDS.
Instro Precision, a subsidiary of Elbit, was occupied at 5am, with more than a dozen activists taking up positions on the roof and at the entrance.
According to a press release from London Palestine Action, “Instro is owned by Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, who make drones that are used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
It adds: “Optical and camera systems like those made at the Instro factory are also supplied by Elbit for use in drones flown over Afghanistan, as well as in Israel’s apartheid wall.”
The site in Broadstairs, Kent, is the second Elbit-linked company to be targeted by activists in the UK, after a successful occupation last summer of a drone engine factory near Birmingham.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade, welcoming the direct action, pointed out on Twitter that “there are 4 Elbit sites in the UK” and that “activists have so far targeted Kent & Staffordshire.”
Just last month, the prosecution of protesters who had occupied that first factory was dropped at the last minute, when Elbit refused to hand over evidence about its exports of weaponry to Israel.
During ‘Operation Protective Edge’, the Israeli military killed hundreds of Palestinians with drones. Activists say that Elbit Systems supplies 85% of the drones used by the military, and that the company’s “share price rose in July off the back of the extensive use of its technology during Israel’s massacre.”
European Court confirms Polish complicity in CIA rendition and torture
Reprieve | February 17, 2015
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has today confirmed its judgement that Poland actively assisted the CIA’s European “black site” programme, which saw detainees held and tortured in secret prisons across the Continent.
In July 2014, the ECHR had ruled that Poland “facilitated” the torture, secret detention and unlawful transfer of Abu Zubaydah, who is now held in Guantanamo Bay.
Mr Zubaydah was flown from a secret site in Thailand to another CIA prison in Stare Kiejkuty in northern Poland, where he was detained and tortured during 2002 and 2003. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) detailed in its recent report how Mr Zubaydah was subjected to torture numerous times by the CIA, before the Agency concluded that he was not a member of al Qaeda at all.
Today’s ruling by the ECHR confirms its 2014 judgement and rejects a request by Poland to refer it to its Grand Chamber for potential reconsideration.
The 2014 judgment described the evidence that Mr Zubaydah was detained in Poland as “coherent, clear and categorical,” and ruled that it was “inconceivable” that Poland was unaware of his mistreatment. It concluded that “Poland, for all practical purposes, facilitated the whole process, created the conditions for it to happen and made no attempt to prevent it from occurring.”
Kat Craig, legal director at human rights charity Reprieve, said: “The Court’s decision today is a crucial step forward for justice and accountability over the European role in the US torture programme. Poland’s attempts to avoid responsibility were rightly refused – it’s now time for the Polish authorities to admit their complicity in renditions, take their investigations seriously, and come clean about how they allowed these abuses on Polish soil.”
Recent Academy of Sciences Reports on Climate Change were Partially Funded by CIA
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | February 17, 2015
A voluminous scientific study on climate change and man-made possibilities of altering it was funded by several federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The CIA’s decision to partially fund the research left at least one expert who participated in the study a little uneasy.
Scientist Alan Robock at Rutgers University told The Guardian the CIA’s investment in the $630,000 study “makes me really worried who is going to be in control” of efforts to stem the impact of climate change.
In addition to the CIA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funded the National Academy of Sciences research that produced two reports within the study.
One report addressed ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the other looked at ways to alter cloud cover or change the planet’s surface to make it reflect more sunlight back into space.
The CIA never explained to the academy why it was funding the project.
But Robock became suspicious after two CIA consultants contacted him inquiring about the possibility of another country gaining control of the weather.
“They said: ‘We are working for the CIA and we’d like to know if some other country was controlling our climate, would we be able to detect it?’ I think they were also thinking in the back of their minds: ‘If we wanted to control somebody else’s climate could they detect it?’” he told The Guardian.
He said that he told the consultants that any attempt to generate large, climate-changing clouds would be noticed by weather satellites or other equipment used to monitor the atmosphere.
The CIA didn’t respond to a press inquiry about its involvement and has previously refused to confirm its role in the study. In 2013, CIA spokesman Edward Price told Mother Jones: “It’s natural that on a subject like climate change the Agency would work with scientists to better understand the phenomenon and its implications on national security.”
Using the weather as a weapon is forbidden under international law, per the Environmental Modification Convention of 1978.
The agency’s inquiry left Robock concerned. “I’d learned of lots of other things the CIA had done that didn’t follow the rules,” he said. “I thought that wasn’t how my tax money was spent.”
The CIA opened its own climate change office in 2009 but shut it down three years later after criticism from some Republicans who called it a distraction from the agency’s focus on combatting terrorism.
To Learn More:
Spy Agencies Fund Climate Research in Hunt for Weather Weapon, Scientist Fears (by Ian Sample, The Guardian )
CIA Backs $630,000 Scientific Study on Controlling Global Climate (by Dana Liebelson and Chris Mooney, Mother Jones )
C.I.A. Closes Its Climate Change Office (by John Broder, New York Times )
Israel’s claims on journalists slain in its war “misleading”
Palestine Information Center – February 16, 2015
GAZA – The Palestinian ministry of information strongly denounced Israel’s channel 7 for fabricating claims about some of the journalists that had been killed by the Israeli army during the last war on the Gaza Strip, and described its report as “misleading.”
Israel’s channel 7 claimed in a recent report that eight of the journalists who were killed during Israel’s last military operation in Gaza were working for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The information ministry said in a press release on Sunday that the channel’s claims about the journalists was an exposed attempt by the Israeli government to shirk its responsibility for the crimes its army had committed against the journalists in Gaza.
The ministry underlined that all Israeli crimes against the journalists in the last war were documented in reports issued by international and local organizations, especially the International Federation of Journalists.
It said that Israel’s attempt to deflect attention from its crimes by questioning the number of slain journalists and their professional activities could not deceive the UN probe committee or the international community.
US Ex-Defense Chief Hawks Escalation in Ukraine
Sputnik News | 15.02.2015
Former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is arguing for supplying arms to Ukraine, saying the US should counter Russia’s influence in the former Soviet Union and act as a global leader.
Dealing with Russia should be done from a position of “strength, not from weakness,” former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Der Spiegel in an interview published on Saturday, saying that giving Ukraine military aid would give Russia a “higher price to pay.”
“I would have provided arms to Ukraine early on because I think they need to have the military aid necessary to send Russia a message,” Panetta told the publication.
Panetta said that he doubts that the current ceasefire will last, saying that “like the last one, it will only be temporary unless the West is willing to enforce it with both economic and military support to the Ukrainians.”
Panetta added that he would act from a position of strength, and would also give more military aid to NATO countries which border Russia.
“The United States has to be a leader in the world, because the problem is: If we are not leading, nobody else will,” he added.
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Finland have all rejected the idea of providing Ukraine with lethal assistance. Russia has warned that the proposed US arms deliveries to Kiev could lead to a sharp increase in violence in Donbas, where fighting intensified at the start of 2015. In addition, Russia denies that it is militarily involved in the conflict.
Leon Panetta was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2011 and US Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013.
Israel divestment narrowly fails at Stanford
The Stanford University undergraduate senate needed a two-thirds majority to approve a resolution calling on the school to “divest from companies violating human rights in occupied Palestine,” and it came close: Nine in favor and five against, with one abstention.
But the 64% in favor vote, sponsored by Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine, a coalition of 19 campus organizations including the Black Student Union, MEChA, and Students for Justice in Palestine, wasn’t enough for passage of the resolution according to the Stanford Daily.
Updated Resolution 2/9/2015
A Resolution to Divest from Companies Violating Human Rights in Occupied Palestine
WHEREAS the Stanford University Code of Conduct states that all members of the Stanford University community “are responsible for sustaining the highest ethical standards of this institution, and of the broader community in which we function,[1]”
WHEREAS in managing university investments, Stanford University Trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to consider both financial risk and “substantial social injury,” defined as “proximate corporate direct or indirect actions that cause injury to… individuals, or groups… [and] violat[e], subver[t], or frustrat[e] enforcement of rules of domestic or international law intended to protect individuals and/or groups against deprivation of health, safety, basic freedoms or human rights,”[2]
WHEREAS Stanford University has a rich history of calling for ethical oversight of its endowment as a non-violent strategy towards social change, which has included divestment from companies violating human rights in South Africa and Sudan, the adoption of criteria pertaining to conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and divestment from coal mining companies following last year’s fossil free divestment student campaign,
WHEREAS international humanitarian law recognizes the right of all people, including Israelis and Palestinians, to life, security[3] and self-determination[4],
WHEREAS Israel has been recognized by international law since 1967 as an occupying power in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza[5], hereafter referred to as the Occupied Palestinian Territories,
WHEREAS this resolution calls for targeted divestment from multinational corporations causing substantial social injury by violating international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, regardless of which countries contract said corporations,
WHEREAS multinational corporations disproportionately conduct business in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as compared to other conflict areas (e.g. Syria or North Korea), where binding law often prevents engagement with human rights violators,
WHEREAS many of the same companies profiting from human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories also profit from such violations against communities of color within the United States,[6]
WHEREAS Stanford’s May 2014 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings demonstrate past direct holdings in Raytheon and Eaton Corp[7], corporations that are implicated in such violations of international humanitarian law[8], suggesting that Stanford’s current and future investment portfolios are likely to include similar companies,
WHEREAS investment in these companies shows implicit support for such violations, and the only way to achieve financial neutrality is to end our investment in such companies,
WHEREAS selective divestment, as in the context of South Africa and Sudan, does not seek to determine a political solution nor target a particular ethnic or religious community, but rather the actions of a set of multinational corporations that facilitate human rights abuses and violations of international law,
WHEREAS our peers at many university student associations, including Wesleyan University, Oberlin College, DePaul University, Evergreen State College, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UCLA, and UC Davis have passed resolutions calling for divestment from companies that violate international law and human rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,
WHEREAS the petition asking Stanford’s Board of Trustees to selectively divest from companies that violate international law and human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been signed by over 1500 current students and 19 Stanford student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Students for Alternatives to Militarism (SAM), the Asian American Student Association (AASA), MEChA de Stanford, Stanford National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Stanford NAACP), Black Student Union (BSU), Student And Labor Alliance (SALA), Stanford Asian American Activism Committee (SAAAC), Muslim Students Awareness Network (MSAN), Pilipino American Student Union (PASU), Arab Students’ Association at Stanford (ASAS), First Generation Low Income Partnership (FLIP), International Socialist Organization at Stanford (ISO), Stanford Students for Queer Liberation (SSQL), Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO), Islamic Society of Stanford University (ISSU), Pakistanis at Stanford (PaS), Stanford University Students for UNICEF (SUSU), and the Stanford Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (SLS-NLG),
WHEREAS these companies’ actions affect the Stanford community directly, including students whose families live under occupation, and thus attend an institution complicit in violence against their own communities,
WHEREAS the Associated Students of Stanford University has been authorized “to exercise major privileges and responsibilities” with the express purpose of “[encouraging] responsible citizenship and the exercise of individual and corporate responsibility on the part of students,”[9]
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Associated Students of Stanford University Undergraduate Senate, exercising its representative authority on behalf of all undergraduates:
THAT the ASSU Undergraduate Senate calls upon the Stanford University Trustees to divest from companies that violate international humanitarian law by:
- Maintaining the illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation, in particular settlements and separation wall, which includes companies like Veolia Transdev and Elbit Systems[10]
- Facilitating Israel and Egypt’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians, which includes companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Eaton Corp[11]
- Facilitating state repression against Palestinians by Israeli, Egyptian or Palestinian Authority security forces, which includes companies like Combined Tactical Systems and G4S,[12]
THAT the ASSU Undergraduate Senate calls upon the Stanford University Trustees to withdraw investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments with holdings in Veolia Transdev, Caterpillar, Raytheon, Eaton Corp, Lockheed Martin, Combined Tactical Systems, G4S, and all corporations that are similarly complicit in violating these criteria, at such time and in such manner as to be determined by the Board of Trustees with the goal of maintaining the divestment until they cease these specific practices deemed as unethical by the Stanford community,
THAT this is not a resolution concerning boycotts nor sanctions from any nation state,
THAT this resolution overrules the previous resolution UGS-W2013-10 that passed in the 14th Undergraduate Senate,
LET IT FINALLY BE RESOLVED that the ASSU Undergraduate Senate, exercising its representative authority on behalf of all undergraduates, calls upon our university to affirm its commitment to justice for all people by divesting from companies implicated in our criteria for substantial social injury in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, many of which facilitate parallel injury against communities of color here in the United States.
[1] https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-1/subchapter-1/policy-1-1-1
[2] Stanford University’s Statement on Investment Responsibility
[3] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
[4] UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3aa0.html
[5] Geneva Convention, UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch; http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/007/2009/en/4c407b40-e64c-11dd-9917-ed717fa5078d/mde150072009en.html#2.2.1.2.%20Law%20of%20occupation|outline
[6] See supplementary document.
[7] Stanford’s May 2014 SEC Filings: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1315828/000106299314002805/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml
[8] See supplementary document.
[9] The Constitution of of the Associated Students of Stanford University: http://assu.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ASSU-Constitution.pdf,4.
[10] In violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. See supplement.
[11] In violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. See supplement.
[12] In violation of the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. See supplement.
Supplementary Document
Background on our Criteria for Substantial Social Injury
Cleared Londoner Shaker Aamer marks 13 years in Guantanamo without charge or trial
Reprieve | February 13, 2015
Saturday, February 14th, marks 13 years since the arrival of British resident Shaker Aamer at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held without charge or trial ever since.
Mr Aamer, a father of four from London, has been cleared for release under both the Bush and Obama administrations, in a process which requires six government agencies to confirm that he poses no threat. However, he remains imprisoned in Guantanamo, despite repeated requests by the UK Government that he be returned to his family in South London.
Mr Aamer’s plight was most recently raised by David Cameron during talks at the White House in January, leading a spokesperson for President Obama to say the US would ‘prioritise’ his case. However, concerns about a lack of progress have been raised after Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel – whose signature acts as the final authorisation to release prisoners from Guantanamo – reportedly said that Mr Aamer’s file was not ‘on his desk’.
Today also marks the birthday of Mr Aamer’s youngest son, Faris, who was born on the day Mr Aamer was brought to Guantanamo Bay, and whom he has never been allowed to meet.
Commenting, Clive Stafford Smith, Director of legal charity Reprieve, which represents Mr Aamer said: “President Obama’s claim that he will ‘prioritise’ Shaker’s case rings rather hollow, since he is the most powerful person in the world and is perfectly able to put Shaker on a plane to London and his long-suffering family within 24 hours. Eight hundred years ago the Magna Carta assured us that to nobody will we ‘deny or delay justice’. Thirteen years in a military prison without charge or trial is an affront to the most basic standards of justice. The Prime Minister needs to tell Shaker’s children when their father is coming home.”
BBC airs Maidan fighter admitting he fired on police before Kiev massacre
RT | February 12, 2015
Nearly a year after the massacre on Kiev’s Maidan left over 50 dead, the BBC has aired footage of an opposition fighter who says he fired at police in the early morning that day, bringing into question the popular narrative that riot police fired first.
“I was shooting downward at their feet,” says a man the broadcaster decided to identify as Sergei.
“Of course, I could have hit them in the arm or anywhere. But I didn’t shoot to kill.”
According to Sergei, he took up a position in the Kiev Conservatory, a music academy located on the southwest corner of Kiev’s Independence Square, on February 20.
One day prior, he had met up with a man who offered him two guns. The first was a 12-gauge shotgun, while the other was a hunting rifle – a Saiga that fired high-velocity rounds.
He chose the Saiga and hid it at a post office that, along with the conservatory, was under the protesters’ control. Sergei told the BBC he was later escorted to the Conservatory, where, with a second gunman, he spent 20 minutes before 7:00 am firing on police.
Other witness testimony has corroborated his account.
UK Government in Court of Appeal over rendition and torture case
Reprieve | February 12, 2015
Lawyers for the British Government will today argue in the Court of Appeal that a case concerning the 2004 kidnap, torture and ‘rendition’ of a man by UK and US forces should not be heard.
The case is being brought by legal charity Reprieve and solicitors Leigh Day on behalf of Yunus Rahmatullah (32), who was captured in Iraq by the UK, tortured and held in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, before being ‘rendered’ to Afghanistan by the US. He then faced a decade of detention without charge or trial in Bagram prison, before being released in 2014.
Today, Mr Rahmatullah’s lawyers are appealing a previous decision by the High Court that the Government could rely on the ‘Crown Act of State’ doctrine, which the Government argues prevents the court from intervening in executive acts abroad, even if they were unlawful. If the High Court’s judgment is allowed to stand, the ability to hold the state accountable for serious abuses abroad will be limited.
Commenting, Kat Craig, legal director at Reprieve and Mr Rahmatullah’s lawyer, said: “If Yunus’ ordeal had taken place on British soil, there is no question that the Government would have faced serious consequences. Instead of accepting responsibility for Yunus’ appalling mistreatment, the Government is now seeking to put itself above the law. It has to be hoped that the Court of Appeal rejects this shameful attempt to frustrate justice.”
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