DC AG subpoenas Facebook for data on ALL users that have spread “COVID-19 misinformation”
Unmasking people for wrongthink
By Tom Parke | Reclaim the Net | July 2, 2021
The District of Columbia (DC) Attorney General (AG) Karl Racine, a Democrat, has subpoenaed Facebook for a wide range of records related to “COVID-19 misinformation” on the platform.
The subpoena was filed on June 21 and demands that Facebook identify all groups, pages, and accounts that have violated the platform’s far-reaching COVID-19 misinformation rules.
It also calls for Facebook to release an internal study that looked at vaccine hesitancy among its users. Media reports on this study in March claimed that it showed that non-rule breaking Facebook content may be causing “substantial” harm.
If Facebook were to comply with this subpoena, it would likely impact millions of users. Facebook has removed more than 18 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram for violating its COVID-19 misinformation rules and applied warning labels to more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content.
The subpoena is part of a previously undisclosed investigation into whether Facebook is violating consumer protection laws.
Racine’s director of communications, Abbie McDonough, told Politico that the investigation is part of an effort to ensure that Facebook cracks down on “vaccine misinformation.”
“Facebook has said it’s taking action to address the proliferation of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on its site,” McDonough said. “But then when pressed to show its work, Facebook refused. AG Racine’s investigation aims to make sure Facebook is truly taking all steps possible to minimize vaccine misinformation on its site and support public health.”
The move follows previous reports of Democrats working with Big Tech to censor content that they deem to be misinformation.
Most notably, a recent lawsuit showed evidence of Democrats flagging alleged misinformation to Twitter via a “partner portal” and Twitter responding by removing the flagged tweets.
Another example of this is Democrats demanding that Facebook and Twitter “address” 12 prominent vaccine skeptics in April. Since they made their demands, four of these vaccine skeptics have had their social media accounts shut down.
Lawmakers have also suggested that the federal government may have “induced Facebook to censor certain speech in violation of the First Amendment” and demanded that the tech giant explain why it censored lab leak theories.
This attempt from the DC AG to identify Facebook users for posting COVID-19 misinformation comes as the tech giant is using increasingly aggressive measures to target people based on the content they share and interact with.
Yesterday, it started asking users whether they’re concerned about their friends “becoming an extremist” and warned users that they “may have been exposed to harmful extremist content.”
And in May, a whistleblower revealed that Facebook is using a secret internal filter to flag “liberty-based” and “religious-based” vaccine skepticism and using a secret algorithm to suppress negative vaccine experiences.
UN chief sounds alarm over abuses against Kashmiri children by India
Press TV – June 30, 2021
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced grave concerns about human rights violations against children in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
“I call upon the [Indian] government to take preventive measures to protect children, including by ending the use of pellets against children, ensuring that children are not associated in any way to security forces, and endorsing the Safe Schools Declaration and the Vancouver Principles,” Guterres said in the UN Report on Children 2021 released on Tuesday.
The UN report cited numerous violations involving Indian forces attacking Kashmiri children in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
“A total of 39 children (33 boys, 6 girls) were killed (9) and maimed (30) by pellet guns (11) and torture (2) by unidentified perpetrators (13) (including resulting from explosive remnants of war (7), crossfire between unidentified armed groups and Indian security forces (3), crossfire between unidentified armed groups, and grenade attacks (3)), Indian security forces (13), and crossfire and shelling across the line of control (13),” it said.
The UN secretary-general also condemned the military occupation of several schools in the Indian-administered Kashmir by the New Delhi forces.
“The United Nations verified the use of seven schools by Indian security forces for four months. Schools were vacated by the end of 2020,” it said.
Guterres expressed “alarm” over “detention and torture” by the Indian troops and their overall use of force against Kashmiri children in the Muslim-majority region.
“I am alarmed at the detention and torture of children and concerned by the military use of schools,” he said.
The UN chief called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to ensure that children were kept out of way of “all forms of ill-treatment” when taken into detention in prisons in the Indian-administrated Kashmir.
The disputed Muslim-majority Kashmir, located in the Himalaya region, is mainly divided between India and Pakistan, while a third strip of land in northern Kashmir is held by China.
The people in Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan since the two countries were partitioned in 1947.
The assassination of Nizar Banat means there’s only one solution for the Palestinians
By Feras Abu-Helal – Arabi21 – June 28, 2021
The assassination of political activist Nizar Banat during his arrest by Palestinian Authority security services is a turning point in occupied Palestine. It is no less important and dangerous than the shift represented by the recent Jerusalem uprising, which covered Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the territory occupied since 1948.
The occupied West Bank has not witnessed events like this before, and the PA has never appeared as strategically and morally stripped as it is now, because its failure in terms of managing internal affairs and human rights has also been exposed alongside its flawed approach to national affairs and resistance against the occupation. The only people who can’t see this are those who benefit from the status quo.
What made Banat’s killing different from all of the PA’s previous crimes, both on the national and internal level, is that all of its flaws were condensed into one operation. The first was the silencing of the anti-occupation voice, as the difference between the latter and the PA is not based on personal interest, or even to the management of domestic affairs, but is essentially a dispute over the PA’s performance and the way it deals with Israel and its occupation. His killing followed Banat’s criticism of the shameful vaccine deal, according to which the PA would hand over new vaccines to the Israelis in exchange for vaccines that expire soon. This showed clearly that the PA favours Israelis over its own people.
Another national paradox for the Palestinian people is that the same PA security forces that melt into the background when their Israeli counterparts are on the scene — not least during the recent events in Jerusalem — and never, ever, confront soldiers or armed settlers when they attack Palestinians and their land, are the same “security forces” which beat Nizar Banat to death after entering his home like thieves in the night and dragging him from his bed. This paradox confirmed to every Palestinian that the PA security forces exist solely to protect the occupation state and oppress the people of Palestine under occupation.
Banat’s assassination also revealed the PA’s indifference to human rights, and its intolerance of criticism. It behaved like every other repressive Arab regime that kills its opponents because of their opinions. Although repression and human rights violations must always be condemned, they are even more shocking and criminal when they come from a self-rule organisation against its own people struggling under a military occupation. The people face a double cycle of repression, at the hands of the Israeli occupation — which is inherently repressive — and the PA, which is supposed to represent their interests. The Palestinians can resist the occupation but are helpless in front of the PA’s repressive security forces, because they know that the occupation is the main issue. Hence, the PA not only adds to the repression of the people, but also distorts the national compass.
After the killing of Banat, the PA behaved like a typical Arab regime. The theory proposed by the late Yasser Arafat and applied to a large extent was dropped; the so-called democracy of the forest of guns, which had little to do with democracy, but was a slogan that allowed criticism and internal conflicts without resorting to weapons, within the framework of the Palestinian national movement. Arafat bore all criticism, accusations and even splits, even though he had national legitimacy to represent all groups of the Palestinian people at the time. The PA today not only coordinates its security repression with Israel, but also lacks any national or electoral legitimacy, and is incapable of accepting criticism. So it simply kills its political opponents.
The PA resorted to its base instincts which are a disgrace for a national liberation movement. It was in denial when it claimed initially that Banat’s was a natural death due to a pre-existing condition. Then it issued contemptable statements about the investigation after the uproar at the murder. It then sent in its security thugs in plain clothes to attack protesters, and issued tribal statements in support of the president, especially from Hebron, where Nizar Banat was from. All of this exposed the PA like never before, as nothing but a primitive authority that identifies with other repressive Arab regimes, with a leadership that is supposed to represent a “national liberation movement”.
Under normal circumstances, there is no “single” solution to any political crisis, as politics is the result of the interaction of several complex factors and profit and loss calculations. However, the killing of Nizar Banat and the events that preceded and followed it have made matters clear to every Palestinian. The national impasse has only one solution: delegitimise and close down this authority.
The Palestinian factions, especially Hamas, must bear their responsibility for this delegitimisation; they should refuse any dialogue with Fatah under the Oslo umbrella. Dialogue must be established on a national basis to agree on the way to resist the occupation, not on how to relieve Israel of its responsibility and grant it an occupation that carries no political, economic and security cost.
Ever since 2006, the Palestinian dialogue has been based on the wrong foundations, and was thus unable to break away from Oslo. If Hamas and the other factions are trying to end the division in this way, then they are making a big mistake. Fatah, meanwhile, must choose between being part of the people and their resistance, or standing with the occupier in an authority that has failed nationally, legally and in managing internal affairs.
This choice was clear in 2006, and many Palestinian writers and elites demanded that it be made. Now, though, it has become clearer after the Jerusalem Intifada and the victory of the resistance, as well as the assassination of Nizar Banat.
Government Says Vaccine Passports Won’t Be Mandatory – They’re Lying
By Richie Allen | June 30, 2021
The Daily Mail is reporting this morning that the government has shelved plans to use vaccine passports after July 19th, the so-called Freedom Day.
The Mail claims that it has been told that covid certification will not be required at mass gatherings when restrictions are lifted.
Government sources have revealed that those attending festivals, concerts or sporting events will not be required to show proof of vaccination or proof of immunity. That sounds good right?
Wrong. The Mail also reports that:
Organisers will, however, be permitted to run their own schemes, with the Premier League among those expected to introduce some form of certification to prove those attending football grounds do not pose a Covid risk.
There’s the kicker. Organisers will be permitted to run their own schemes. The government is simply passing the buck to the private sector. Here’s what I think will happen in the coming months. It’s all so predictable.
Shortly, the government will confirm that it will not be imposing mandatory covid certification. There will be lots of virtue signalling. Ministers will wax lyrical about civil liberties. “The UK is not that sort of country,” they will claim.
The government will say that it has listened to the hospitality industry and understands the concerns of pub and restaurant owners who do not want to be chasing customers for proof of vaccination.
From late July, through August and September, life will feel more normal. It’ll be a false dawn. We’ll hit October. Covid case numbers will rise steadily. Many of those who took the mRNA jabs will become seriously ill and die. This will be blamed on the mythical variants.
Testing will be ramped up. The redundant and thoroughly discredited PCR test will find Covid in nearly everyone who is screened. The government will say that there is a danger that the NHS will be overwhelmed. They’ll say that flu is back too. Of course it’ll be a very virulent strain of flu. The government will tell us that regretfully, restrictions must be reimposed.
There will be real panic in the hospitality and entertainment industries. Fearing for their businesses, owners will scream bloody murder. At the 11th hour a compromise will be reached. That compromise will be the introduction of vaccine passports.
Landlords and restaurateurs who were previously critical of the scheme, will rush to embrace it. People who had a covid booster jab and a flu jab (meaning they will have had four jabs in 2021), will demand the introduction of the passport to allow them to socialise.
Enormous pressure will be brought to bear on people like me who haven’t had a jab and never will. This was never about a virus. It was always about conditioning us to take gene altering vaccines and lots of them. It’s unimaginably evil, but it is happening.
Canada’s government is seeking to silence Canadian journalists at home and abroad with a draconian censorship bill
By Eva Bartlett | RT | June 30, 2021
As a Canadian journalist, I could be subject to a censorship bill which, if passed in Senate, means the government in Canada can effectively shadow-ban and censor my voice into oblivion, along with other dissenting voices.
After seeing his tweet on the issue of Bill C-10, recently passed in the House of Commons, I spoke with Canadian journalist Dan Dicks about this. He explained that the bill is being presented as being about Canada bringing Big Tech companies under the regulation of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), to have them display more Canadian content.
“But what people are missing,” he cautioned, “is that there were clauses put into this bill, protections for certain publishers and content creators that would protect people like myself and yourself.”
Those clauses, he said, were recently removed from the bill, leading many content-creating Canadians aware of the bill to worry they will be treated the same as a broadcaster or a programmer, subject to the regulations of the CRTC.
The bottom line is that, beyond the mumbo jumbo of the government, this is the latest attack on freedom of expression, and on dissent.
“It really appears that it’s a backdoor to be able to control the free flow of information online, and to begin to silence voices that go against the status quo,” Dicks said, warning that fines for violators could follow.
“It’s not looking good for individual content creators. Anybody who has any kind of a voice or a significant audience, where they have the ability to affect the minds of the masses, to reach millions of people, they are going to be the ones who are on the chopping block moving forward.”
Names like James Corbett come to mind. Although based in Japan, as a Canadian he would be subject to the bill. And with his very harsh criticisms of many issues pertaining to the Canadian government, he is a thorn they would surely be happy to remove under the pretext of this bill.
Or Dicks, who likewise creates videos often critiquing Canadian government actions.
Or researcher Cory Morningstar, authors Maximilian Forte, Mark Taliano, Yves Engler, or outspoken physicist Denis Rancourt, to name a handful of dissenting voices. Agree or not with their opinions, they have the right to voice them.
Or myself. I’ve been very critical of Canada’s Covid policies and hypocrisy, as well as Canada’s whitewashing of terrorism in Syria, support to neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and unwavering support for Israel which is systematically murdering, starving, and imprisoning Palestinian civilians–including children.
An article on the Law & Liberty website, which describes itself as focussing on “the classical liberal tradition of law and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons,” notes the bill enables “ample discretion to filter out content made by Canadians that doesn’t carry a desirable ideological posture and [to] prioritize content that does.”
The article emphasizes that the bill violates Canadians’ right to free expression, as well as “the right to express oneself through artistic and political creations, and the right to not be unfairly suppressed by a nebulous government algorithm.”
It noted that Canadians with large followings, like Jordan Peterson, Gad Saad and Steven Crowder, “each enjoy audiences which far exceed any cable television program.”
As with my examples above, these prominent Canadian voices likewise risk shadow-banning under this bill.
But, worse, there is another bill, C-36, that also portends heavy censorship: the “Reducing Online Harms” bill. This one not only involves censorship, but hefty fines and house arrests for violators
The same Law & Liberty article notes, “Canada is also expected to follow the template of Germany’s NetzDG law, which mandates that platforms take down posts that are determined to constitute hate speech—which requires no actual demonstrated discrimination or potential harm, and is thus mostly subjective—within 24 hours or to face hefty fines. This obviously will incentivize platforms to remove content liberally and avoid paying up.”
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), rightly, contests this bill, noting, “the proposed definition of hate speech as speech that is ‘likely’ to foment detestation or vilification is vague and subjective.”
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, is likewise extremely critical of the bills.
The CCF points out the potential complete loss of Canadians’ fundamental rights with these bills.
It should be common sense that these bills are extremely dangerous to Canadians, however cloaked in talk of levelling playing fields and of combating hate speech they may be.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Singaporean Ministers Announce That Country Must Learn to Live With COVID-19
By Noah Carl • Lockdown Sceptics • June 29, 2021
Singapore has recorded fewer deaths from COVID-19 than almost any other country with reliable data: only 36 to date, which equates to a rate of just six per million. (The U.K.’s official COVID-19 death rate is 1,890 per million.)
And according to the World Mortality Dataset, Singapore has had zero excess mortality since the pandemic began. On the other hand, the country did take a sizeable economic hit last year – with GDP falling by 5.4% (compared to only 2.8% in Sweden).
What’s more, Singapore has not recorded more than 100 cases in a day since August of last year. If any advanced country has come close to “Zero Covid”, it’s Singapore.
Despite that record, three Singaporean ministers have announced that “COVID-19 may never go away” and “it is possible to live normally with it in our midst”.
Writing in The Straits Times, Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung (the ministers for trade, finance and health) say that “COVID-19 will very likely become endemic”. This means that “the virus will continue to mutate, and thereby survive in our community”.
In other words, the Singaporean Government is under no illusion that it will be possible to eliminate COVID-19, contrary to the claims of the “Zero COVID” movement. Indeed, a survey by Nature of 119 experts found that 89% believe it is “likely” or “very likely” that SARS-CoV-2 will become an endemic virus.
“We can’t eradicate it”, the ministers write, “but we can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza.” How do they propose to deal with the virus going forward?
First, they intend to proceed with their vaccination program, which aims to have two thirds of people vaccinated by August 9th. Second, they intend to continue testing, but “the focus will be different”. For example, the country will cease “monitoring COVID-19 infection numbers every day”. Third, they intend to keep using and developing effective treatments for COVID-19.
As Yong, Wong and Kung conclude, “History has shown that every pandemic will run its course.” Though one might object that even the few remaining measures are no longer necessary, the ministers seem to understand what they’re talking about. Their article is worth reading in full.
World Economic Forum makes censorship pledge to “tackle harmful content and conduct online”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim the Net | June 29, 2021
The World Economic Forum, an international group that works to “shape global, regional and industry agendas,” has formed a new “Global Coalition for Digital Safety” that’s made up of Big Tech executives and government officials and intends to come up with new “innovations” to police “harmful content and conduct online.”
The scope of so-called “harmful” content that will be targeted by this Global Coalition for Digital Safety is far-reaching and encompasses both legal content (such as “health misinformation” and “anti-vaccine content”) and illegal content (such as child exploitation and abuse and violent extremism).
Big Tech companies already censor millions of posts under their far-reaching rules that prohibit harmful content and misinformation. They also publish detailed quarterly reports about this censorship.
But according to the World Economic Forum, Big Tech’s current metrics, recommendation systems, and complaints systems are “deficient” which is why “more deliberate coordination between the public and private sector is needed.”
The World Economic Forum intends to deliver this “more deliberate coordination” through its Global Coalition for Digital Safety which will work to tackle what it deems to be harmful content through a series of measures.
These measures include exchanging “best practices for new online safety regulations,” taking “coordinated action to reduce the risk of online harm,” and creating global definitions of harmful content “to enable standardized enforcement, reporting, and measurement across regions.”
The members of this Global Coalition for Digital Safety include officials from the governments or government regulators in Australia, the UK, Indonesia, Ukraine, Bangladesh, and Singapore, an executive from the tech giant Microsoft, and the founder of the artificial intelligence (AI) powered content moderation and profanity filter platform Two Hat Security.
“Global online safety is a collective goal that must be addressed by working across borders as well as by individual nations,” Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Daws said. “We look forward to collaborating with international Coalition members to reduce the risk of online harms and build a safer life online for everyone.”
Microsoft’s Chief Digital Safety Officer, Courtney Gregoire, added: “The World Economic Forum is uniquely positioned to accelerate the public-private collaboration needed to advance digital safety globally, Microsoft is eager to participate and help build whole-of-society solutions to this whole-of-society problem.”
The formation of this global coalition is reflective of tech companies’ increased willingness to collaborate with global governments to censor legal content that they deem to be harmful and to push these governments to introduce more expansive speech regulations.
Just a few months before this coalition was announced, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki called for global coalitions to address content that’s “legal but could be harmful” at the World Economic Forum Global Technology Governance Summit 2021.
And last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pushed for “more guidance and regulation” from world leaders on what people are allowed to say online.
Similar global coalitions that have attempted to create global censorship standards, such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), have resulted in the automated censorship of satire, media reports, and other types of legal content.
Palestanian Protesters Recount Harrowing Details of Torture at the Hands of Israeli Police
By Jessica Buxbaum | MintPress News | June 25, 2021
NAZARETH, ISRAEL — In May, the world watched Israel’s brutal occupation on full display: The forcible displacement of Sheikh Jarrah residents was underway; Israeli security forces attacked Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan; Israeli rocket fire rained down on Gaza; and Jewish extremists chanted “Death to Arabs!” in the streets.
According to multiple testimonies, Israeli police in Nazareth ran a “torture room” where they ruthlessly attacked Palestinian detainees during the wave of demonstrations against Israel in May.
Now, as international headlines fade on Palestine, Israeli violence continues.
‘The floor of the room was covered in blood’
Faiz Zbedeiat was talking on the phone about 20 feet away from a protest in Nazareth. The moment the 21-year-old student hung up the phone, Israeli police threw a stun grenade into the street. An officer then charged at him and punched him in the nose. Zbedeiat was soon encircled by police who grabbed him, hit him, and pushed him toward a Border Police officer who tried to slam his head against a wall.
“I asked why they were hitting me when I’m not resisting,” Zbedeiat said. “I put my hands behind my back even though they didn’t handcuff me. Nevertheless, the same Border Police officer hit me in the nose with the walkie-talkie that he was holding.”
The officers dragged Zbedeiat by his head to the police station, beating him along the way.
“On the way, we met a policeman who appeared to be an officer, and he started laughing and said to them: ‘Did you only arrest him? That’s not enough. We need more,’” Zbedeiat said.
The beating continued inside the police station. Cops kicked, slapped, and hit detainees with batons, laughing as they struck them.
Zbedeiat detailed how one officer smacked detainees with an M-16 rifle. He watched as one man with a broken nose — face covered in blood — was continuously hit by officers. Then Zbedeiat described his own treatment:
A police officer approached me and whispered in my ear, threatening me. He cursed my mother, my sister, and my wife. He then asked, ‘Did you understand?’ I didn’t answer, and he immediately slapped me in the face. He asked me again: ‘Do you understand?’ I still didn’t answer and he slapped me again in the face. Finally, he said ‘Go explain to your friends.’ He pushed me back down to the floor and hit me again.”
Zbedeiat’s violent detention in May is one of many such, according to Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The advocacy group collected multiple sworn affidavits attesting to the abuse of Palestinian protesters by Israeli officers, attorneys, bystanders, and children inside Nazareth’s police station from May 9 to May 14. The majority of the violent arrests and most of the abuse were conducted by Israeli special forces, including undercover Mista’aravim (counter-terror units within the Israeli Army, Border Police, and Israel Police) officers pretending to be Palestinians.
Adalah submitted a complaint to Israel’s Attorney General and the chairman of the Police Investigation Department on June 7. In their letter, Adalah wrote:
Police officers led the detainees to a room located on the left side of the entrance corridor to the station, forcing them to sit on the floor handcuffed, to lower their heads towards the floor, and began to beat them on all parts of their bodies, using kicks and clubs, slamming their heads against walls or doors, and more. Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized them, and whomever dared to lift his head upwards risked more beatings by officers. According to affidavits, the floor of the room was covered in blood from the beatings.
Police violence amounting to torture
Under Israeli law, authorities must respond to the letter within 45 days. But Adalah attorney and co-author of the complaint, Wesam Sharaf, told MintPress that Adalah has not received a response from the Attorney General or Police Investigation Department. Adalah did receive a response from Nazareth’s Chief of Police, stating that he will cooperate if there’s an investigation and will take the appropriate disciplinary actions.
“What happened inside the police station in Nazareth amounts to torture and ill-treatment, and requires the immediate opening of a criminal investigation to examine the circumstances and conditions of the protesters’ detention at the station – including the investigation and prosecution of police officers involved in the violence,” Adalah attorneys wrote in their complaint.
Sharaf explained that the witness and victim accounts of police brutality inside the Israeli police station describe activity deemed torturous under international law:
What we have seen in the police station is that instead of investigating the people, the police would beat them up. [The police] deny [the detainees] in need of medical attention that medical attention and make them sign [false] affidavits as a condition to get medical attention… When this treatment is [directed at] detainees, it may amount to torture according to international law.”
Torture is defined under international law as intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering in order to obtain a confession or information, intimidate or coerce the individual, or as punishment for alleged offenses. Torture is illegal and considered a war crime.
In a statement to MintPress News, Israeli Police said:
We emphasize that an investigation branch officer contacted the director of detention on behalf of the Public Defender’s Office and requested the presence of defense attorneys at the station, and accordingly, when the detainees arrived at the station, two defense attorneys were present to advise them. Unfortunately some of the lawyers complaining about the appeal were at the entrance to the station, tried to create provocations on the spot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, they were periodically allowed to enter the station and tour the facility in order to prove that the detainees were being treated properly.”
The police spokesperson also noted that medical staff was present at the station and detainees in need of medical care were promptly treated.
Israel’s mass-arrest campaign targeting Palestinians
In a move largely seen as squelching Palestinian dissent, Israel Police launched a mass-arrest campaign in May, targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel who participated in protests against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, attacks at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Israeli police arrested 2,142 individuals and filed 184 indictments during “Operation Guardian of the Walls” and “Operation Law and Order.” According to Sharaf, more than 150 Palestinians were arrested in Nazareth in May, and about one in ten were indicted.
Ashraf Mahroum, an attorney representing nine people detained by police in Nazareth, said his clients and others were charged for protesting illegally, creating illegal organizations, and assaulting police officers. Maroum’s clients allege police fired rubber bullets at the upper parts of their bodies during the protests — a direct violation of the law governing use of rubber bullets. During their detention, officers struck them with batons and smacked them over the head with guns. Most of his clients’ injuries were on the head and face. Some were forced to sign affidavits stating they won’t disclose what happened to them in order to receive medical treatment.
Evidence of similar police violence against Palestinians appeared in other cities across 1948-occupied Palestine (modern-day Israel) including in Lydd, Akka, Yaffa and Haifa, Sharaf said, adding detainees in these localities arrived in court with visible signs of abuse. Sharaf concluded:
[Adalah] “has other testimonies about police brutality in different areas; some of this brutality was against protesters and some of it has been inside police stations against detainees. With the systematic ill treatment that we have witnessed from the 9th of May to the 14th of May, we can assume that more people have been subject to such kind of treatment.”
Israel’s expanding history of torture
The Israel Security Agency (ISA) has long used torture as a standard tactic during interrogations of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. Until the late 1990s, the ISA was allowed to use “psychological pressure” and a “moderate degree of physical pressure” in order to “prevent terrorism,” according to 1987 recommendations from a state commission. The commission’s opinion permitted the ISA to use methods of torture in their interrogations under the “necessity defense” clause found in Israeli penal law.
The Israeli Supreme Court banned the use of physical methods during interrogations in 1999 after a series of petitions were filed by human rights organizations and Palestinians who experienced ISA interrogations. However, the court ruled the practice of physical pressure could remain in urgent cases as part of the “ticking bomb” exception under the necessity defense. This legal loophole has allowed torture and ill treatment to persist in ISA interrogations, despite the Israeli Justice Ministry having drafted a law to criminalize torture.
An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces
According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), 1,300 complaints regarding the use of torture against Palestinian citizens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by the ISA have been submitted to the Ministry of Justice since 2001. These complaints resulted in only one criminal investigation and no indictments.
PCATI receives dozens of complaints each year attesting to brutality occurring during arrest, detention, interrogation and imprisonment of Palestinians from the OPT. The nonprofit organization estimates 5% to 10% of these cases amount to instances of severe torture.
Severe interrogations increased sharply in 2020. “In the passing year, more people were tortured in Israel than in any other year in the past decade,” PCATI said in their 2020 situation report on torture of Palestinians by Israeli security forces. While cases of torture are prevalent within the OPT, Tal Steiner, Director General of PCATI, said 1948-occupied Palestine is now experiencing an escalation of torture incidents. Steiner told MintPress:
[PCATI] “has seen attributes that are usually found in the West Bank trickling into Israel. There’s administrative arrest, prevention of rights to seek counsel, to receive medical attention — those are things that are quite unfortunately common in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories that have now become more evident within Israel proper… This is not something that’s usual or routine within Israel for Israeli citizens — Palestinian or not. So it’s a turn for the worse.”
An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces
Steiner attributed this surge within Historic Palestine to a culture of impunity spurred by Israeli politicians like former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining:
“When the police and military forces entered the mixed cities within Israel to so-call restore the peace, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted saying, ‘Go ahead and do your job and don’t worry about any commission of inquiry.’ These types of announcements by the prime minister and other Israeli leaders can also be a reason why police officers thought they could get away with it. They can use extreme force toward citizens, demonstrators, and especially toward people from minority groups, and go unpunished.”
“I thought I was going to die”
On May 13, the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, Nazareth resident Omaiyer Lawabne was out with friends to celebrate. As he approached an ATM to withdraw money, he saw an officer decked in full riot gear running toward him. Instinctively, he began running away.
“The cops started throwing grenades at me, and I kept running because I knew that if I stood still I could be badly wounded by the grenades,” Lawabne said. “While I was still running, one of the policemen raised his hand and hit me in the left eye, and I fell to the ground.”
Police surrounded Lawabne on the pavement, kicking him in the face and head. One officer pressed his boot into Lawabne’s head and shoulder. “I felt intense pain all over my body, from my head to my legs. One of them started kicking me in the artery behind the ear,” Lawabne said. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die.”
At the police station, Lawabne saw detainees stuffed into a room, resembling “prisoners of war.” They sat on the floor with their legs folded under them and heads bent. A masked officer paced around the room with a club-like object in his hand. Any detainee who lifted his head met the full swing of the officer’s bat on their head.
“They pushed me down into a corner and I lowered my head and curled up. Nevertheless, the same police officer hit me hard on the head with that object,” Lawabne said.
Days after his detention, Lawabne still felt excruciating pain throughout his body. He couldn’t sleep from the dizziness. He couldn’t eat without vomiting. He couldn’t speak coherently. He still doesn’t understand why he was arrested when he wasn’t participating in any nearby protests.
“It was the first time I had been arrested, an arrest that I believe was illegal, pointless, and very violent,” Lawabne said.
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.
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Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News
By Alan MacLeod | MintPress News | October 16, 2024
One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axios article describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon.
The same author recently went viral for an article that claimed that Israeli attacks against Hezbollah are “not intended to lead to war but are an attempt to reach ‘de-escalation through escalation.’” Users on social media mocked Ravid for this bizarre, Orwellian reasoning. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group.
Unit 8200 is Israel’s largest and perhaps most controversial spying organization. It has been responsible for many high-profile espionage and terror operations, including the recent pager attack that injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. As this investigation will reveal, Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions. … continue
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Aletho News- The Battle for Zaporizhzhia – Part 34 of the Anglo-American War on Russia
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