Ninth Circuit Denies Lawsuit Over Damage to Home in Police Raid
By Nathan Solis | Courthouse News | April 9, 2020
The Jessen’s rural farm home in central California sat on a dead-end street, surrounded by almond orchards.
On June 11, 2016, David Jessen said while he was out, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department called to tell him someone had broken into his home. Several hours later he would return to find his home destroyed after a SWAT team, two helicopters, a K-9 unit and a fire truck barreled toward his front lawn to arrest the burglar.
On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit upheld a ruling that Fresno County and the city of Clovis are not liable for negligence claimed by David and his wife Gretchen Jessen’s lawsuit, because the damage to their home was caused by the officer’s “discretionary acts.”
The Jessens claimed in their 2017 lawsuit that the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department and Clovis Police Department happened upon the ideal setting for a training exercise at their home when they received a call from a construction crew about a man who was found sleeping in a nearby vacant house.
The man left without any protest, but the construction workers say they heard the sound of glass breaking and say the man broke into the Jessen’s home, according to the civil complaint.
The lawsuit claimed the dead-end home was the perfect setting for a training exercise because there would be no nearby neighbors or civilians who would congregate to watch the SWAT team and helicopters converge.
David Jessen said after he arrived at his home and told an officer that two unloaded shotguns and a loaded .357 magnum were hidden in the house, the officer told him the man inside threatened to shoot anyone who entered. Jessen and his family were asked to wait elsewhere.
After taking his family to a friend’s house 10 minutes away, Jessen drove back to unload some farm equipment and found law enforcement cars lining the road to his house for a quarter of a mile, plus two ambulances, a fire truck and two helicopters circling above.
This use of police force would eventually destroy the home, according to the complaint. Jessen said just before police cleared out, an officer handed him a card and said, “We have insurance for this.”
Police ripped out several wrought iron doors, according to the complaint, and pulled out a wall off the foundation, teargased six rooms, shattered a glass sliding door, broke several windows and 90 feet of fencing and flash-bombed two more rooms.
The Jessens say the man, identified later as Chanley Un, stole an ice cream bar, some milk and half a tomato.
The sheriff’s department claimed in a 2017 statement that officers found Un in a room within reach of the guns.
The couple sought $150,000 due to the damage to their home, which they said could no longer be lived in due to the excessive teargas use and other damage.
The appellate panel made up of U.S. Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, a Bill Clinton appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Eugene Siler Jr., a George H.W. Bush appointee, sitting by designation from the Sixth Circuit, upheld the ruling in an unpublished and unsigned memorandum.
The panel agreed that the Jessens did not establish a triable issue on the municipal actions taken by the officers and that the departments “do not have a custom of turning simple operations into full-scale training operations,” which the district court ruled out due to a lack of evidence.
“The record evidence shows that defendants have a general policy of obtaining warrants prior to entry, of using reasonable force, and for the reasonable use of tear gas. The Jessens failed to establish a triable issue that any of these policies caused any constitutional injuries, or that there was a ‘persistent and widespread’ violation of these policies amounting to an unconstitutional custom or practice,” the panel wrote.
The panel said the Jessens also could not prove that the two police departments who arrived at their home to retrieve the barricaded man did not have the proper training.
“Even assuming, without deciding, that defendants’ training policies are inadequate, there is no evidence that ‘the need for more or different training [was] so obvious’ that defendants were deliberately indifferent to the Jessens’ rights,” the panel wrote.
The fact that an officer sought to explain and justify each piece of property damage after the incident shows the officer exercised some discretion in his role as the operation team leader and there was no evidence that one officer had final policymaking authority delegated to him, according to the 6-page memo.
Under the case Conway v. County of Tuolumne, the California Court of Appeal found “discretionary act immunity applies to the selection of the means to effectuate an arrest, including the decision to deploy a SWAT team in effectuating an arrest, and the subsequent decision to deploy tear gas.”
“Under Conway, Defendants are immune from liability, and the district court properly granted summary judgment for Defendants on the Jessens’ negligence claim,” the panel wrote.
In a statement for Fresno County, a spokesperson said they are “very pleased with the decision by the Ninth Circuit again confirming that the Sheriff’s Office acted reasonably and in the interest of public safety under all the circumstances.”
Emails sent to the Jessen’s attorney were not immediately answered for comment.
Ashrawi: While the world works on saving lives, US and Israel working on killing peace
WAFA – April 12, 2020
RAMALLAH – Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hanan Ashrawi, said today that Israel was “cynically exploiting” the international community’s focus on protecting humanity from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
She said the Israeli politicians “are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.”
“While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration’s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives,” Ashrawi said in a statement.
“The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.”
She blamed the US administration’s “partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation for making the situation on the ground completely untenable.”
Following is the full text of Ashrawi’s statement:
Israel is cynically exploiting the international community’s focus on protecting humanity and the world economy from the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
Israeli politicians are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.
While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration´s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives. The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.
Israeli annexation is not a possibility the world should be worried about. It is a reality unfolding on the ground to the grave detriment of future generations in the region and at the expense of the standing and relevance of multilateral efforts and international law. Israel is taking practical steps to permanently and irreversibly undercut the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights to freedom and independence, thus ensuring permanent conflict in the region.
Israel has scaled up land grab, settlement and Wall construction, nightly raids and other illegal measures and crimes to satisfy the insatiable appetite of colonial expansion. This agenda is now the common ground on which unity government discussions are based, dissolving any pretension that main Israeli political actors have differences on the policies of ensuring permanent colonization, enacting annexation, and enforcing apartheid-like policies. This dangerous agenda is neither new nor surprising.
It is what the Palestinian leadership has warned from for years. Regrettably, the international community has abdicated its responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its pervasive illegal actions and shameful impunity. This inaction has emboldened and empowered the Israeli political establishment to abandon all pretense of commitment to the internationally agreed-on solution of two states on the basis of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.
The current US administration’s ideological and practical partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation has made the situation completely untenable.
Despite its focus on combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community is well aware of what is transpiring on the ground, including Israel’s obstruction of Palestinian efforts to combat the virus effectively.
This was evident in the recent European Union statement announcing increased assistance to Palestine to help fight the virus. However, rhetorical diagnosis of the threat to peace and international obligations will not be enough to avert the complete breakdown of the world agenda for peace. Serious and deterrent international action is required to stop Israeli actions and plans. Time has run out on complacency and platitudes.
World Vision Gaza Director Detained in Israel is in Serious Health Condition Due to Torture
Palestine Chronicle | April 11, 2020
Palestinian humanitarian worker Mohammad al-Halabi, who worked with the American World Vision organization, is in serious health condition due to torture by his Israeli interrogators, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission.
Al-Halabi, 42, from Jabalya refugee camp, was in charge of the Gaza Strip office of World Vision and is now suffering from serious headaches. After losing hearing, he may also lose sight in his eyes due to the torture he underwent after his arrest in Israel.
On June 15, 2016, Al-Halabi was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at the Beit Hanoun (Eretz) Crossing which separates besieged Gaza from Israel, in a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet security service, the Israeli army and Israeli police.
Since then, he appeared in Israeli courts 135 times in what the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs refers to as “one of the longest trials in the history of the Palestinian captive movement”.
“Now, Mohammed has been transferred, once again, this time to Rimon Prison, where he is being held under extremely harsh conditions, still experiencing all sorts of torture and degradation,” wrote his father, Khalil, in a recent article.
“Israel has no evidence to indict my son. Thus, it resorts to physically and psychologically tormenting him to get exactly what it wants to hear,” Khalil added.
“By charging Mohammed, the Israeli government intends to indict all international charities so that they suffocate Gaza and its heroic people entirely.”
Ottawa dances with the Saudi kingdom
By Yves Engler · April 11, 2020
As Canadians focus on the coronavirus pandemic the Trudeau government announced it was lifting its suspension of arms export permits to Saudi Arabia. It has also renegotiated the government’s $14 billion armoured vehicle deal with the belligerent, repressive, monarchy.
This is not surprising. The government set the stage for this decision with its September review that found no evidence linking Canadian military exports to human rights violations committed by the Saudis. The Global Affairs review claimed there was no “credible” link between arms exports to the Saudis and human rights abuses even though the April 2016 memo to foreign minister Stéphane Dion originally approving the armoured vehicle export permits claimed they would assist Riyadh in “countering instability in Yemen.” The five year old Saudi led war against Yemen has left 100,000 dead. Throughout their time in office the Liberals have largely ignored Saudi violence in Yemen.
Despite a great deal of public attention devoted to a diplomatic spat, after Riyadh withdrew its ambassador over an innocuous tweet from the Canadian Embassy in August 2018, the Liberals have sought to mend relations and continue business as usual. In December 2018 HMCS Regina assumed command of a 33-nation Combined Maritime Forces naval coalition patrolling the region from Saudi Arabia. Last September foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said, “Saudi Arabia is an important partner for Canada and we continue to work with Saudi Arabia on a number of different issues at a number of different levels.” For its part, the Canadian Embassy’s website continues to claim, “the Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability.”
According to an access to information request by PhD researcher Anthony Fenton, Freeland phoned new Saudi foreign minister Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al-Assaf in January 2019. In briefing notes for the (unannounced) discussion Freeland was encouraged to tell her counterpart (under the headline “points to register” regarding Yemen): “Appreciate the hard work and heavy lifting by the Saudis and encourage ongoing efforts in this regard.”
After Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s (MBS) thugs killed and dismembered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, Trudeau treaded carefully regarding the murder. Ten days after the Canadian Press reported, “the prime minister said only that Canada has ‘serious issues’ with reports the Washington Post columnist was killed by Saudi Arabian operatives inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Turkey.” Six weeks later the Liberals sanctioned 17 Saudi nationals over the issue but none of them were in positions of significant authority.
Foreign minister Freeland looked the other way when Saudi student Mohammed Zuraibi Alzoabi fled Canada last year — presumably with help from the embassy — to avoid sexual assault charges in Cape Breton. While Freeland told reporters that Global Affairs was investigating the matter, Halifax Chronicle Herald journalist Aaron Beswick’s Access to Information request suggested they didn’t even bother contacting the Saudi embassy concerning the matter.
In April 2019 the Saudis beheaded 37 mostly minority Shiites. Ottawa waited 48 hours — after many other countries criticized the mass execution — to release a “muted” statement. The Trudeau government stayed mum on the Saudi’s effort to derail pro-democracy demonstrations in Sudan and Algeria in 2018/19 as well as Riyadh’s funding for Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar’s bid to seize Tripoli by force.
While they implemented a freeze on new export permit approvals, shipments of Canadian weaponry continued. The year 2018 set a record for Canadian rifle and armoured vehicle sales to the Saudis. Over $17 million in rifles were exported to the kingdom in 2018 and a similar amount in 2019. Canada exported $2 billion worth of “tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles” to the Saudis in 2019. In February Canada exported $155.5 million worth of “Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles” to Saudi Arabia.
The Global Affairs review that claimed there was no “credible” link between Canadian weapons exports to the Saudis and human rights abuses noted there were 48 arms export permit applications awaiting government approval.
As Fenton has documented in detail, armoured vehicles made by Canadian company Streit Group in the UAE have repeatedly been videoed in Yemen. Equipment from three other Canadian armoured vehicle makers — Terradyne, IAG Guardian and General Dynamics — was found with Saudi-backed forces in Yemen. Fenton has shown many examples of the Saudi-led coalition using Canadian-made rifles as well.
The Trudeau government arming the monarchy’s military while saying little about its brutal war in Yemen should be understood for what it was: War profiteering and enabling of massive human rights abuses.
About 300 inmates at Chicago jail test positive for coronavirus
Press TV – April 10, 2020
Almost 300 inmates at a Chicago prison have tested positive for the novel coronavirus that has killed at least 18,000 people across the United States and infected more than 475,000 individuals.
The Cook County Jail on Friday reported that 276 prisoners tested positive for the COVID-19 this week, ring to according to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D). In addition, 115 prison staff have also tested positive for the virus.
The development has fueled fears about coronavirus outbreaks among the prison populations across the US, which has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.
The 4,500-person Chicago has the largest reported coronavirus outbreak within an American prison so far.
“First and foremost, no one should be locked up if they’re not a danger to the community or a flight risk,” Lightfoot told CNN. “And certainly not because they can’t afford to pay bail.”
The family of a prisoner who died in custody filed suit against Cook County and Sheriff Tom Dart on Thursday, claiming he was shackled while died of the virus, according to the New York Times.
Human rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have urged US prison authorities to release nonviolent prisoners during the pandemic to mitigate the spread of the virus, but most of the US states have refused to do so. Only a few states, such as California, announced last month that it planned to release 3,500 nonviolent offenders.
The attorney for Washington, DC, Timothy Shea, last week opposed release of prisoners amid the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that “violent criminals” should not be set free.
She expressed the opposition in response to an emergency motion filed by the Public Defender Service general counsel.
According to the motion, outbreaks of COVID-19 “are far from speculative — they are imminent, with confirmed positive cases [at the jail] now approaching double digits.”
The Public Defender Service general counsel introduced the motion after several inmates in Washington jails tested positive for the coronavirus.
There are concerns about the conditions of prisoners in American jails as the pandemic is growing fast across the US states amid a shortage of medical supplies.
‘They Didn’t Get a Death Sentence’: US Inmates Set for Release Put Near COVID-19 Patients – Report
Sputnik – April 10, 2020
As of Thursday, 283 federal inmates in the US have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus and eight have died, as federal and state prisons are expanding early release to try and slow the spread of the coronavirus in otherwise congested conditions.
The US government’s handling of the coronavirus spread in federal prisons puts the health of inmates at risk, POLITICO reports citing the accounts of convicts’ spouses.
“They’re quarantining these healthy inmates with sick inmates that are already down there,” said a woman whose husband was placed in a special housing unit at a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland.
The unit is used to quarantine prisoners before early release for 14 days – the estimated incubation period – and it is not clear why it also housed inmates suspected of having the virus.
“It’s crazy how they’re doing this,” she reportedly said. “It’s like they’re just waiting to get this…. They’re at risk of being forgotten about. They didn’t get a death sentence.”
Another woman whose spouse was sent to the same special housing unit pending early release confirmed that account. “I’m pretty sure that is not the correct protocol for quarantine,” she was quoted as saying.
Justin Long, the Bureau of Prisons spokesman, did not explain whether the agency is taking steps to separate prisoners who display COVID-19 symptoms or are presumably infected, from those set for release.
“All of the BOP’s institutions have been directed to designate available space for isolation and quarantine for inmates who have been exposed to or have symptoms of COVID-19,” he stated. “The BOP follows all CDC guidelines with regard to isolation and quarantining.”
There are around 2.3 million people being held in jails, prisons and detention centres in the United States. There are over 173,000 federal inmates in the US; the rest account for state-run and private prisons.
The coronavirus pandemic has raised concerns over the health of prisoners, who are living in congregate settings where it is nearly impossible to heed the 6-feet social distancing instruction.
As of Thursday, 283 federal inmates and 125 staff have tested positive for the coronavirus nationwide and another eight inmates have died, according to figures from the Bureau of Prisons which manages federal facilities.
Last month, in response to calls from lawmakers and campaigners, Attorney General William Barr encouraged federal prisons to double down on early release programmes and move low-risk inmates to home confinement in a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic. Meanwhile, all federal inmates have been held in their cells since 1 April as part of a 14-day lockdown.
Some state and private prisons have also started to release certain prisoners home as inmates file petitions for “compassionate release”, an option typically reserved for extreme circumstances such as terminal illness.
California plans to fast-track the release of 3,500 non-violent prisoners in the next two months, and New Jersey will temporarily free up to 1,000 jail inmates.
Twitter jams open a back door to track your phone – which may already be in use by the government
By Helen Buyniski | RT | April 9, 2020
Twitter is no longer allowing users to hide private data like their phone’s unique tracking identifier from advertisers, at the same time the US government is apparently targeting advertiser data to track Covid-19. Coincidence?
The social media giant announced the changes in a popup when users logged in on Wednesday, glibly informing those outside Europe that they would no longer be able to disable sharing “mobile app advertising measurements” and that there was nothing they could do about it.
The latest invasion of user privacy is just the most recent incursion on user rights coming out of the social media monopolies. Last month, users were informed that content not violating the rules might be removed anyway, because coronavirus had somehow forced the platforms’ human content moderators (some of whom already worked from home) to take time off for safety reasons.
But while Twitter claims that the new always-on “share data” setting is merely intended to reassure advertisers that people are watching their ads, it coincides with a dramatic uptick in government interest in advertisers’ location data, supposedly to track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has torpedoed the world economy and effectively imprisoned a good chunk of humanity in their homes.
The US government was reportedly already slurping up location data on millions of Americans through mobile advertisers – the same companies that are benefiting from Twitter’s new “always-on” mobile data sharing policy – even while it was meeting with Twitter and other social media platforms to gain access to their own treasure troves of user information, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited several individuals involved in the surveillance project.
Given the public outrage in the past when social media users discovered the government spying on them through their beloved platforms, it’s no surprise Twitter would rather just leave the back door open through its advertisers and let the government take what it wants without getting directly involved. Certainly, Facebook is taking a bigger gamble by bragging about pressing users’ private data into service in the fight against the virus. The company of course claims to be protecting user privacy, but they’ve made that claim many times – usually right before a big privacy scandal.
Even those who believe enhanced government surveillance during a pandemic is justified need only look to history to observe how ’wartime powers’ are seldom relinquished during peacetime. While it would be naive to claim Twitter isn’t already funneling users’ private data to governments as well as its corporate clients – that has been public knowledge since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released documents on the PRISM project in 2013 – the growing romance between Big Brother and Big Tech should be cause for concern for anyone interested in ensuring privacy doesn’t become the biggest casualty of the coronavirus epidemic.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
Iran releases ‘political prisoners’ amid Covid-19 outbreak, while virus-stricken UK keeps Assange behind bars
RT | April 9, 2020
Tehran has released an Iranian national seen as a political prisoner in the UK as it fights the coronavirus. British activists and media rushed to say Iran’s move was not enough – while being blind to a bigger problem at home.
Aras Amiri, an Iranian national and UK resident who worked with the British Council, has been temporarily released from jail, where she has been held since 2018 after being found guilty of spying. The move is likely to be a part of efforts taken by Tehran to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in prisons in particular.
The UK board director of Amnesty International, Daren Nair, used the occasion to remind his Twitter followers that Amiri was “unjustly imprisoned” and to demand that Iranian authorities not just set her free but “let her come home to London to be with her fiancé.” The news was then eagerly picked up by various Western media outlets, including Radio Free Europe.
Amiri was arrested back in 2018 while on a family visit to Iran. Her work with the British Council reportedly involved organizing film festivals and other cultural exchanges between the two countries. The organization, describing itself as the UK’s “international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities,” has been banned in Iran since 2009 in response to the launch of the BBC’s Persian service and the British embassy’s supposedly “significant role” in protests that rocked the country earlier the same year.
It seems that Iran – which various British officials and activists like to scold over alleged human rights violations – is showing concern for the fate of its inmates in the face of an epidemic that has seen more than 64,000 people infected nationwide.
Earlier, Tehran also temporarily released another person who has long been seen in the UK as a victim of unjust political persecution. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian journalist and aid worker, was sentenced to five years on charges of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government back in 2016.
In mid-March, she was among some 85,000 other inmates released from Tehran’s Evin prison as part of the state response to the spread of Covid-19. On March 29, her temporary leave was extended by an additional fortnight.
Such measures were just what UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet had called for in an address to governments around the world amid the pandemic.
However, Julian Assange, whom Amnesty International also called “a prisoner of conscience,” has so far been denied the same treatment from UK authorities. The British justice system has refused to release him from maximum security prison HMP Belmarsh on bail, even though the facility has already reported not just several confirmed coronavirus cases, but the first death within its walls from the dreaded disease.
Activists, medics and even the UN rapporteur on torture have repeatedly pointed to the WikiLeaks founder’s poor state of health while calling for his release. However, their pleas apparently do not provide enough ground for London to release Assange, who has not been found guilty of any serious offenses and is awaiting a court decision on his extradition to the US.
International Solidarity Movement statement on reported FBI probe
International Solidarity Movement | April 7, 2020
Recently, the Intercept published a report of a surveillance investigation conducted by the FBI on the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The highly invasive investigation targeted ISM activists, their associates, and other organizations ISM worked with, from 2004 – 2006, using informants as well as physical and telecommunications surveillance.
We, at the International Solidarity Movement, denounce this shameless abuse of power and misuse of public funds in an attempt to criminalize Palestinian solidarity and anti-occupation activism, as well as the current ongoing campaign in some American states to criminalize the BDS movement. ISM activists have been secretly spied on and targeted by various intelligence services, including British, Israeli, and U.S., for over 19 years, merely for standing up for the rights of Palestinians.
We call on those who believe that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity to take action and raise awareness about local, state, and national attempts to criminalize nonviolent resistance such as BDS and Palestinian advocacy, and boycott those profiting off the Occupation of Palestine.
According to the Intercept report, an FBI investigation was launched after an American volunteer with ISM was shot and wounded by Israeli forces at a protest in Occupied Palestine. Instead of investigating the foreign army that injured an American citizen exercising his First Amendment-protected right to peaceful protest, the FBI’s response was to probe the survivor. While the 2 primary investigations were launched by the Los Angeles and St. Louis FBI Field Offices, agents from at least 11 cities were involved in spying on various ISM activists and related organizations. Using far right and extremist news sources, the investigation attempted to link ISM to international terrorism.
After two years of investigation, multiple rights and privacy violations, hundreds of pages of reports and tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted, the investigation only proved what we have always maintained: ISM is a non-violent movement committed to ending the Occupation of Palestine through non-violent means.
Notably, the investigation began in March 2004, shortly after the murder of American Rachel Corrie and Briton Tom Hurndall (2003) by the Israeli army. The probe coincided with an Israeli government campaign to de-legitimize ISM and discredit Palestinian rights activists. It also reflects the increase in recent years of FBI investigations into non-violent activist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antiwar.com. Today, lobby groups, politicians, and leaders in the United States continue to violate First Amendment-protected rights to free speech through criminalizing non-violent Palestinian activism, such as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“The fact that ISM was under this kind of extensive investigation is ridiculous and a complete waste of taxpayer money. ISM has always been open and transparent about who we are, what we do, and what we stand for, which is purportedly what this country stands for — freedom and human rights.” — ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf
“In Dr. King’s time, surveillance was justified in terms of alleged Communist influence; in recent years, surveillance has been justified by alleged association with terrorists. In both cases, U.S. citizens were employing nonviolent action to confront injustice and oppression.” — ISM activist spied on by the FBI, Mark Chmiel
Israel settlements turn Palestinian house into cage
![The Gharibs' house in Beit Ijza, caged by a fence and surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Givon Hahadasha, as seen here in a 2018 sattelite image, west of Jerusalem [screen grab from Geomolg]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200404_Satellite_Image_Givon-Hahadasha.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
The Gharibs’ house in Beit Ijza, caged by a fence and surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Givon Hahadasha, as seen here in a 2018 satellite image. [screen grab from Geomolg]
MEMO | April 4, 2020
Palestinian Saadat Sabri Gharib, 38, had never imagined that his house, which was built by his father in 1979, would be turned into a very narrow cage surrounded by barbed wire and surveillance cameras.
Gharib’s house is located in the Biet Ijza neighbourhood, west of occupied Jerusalem. It was surrounded by about 100 dunams of land owned by Gharib’s father. However, the Israeli settlers stole all of this land and kept the house, which is only 500-metres square.
Gharib told Anadolu Agency, that since 2008, his house has been turned into a very small cage surrounded with concrete walls and located in the middle of an Israeli settlement. It has only a very narrow passage with 12 cameras monitoring it.
Gharib, his mother, his wife and three children live in this house. “Our house is a real prison,” he explains, adding: “It is surrounded with wires from all sides. It was built in the middle of a wide area of land, but today it is a small prison in the middle of Giv’on Hahadasha settlement.”
“We are subjected to stone throwing, live bullet shooting, insulting and burning,” Gharib, who owns all the documents that prove the ownership of the land, revealed.
“However, we had seven demolition orders, but I fought in the Israeli courts and stopped them,” stating that 40 dunams were stolen by the Israeli occupation authorities in 1979 and 60 dunams were isolated from his house by the apartheid wall in 2007. “We do not access them except once a year with permission from the Israeli occupation,” Gharib explains, noting that his house is monitored 24/7.
In 1979, the settlers offered his father a large amount of money for the land, but he refused and said: “If you give me all of Israel’s money, I would never concede an inch of my land.”
Later on, the Israeli occupation stole it with its settlement power.
Putting pressure on Gharib in order to leave his house, the Israeli occupation prevents him from planting any trees near his house, from carrying out any renovation works or from making any repairs.
Gharib points out:
“A few months ago, the water tank was damaged and I wanted to change it, but Israel refused. They want to push us to leave our house. But if the house was demolished, I would live in a tent. I will never leave my family’s house to the settlers.
“We live a very difficult life. The gate of the passage leading to my house is controlled by the Israeli occupation and could be closed any time. In 2008, it was closed for three consecutive months, but we fought until it was opened 24 hours a day.”
Around 900 Palestinians live in Beit Ijza, which was part of Jerusalem before the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, Beit Ijza became part of the Palestinian Governorate of Jerusalem Suburbs.
This neighbourhood is one of many others which were isolated from Jerusalem by the apartheid wall, so they were connected with the occupied West Bank through tunnels or bridges.
According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, more than 50,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem’s ID cards were isolated by the apartheid wall and deprived from living in Jerusalem.
In 2002, Israel decided to build a 710-kilometre wall to separate the occupied West Bank from Israel and the illegal Israeli settlements in the depths of the occupied territories.
First COVID-19 Death Reported in Asia’s Largest Slum, Dharavi
teleSUR | April 3, 2020
Asia’s largest slum located in India’s financial capital of Mumbai has reported its first COVID-19 fatality, according to local reports.
The patient, a 56-year-old man, had no travel history and was admitted to a local hospital with a fever on Sunday and tested positive for the new coronavirus on Wednesday, an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said, according to Al Jazeera.
The authorities have sealed the building where he lived, which is located in a redeveloped part of the Dharavi slum, local media reported.
Also, seven members of his family were quarantined and tested on Thursday for the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, the Xinhua news agency said.
Mumbai authorities are concerned over the possible spread of the new coronavirus, as Dharavi is known as the most densely populated slum in Asia. At the same time, a doctor and a worker from a municipal corporation also tested positive.
An estimated 700,000 to 1 million people live crammed in Dharavi – a roughly five-square-kilometer maze of narrow lanes, dilapidated buildings, huts, and open sewers.
Public health experts say it would be difficult to contain the virus if it spread in a slum-like Dharavi where eight to 10 people often share a room.
The population density is about 270,000 per square kilometer, making social distancing almost impossible. Scores of people share water sources and sanitation facilities, Al Jazeera reported.
Dharavi’s cases have raised concern that India may be experiencing community transmission of the disease despite a countrywide lockdown since March 25, as well as exposing the harsh reality and problems of inequality in the country.
For his part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted that “testing, isolation and quarantine” will remain priorities in the coming weeks, ignoring the situation of places like Dharavi, the problems of its population, as well as the needs that have arisen in the public health system in the country.
The death toll due to the COVID-19 in India stands at 62 as of Thursday, according to the latest data, while the number of confirmed cases in the country is around 2,547.
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Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 17, 2019
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. … continue
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