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Israel allows only 55 Palestinian Christians from Gaza to enter West Bank for Christmas

MEMO | December 24, 2019

Israeli authorities have only allowed 55 Christians in the Gaza Strip to enter the West Bank and Jerusalem to celebrate Christmas, according to local news agency Ma’an.

The Orthodox Church in Gaza said among the 600 official requests that were submitted to Israel, occupation authorities agreed to grant travel permits to just three children and 52 Palestinian elders mostly over the age of 60.

This came after the Israeli Defence Ministry said in a statement on Sunday it would allow Palestinian Christians in Gaza to visit Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank “in accordance with security assessments and without regard to age”, reversing an earlier decision not to issue them permits, a move that was met with immediate backlash by Christian Palestinian leaders as well as Gisha, an Israeli rights group.

A spokesperson from the liaison office, known as Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), had told Reuters that Christians in the Gaza Strip were barred from visiting holy cities through the Erez crossing this Christmas season.

Gaza, which suffers from high unemployment and faces electricity blackouts and drinking water shortages, has only around 1,000 Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox, in a population of two million in the narrow coastal strip.

Israel claims that a number who have been granted travel permits in recent years have remained in the West Bank and have not returned to Gaza.

Israel tightly restricts movements out of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza’s Christians who plan to travel to the West Bank for Christmas or Easter have to apply to Israel in advance to obtain a temporary single-use travel permit from Israel’s COGAT.

The main attractions in Bethlehem are the 4th-century Church of the Nativity, built over a grotto where Christian tradition says Jesus was born, and the 16-metre (52-foot) Christmas tree in Manger Square.

Last year, Israel granted permits for close to 700 Gaza Christians to travel to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other holy cities that draw thousands of pilgrims each holiday season.

At Easter this year, similar restrictions were imposed by Israel, 300 Christian Palestinians from Gaza were allowed to visit the West Bank and Jerusalem for Easter “only after public pressure on Israel to change its initial decision to bar them from entering”.

 

December 24, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Young Gaza Girl Fighting Cancer Alone in West Bank Hospital

10-year-old Miral Abu Amsha (L) and 5-year-old Aisha al-Lulu. (Photo: via Social Media)
The Palestine Chronicle | December 23, 2019

10-year-old Miral Abu Amsha is suffering from leukemia. Due to the hermetic Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, the little girl was not allowed to be joined by her parents when she left Gaza seeking treatment at Najah University Hospital in Nablus, in the West Bank.

Miral’s story, one of the numerous similar tragic stories, was highlighted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on December 21.

The hospital’s prognosis is that Miral requires an additional four months of aggressive chemotherapy treatment in order for cancer to go into remission. However, the girl’s parents are unlikely to be with her at the hospital as their permit to leave Gaza has been rejected repeatedly by the Israeli military.

Aisha al-Lulu, a 5-year-old from the Strip, has gone to a similar experience to Miral. In January, Aisha died alone in a Jerusalem hospital, following a brain surgery that failed to save her life.

Hundreds of Gaza patients have died because they were denied permits to leave Gaza in the search of badly needed medical attention. Many of those who are allowed access to West Bank hospitals, usually children, were granted permits but denied the company of their families.

According to the World’s Health Organization (WHO), “in June (2019), 1,242 patient companion applications (52% of the total) were approved, 416 applications (17%) were denied and the remaining 733 (31%) were delayed, receiving no definitive response by the time of the patient’s appointment”.

Gaza has been under a hermetic siege since 2006 when Hamas won the democratic legislative elections held in that same year. Since then, Israel has launched several wars, killing thousands and wounding tens of thousands of Gazans.

The siege and war have also devastated Gaza’s already struggling infrastructures, leaving hospitals with limited medical supplies, and, at times, no electricity. According to a United Nations report, Gaza will be deemed uninhabitable by 2020.

December 23, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Hard Evidence on Torture and Ill-Treatment Committed against Palestinian Detainees at Israeli Interrogation Centers

Addameer Prisoner Support And Human Rights Association | December 23, 2019

Since its creation, the occupying state developed and enforced laws and practices that led to both the systematic use of torture and to absolute impunity for the perpetrator of this crime. There has never been any individual or agency held accountable for the well-documented crimes of torture and ill-treatment at Israeli prisons and interrogation centers.

The occupation authorities, in particular, the Israeli intelligence agency “Shabak” resorts to torture and ill-treatment as standard operating procedure in a systematic and wide-scale approach against Palestinian detainees. Over the past three months, the intelligence agency subjected a number of detainees at Israeli interrogation centers to severe physical and psychological torture without any form of monitoring and protection.

Addameer has hard evidence on the crimes of torture and ill-treatment committed against a number of detainees held at interrogation centers since late August 2019. Addameer was banned from publishing any of the details of torture prior to this date, due to a gag order issued by the Israeli Court of First Instance in Jerusalem.

On 10 September 2019, a gag order was issued on a number of cases under interrogation at al-Mascobiyya interrogation center. Hence, preventing the public, including Addameer the legal representative, from publishing any information regarding these cases.

The gag order was issued based on a request from the Israeli intelligence agency and Israeli police and was renewed multiple times. Despite the gag order, Israeli media outlets and the Israeli intelligence agency published information to the public about some of those cases. This inconsistent enforcement of the gag order, where the Israeli sources exercised the freedom to publish, can only be understood as a means to influence public opinion.

Most importantly, the issuance of this gag order is an attempt to hide crimes committed against the detainees and prevent the public and the legal representatives from exposing the details of the crimes of torture and ill-treatment that were committed against the detainees in question throughout the past months.

Torture at Israeli interrogation centers

According to Israeli military laws, a detainee can be held in interrogation for a total period of 75 days without receiving any official charges. According to these same laws, a detainee can be banned from meeting his/her lawyer for a total period of 60 days. Those detainees, in particular, were held for extremely long periods of interrogation, and were also banned from lawyers’ visits and legal consultation.

The periods of the ban on meeting the lawyers ranged from 30 to 45 days in some cases. During the interrogations, the detainees suffered from different forms of both physical and psychological torture. The methods used against them included, but were not limited to harsh beating, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, stress positions, the denial of basic hygiene needs, sexual harassment, threatening and intensive psychological torture including the use of family members and/or other detainees.

The threats used include threats of rape, torture, and revocation of residency. The severe torture and humiliation these detainees suffered from, led to injuries, broken bones, fainting, vomiting, bleeding from different parts of the body (nose, mouth, hands, legs[1] and genital area). In addition, the detainees also suffered from the false assessment made by doctors at the interrogation centers, whom almost in all cases stated that the detainees are qualified for interrogations denying the clear signs of torture.

A short description of some of the torture techniques:

  • Positional torture (stress positions): Israeli intelligence officers forced the detainees into a number of stress positions such as the banana position,[2] the frog position, sitting on an imaginary chair, squatting and many other different positions. Almost in all of these stress positions, the detainees would lose their balance and fall on the ground, which would lead to a harsh beating by the officers and then forcing the detainee back into the stress position. Other used stress positions included standing on their toes while their hands were shackled above their heads to a wall. Another position included sitting on a chair while handcuffed to the back, where the hands were positioned on a table behind the detainee’s chair. A third position involved the detainee laying on the ground with his/her hands chained to each other with iron cuffs and positioned behind his/her back. This position also includes officers sitting on the detainee to place pressure on his/her body while beat him/her ferociously.
  • Harsh beatings: Israeli occupation intelligence officers used extreme methods of beatings against the detainees using their hands, legs, knees and even their fingers. The officers hit, slapped, punched, poked (using their fingers), and kicked the detainees. These methods resulted in severe and life-threatening injuries that included broken ribs, inability to walk, brutal bruises, swelling marks on the skin, ulcer wounds… etc. The officers, who exceeded five in number in some cases used to blindfold the detainees’ eyes so they would not expect the beating or know where it is coming from. Several of those detainees appeared in their court sessions with marks on their bodies, expressing severe pain, or in some cases arrived on wheelchairs. In one of the cases, the harsh beating was committed with the intention to kill the detainee, who was in fact transferred to the hospital in serious condition after around 30 hours of severe and extreme methods of beatings. In another case, the harsh beating aimed at injuries caused by a police dog during the arrest, the interrogators intended to target those previously obtained injuries, which were mainly on the detainee’s genital area causing the wounds to re-open twice. Also, in many other cases, the method of pulling the facial hair from its roots causing injuries and swelling marks was used.
  • Sleep deprivation: this technique was implemented through different methods, in some cases the detainees spent around twenty days sleeping from one to three hours a day. Even when those detainees were sent to their cells to sleep, they would be disturbed with loud and eerie sounds made by the prison guards, the voices of other detainees being harshly beaten or the sound of knocking on their cell doors. In some cases, sleep deprivation ranged from 30 to 60 continuous hours, where the detainee would not be sent to sleep at all during these hours and would be woken up if he/she falls asleep during the interrogation. Some detainees were harshly slapped on their faces to wake up, others were also splashed with water. Detainees described the slaps as extremely severe causing them to feel dizzy.
  • The use of family members (emotional blackmailing): psychological torture and ill-treatment were used on the majority of these detainees, focusing on threats against their family members, and loved ones. Israeli occupation forces used the policy of collective punishment through arresting and bringing in some of the family members mostly to al-Mascobiyya interrogations center and Ofer prison. Eight family members for seven different detainees were arrested, and another ten family members were brought in for questioning. Some of these relatives were kept for a number of days while others were kept for hours. In all the cases, family members and loved ones were mainly brought in to pressure the detainees themselves. The interrogators made the detainees assume that their relatives got arrested and will be tortured as well. Relatives included fathers, mothers, brothers, daughters, wives, etc.
  • Interrogation at Israeli secret prisons: at least one of the detainees Addameer has documented their cases have stated that they were taken to unknown centers. The detainee said that the interrogators at this center were all face-covered and wearing a different uniform than the known usual uniforms. It has been revealed in the past that Israel has secret prisons that are removed from maps and airbrushed aerial photographs.[3]

These detainees that were subject to torture and ill-treatment in the past months were around 50 detainees, almost half of them were subject to torture, and all of them suffered ill-treatment. The detainees included male and female detainees, they also included university students, union workers, human rights defenders, and a PLC member. Addameer’s lawyer began collecting hard evidence proving the torture and ill-treatment committed against these detainees from the very first day the lawyers were permitted to meet them.

Public International Law

Violations of Fair Trial Guarantees

Israeli military courts completely disregard the fair trial guarantees. The cases monitored in the last months are just another proof of the fact that the Israeli military court from its creation never met the minimum standards of a fair trial. The right to a fair trial is enshrined in all the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. [4] According to the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, depriving a protected person a fair and regular trial is a grave breach.[5] Additionally, the right to a fair trial is set forth in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and in several other international instruments.[6] For example, the UN Human Rights Committee in its General Comment on Article 4 of the ICCPR stated that the principle of the fair trial cannot be derogated from.[7]

The fair trial guarantees basic principles that are systematically violated at the Israeli military courts include, but are not limited to the following; trail by an independent, impartial and regularly constituted court; presumption of innocence; information on the nature and cause of the accusation (right to be informed); necessary rights and means of defense (right to counsel); the presence of the accused at the trial; and compelling accused persons to testify against themselves or to confess guilt.[8]

As mentioned before, there was a gag order effective for a period of over three months, due to this gag order the court proceedings were not open to the public, and even preventing the family members from attending the court sessions. Thus, violating the right to public proceedings.[9] Also, the majority of the detainees who were included in the gag order were also banned from lawyers’ visits and consultation. Even in the court sessions that were conducted while the lawyers’ ban was effective, detainees were denied to see his/her lawyer. The period of the lawyers’ ban orders ranged from 30 days to around 45 days in some of the cases, depriving them of their right to counsel[10] in the most sensitive period of detention.

Moreover, according to the Israeli military law, a detainee can be held without any charges for a total period of 75 days that is subject to renewals. In those cases, in particular, the military prosecution pressed lists of charges after a period of interrogations that ranged from 50 to 60 days in some of the cases. One of the detainees spent more than 100 days at al-Mascobiyya interrogation center without knowing all of the charges brought against him. Thus, violating detainee’s right to be informed[11] of the nature of the accusations brought against them without delay. In other cases, the intelligence agency published accusations against individuals to the public before presenting them with their list of charges at the court. The published statements were for a mere political motive as the actual charges pressed against the same detainees at the military court are not in line with the published accusation.

Furthermore, according to the court sessions’ protocols, detainees have shown and expressed their need for urgent medical care by emphasizing that they were tortured. Some of the detainees attended their sessions in a wheelchair and one was not able to attend a number of his sessions due to his medical situation. Still, the judge at the military court in all of the cases extended the detention periods for the detainees for the purposes of interrogations. In fact, in the past three months, Addameer’s lawyers made several appeals to the Israeli military courts of appeals on the detention periods and many petitions to the Israeli High Court on the orders that ban the detainees from meeting their lawyers. All the petitions submitted to the Israeli High Court were rejected and around 95 percent of the appeals made to the Israeli military court of appeals were also rejected. This shows how the military court and High Court are not independent, impartial and regularly constituted courts[12] as they prioritize the requests and needs of the Israeli intelligence agency without any consideration of the detainees’ rights. Most importantly, the insistence of the Israeli judges at both courts to extend the interrogation periods with the knowledge of the committed torture shows the complicity of this legal system in the committed crimes. In fact, the judges also obstructed the documentation of torture by attempting to delay the obtaining of medical reports and pictures of the bodies of those tortured detainees, rather than monitoring and preventing torture, which is their legal obligation. Only in one of the cases, the judge ordered the detention center’s doctor to document the body of the detainee by taking pictures.

Finally, almost all of those detainees were forced to give confessions under torture. The intensity of the interrogations and severity of the physical and psychological torture forced the majority of the detainees to testify against themselves, against others, and confess guilty.[13] At the Israeli military court, those confessions are used as the main tool to indict those detainees, in complete disregard of all international norms that assert on the inadmissibility of all confessions obtained under torture.

Prohibition of Torture in Public International Law

Prohibition against torture is one of the most fundamental norms of international law that cannot be derogated from. The protection against torture under all circumstances is enshrined in both Treaty[14]  and Customary International Law.[15] Despite the absolute and non-derogable prohibition against torture, enshrined under article (2) of the International Convention against Torture and ratified by Israel on 3 October 1991, torture against Palestinian detainees is systematic and widespread in Israeli occupation prisons and interrogation centers. In fact, torture has been sanctioned by a series of Israeli High Court decisions. In High Court decision number 5100/94 in 1999,[16] the High Court made permissible the use of “special means of pressure” in the case of a “ticking bomb” scenario, where interrogators believe that a suspect is withholding information that could prevent an impending threat to civilian lives as stated in Article (1)34 of the Israeli Penal Code of 1972. This exception constitutes a grave legal loophole that legitimizes the torture and cruel treatment by the Israeli intelligence interrogators against Palestinian detainees and also protects interrogators who are granted impunity for their crimes.

Moreover, the Israeli High Court, in the Tbeish case number 9018/17 in 2018,[17] issued a ruling which expanded the concept of a “ticking bomb” scenario to include cases that are not imminent security threats. In this case, the judge based his ruling on previous decisions and broadened the element of immediacy not to be limited with a time frame. The Israeli occupying state alleges that the “special measures” they use with Palestinian detainees are part of their security measures. However, those practices amount to torture and ill-treatment, and even if the Israeli allegations were accurate, torture is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances including those of security-related measures. Furthermore, torture is committed in Israeli interrogation centers regardless of the classification of a “ticking bomb situation/special measures” torture is used with cases that even include the right to affiliation and organize politically.[18]

International legal standards affirm the absolute prohibition of torture under all circumstances. For example, the Council of Europe outlined guidelines on human rights and fighting terrorism which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 11 July 2002. The guidelines stated: “The use of torture or of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is absolutely prohibited, in all circumstances, and in particular during the arrest, questioning and detention of a person suspected of or convicted of terrorist activities, irrespective of the nature of the acts that the person is suspected of or for which he/she was convicted.”[19]

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, stated: “The ban on torture and ill-treatment was one of the most fundamental norms of international law and could not be justified in any circumstances.”[20] He added in the same statement speaking about the American prison at Guantanamo Bay that, “By failing to prosecute the crime of torture in CIA custody, the U.S. is in clear violation of the Convention against Torture and is sending a dangerous message of complacency and impunity of officials in the U.S. and around the world.”[21] The Israeli occupying state is an outrageous example of complicity and absolute impunity for perpetrators of the crimes of torture and ill-treatment.

Conclusion: Impunity for a war crime

This Israeli illegal occupation has violated all the legal elements of an occupation under international law. The Israeli legal system and practices are just one example of this violation that aims for suppressing and dominating the Palestinian protected population. Crimes of torture and denial of a fair trial for Palestinian detainees are not limited to one perpetrator. In fact, the agencies complicit in those crimes include the intelligence agency, military court, military prosecution, Hight Court, and even the medical staff that were involved in providing medical care and assessment for those detainees subjected to torture and ill-treatment.

According to various human rights organizations fighting against the crimes of the occupation, there are no effective domestic mechanisms of accountability for the crimes of torture, ill-treatment and the deprivation of a fair trial. In point of fact, Addameer, in the last ten years, has annually submitted tens of complaints of torture, and only one of them, a sexual harassment case, was open for investigation. However, rather than pressing a list of charges against the perpetrators, in this case, it was closed without indictment. Furthermore, according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), about 1,200 complaints of torture during Israeli interrogations have been filed since 2001. All the cases were closed without a single indictment.[22]

Finally, Addameer affirms that the Israeli occupying state with all of its agencies continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the Rome Statute, the denial of a fair and regular trial is a war crime (Article 8 (2)(a) (vi)). Additionally, torture is a war crime (Article 8 (2)(a) (ii)) and if committed in a systematic and wide-scale approach it also amounts to a crime against humanity (Article 7 (1)(f)).[23]

Addameer calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its war crime and crimes against humanity and to put an end to its sanctioned absolute impunity.

[1] The hands and legs of those detainees suffered great injuries mainly due to the cuffs used to chain them for long hours.

[2] The banana position is a position in which the detainee’s legs cuffed to the lower part of a chair (the back of the chair is positioned to the side) and his hands cuffed to each other and pressured by the interrogators to the lower part of the chair. This position would mean that the detainee’s body would form an arch. Usually, when the detainee is forced into this position, the interrogators beat the detainee harshly on the chest and stomach. Interrogators put a blanket or a pillow on the floor behind the chair, since detainees usually fall with the chair to the floor, due to the intensity the body is exposed.

[3] For further information check the written article on https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/14/israel2

[4] First Geneva Convention, Article 49; Second Geneva Convention, Article 50; Third Geneva Convention, Articles 102–108; Fourth Geneva Convention, Articles 5 and 66–75; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4); Additional Protocol II, Article 6(2).The principle of the right to fair trial is also provided for in Article 17(2) of the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.

[5] Third Geneva Convention, Article 130; Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 147; Additional Protocol I, Article 85(4)(e).

[6] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(1) (ibid., § 2796); Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 40(2)(b)(iii) (ibid., § 2802); European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6(1) (ibid., § 2795); American Convention on Human Rights, Article 8(1) (ibid., § 2797); African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Article 7 (ibid., § 2801).

[7] UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 29 (Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) (ibid., § 2998).

[8] For further information check rule 100 of the customary international law at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule100

[9] Third Geneva Convention, Article 105; Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 74; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4)(i); ICC Statute, Article 64(7); ICTY Statute, Article 20(4); ICTR Statute, Article 19(4); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(1).

[10] First Geneva Convention, Article 49; Second Geneva Convention, Article 50; Third Geneva Convention, Article 84, and Article 96; Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 72, and Article 123; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4)(a); Additional Protocol II, Article 6(2)(a). Also, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(3).

[11] Third Geneva Convention, Article 96, and Article 105; Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 71, and Article 123; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4)(a); Additional Protocol II, Article 6(2)(a). Also, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(3)(a); Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 40(2)(b)(ii).

[12] Third Geneva Convention, Article 84; Additional Protocol II, Article 6(2); Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(1); European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6(1).

[13] Third Geneva Convention, Article 99; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(4)(f); Additional Protocol II, Article 6(2)(f); ICC Statute, Article 55(1)(a); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(3)(g); Convention against Torture, Article 15.

[14] First Geneva Convention, Article 12; Second Geneva Convention, Article 12; Third Geneva Convention, Article 17; fourth paragraph (“physical or mental torture”) Article 87, Article 89 (“inhuman, brutal or dangerous” disciplinary punishment), and Article 32; Additional Protocol I, Article 75(2); Additional Protocol II, Article 4(2); ICC Statute, Article 8(2)(c)(i) and (ii); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7; European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3.

[16] HCJ 5100/94, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel et al. v. Government of Israel et al., Judgment. An English translation of the Court decision is available at: http://www.hamoked.org/files/2012/264_eng.pdf [accessed 5 December 2019].

[17] HCJ 9018/17, Firas Tbeish et al. v. The Attorney General. An English translation of the Court decision is available at: http://stoptorture.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/F.-Tbeish-Ruling-Nov.-2018.ENG_.pdf [accessed 22 December 2019].

[18] Joint report: B’Tselem and HAMOKED (2010): Impunity: Israeli military policy not to investigate the killing of Palestinians by soldiers https://www.btselem.org/download/201010_kept_in_the_dark_eng.pdf

[19] Guidelines on human rights and the fight against terrorism adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 11 July 2002 at the 804th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies

[20] Miles, Tom. “U.N. Expert Says Torture Persists at Guantanamo Bay; U.S. Denies.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 13 Dec. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guantanamo-torture/u-n-expert-says-tortur….

[21] Ibid.

[22] Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Torture in Israel 2019: Situation Report,  it can be found here:  Situation Report 2019.

[23] For further information check the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/InternationalCriminalCourt.aspx

December 23, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

License to kill for Britain’s secret service makes UK a police state

By Finian Cunningham | RT | December 23, 2019

A ruling by British judges declaring it legal for Britain’s state security service – MI5 – to shield agents or informers from prosecution for crimes committed in the line of duty is a hugely sinister development.

The ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) last week represents a formalizing of secret British government policy of affording its internal security service unlimited powers and immunity from prosecution in the execution of activities. The policy was legally contested by four British human rights groups, calling on the IPT to ban such powers.

However, the tribunal of five judges concluded it was lawful for MI5 agents to be permitted to commit crimes if, by doing so, they were acting in the public interest of national security. Two of the judges dissented. They explicitly raised concerns that the policy sets a “dangerous precedent” and “opens the door to abuse of power”.

Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), one of the four groups protesting the existing policy, said the narrow-majority ruling shows there is deep misgivings even within the state about the sinister potential of such unlimited power for Britain’s security forces. CAJ and the other groups are to appeal the ruling in the courts.

“We are very concerned that this ruling for now permits MI5 to continue to authorize informant or agent involvement in serious crime,” said Holder in comments for this article. “This could include crimes that constitute human rights violations. There were such experiences during the Northern Ireland conflict of informant-based paramilitary collusion, with agents of the state involved in acts as serious as murder and torture.”

During that conflict (1969-98), British military intelligence are known to have been involved in systematic levels of collusion with paramilitary agents and informers as part of a counterinsurgency campaign. The outcome was hundreds of extra-judicial killings carried out with the covert consent of British state agencies. One of the most notorious was the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted before parliament in 2012, following the publication of a government report into the Finucane killing, that the collusion in the case represented “shocking” abuse by Britain’s military intelligence.

What the latest ruling by the five-judge tribunal demonstrates is that there is still a policy of impunity for British state agents and their informants if their criminal activities are deemed to be essential in the service of national security. That is an insidiously low bar of subjectivity which allows for a modus operandi of “any means necessary”.

The British government is arguing that for agents and informants to carry out their covert work effectively, then they must have the power to lawfully participate in criminal activities for the sake of maintaining their cover. In short, they have a license to kill. But what makes the British state policy disturbingly sinister is that it is a secret policy that is off limits to legal and public scrutiny.

Says CAJ’s Daniel Holder: “All police and security services the world over use informants. They are a vital policing tool, but they have to be used lawfully, and the question always is: where do you draw the line as to what they are allowed to do? On occasions where absolutely necessary this may involve informants being involved in crimes like conspiracies with a view to thwarting them; but the bottom line is that informants can never lawfully be ‘authorized’ to be involved in serious crimes that constitute human rights violations, such as kidnaping, killings and false imprisonment, nor can they act as agent provocateurs, all of that is illegal.”

Northern Ireland serves as a grim case study where military police powers ran amok. Independent local human rights groups, such as CAJ and Relatives for Justice, contend that the so-called secret intelligence war waged by the British state was not only unlawful, it also prolonged the conflict and exacerbated the death toll.

Many of the killings suspected to have involved British agents or informers remain unsolved. Those murders have left a poisonous legacy for the citizens of Northern Ireland to deal with.

Rather than being restrained by this nefarious episode, it seems the British authorities are more determined than ever to extend the powers of their security services to act with impunity. If such a policy cannot be scrutinized or challenged in the courts by prosecution of alleged offenders then that leaves one to conclude that Britain is not a state of law but rather one ultimately run like a police state.

If British security agencies are above the law to commit any crime deemed necessary for their function, that opens a Pandora’s Box of baleful consequences.

We only have to look at countries where police forces more openly operate with impunity to see where the lawless direction leads to. A notorious example is Brazil, where police units are estimated to kill on average 17 people every day in supposed crackdowns on organized crime. The rampant use of extra-judicial assassination is largely a result of widespread immunity afforded to police officers.

Today’s Britain may seem like a million miles away, figuratively, from somewhere like Brazil or The Philippines where police forces also wield extensive lethal violence with impunity. However, once the rule of law is discarded for state forces, there is no longer a safeguard against abuse of power. It’s a slippery slope towards systematic violence and corruption.

Earlier this year, there was a public outcry in Britain when it emerged that Eton College – one of Britain’s elite private schools and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s alma mater – had set an exam question for entrant students asking them to justify the use of lethal force to kill rioters.

The question set by the Eton examiners read: “The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East. Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the Government has deployed the Army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but twenty-five protesters have been killed by the Army. You are the Prime Minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral.”

There you have it: “necessary and moral” means anything goes in the name of national security. Just like the legally approved license to kill granted to MI5.

Evidently, Britain’s ruling class is wary of civil unrest sometime in the future. It could be sparked by Brexit or economic austerity. The use of lethal force to quell public protests is an option. The ruling by British judges endorsing an existing secret government policy of impunity for MI5 shows that Britain is but a step from being a police state. If not there already.

December 23, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

NSA has been ‘lying to the courts all along,’ says whistleblower, as judges give warrantless surveillance the thumbs-up

National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland © Reuters / Larry Downing
RT | December 21, 2019

The National Security Agency can gather the data of US citizens without a warrant – as long as it gathers this data by mistake, a court has ruled. However, this suits the agency just fine, whistleblower William Binney told RT.

The NSA is permitted to gather data on US citizens abroad, or “foreign connected” Americans at home. The dragnet surveillance operation necessary to gather this information also sucks up data on millions of Americans with no foreign contacts, a process critics say is unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the 2nd Court of Appeals in New York declared this “incidental collection” of information permissible. The NSA has maintained that it is incapable of separating properly and improperly gathered data, but former NSA Technical Director William Binney told RT that this is simply untrue.

“They’ve been lying to the courts all along,” Binney said. “They’ve had the capability to sort that stuff out. It’s just that they don’t want to.”

“This gives them power over everyone, the ability to look into political opponents like they did with President Trump,” he continued.

While the court ruling gives the NSA free rein to suck up data on Americans’ phone and internet communications, it did not authorize the US’ other intelligence and law enforcement agencies to dig through this data. However, according to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court ruling issued last year, the FBI accessed this data trove some 3.1 million times in 2017.

December 21, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Media, Human Rights Groups Silent Over Politically-Motivated Murder of Journalist in Bolivia

By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | December 20, 2019

Argentinian journalist Sebastian Moro was found unconscious, left for dead, covered in bruises, scratches and other signs of violence on November 10. Moro was wearing a vest identifying him as press covering the dramatic U.S.-backed coup against democratically elected President Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The 40-year-old worked for the influential Argentinian newspaper Pagina/12. Hours earlier he had denounced what he saw as a far-right takeover of power. His last known words, published in his newspaper hours before he was found, were denouncing the kidnappings of government officials, and mob attacks on journalists and media outlets. He had been one of the only voices exposing the local opposition’s campaign of terror to the world. Moro spent six days in a La Paz hospital before finally succumbing to his injuries.

A photo of Sebastian Moro at a cafe in Bolivia not long before his death. Photo | Facebook

Despite the world’s attention being focused on the Andean country, media has steadfastly ignored the likely beating to death of a foreign journalist for political reasons. No mention of Moro has been made in the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News or any mainstream Western outlet, despite his story being well known in his native Argentina. Nor has his case been mentioned by the major human rights networks such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Even the Committee to Protect Journalists has not acknowledged his killing. Its list of deceased journalists in 2019 shows none across South America.

In fact, both media and the human rights industry have been leading a campaign to legitimize the new coup administration of Jeanine Añez and whitewash her crackdown on independent media. Taking their line from the Trump administration, corporate media refused to call the events in Bolivia a coup, preferring instead to frame it as Morales “resigning.” The New York Times welcomed the end of the “increasingly autocratic” Morales and expressed its relief that the country was in the hands of more “responsible” leaders. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s headline read “a democratic breakout in Bolivia.”

Human Rights Watch, too, has been key in pushing through the U.S.-backed overthrow of a democratically elected head of state and whitewashing the violence that still engulfs Bolivia. Its director Ken Roth claimed that the coup was an “uprising” aimed at “defending democracy” from a “strongman” while the organization described Añez’s law giving Bolivia’s notorious police and armed forces complete immunity from all crimes while they massacred protestors as merely a “problematic decree.”

In fact, the only English language source that has reported on Moro’s death is the Orinoco Tribune, a tiny Venezuelan website with a staff of two people, according to its website. The Tribune translated an Argentinian article and published it on its website. MintPress News reached out to the Tribune for comment on the story. The editor replied that Moro’s case, as well as the total media silence over it, highlighted the need to create and encourage new grassroots media outlets. It also noted that after the coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009:

One [of the] very first gestures the U.S. coup against Zelaya made in Honduras was to shut down community radio and snatch journalists. Tortured reporters were then tossed out on the highway as a warning for others. The lucky ones lived. The coup in Bolivia seems to be on the same learning curve.”

As MintPress has reported, there has been a coordinated assault on independent media in Bolivia. New Communications Minister Roxana Lizarraga announced that this was part of the “dismantling of the propaganda apparatus of the dictatorial regime of Evo Morales,” claiming that Morales’ “militants who misused the state media system” are being “withdrawn.” Outlets like TeleSUR and RT en Español have been shut down and reporters have been shot. Lizarraga also declared that she would persecute any journalists involved in what she called “sedition,” noting that she already had a list of “troublesome” individuals and outlets.

Human rights groups have also been subject to oppression. New Interior Minister Arturo Murillo directly threatened a newly arrived human rights delegation from Argentina. “We recommend these foreigners who are arriving…to be careful,” he said, “We are looking at you. We are following you,” warning them that there will be “zero tolerance.” He added that “At the first false move that they make, trying to commit terrorism and sedition, they will have to deal with the police.” Fourteen members of the group were subsequently arrested, to silence in the press.

The largest NGOs exist primarily to protect and advance power under the guise of standing up for human rights. Human Rights Watch started as an anti-Soviet Cold War propaganda machine, Amnesty International’s co-founder was an FBI asset involved in the murder of Black Panther leaders like Fred Hampton. This explains their disinterest in Moro’s murder amid the wider crescendo of violence in Bolivia. Those that stand up to power are rarely remembered fondly in corporate media.

Alan MacLeod is a MintPress Staff Writer as well as an academic and writer for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting was published in April.

December 21, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

International Federation of Journalists Says Concerned Over Threats to Sputnik Estonia

Sputnik – December 20, 2019

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) expressed concern over the threats, received by employees of Sputnik Estonia, and called on Tallinn to respect freedom of media.

On Wednesday, the Rossiya Segodnya International News Agency said that employees of Sputnik Estonia had received letters from the Baltic country’s Police and Border Guard Board that warned they would face criminal prosecution unless they stopped working for the news agency by 1 January. The Estonian authorities cited the 2014 EU sanctions as a pretext for possible legal action. Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has already asked Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid to not allow the journalists to be arrested.

“We are concerned by the current situation of Sputnik journalist in Estonia. Media professionals should be allowed to freely carry out their duties, without threats from higher authorities. We call on the Estonian government to respect press freedom, regardless of the journalists’ nationality,” IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said on late Thursday.

IFJ Vice President and Russian Union of Journalists’ Executive Secretary Timur Shafir described the threats to employees of Sputnik Estonia as a violation of the journalists’ rights and freedom of speech.

“The Estonian Police and Border Guard Board actions are a gross violation of the journalists’ rights and freedom of speech. The threat of criminal proceedings only for the fact of cooperation with the Russian media goes beyond all existing norms. What is particularly surprising is the fact that the majority of Sputnik Estonia office employees are Estonian citizens, so we can observe that the government applies repressive actions not only to the Russian media, but also to Estonians,” Shafir noted.

The situation was condemned by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called it outrageous and called on international organizations and rights groups to react immediately.

According to Rossiya Segodnya, which Sputnik is a part of, the news agency is planning to urge the United Nations; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; Council of Europe; and European Court of Human Rights to address this unprecedented violation of the right to free speech and take measures to protect the right of journalists to work in their professional capacity.

Russian media in Estonia and its two Baltic neighbors have been frequently targeted by authorities. The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the three nations of a coordinated crackdown on media, which is not in line with the principle of freedom of expression.

December 20, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Argentina to Freeze Gas and Electricity Rates

teleSUR | December 18, 2019

The Government of Alberto Fernández sent the draft law on Social Solidarity and Productive Reactivation to Congress on Tuesday morning, which, among other matters, plans to freeze gas and electricity rates for six months.

The bill also contemplates a “reduction of the real tariff burden on households and businesses by the year 2020”, a policy that will reverse the tariffs imposed since the Mauricio Macri regime took over.

The rates of these two basic services will be frozen for 180 days, while the executive branch begins a “renegotiation process of the current Comprehensive Rate Review” or “an extraordinary revision”.

Likewise, the bill authorizes the Argentine Government to intervene in the National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) and the National Gas Regulatory Entity (Enargas), for a period of one year.

The Solidarity Law seeks “the rate restructuring of the energy system with criteria of distributive equity and productive sustainability”, as well as “reorder the operation of the regulatory entities of the system”.

This latest bill is one of the first major moves by the Fernandez government to reverse the neoliberal policies of the previous regime.

December 18, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Israeli media campaign targets Palestinian journalist as well as Jeremy Corbyn

Palestinian journalist Walid Mahoumd (Photo from Twitter)
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | December 18, 2019

On Sunday, in the wake of the UK election, the Israeli media released a fabricated story, accusing a well-known Palestinian journalist in Gaza of being part of Hamas and an administrator on the ‘We Support Jeremy Corbyn’ Facebook page.

The story was first published on Tazpit (TPS) News, an Israeli media agency, and was later picked up by Right Wing press in the United States. The information was then repeated throughout Israeli media in both English and Hebrew. By Monday, the Jeremy Corbyn supporting group, that has over 70,000 members, was labeled as an “influential” group linked to Hamas by The Times of Israel.

But the story in of itself was built on erroneous claims. The Gazan journalist Walid Mahoumd – referred to by another alias, Walid Abu Rouk, by the Israeli media – is to the best of his own knowledge, not a Hamas member. There is also no information that has been provided to corroborate this claim and when I questioned him on the issue he had the following to say.

“I am not a member of Hamas. I cannot recall when I was made an administrator on the page. I have never posted anything on the page about Jeremy Corbyn. This is not the first time they have attacked me like this. They just want anything to attack Corbyn.” Needless to say, this was not what the original article on the matter from TPS quoted him saying.

TPS News claim that they spoke to Walid over the phone and that he confirmed to them that he had maintained a role as a manager of the page until recently and still has connections to pro-Corbyn activists. But when I reached out to Walid Mahmoud, he told me that he was called by an Israeli journalist about a month ago, who “bragged about being in the army and now being a journalist.” He told me that he declined to comment for the Israeli news outlet as he boycotts Israel. Walid said that the Israeli spoke to him in Arabic and bragged about his role in COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), which participates directly in enforcing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and besiegement of Gaza.

In a Facebook post, Walid Mahmoud has written that he now fears for his life, due to being labeled a Hamas member and that Israel could now justify targeting him in an attack, such as an airstrike against his home. He also stresses that the man, who called him to ask for information had threatened him if he did not cooperate.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, has over the course of his election campaign endured a relentless campaign from pro-Israeli groups and beyond, accusing his Party of anti-Semitism. One of the smears used against Corbyn is that he referred to Hamas as his friends. It would be perceived that those who created this story, did so believing that tying a Facebook page, which disseminates information about Corbyn, to Hamas, would hurt Corbyn in the elections.

The problem with the numerous articles written by the likes of The Jerusalem Post about Walid’s alleged links to Hamas, is that they have no verifiable information which could possibly prove the well-known journalist’s connection to the governing force in Gaza, nor his position on the Facebook page itself. This leaves many to the assumption that the claim being made is based upon the racist notion that all Gazans are somehow linked to Hamas, a theme which Israel used repeatedly when justifying its recent murder of over 300 protesters in Gaza’s Great Return March.

Walid Mahmoud is a journalist, photojournalist, and peace activist who resides in Khan Yunis (southern Gaza Strip). He is someone that I have personally known for around four years now. He has written in English for the likes of Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye and his work on the ground in Gaza has been shared by progressive Jewish groups in the United States such as Jewish Voice For Peace.

Walid has quite literally put his life on the line to bring the world information from the Gaza Strip, witnessing his colleagues die in front of his eyes from Israeli fire in the Great Return March. On the 30th of March this year, he was even shot at by an Israeli sniper and barely escaped death, with his camera blocking the bullet from hitting his head.

During Israel’s 2014 bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which it dubbed ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ Walid’s home was bombed by Israeli missile fire. Walid Mahoumd has endured living through Israeli occupation when he was younger, followed by eight large-scale military operation by Israel against Gaza after the enforcement of the illegal siege.

Now, he is being punished for merely talking about what he sees around himself. If for instance, he is to travel now, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine this process being made more difficult for him and his family. Hamas is considered by most Western countries to be “a terrorist organization” and despite not being a member, he could be perceived as such due to the numerous articles online claiming this.

Walid told me that he would like to take legal action against TPS for their smears and urges all those who published this disinformation to take it down. However, because he lives in Gaza this suing an Israeli news outlet will be an extremely difficult process. All of this trouble coming Walid’s way because of an article, which reads like a conspiracy theorist blog post claiming proof of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur being alive and well in Cuba.

The TPS article claims to have sources inside of Gaza, which they say told them about a supposed Hamas connection to Abu Rouk, yet they fail to provide the names of any such sources. It claims to have intelligence about London-based activists making Walid Mahmoud an administrator of the ‘We Support Jeremy Corbyn’ page, yet they provide no names of those who supposedly made him an administrator. TPS News then claim that Walid, under the supervision of Hamas, still communicates with London Labour activists.

Instead of providing any material evidence of such libelous claims, the article then goes on to claim that because Walid Mahmoud writes for MEMO, Al Jazeera, and the Middle East Eye, that he is therefore connected directly to the Muslim Brotherhood.

What made matters worse was that prominent Islamaphobe Robert Spencer then decided to post this information on his blog site ‘Jihad Watch,’ making Walid a potential target for online Islamaphobic hate mail.

Walid in a Facebook post on the whole matter writes the following points to clear up the situation from his own perspective:

“1- At no point in time was I ever associated with Hamas. I have even been arrested and interrogated by Hamas before in regard to my humanitarian work in Gaza. I’m entirely politically unaffiliated and only represent myself.

2- I was invited to be a co-admin on a pro-Corbyn fan page because I was asked to post occasional updates about daily life in Gaza under blockade. I used my own name for every post I made, without ever hiding.

3- There’s no way I would ever interfere with the UK election — I never posted a single post on the Corbyn Fan page supporting Mr. Jeremy Corbyn or even discussing the Labour Party.

4- I’ve only learned about (and became very fond of) Mr. Corbyn through his crucial support and recognition of our basic humanity, something that usually is ignored by other British politicians. I was never asked to run any activities supportive of him by any party whatsoever.

5- The Israeli journalist, Baruch Yedid, who fabricated this report about me relies only on one anonymous source falsely claiming that my ‘excellent command of English’ is why I was chosen by Hamas. This is total nonsense.”

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.

December 18, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ICC Prosecutor Bensouda ‘Biased In Favour Of Israel – Unwilling to Deliver Justice for Palestine’

By Iqbal Jassat | Media Review Network | December 17, 2019

Whoever has any suspicion that the ICC’s reluctance to prosecute Israel for war crimes is due to pro-Israel bias by its prosecutor, have been spot on.

In a timely intervention, South Africa’s highly respected jurist Professor John Dugard, has called for an urgent investigation into the fitness of Fatou Bensouda to continue holding her position as the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Speaking at an event at an Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute, The Hague, Dugard raised a number of crucial concerns about Bensouda’s pro-Israeli bias.

Dugard is no push over. As Emeritus Professor of Law at the universities of Leiden and the Witwatersrand he served as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, from 2001 to 2008. And as a former Judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice; and a member of the Advisory Board of The Rights Forum, his opinions are highly regarded.

In his presentation, Dugard said it’s become abundantly clear that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is determined not to open an investigation into crimes committed by Israel in Palestine and against the Palestinian people.

He pointed out that despite ten years of preliminary examinations and overwhelming evidence, he found it strange that Bensouda has found no basis to proceed to the next stage of the investigation.

Dugard alluded to the fact that Bensouda refused to do so in the midst of four Human Rights Council’s independent fact-finding mission reports, an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly, numerous Israeli, Palestinian and international NGO reports, extensive TV coverage and video recordings depicting and testifying to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Shockingly, despite overwhelming grounds for prosecution, Bensouda in her latest report, fails to give a straight and reasoned explanation for her failure to commence an investigation. Though her persistent refusal to proceed makes no sense, Dugard is satisfied that there is more than sufficient evidence to support a finding that Israel has committed war crimes by using excessive and disproportionate force and violence against civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

In his submission, Dugard said he is convinced the evidence is clear that Israel’s settlement enterprise constitutes apartheid and has resulted in the forcible displacement and transfer of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, meaning that it “has committed crimes against humanity”.

He explained that the law is clear on the crime of the transfer by an Occupying Power – Israel – of parts of its civilian population into the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He emphatically insisted that due to both the law and facts being clear, there existed no possibility whatsoever of dispute or debate.

Dugard spelled out the relevant imperatives of the Rome Statute which render Israel’s conduct as war crimes. In addition he cited articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as provisions of customary international law. And in setting out the facts, Dugard reminded his audience that 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in about 130 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These settlements are clearly within Occupied Palestinian Territory – as held by the International Court of Justice.

Thus if the evidence clearly provides a reasonable basis to believe that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been committed, “culpable failure to take steps to suppress a crime when under a duty to do so makes the Prosecutor complicit in the commission of the crime”, claimed Dugard. “There is overwhelming authoritative support for the conclusion that Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law.”

The International Court of Justice unanimously held the settlements have been established in breach of international law. Likewise the UN Security Council has condemned settlements as illegal, most recently in 2016 in Resolution 2334. And Dugard reiterated that even Israel’s own legal adviser Theodor Meron advised that they were illegal when Israel embarked upon this colonial enterprise.

The conclusion drawn by Dugard on why Besouda refuses to indict Israel is that non-legal, political factors have guided her decision. Clearly a stinking rebuke and damning indictment of the OTP, unambiguously accusing Bensouda of ignoring legal imperatives.

Why would Fatou Bensouda be in dereliction of her duty?

In his own words Dugard explained as follows:

“As I see it, there are two possibilities: a deliberate collective decision by the Prosecutor, her deputy and senior officers not to prosecute; or in articulated factors that have led the Prosecutor and her staff to a bias in favour of Israel.”

And unsurprisingly the most likely reason for it would be fear of retaliation from Israel and the United States. Or as Dugard further explained, it might be sensitivity to the widespread view prevalent among European states that the ICC is too fragile an institution to withstand the backlash that might follow such an investigation.

In an interesting background check on Bensouda, Dugard advanced additional factors in what he referred to as her “life-history, particularly in The Gambia” to provide some indication of unarticulated reasons for her decision to protect Israel. During the repressive reign of Yahya Jammeh in The Gambia, Bensouda served as Minister of Justice.

“Repression was the order of the day as human rights vigorously suppressed. The Minister of Justice (Bensouda) could not remain aloof from this. That she was involved in this process of repression has become clear from evidence before The Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission.”

These shocking facts certainly make a compelling case to have Bensouda removed from her position. Its unimaginable to have the ICC tainted by having its Prosecutor implicated in torture, detention without trial and denial of legal representation during her term in the cabinet of Gambia’s brutal dictator.

It is inexplicable that the world has been silent on the extremely compromised position of Bensouda, limiting her ability to deliver justice for the Palestinian people. Her failure to do so is a tragic reflection of the pervasive levels of injustice that have polluted not only the ICC but most if not all international platforms entrusted to dispense justice.

Iqbal Jassat

Exec Member

Media Review Network

Johannesburg

South Africa

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

An economy under occupation | Palestine Files

PTV – December 16, 2019

Press TV interviewed Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, about Israel’s occupation of Palestine and control of the Palestinian economy last night.

“Israel consistently uses Palestinians as a captive, colonial market, to buy its goods, to work in its factories, and denies Palestinians the right to economic independence and self-determination, just as much as it has denied Palestinians the right to political independence and self-determination,” she said.

“And breaking that economic control is central to any movement to end the occupation.”

“During the first Intifada, Palestinians organized themselves to boycott Israeli goods, boycott Israeli taxes, and develop Palestinian self-determination, collectively develop, and build a Palestinian economy that was outside the framework of the Israeli occupation,” she added.

“In a lot of ways, the Oslo Accords were a big setback to that independent development. There’s a long history in Palestine of resistance to Israeli occupation through boycott, and through fostering economic independence. Really, all of these actions are absolutely critical. This is one reason why it’s also so important that people around the world support the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanactions against apartheid Israel.”

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Bars Entry of Winter Clothing as Palestinian Detainees Suffer Harsh Winter Conditions

IMEMC News & Agencies – December 17, 2019

The Palestine Prisoners Centre for Studies has called on international humanitarian and human rights institutions, foremost of which is the Red Cross, to exert pressure on Israeli Prison Services (IPS) to provide winter clothing and covers desperately needed during the severe cold season.

The spokesperson for the Centre, Riyad Al-Ashqar, explained that Palestinian detainees in all facilities suffer harsh conditions in the winter season, due to acute shortage of clothes, winter blankets, and heating devices, especially in prisons located in the desert areas — namely the Negev, Nafha, Beersheba, and Rimon. This is in addition to the fact that some sections in a number of prisons are composed of tents that do not protect from the cold, many of which are old and worn out, allowing rain water to enter.

Al-Ashqar noted that IPS does not allow the entry of blankets and winter clothing for detainees, except in very limited quantities which are insufficient for cover. It also banned certain items from the canteen, and those which are available have a very high price. Additionally noted was the presence of a large number of recently jailed detainees who lack resources, due to their inability to visit in the first six months of detention.

He also explained that the extreme cold in the Negev leads to the freezing of limbs, with no means of heat, in addition to the lack of a permanent hot water supply. These cold climates will continue for several months, affecting many detainees with various diseases, especially of the bone, in addition to rheumatism, arthritis, back pain, and chest diseases, with a lack of medical care and medications needed for treatment.

He added, according to Al Ray, that IPS intends to increase the suffering of the detainees, in winter, through many repressive practices, foremost of which involves the storming of rooms and tents, justifying the practice of taking them out to open places, late at night, where they sit in open areas for long hours, in freezing cold and rain. They are additionally forced to stand for the daily count in the very early morning or evening, in the cold or rain.

The Centre has called for urgent intervention, by human rights institutions, to provide all the necessary items to protect them from cold, rain, and diseases.

(edited for the IMEMC by c h r i s @ i m e m c . o r g)

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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