Mexican authorities obstruct probe of missing students case: report
Press TV – April 25, 2016
A panel of international experts probing the 2014 massacre of 43 Mexican students has accused the government of obstructing its inquiry into Mexico’s most notorious murder case in recent years.
Foreign experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued their final report Sunday, saying the government’s stonewalling stopped them from reaching the truth.
The five-member panel, who has been investigating the case for a year, said Mexican authorities showed “little interest” in moving forward with the probe.
The panel also accused the Mexican government of allowing a smear campaign against its investigation in an attempt to discredit the final report as it prepared to leave the country.
A group 43 students from Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College went missing on the night of September 26, 2014, after they participated in a protest in the south-western city of Iguala, in Guerrero state.
Mexican prosecutors say they were arrested by corrupt municipal policemen and handed over to the local criminal gang of Guerreros Unidos, which apparently massacred them and burned their bodies at a garage dump.
Relatives of the victims dismiss the government version of the incident, accusing authorities of trying to cover up the involvement of senior politicians and army officers in the killings.
The international report also dismissed the government’s narrative, saying there is no evidence that the 43 students were incinerated at the dump.
It said the claim that the students had been burned is scientifically impossible given the heat needed to reduce human remains to ash.
It said the remains of only one student were fully identified after they were found in a nearby river.
“More than a year and a half after the students’ disappearance, we are no closer to knowing what really happened that night but one thing’s for certain: the credibility of the Mexican government is more in doubt than ever,” the report noted.
The case sparked outrage across the country and has led to street protests against President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The report also accused the government of torturing some of the suspects detained in relation to the case.
It said medical report of the suspects shows “significant indications of mistreatment and torture” against 17 of the detainees. More than 100 suspects were detained in the case.
Israeli Army Closes Entrance Of Hebron Emergency Center With Concrete Blocks
IMEMC – April 25, 2016
Israeli soldiers closed the main entrance of the Hebron Emergency Center, run by the Hebron Health Committees, by placing concrete blocks, completely sealing it, and deployed dozens of soldiers on its rooftop on Monday morning.
Dr. Ramzi Abu Yousef, director of the Health Work Committees (HWC) in Hebron, said many soldiers occupied the center’s rooftop, and turned it into a military base.
Abu Yousef warned of the consequences of this violation, especially since the center receives hundreds of patients on a daily basis, and added that the center provides its medical services to more than 60,000 Palestinians.
“For years now, the center has been subject to frequent Israeli military violations, including many invasions, and the soldiers even fired gas bombs at it,” Abu Yousef said, “They also repeatedly sprayed it with waste-water mixed with chemicals, in addition to harassing the patients and their families, and the various measures restricting their freedom of movement.”
The HWC voiced an urgent appeal to various human rights groups to intervene, and provide the needed protection to Palestinian health centers, in addition to pressuring Israel into halting its serious violations.
“People who need medical care have the right to receive it, but Israel continues to violate it,” the HWC added, “International Humanitarian Law stresses on the importance of unrestricted access to medical facilities.”
Trust the IDF investigation
By Yossi Gurvitz | Yesh Din | April 25, 2016
The case of Bassem Abu Rahme challenges the army’s claim that it can conduct a serious investigation of itself.
On April 17th 2009, Bassem Abu Rahme was demonstrating against the separation wall in his village, Bil’in. After another demonstrator was hit by crowd-dispersal weapons shot by Israeli security forces, Abu Rahme shouted at the soldiers and Border Policemen that the person was wounded. Seconds later, a person in Israeli uniform (it is unclear whether he or she was an IDF soldier or a Border Policeman) fired a tear gas canister directly into Abu Rahme’s chest; the wound was fatal, and within hours Abu Rahme was dead.
These facts were not, until recently, in contention. Even so, almost seven years after his death, no one has been held responsible for Abu Rahme’s death. Seven years of foot dragging and avoiding investigation (more on that in these two posts). This is what happens when a member of the security forces shoots an unarmed man — who everyone agrees posed no danger to — and the cameras (three of them, actually) document the event – yet are not aimed directly at the shooter.
We do not know who shot Abu Rahme, whether he or she was an IDF soldier or a Border Policeman. We do, however, have forensic evidence pointing to where the shooters stood. According to the ballistics examination, conducted by the IDF itself, “the only possibility of this sort of armament hitting the target is only by direct fire and using a flat angle — in the single digits — no more than three or four angles.” That is, there is no possibility of Abu Rahme being hit by a canister shot according to the orders and hitting him by mistake; even were the canister to ricochet off a fence, it would still be fired directly, contrary to orders.
The Chief of the IDF’s Photo Reconnaissance Department told the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division (MPCID) in 2013 that direct fire of tear gas canisters is forbidden and that it should hold a lineup to determine where each of the shooters stood. The MPCID refrained from doing so.
Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court heard an appeal by Yesh Din and human rights NGO B’Tselem , in which we demanded that the shooter be indicted, or that at least the army indict his commander. The hearing was held ex parte due to a strike by the prosecution. We estimate that the state would have argued that the shooters cannot be identified; and that it would also try to avoid mentioning the fact that the MPCID and the military prosecution did everything in their power to refrain from investigating the case for 15 months, and were forced to open an investigation after our first petition to the High Corut of Justice. The government is likely to claim that the canister that hit Abu Rahme’s chest ricocheted off something – and will play down the fact that even if it did, its own ballistic diagnosis ruled that it was fired contrary to orders.
The government is further likely to argue that it has no clue as to whom it should prosecute, hoping the judges will not think too much of the fact that it strangled the investigation for years. Our demand is simple: even if there is no chance to indict the shooters themselves, and we contend this claim since the MPCID’s failure to investigate rendered the case no longer investigable, the commanders should still bear responsibility.
So far, none of this has happened. The justices decided to rescind the petition, since under the Turkel Commission’s recommendations one may now object to the Attorney General over the military prosecution’s decision – a process that did not exist when we made our appeal. Justice, it seems, will have to keep waiting.
It is important to emphasize this time and again: Abu Rahme was unarmed. He was a danger to no one. He was protesting an injustice in his village – an injustice recognized by the High Court of Justice. And yet, an Israeli security officer, perhaps more than one, fired at a demonstrator in a life-threatening manner and caused his death. We note that one of the suspects said in his interrogation that he never received proper training with the weapon he was using. The commanders of these warriors, who are responsible for their actions, continue dodging this responsibility to this day.
Over the last few weeks, the very well-documented murder in Hebron has been called an exceptional, unrepresentative, and isolated incident by senior IDF and political figures. Every person of conscience should wonder whether this is so; whether the important statement in the case was not made of by Chief of Staff Eizenkot, but rather by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who phoned the father of the shooter and told him (Hebrew) to “trust the IDF investigation.”
What ought an Israeli security officer understand from the prime minister’s remarks? A reasonable interpretation would be: “don’t worry, our investigation will find you acted properly.” This, after all, is the unwritten contract between the government and its soldiers: we send you to do the dirty work of oppressing a civilian population, and in return we will turn a blind eye if you sometimes exceed your orders – unless are caught red-handed, that is. In such a case, we shall regrettably have to begin the investigation show.
Israeli occupation forces kidnap professor near Ramallah
Palestinian Information Center – April 25, 2016
RAMALLAH – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Sunday kidnapped Palestinian astrophysicist Imad al-Barghouthi at Nabi Saleh checkpoint, northwest of Ramallah.
Local sources told the Palestinian Information Center that Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint detained Barghouthi and took him to an undeclared place.
Barghouthi, 53, is a professor of theoretical space plasma physics at al-Quds University and has worked for some time at NASA in the United States. His scientific work is widely published internationally in academic journals.
The IOF previously kidnapped him on December 6, 2014 at al-Karama border crossing as he was trying to cross to Jordan in order to attend a scientific conference in the United Arab Emirates.
At the time, he was reportedly interrogated for participating in a mass march against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Copyright © The Palestinian Information Center
NYU grad student union votes to boycott Israel
Ma’an – April 24, 2016
A graduate student union at New York University on Friday voted in favor of joining the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.
Two-thirds of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee cast a vote in support of the resolution, which calls on both NYU and its United Automobile Workers union affiliate to divest from all Israeli state institutions — including universities — and corporations “complicit in” Israeli violations.
The resolution proposes that NYU join the movement “until Israel complies with international law and ends the military occupation, dismantles the wall, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens to full equality, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles.”
Over 600 union members voted in the referendum, a reportedly larger-than-average turnout for union votes. The 2,000-strong union represents graduate teaching and research assistants at the university.
Some 57 percent of voters made a voluntary individual pledge to participate in the academic boycott against Israel.
The BDS movement has gained momentum over the past year, aiming to exert political and economic pressure over Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory in a bid to repeat the success of the campaign which ended apartheid in South Africa.
Major actors to join the movement this year include British security giant G4S and French telecom company Orange.
The NYU union’s support of BDS comes after US President Barack Obama in February signed into law an anti-BDS trade agreement reiterating that US Congress “opposes politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel,” referring directly to BDS activities.
The Israeli leadership has widely condemned the BDS movement as antisemitic or carried out from “hatred of Israel,” while proponents of the movement argue divestment measures are necessary in pressuring Israel to end its decades-long military occupation.
Moves inside the US — Israel’s longstanding ally and number one provider of military aid — to criminalize BDS have meanwhile been slammed by human rights defenders as a violation of free speech.
Dutch columnist detained in Turkey ‘over Erdogan tweet’
Ebru Umar, Dutch writer © wikipedia.org
RT | April 24, 2016
The Turkish police have detained a Dutch columnist over a critical tweet she posted about Turkish President Recep Erdogan, her newspaper said. The woman intends to go back to the Netherlands after being released.
Ebru Umar is a Dutch columnist of Turkish origin, who writes for several newspapers, including Metro. On Saturday, the Turkish police detained her at the resort of Kusadasi and seized her laptop, the newspaper reported.
Umar said she was questioned about critical tweets about the Turkish president. She expects to be released soon and leave for the Netherlands, Metro reported.
Dutch and Turkish officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, the newspaper said.
It comes amid public outcry in the Netherlands over a letter sent by a Turkish consular to its citizens asking to report insults to the Turkish leader they encounter.
The Turkish authorities have launched some 2,000 lawsuits against people accused of insulting Erdogan.
Umar is a regular guest on Dutch TV panels on Muslim-related issues. She has a reputation for being highly critical of Islam and was reportedly targeted with retaliation in Amsterdam.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court Strikes a Blow to the Impunity of Liberal Terror
By LUCAS KOERNER | Venezuelanalysis | April 22, 2016
Last week, the Venezuelan Supreme Court blocked the extremely controversial Amnesty Law passed by the country’s opposition-controlled legislature, which would have pardoned scores of right-wing leaders convicted of violent political crimes.
The bill is applicable to all manner of felonies and misdemeanors committed since January 1, 1999, including “damage to the national electrical system”, “violence or resistance to authority” and even “conspiracy and terrorism”, provided that these crimes were perpetrated in the course of “demonstrations, protests, or meetings for political purposes”.
The opposition’s Amnesty Law even goes as far as to list specific incidents that qualify for amnesty, ranging chronologically from the 2002 US-sponsored coup to the 2014 violent opposition protests known as guarimbas.
In short, the law amounts to a hand-written confession of seventeen years of right-wing terror aimed at overthrowing the country’s democratically-elected Chavista government.
According to the high court, the legislation would enact a “scandalous impunity to the detriment of public morals, subverting the ethical and juridical order of the country”.
Despite the entirely reasonable character of this objection, the ruling was nonetheless derided as yet more evidence of Venezuela’s authoritarian collapse by of the self-anointed ideological guard-dogs of liberal democracy.
Western Apologia for Political Violence
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco accused the top tribunal of “upholding abuse” in sanctioning the criminal prosecution of opposition leaders for “legitimate political activities”.
Given HRW’s highly dubious track record on Venezuela, it is unsurprising that they would categorize as “legitimate” universally outlawed offenses such as “individual terrorism”, “use of minors to commit crimes”, and “mutiny, civil rebellion, treason, military rebellion”.
In regurgitating the law’s perverse logic that these felonies merit amnesty since they were committed with “political purposes”, HRW’s alleged human rights advocacy begins to look more and more like a naked apology for anti-government political violence in Venezuela.
Even more predictable was the response of the Washington Post– the mouthpiece of the US neoconservative establishment– which in a recent editorial cited the Supreme Court ruling in its case for “political intervention” in Venezuela as if US imperial interference in the South American country’s internal affairs was not a long established practice over the last 17 years of leftwing Chavista governance.
Of course, the Western interventionist chorus would be incomplete without the US State Department weighing in on the matter.
In the lead-up to the parliamentary vote on the bill, Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson met with Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed far right politician Leopoldo Lopez, issuing a call for the “immediate release” of those she termed “political prisoners”.
Absent from her statement was any mention of the fact that Lopez was formally convicted of leading 2014’s violent anti-government protests known as “the exit”, which resulted in 43 dead and hundreds injured, the majority of whom passerby and state security personnel.
An Excess of Judicial Independence?
Following the ruling, the US State Department released its 2015 human rights report in which the body sharply castigated Venezuela for its alleged “lack” of judicial independence as well as its “use of the judiciary to intimidate and selectively prosecute government critics”.
For a moment, let’s bracket the obscene hypocrisy of these accusations coming from a country that has produced such shining examples of judicial independence such as Bush v. Gore and Citizens’ United and whose judiciary has gone to incredible lengths to guarantee due process to political prisoners such as Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, and Oscar López Rivera.
Let us be clear: Washington’s problem with the Venezuelan Supreme Court is not its lack of independence, but rather that it is too independent from the country’s neo-colonial oligarchy that it refuses to follow their dictates.
Prior to Chávez, a man of the aristocratic stature such as Leopoldo López– the Harvard-educated son of one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families– would never face conviction for his crimes, which include publicly inciting the violent ouster of the democratically-elected government.
In the eyes of the West, what is thus intolerable about the Supreme Court decision to strike down the Amnesty Law and uphold the conviction of López and dozens of others is not its supposed violation of the rule of law, but its full application against the most powerful elements of Venezuelan society.
Against Liberalism
In a word, the mortal sin of Venezuela’s judiciary was to defy the hegemonic ideology of liberal democracy for whom equality before the law is treated as a mere formalism that is professed but never practiced.
In this regard, the Venezuelan Constitution states that, “The law will guarantee the juridical and administrative conditions so that equality before the law is real and effective… it will especially protect those persons… who find themselves in circumstances of clear weakness and will punish the abuses and mistreatment committed against them.”
This conception of legal equality as a radical defense of the weak and oppressed openly clashes with the liberalism enshrined in the US Constitution in which the principle of “equal protection of the laws” codified in the 14th Amendment is formal in character, lending itself to appropriation by corporations who secured the right to personhood long before African-Americans.
Within this framework, the Venezuelan Supreme Court found that the Amnesty Law is unconstitutional primarily because it amounts to a sanctioning of “contempt for the life, integrity, and dignity of… those harmed by the amnestied acts, affecting their right to access justice.”
That is, the high court ruled that the rights of the victims of right-wing terror– mostly black, brown, and poor– take precedence over the privileges of the perpetrators, much to the outrage of the Venezuelan oligarchy and its US imperial masters.
What is at stake here is not some local politicized skirmish over separation of powers but a profoundly universal ethical dispute over what kind of world we want to live in: one in which the normative order guarantees the life and human dignity of the oppressed, or alternatively one in which their oppressors are given carte blanche to murder and terrorize.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has been crucified by the powers that be for unacceptably choosing the former.
A Note on Clinton’s Faux-Concern
By Andrew Smolski | CounterPunch | April 22, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s recent comments on the 43 students for La Opinión show the media’s failure to judge her pandering rhetoric against her actual, substantive actions. When she states she is indignant about the case, she erases her role in the violence engulfing Mexico. The corporate media allows this, because their pages never print about the US-role in Mexico’s War on Drugs.
Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. During that time, State Department officials under her direction continued to vet and clear Mexican security forces to receive arms transfers. When she says rhetorically, “If there was something the US could do to help, I would be the first to offer it”, it is the theatre of faux-naivety. She knows quite well that the US could end support for policies militarizing Mexico. It’s just that she is not concerned with human rights if that means demilitarization.
It was under the Clinton State Department that the Merida Initiative continued passed its original 3-year time frame. The Merida Initiative enables the Mexican government to repress dissent, while at the same time increasing Mexican elite dependence on the infusion of US armaments. She has called for more of this Plan Colombia-style policy in the future, which means that under a Clinton presidency we can expect more violence throughout Central America.
So, when Clinton exclaims that she is indignant about the Mexican government’s role in covering up the Ayotzinapa case, it belies the fact that she would support (and possibly ramp up) policies that enable the Mexican government to do exactly what she says is a “violation of the law”. The evidence is quite clear on this point, and reported by countless others, like Dawn Paley, Greg Grandin, and Jesse Franzblau. The fact that the corporate media has ignored the record is typical. Clinton’s pandering hypocrisy, typical as well.
Sadly, Clinton is using the tragedy of the 43 to justify and continue policies that brought it about. That is why I am indignant. That is why we should all be indignant.
If the Palestinians are guilty of incitement, then what does Israel’s 24/7 occupation amount to?
By Kamel Hawwash | MEMO | April 22, 2016
Hardly a day goes by without Israel accusing Palestinian leaders of incitement against the state and its citizens. They argue that such incitement was one of the triggers for the seven-month long uprising which has seen forty Israelis killed by Palestinians, mostly in knife attacks, and over two hundred Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces, many executed while posing no threat to anyone. Such accusations of Palestinian incitement extend all the way up to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He admitted recently that there is some incitement from the Palestinian side in his interview with Israeli Channel 2 TV. On other occasions, Saeb Erekat, General Secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its chief negotiator has also accepted that there is some incitement from the Palestinians.
Incitement as far as Israel is concerned covers a wide spectrum, from calling those killed by Israel “martyrs” to objecting to repeated incursions by Jewish settlers into Al-Aqsa Mosque, and including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign; seeking membership in international organisations such as the International Criminal Court; calling Israel out as an apartheid state; describing the horrific impact of the occupation to the UN General Assembly; and even reminiscing about the towns and villages (most of which have been wiped off the map by Israel) from where Palestinian refugees come and to which they long to return.
Israel has worked tirelessly to convince the so called “international community” to accept its definition of “terrorism” and make it cover any form of resistance that is quite legitimate, including throwing stones. Even attacks against Israeli soldiers maintaining an illegal occupation in Palestine are deemed to be “terrorism”. The international community now works according to Israel’s definitions and narrative and seems to require the victims, the occupied people, to be exemplary and simply curse their predicament but do nothing about it. How many victims of an acknowledged crime are required to protect the criminals? The Palestinians under Israeli occupation are.
The situation is the same across the Atlantic. US presidential candidates making their obligatory, embarrassing pilgrimage to the main pro-Israel lobby group conference, AIPAC, earlier this month joined in this nauseating spectacle of dancing to Israel’s tune. Their words were carbon copies of what an Israeli spokesman would say. They accused the Palestinians of raising their children to hate and of loving death more than life. Both are inaccurate and very racist accusations designed to pander to the lobby. Only Bernie Sanders skipped this festival of anti-Palestinian hatred and then took Clinton to task for barely mentioning the Palestinians in a recent debate between the two Democrat front-runners for the White House.
While Palestinians can understand why Israel trivialises the impact that the loss of their homeland in 1948 (the Nakba) and the occupation of the remaining 22 per cent in 1967 (they Naksa) have had on them, they cannot fathom how and why supposedly intelligent people like the presidential candidates can be so insensitive to this. The fact that they see the Palestinians as the villains and their Israeli colonisers and occupiers as the victims is like being stabbed in the heart. To call on them to submit to Israel’s brutal occupation is in itself a form of incitement.
If the Palestinians are guilty of incitement, then what does Israel’s 24/7 occupation amount to? What the Palestinians can do pales into insignificance when compared to Israel’s deliberate daily provocation and humiliation of subjugated people in the hope of a reaction, to which the so-called Israel Defence Forces (IDF) can “respond”. This provocation – and provocation is not a strong enough word to convey the impact it has — is the most significant incitement of young Palestinians to take matters into their own hands. If those calling on them not to react could put themselves in their position for even one day and be on the receiving end of what it is like to live under occupation, I am confident that they would understand why they might be driven to violence.
The list of examples of incitement by Israel is long.
When Zionists claim that historic Palestine belongs to the Jews and use this to argue not only that modern day European Jews with no connection to the land have a “right to return” but also deny the same right to Palestinian refugees driven out of their homes and land in 1948 by Jewish terror groups, that is incitement by Israel.
When Palestinian children are abducted in the night by the army of an occupying power; denied legal rights including representation; shackled when brought to court; and made to sign confessions in Hebrew, that is incitement by Israel.
When an Israeli armoured bulldozer accompanied by dozens of soldiers arrives and demolishes a Palestinian home in occupied East Jerusalem under the pretence of the lack of a building permit, then that is also incitement by Israel.
When illegal Jewish settlers protected by the security forces throw a family out of their home in Sheikh Jarrah, and move into it themselves, that is incitement by Israel.
When Israeli settlers break into the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the security forces and claim that the mosque site is theirs, then that is incitement by Israel.
When Muslims are barred from reaching their holiest mosque in Palestine at the whim of the Israeli security forces, then that is incitement by Israel.
When homes are built for Jewish Israelis on Palestinian land and the owner’s movement is restricted to allow them freedom of movement, then that is incitement by Israel.
When the IDF fires tear gas canisters into Palestinian schools causing the children to suffocate or faint, then that is incitement by Israel.
When the occupying state takes over the main mosque in Hebron and divides it between Jews and Muslims, and determines when Palestinians can and cannot pray in it, then that is incitement by Israel.
When the occupation authority builds roads which encroach on Palestinian land for use by Jewish settlers only, then that is incitement by Israel.
When Jewish settlers terrorise the local population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and even murder Palestinians such as Mohammed Abu Khdair and the Dawabshe family under the protection of the IDF, then that is incitement by Israel.
When Israel lays siege to 1.8 million human beings in the Gaza Strip for ten years with no prospect of the blockade ending, then that is incitement.
When the occupiers use the most powerful and devastating weapons on earth, save for nuclear weapons, to kill and maim in war after war against the Palestinians in Gaza, then that is incitement by Israel.
As far back as 2006, PLO Secretary General Dr Erekat said, “The Israeli ministry of defence is telling its citizens to carry weapons when trailing in the occupied West Bank near Palestinian villages.” This, he added, is an outrageous case of incitement to violence against Palestinians that reflects Israel’s official policy and mindset. “It should be of grave concern to the international community.”
Israeli incitement goes right to the top. In the 2015 general election campaign Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited the Jewish population against Israel’s Palestinian citizens when he said, “Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves” as if they were a swarm of cockroaches. He was also accused of incitement by Palestinian citizens when he promised Israeli Jews, “We will dramatically increase law enforcement services in the Arab sector.” Netanyahu told the press at the site of a shooting that Israel “will open new police stations, recruit more police officers, [and] go into all the towns and demand of everyone loyalty to the laws of the state.” Israeli lawmaker Miri Regev incited against African refugees claiming, “Heaven forbid [that] we compare Africans to human beings.”
At a recent conference to counter the BDS movement, an Israeli minister called for the “civil targeted killing” of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti. Even foreign political figures have been the subject of incitement as Saeb Erekat has noted. He strongly condemned the hateful Israeli campaign against Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom following her legitimate calls for an investigation into Israel’s extrajudicial killing of Palestinian civilians.
Those searching for a peaceful resolution to the injustice affecting Palestinian must recognise Israeli provocations and incitement as serious contributing factors to the violence. They cannot expect the occupied Palestinians, victims of Israel’s colonisation project, to turn the other cheek when slapped. That cheek is badly bruised and cannot take any more humiliation, provocation and, yes, incitement by Israel.
Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate leader arrested while en route to international conference
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | April 23, 2016
Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal, member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate in the West Bank, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces on the al-Karameh crossing between occupied Palestine and Jordan on Saturday, 23 April and taken to the Etzion interrogation center.
Nazzal, a prominent journalist and syndicate leader who is widely quoted on issues relating to the repression of journalists, was on his way to Sarajevo for the General Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists, taking place on 25-26 April.
The EFJ and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate are members of the International Federation of Journalists, a global organization defending journalists’ rights against repression. The IFJ has spoken out before regarding the repression of Palestinian journalists, including urging the freedom of detained hunger-striking journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq and condemning the Israeli occupation’s closure of Palestine Today TV.
Nasser Abu Baker, the president of the Journalists’ Syndicate, who is also participating in the EFJ meeting, spoke with reporters about Nazzal’s arrest. The PJS issued a press release, calling on international journalists’ organizations, including the EFJ and IFJ, to denounce the arrest of Nazzal and pressure the Israeli state to release him. Nazzal’s arrest “clearly reveals the level of targeting and persecution of journalists and their union by the occupation and its forces,” said the PJS. Palestinian journalists will gather in Ramallah on Sunday, 24 April at 11 am at the International Committee of the Red Cross to demand the release of Nazzal and an end to the persecution of journalists.
Quds News journalist Samah Dweik, 25, was arrested on 10 April in an early-morning armed military raid on her home. A decision to grant her bail was overturned on 21 April, and she is imprisoned until the end of proceedings on allegations of “incitement” based on Facebook posts.
Writing in +972Mag, Noam Roten notes that “Ahmad al-Bitawi, a Palestinian journalist, was convicted in an Israeli military court of incitement that was, allegedly part of his journalistic work. Other journalists, among them Mahmoud al-Qawasme and Mohhamad Qaddumi, are both imprisoned in Israeli jails awaiting trial for the same charge. These tactics are only used against Palestinians journalists, never against Jewish journalists, some of whom publish similar incendiary materials, like for example Amnon Lord, who published a front-page article for the Jewish religious newspaper Makor Rishon a few weeks ago that included the statement, “killing a terrorist without grounds of immediate self defense is a natural situation during war.”
During the month of February, a long list of Palestinian journalists from both Jerusalem and the West Bank were interrogated, among them “Good Morning Jerusalem” producer Nader Bebars, Pal Media in Jerusalem’s bureau chief Ishaq Kasbe, WAFA photographer Ayman Nubani, and many other journalists, photographers and media technicians.”
There are approximately 20 Palestinian journalists imprisoned today, and dozens have been arrested since October 2015. In the same time period, nearly 150 Palestinians have been arrested for Facebook posts.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Omar Nazzal and all detained Palestinian journalists. The arrest of Nazzal serves several purposes for the Israeli occupation: disrupting the work of the Journalists Syndicate; silencing the voice of a respected Palestinian journalist; intimidating Palestinian journalists living and reporting under occupation that even prominent journalistic figures are not protected; and preventing Nazzal from connecting with his fellow international journalists on the situation faced by Palestinian journalists today. We urge the broadest campaign of pressure to demand the release of Nazzal, all imprisoned journalists, and all Palestinian prisoners. We especially call on journalists’ organizations and press freedom organizations around the world to join in this campaign.
Pirate Party’s leader detained in Germany for citing poem about Erdogan
RT | April 23, 2016
During a rally supporting comedian Jan Boehmermann, Bruno Kramm, the head of the Berlin branch of Germany’s Pirate Party, was arrested for “insulting a representative of a foreign state” by quoting a line from the comic’s satirical poem slamming Erdogan.
German police arrested Kramm while he was conducting a “literary analysis” of the German comedian’s satirical poem in front of the Turkish embassy in Berlin during a protest held under the slogan “No Power for Erdowahn, Freedom Instead of Erdogan” [Keine Macht dem Erdowahn, Freiheit statt Erdogan], the Morgenpost newspaper reported.
The politician cited a couple of lines from the now-infamous piece that landed Boehmermann in hot water, namely, “Kicking Kurds, beating Christians,” which refer to the Turkish authorities’ reported crackdown on minorities.
Kramm was approached by several police officers as he was reciting the lines and taken into custody. The police dispersed the gathering shortly thereafter.
One of the activists, Franz-Josef Schmitt, posted a photo of a police van, saying that nobody is allowed to visit Kramm.
According to the newspaper, police have accused Kramm of violating a rarely used section of the German criminal code, namely section 103, that prohibits insulting “organs and representatives of foreign states.”
“When people slightly criticize the government in Turkey, they are persecuted, beaten or disappear. In contrast to this, the dictator Erdogan is allowed to significantly restrict the right of assembly and the freedom of expression in Germany merely for a statement, that he beats Kurds and Christians,” Kramm had written in a statement published on the German Pirate Party’s official website.
“Who makes such people agents of inhumane refugee policy, should not be surprised when fundamental rights disappear also in Europe,” he added, referring to the heavily criticized EU-Turkey migrant deal recently praised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The police had reportedly sanctioned the rally on condition that the activists would not quote any lines from Boehmermann’s poem, because “it may constitute a criminal offense of defamation,” said police spokesman Stefan Redlich, as cited by Morgenpost.
Ahead of the rally, Schmitt wrote that “police have explicitly banned us from performing critical dialectical analysis of the Boehmermann’s poem…otherwise they will bring criminal charges and remove a microphone.”
The party says it has been staging weekly demonstrations in front of the Turkish embassy on Fridays to protest the “systemic terror of censorship, oppression, despotism and killings of the dictator Erdogan.”
Earlier on Friday, Merkel admitted that it had been a mistake to express her personal opinion of the German comedian’s poem, which she condemned for being “deliberately insulting.”
“In hindsight, that was an error,” Merkel said in Berlin on Friday, adding that she feared that her comments might be taken to mean that “freedom of opinion is not important, that freedom of the press is not important.”
However, she didn’t backtrack on authorizing the prosecution of the disrespectful comedian under section 103, despite the public outcry.
“I believe [allowing the investigation] to be correct, same as before,” she stressed, as cited by DW.
Boehmermann suspended his show last week after Merkel heeded Turkish President Erdogan’s calls to begin the proceedings.
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Oil and the Israel Lobby
Reknowned economist M. Shahid Alam offers this excellent critique of Noam Chomsky’s defective analysis of the relative influence of Oil versus the Israel lobby over US foreign policy: … continue
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