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Almost 1200 people, mostly minorities, killed by US cops in 2015

RT | January 2, 2016

US law enforcement officers killed up to 1,199 people last year, the majority of whom were ‘people of color’.

Black men between the ages of 15 and 34 were 15 percent of those killed by police in 2015.

Despite making up just 2 percent of the US population, that’s five times more than white men the same age, according to The Counted, a project launched in 2015 by journalists from the Guardian.

Its final tally of killings at the hands, weapons, or vehicles of US police officers last year was 1,134, while the open-source reporting project Killed by Police, which tracks “corporate media” reports of anyone killed by police, recorded 1,199 deaths.

The two figures vary because the projects use slightly different definitions of what constitutes a police killing.

Killed By Police was launched in 2013 and The Counted last year in response to the lack of comprehensive US government data on these type of fatalities, similar to the website Iraq Body Count.

The Counted’s database includes any deaths arising from direct encounters with police.

“Self-inflicted deaths” during police encounters, such as a person killed in a car crash while fleeing police during a car chase, and mass shootouts, in which police failed to identify who was killed by police and who was killed by civilians, are not counted by the Guardian project, but are included by Killed By Police.

Notable statistics:

  • One in five killed were unarmed.
  • At least six innocent bystanders were killed by officers during violent incidents.
  • Fourteen percent of killings followed an attempted traffic or street stop.
  • Seven percent after a non-violent crime.
  • The youngest victim was autistic six-year-old Jeremy Mardis.
  • The oldest victim was 87-year-old Louis Becker who died after his vehicle collided with a state trooper’s SUV in New York.
  • One transgendered person, Mya Hall, was killed in 2015… by National Security Agency (NSA) police.
  • Forty-three children under the age of 18 were killed by police.
  • California had more police killings relative to the size of its population than anywhere else in the country.
  • Rhode Island and Vermont were the only states where just one person was killed in 2015. Vermont’s killing happened the last week of the year when 56-year-old Kenneth Stephens was shot at 13 times after police say he pointed a rifle at them during a warranted search of his property.
  • A total of 89 percent of deaths by police were caused by gunshot, 4 percent were taser-related, 4 percent died in custody following physical confrontations, and 3 percent were struck by police officers driving vehicles.
  • Critically, The Counted found that only 255 of the killings, less than 25 percent, were considered “justified” by authorities.

Until now, no publicly-available data was gathered by the US government, but a new open-source system is being tested to track America’s growing “death by cop” epidemic.

Local police, medical, and investigative records will be used along with media reports. Previous government data relied solely on voluntary reporting by local law enforcement.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the new government program in the wake of Ferguson protests and the US outcry over cop killings.

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Journalist killed, 25 injured in December

Over 65 violations of journalists’ rights

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Palestine Information Center – 2-1-2016

GAZA – Union of Islamic Radio Stations and Televisions-Palestine reported that Israeli forces committed 65 violations against the rights of journalists and pressmen in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip in the month of December.

The union underlined that Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists led to the martyrdom of the photographer Ahmad Jahajha, 23, who was called “photographer of martyrs”.

The violations included direct attacks in the field and shooting at journalists while covering the events of Jerusalem Intifada and weekly popular marches. The union pointed out that 25 injuries among Palestinians who work in journalism were the result of direct attacks. Three among the wounded were female journalists. Ten cases of injuries were due to indirect attacks.

The union’s report also revealed that nine cases of repeated detentions, extension of detention, and summoning of journalists were documented in December including the case of a foreign journalist.

Detained Palestinian journalist Mohammad al-Qik was exposed to repeated assaults eight times. He was tortured and maltreated during investigation rounds and banned from seeing his lawyer or family. He was held under administrative detention which was extended to six more months despite being on hunger strike.

The report revealed that Israeli occupation forces banned Palestinian journalists and pressmen from doing their jobs and covering events. Israeli troops withdrew press cards from five journalists and banned two others from travel in Gaza.

The Israeli violations also included search and storming campaigns as well as confiscation of press equipment and closure of institutions and offices. Piracy of over five electronic websites was another form of Israeli violations. The webpage of al-Aqsa TV Channel was stopped and permanently deleted.

At the interior level, the union documented ten violations by the Palestinian Authority’s forces including ban orders against al-Aqsa satellite channel and tightening the noose on the team of Palestine Today satellite channel as well as summoning and detaining four journalists and assaulting four others.

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Middle East leaders lash out at Saudi Arabia over Shiite cleric’s execution, protests erupt

RT | January 2, 2016

Shiite leaders are up in arms over Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent cleric Nimr al-Nimr on terror charges. A senior Iranian Ayatollah called it a “crime,” while Tehran’s Foreign Ministry accused Riyadh of supporting terrorists.

“The Saudi government supports terrorists and takfiri [intolerant Sunni] extremists, while executing and suppressing critics inside the country,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

According to a lawmaker from Iraq’s ruling Shiite coalition, Saudi Arabia’s execution of al-Nimr was intended to fuel Sunni-Shiite strife and “set the region on fire.”

“This measure taken by the ruling family [of Saudi Arabia] aims at reigniting the region, provoking sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites,” Mohammed al-Sayhud told al-Sumaria TV.

Prominent Iraqis have called on the government in Baghdad on Saturday to cut ties with Riyadh over Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr’s execution, al-Sumaria TV reported.

“It’s a big crime that has opened the gates of hell,” Qasim al-Araji, the head of the Badr Organization in Iraq said, calling on Baghdad to cut diplomatic ties “immediately,” according to the channel’s website.

Another Iran-backed militia group, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, has accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to provoke Sunni-Shiite strife, according to the TV’s website. “What’s the use of having a Saudi embassy in Iraq?” it reportedly said.

Al-Nimr’s death has already added fuel to the fire in the boiling sectarian tensions in the Middle East.

Police in Bahrain fired tear gas at several dozen people protesting al-Nimr’s execution and carrying pictures of the cleric in a standoff in the Shi’ite Muslim village of Abu-Saiba, west of the capital Manama, an eyewitness told Reuters.

Scores of Shiite Muslims have come out to protest in Qatif, one of the oldest settlements in eastern Saudi Arabia, against the government’s execution of al-Nimr on Saturday, Reuters reported.

The protesters reportedly chanted, “down with the Al Saud,” referring to the name of the ruling Saudi royal family. They marched from al-Nimr’s home village of al-Awamiya to the region’s main town of Qatif, the only district in Saudi Arabia where Shiites are a majority.

One of the most senior clerics in Shiite-majority Iran, Ahmad Khatami, said that al-Nimr’s execution reflected the “criminal” character of the Saudi ruling family.

“I have no doubt that this pure blood will stain the collar of the House of Saud and wipe them from the pages of history,” Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

He added: “The crime of executing Sheikh Nimr is part of a criminal pattern by this treacherous family … the Islamic world is expected to cry out and denounce this infamous regime as much as it can.”

Kataib Hezbollah’s leader, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, hailed the execution of Sheikh al-Nimr as “a crime that is added to the criminal record of Al Saud,” he said, according to al-Ahd TV.

Yemen’s Houthi movement has also mourned the prominent Shiite cleric, executed on Saturday.

“The Al Saudi family executed today the holy warrior, the grand cleric Nimr Baqr al-Nimr after a mock trial … a flagrant violation of human rights,” an obituary on the Houthis’ official Al Maseera website stated.

According to Lebanon’s Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, al-Nimr’s capital punishment was a serious “mistake.”

“The execution of Sheikh Nimr was an execution of reason, moderation and dialogue,” the council’s vice president, Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan said in a statement.

The brother of the executed cleric said he hopes that any reaction to al-Nimr’s killing will be peaceful.

“Sheikh Nimr enjoyed high esteem in his community and within Muslim society in general and no doubt there will be reaction,” Mohammed al-Nimr told Reuters by telephone. “We hope that any reactions would be confined to a peaceful framework. No one should have any reaction outside this peaceful framework. Enough bloodshed.”

Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday, along with 46 other people. Authorities said most of those executed were involved in a series of attacks carried out by Al Qaeda between 2003 and 2006. Al-Nimr, along with six others, were accused of orchestrating anti-government protests between 2011 and 2013 in which 20 people died. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the death sentence passed on the Shia cleric.

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sheikh Nimr’s Brother: Execution is Riyadh’s Losing Message to Region

Al-Manar | January 2, 2016

The brother of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who was executed by Saudi Arabia on Saturday, stressed that the move is a losing message to the region that Riyadh is still “powerful”.

Commenting on the execution of the prominent religious figure, Mohammad al-Nimr stressed that the pro-democracy movement in the Kingdom’s east will persist.

“Wrong, misled, and mistaken those who think that the killing will keep us from our rightful demands,” Mohammad al-Nimr tweeted shortly after the media reported the execution of Sheikh Nimr along with other 46 people.

“It’s a losing message to regional foes that Riyadh is still powerful,” Mohammad al-Nimr said on the execution of his brother.

The execution is also seen as a message to Saudis that if you call for your rights, “you will be met by the wanton sword of Jahiliyya (ignorance),” Sheikh Nimr’s brother said.

“Someday, the sectarianism will be dispelled and we will be in a better condition,” Mohammad al-Nimr tweeted.

Saudi authorities announced on Saturday it had executed Sheikh Nimr along with 46 others.

Sheikh Nimr was a vocal supporter of the mass pro-democracy protests against Riyadh, which erupted in Eastern Province in 2011, where a Shia majority has long complained of marginalization.

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

At least 4 protesters killed in Saudi mass executions

Reprieve | January 2, 2016

At least four people convicted of offences related to political protest are among the 47 reportedly executed by Saudi Arabia earlier today.

Sheikh Nimr, Ali al-Ribh, Mohammad Shioukh and Mohammad Suweimal were all arrested in 2012 following their involvement in anti-Government protests, and subsequently sentenced to death.  Ali was 18 when he was arrested, and sentenced to death for organizing and participating in demonstrations; vandalism; helping to organize demonstrations through the use of his BlackBerry; attending an address of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Mohammad Shioukh, 19 at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to death for a number of offences, including writing anti-Government graffiti and filming demonstrations for the purpose of documenting and publishing their content.  Both were tortured while in custody.

Their names were included on a list of executions carried out today by the Saudi Government and published on the website of the Kingdom’s official press agency. In total, 47 people were executed at various locations across the country.

The list did not include the names of a number of people sentenced to death as children who are still facing execution. Ali al Nimr (Sheikh Nimr’s nephew), Dawoud al Marhoon, and Abdullah al Zaher were also sentenced to death over their alleged involvement in the 2012 anti-Government protests, despite having been aged 17, 17, and 15 respectively at the time. All three were also badly mistreated in custody, and tortured into signing ‘confessions’ to the offences alleged against them.

Commenting, Maya Foa, Director of the death penalty team at international human rights organisation Reprieve said: “2015 saw Saudi Arabia execute over 150 people, many of them for non-violent offences. Today’s appalling news, with nearly 50 executed in a single day, suggests 2016 could be even worse. Alarmingly, the Saudi Government is continuing to target those who have called for domestic reform in the kingdom, executing at least four of them today. There are now real concerns that those protesters sentenced to death as children could be next in line to face the swordsman’s blade.”

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Israeli Rabbi: Christians Not Welcome in Jerusalem

IMEMC News – January 1, 2016

gopsteindopAn Israeli Rabbi said, Wednesday, that Christians are not welcome in Jerusalem, and that he does not mind burning mosques and churches.

Bentzi Gopstein told Israeli TV Channel 2 that Israeli Jews practically prevent Christians from entering Jerusalem.

He also called for making obstacles towards the expansion of Christianity and Islam in annexed Jerusalem.

According to Days of Palestine, the extremist rabbi also said that he does not mind burning mosques and churches in Jerusalem, stating that Israeli authorities must arrest Christian monks and nuns.

Gopstein is the head of an notorious extremist Israeli Jewish group called Lehava, which is responsible for insulting and harassing monks and nuns in Jerusalem.

Several Israeli groups are active in the occupied holy city, with regard to extreme Judaisation activities, including the seizing of Islamic and Christian properties.

Israeli TV has previously proved that the Israeli government stands behind these groups, although it sometimes condemns their acts in token concern.

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia refuses to blacklist Hamas as terrorist

“Occupation is in itself a form of terrorism”

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Palestine Information Center – December 31, 2015

MOSCOW – Russia and the United States agree that Daesh, al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra are terrorist organizations but differ over blacklisting Hezbollah and Hamas, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Speaking to the Interfax news agency on Tuesday night, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said: “Our opinions coincide as regards to the main terrorist organizations. These are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra.”

But “we are not even discussing Hezbollah and Hamas with the Americans,” he added.

Moscow has routinely held senior-level contacts with Hamas officials and leaders.

Commenting on the Russian position, political analyst Abdul Sattar Qassem said: “Hamas cannot be compared to Daesh or al-Qaeda. It can only be viewed in terms of its resistance to the Israeli occupation.”

“The Israeli occupation and the USA are the real terrorists. They are fighting all those who stand in their way,” he added.

“Blacklisting Hamas as terrorist is unacceptable for Moscow. There is no evidence to corroborate the fact that Hamas is a terror group,” he said.

“Israel has been misleading the world into believing that Hamas is targeting Israeli civilians, which is not in fact the case,” the analyst stated.

“Hamas is a movement of national liberation that defends its people. It does not seek to wage wars for the sake of wars. It is engaged in a fight against an entity that colonized its motherland,” he explained.

However, “does Russia dare blacklist Israel as a terrorist entity for the crimes it has perpetrated against the Palestinians?” Qassem wondered. “It is not enough that Russia refuses to dub Hamas a terror group. It should dare include Israel on its terror list.”

“There is no colonizing power in the world but Israel. Occupation is in itself a form of terrorism,” the analyst further stated.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coroner: Israel’s conditional release of bodies prevents autopsies

Ma’an – December 31, 2015

BETHLEHEM – A Palestinian coroner responsible for performing autopsies on the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces condemned on Thursday Israel’s conditional handover of bodies.

Head of Al-Quds University’s Institute for Forensic Medicine, Sabir al-Aloul, told Ma’an that the demand by Israeli authorities that Palestinian bodies be buried immediately after their return prevents autopsies from being carried out.

“Israel freezes the bodies of the Palestinian martyrs in mortuaries held at -35 degrees which prevents autopsy for 24 to 48 hours,” al-Aloul said.

The burial of the body of 38-year-old Baseem Salah — delivered on Tuesday — was reportedly delayed after coroners were unable to immediately autopsy his body, still frozen after the handover.

The Palestinian Ministry of Justice adopted a resolution to perform autopsies on the bodies of all Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in effort to document “Israeli crimes,” al-Aloul added.

Israeli authorities began holding the bodies of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks on Israeli military or civilians in October. The practice has not been used with such frequency since the Second Intifada, according to rights group Hamoked.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Nov. 5 that bodies would begin to be returned on a “case-by-case basis, where the main consideration is if there`ll be a massive funeral.”

Several bodies have been handed over since.

A number of Palestinian families on Wednesday refused in a letter the conditions proposed by Israel for the return of their relatives. One of several complaints issued by the signatories was that families should be allotted time to request an official autopsy on their dead.

Autopsy reports are used in official paperwork necessary to file cases against Israeli authorities at the International Criminal Court.

“The freezing prevents autopsy results that document the crime, which means a loss of important information for bringing Israel in front of the International Criminal Court,” al-Aloul told Ma’an.

A spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Defense was not immediately available for comment regarding the return of frozen bodies.

Al-Aloul said that Israeli conditions also prevented autopsies that would resolve accusations that Israel has been “stealing” organs from the bodies of Palestinians withheld by the state.

Palestinian delegate to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Nov. 3 wrote a letter to the president of the UN Security council that included an accusation of organ harvesting by Israel.

The delegate referred to reports that the body of Muhannad Okbi — killed after reportedly killing an Israeli soldier in a Beersheba bus station — was returned to his family without corneas.

The allegations have yet to be confirmed.

According to autopsies al-Aloul had performed on Palestinians killed since Oct. 1 so far, the coroner said that those killed were “shot in the head and the chest many times from a very close distance.”

Some bodies also showed the use of expanding bullets — also known as “dum dum” bullets — the use of which is illegal under international law.

Israel has repeatedly denied claims that its forces use such bullets, though Palestinian medical examiners have on occasion documented their use.

The coroner also reported that a number of the bodies appeared to be returned in poor condition.

December 31, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Only one military service inductee in Reni district of Odessa in autumn 2015

Timer-Odessa – December 29, 2015

During the autumn of 2015, the army recruitment office for the Reni district of Odessa region found only one inductee, the department head for military enlistment, Sergey Lazarev, has announced.

“According to the conscription plan for the Ukrainian military, the Reni district should have contributed ten conscripts suitable for passage into military service. However, there was only one inductee. That is, the plan was met by ten per cent only,” he reported.

“When contacting candidates or their relatives, recruiters find that people are not home or they do not open their door,” said said Lazarev. “Due to the difficult financial situation, many citizens of military age have gone to work outside the region and even the country.”

He added that his military enlistment office has asked police to assist in the search for 414 citizens called up for military service. But none have been found and delivered to the military commissariat.

The problem is being discussed at the board of the district administration in Reni. “People on military service are unable to work or study”, notes the head of the district, Sergei Belyuk.

The spring 2016 military call-up is projecting 195 young residents from Reni district.

Translation by New Cold War.org

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Hidden Browsing Histories: Theresa May and the Snooper’s Charter

By Binoy Kampmark | CounterPunch | December 30, 2015

“‘Trust Me’ might be just the most manipulative thing a politician can say. It means leave me alone in secret to operate without proper challenge.” – Tom Watson, UK Deputy Labour Leader, Dec 18, 2015

Many government policies are advertised as useful for broader safety – till they are reversed to apply to the very officials who create them. The UK Home Secretary is very much of that school. Readers will be aware what Theresa May has done her invaluably bit to undermine privacy on the broader pretext of protecting security.

Central to this is the Home Office’s insistence on the Investigatory Powers Bill that seemingly insists on more intrusion than investigation. The bill, in rather futile fashion, will compel phone and web companies to retain records of every citizen for at least a year, providing a data pool which police and security services could access when required. The legislation goes further, enrolling the relevant service providers in a pseudo-police role that will override encryption if needed.

May has found herself having to sugar coat the bill with some decent premise, and has decided to go the cyberbullying card, a view she outlined to South Suffolk MP James Cartlidge.

The tactic is standard: if people are misbehaving on the internet, those on facilitating its use should be made responsible for moral behaviour. Accordingly, “Internet connection records would update the capability of law enforcement in a criminal investigation to determine the sender and recipient of a communication, for example, a malicious message such as those exchanged in cyberbullying.”

The response by The Independent has been an attempt to pull the history of Theresa May’s browsing history for the last week of October, a freedom of information request that purposely excludes any information directly concerned with security matters.

What is good for the goose of inquiry is also grand for the gander placed under the scrutinising eye of the state. In short, if you are going to be equal before the law, then by golly even ministers should have their browsing history on the internet made available for the public gaze.

Not so, according to the Home Office. The FOI request has been dismissed as vexatious. In other words, the request was dismissed on grounds of an action “brought without sufficient grounds for winning, purely to cause annoyance to the defendant.”

The Home Office’s response, drawing upon section 14(1) of the Act, insisted that the department had “decided that your request is vexatious because it places an unreasonable border on the department, because it has adopted a scattergun approach and seems solely designed for the purpose of fishing for information without any idea of what might be revealed.”

The response provides a suitable template for critics of the surveillance state, if only because it demonstrates the hopeless rationale for the entire metadata retention regime. If the request by The Independent was, by its nature, scattergun, one could hardly assume that the security state’s behaviour in this regard is anything but scattergun.

This legal excuse remains one of the least convincing in the area of information law. It is, however, used repeatedly by states who have freedom of information regimes, providing slivers when asked, but generally withholding the bulk of what is deemed too sensitive for release.

The point is often the same: we will have a regime to allow information for the public precisely because we are intent on disallowing much of it. Regulation, in other words, is constriction, measured in the name of protecting that great, inscrutable fiction known as the public interest. You are kept in the dark because ignorance is necessary bliss.

In the case of the Home Office, there could be few things more fundamentally vexatious than a metadata retention regime premised on the nonsense of combating trolls and bullies on the world wide web.

The efforts on the part of The Independent have at least demonstrated to British citizens that this regime has other purposes, managing to get some egg onto the faces of Home Office officials. It is by no means the only quarter targeting the potential consequences of the bill. Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson has argued that the bill’s supposed self-guarding mechanisms and oversight simply do not go far enough in protecting privacy.

In Watson’s mind, there was merely a “very limited review of the Home Secretary’s warrants by a judge appointed by a Commissioner who is appointed by the prime minister.” It was a “false choice to say that these massive extensions of state power must be introduced without checks and balances.”

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook finds its provisions similarly repellent for privacy. “We believe it would be wrong,” went a company statement, “to weaken security for hundreds of millions of law-abiding customers so that it will also be weaker for the very few who pose a threat.” Given this government’s supposed love of the corporate sector, big business and all, David Cameron and his Home Secretary have their work sharply cut out for them.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

NYPD Crushed Man’s Testicle, Complaint States

By Alexandra J. Gratereaux | PINAC | December 27, 2015 

A Brooklyn man has filed a complaint against the New York Police Department after claiming a cop in the NYPD savagely crushed one of his testicles with a boot, damaging his scrotum.

The Daily News says the department filed an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation after Corey Green, 33, had surgery at the local Bellevue Hospital in the Manhattan.

On Sunday, doctors worked tirelessly to restore the blood flow to Green’s groin, according to his attorney Sanford Rubenstein.

“This is certainly an outrageous example of wrongdoing and we are calling on the Brooklyn district attorney’s office to present evidence to a grand jury,” said Rubenstein.

Green’s version of what took place last Saturday evening differs completely from the officer’s tale of what happened last weekend in the bustling neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

An NYPD spokesperson says the Green was fleeing the police, who were allegedly looking into a robbery of a food deliveryman, when he ran into scaffolding.

But Green and his lawyer say this is not what occurred.

Rubenstein told the Internal Affairs investigators earlier this week that the officers violently broke into his client’s home at gunpoint and ordered him and the rest of the others in his apartment to exit the building where they wanted to include him in a lineup on the street for the robbery victim.

NYPD officers claim Green and four other gentlemen were already standing in front of the building when they came searching for the thief and approached them.

According to Rubenstein, the victim identified one of the gentleman in the lineup. Since Green was not identified, he began walking away thinking he was free to go and that is when things took a turn for the worse.

“One of the police officers grabbed him by the shoulder and the neck and threw him to the ground, and a second officer kicked him,” Rubenstein said.

Law enforcement officials claim Green was wanted for an outstanding warrant tied into a DWI arrest. He was transported to a nearby Precinct, where he voiced his discomfort and pain in his groin area. He was taken to Bellevue, where doctors later found his injuries to be more severe.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation authorities revoke ban on fanatic settler to enter al-Aqsa

Palestine Information Center – December 30, 2015

-1448691610OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Despite his dark past and his attempt oat bombing al-Aqsa Mosque in the 1980s, Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) allowed settler Yehuda Etzion to enter al-Aqsa Mosque after 30 years of prevention; he was also allowed to raise his hands as an aspect of worship while roaming the Mosque’s courtyards.

However, after the removal of the ban, Etzion breached the term of an agreement between Israel and Jordan with the sponsorship of the USA.

Etzion appealed the decision of denying him access into al-Aqsa Mosque for 15 days. The decision was issued by the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, because he violated the “terms” of the recent Jordanian–Israeli agreement, which allows settlers to enter al-Aqsa Mosque but not to pray in it; however, Etzion raised his hands after entering the site as part of a religious ritual, prompting Israeli forces to remove him from the Mosque after Aqsa guards protested his act and insisted on him leaving the holy Islamic site.

In view of the serious unprecedented event after the Israeli judiciary allowed the settler to practice an act of worship violating the Jordanian-Israeli agreement, the Islamic Waqf management communicated with the Jordanian ambassador and Jordanian Ministry Of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and informed them of the serious situation arising from storming the Mosque by such settlers who declare their intention to destroy the Mosque to build the alleged Temple in its place.

Escalation against al-Aqsa

The director of al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar Kiswani told Qpress that the District Court’s decision is a serious escalation and a flagrant attack on al-Aqsa Mosque that would affect the region, stressing that the Israeli occupation must stop those settlers if it wants peace as it claims.

Lawyer and specialist of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa affairs, Khalid Zabarqh, opined that the decision not to ban the settler Yehuda Etzion from al-Aqsa Mosque affects the legal rules that govern al-Aqsa Mosque, which acknowledge the entitlement of Muslims in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and praying there, and at the same time prevent others from doing that.

He charged that the Israeli judiciary has recently cohered with the Judaization schemes of the city of Jerusalem; as the judiciary began making decisions that help the settlement project, noting that, in conjunction with allowing Etzion to raise his hands as a signal of a prayer in al-Aqsa Mosque, the Israeli judiciary is looking into a decision to criminalize the chanting of Thakbir (Allah is the greatest) inside al-Aqsa Mosque.

Judaization dwarfs the Islamic right

Through his follow-up of the conduct of the Israeli courts, Zabarqh said that the occupation is trying through this device to widen the Judaization practice, in addition to dwarfing the Islamic right in al-Aqsa Mosque albeit in simple steps in order to endorse the occupation’s presence in it.

While the Israeli occupation allows the settlers to break into al-Aqsa Mosque knowing their plans and intentions to demolish al-Aqsa Mosque, it prevents many Palestinians from entering the Mosque, he pointed out.

Legitimize settlement

In this context, Sheikh Raed Salah, who has been barred from entering the city of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque since 2007, confirmed that it is not permissible for any Israeli court to judge in any issue pertaining to the al-Aqsa Mosque; because it does not have sovereignty over it. Sheikh Salah believes that the Israeli court’s decision is null and void.

Sheikh Salah explained that the court is trying to legitimize through its decisions the incursions of settlers into al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to legitimizing the construction of the alleged temple in place of the Mosque.

Regarding the renewal of his ban decision yesterday for an additional six months, Sheikh Salah said that the occupation which pretends that it respects the judiciary, issues an administrative military decision to prevent him from entering the city of Jerusalem, which he described as blatant injustice and racism.

The Israeli occupation forces prevented 12 Muslim deputies in the Israeli Knesset from entering the al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as banning 60 Palestinian women from praying in it.

Yehuda Etzion had tried to blow up the Dome of the Rock but al-Aqsa Mosque guards thwarted his attempt when a guard on one of its gates stopped him and searched the bag he was carrying and found it filled with explosives.

Etzion was a member of the Jewish secret movement that planned to assassinate the mayors of the West Bank. It adopted the bombing of the Nablus mayor Bassam Shaka’s car; the bombing resulted in the amputation of his legs.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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