Second senior Brotherhood official dies in prison
MEMO | May 26, 2015
Senior Muslim Brotherhood official and former parliamentarian Mohamed Falahji, 58, died in an Egyptian prison on Monday morning, Quds Press has reported.
Falahji is the second top leader of the movement to have died in prison as a result of maltreatment or lack of proper medical attention. His death brings the number of prisoners who have died in Egyptian prisons since the ouster of the freely-elected President Mohamed Morsi in August 2013 to 265.
The parliamentarian was arrested on 26 August, 2013 on charges of affiliation with a “terrorist” organisation, taking part in demonstrations and inciting violence. He was sent to Jamasah Prison, northern Egypt just over a month later. It was there that he started to experience a lot of pain.
After several calls by his family and appeals by his lawyer, he was transferred to the public hospital in Damietta last month. After examination, he was found to be suffering from kidney stones and inflammation of the gall bladder. He was sent back to prison without receiving any proper treatment.
Falahji’s death comes just a few days after former lawmaker and official in the Freedom and Justice Party Farid Ismail died of liver failure in a Cairo hospital. He was also 58 years old.
Isamil, who was sentenced to seven years in prison last year, was moved from jail in Al-Zagazig to Al-Aqrab Prison Hospital in Tora, south of Cairo, a few days before his death. He was in a coma for several days before he was pronounced dead by the authorities.
On 27 September, 2013, a Brotherhood official in Daqhaliyya, Safwat Khalil, 57, died of cancer in Al-Mansoura Prison. Several others at different leadership levels and members of the Islamic movement have also died in custody due to different diseases or in mysterious circumstances.
The Egyptian authorities insist that all prison inmates have access to proper medical treatment. They stress that they are following international standards and conventions in this regard.
According to Ahmed Mufreh, the director of the Egypt portfolio with NGO Al-Karama for Human Rights, 135 prisoners have died in Egyptian custody since Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi led the coup against Morsi in 2013.
Israeli court sentences Palestinian speaker to prison
Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Abdul Aziz Duwaik
Press TV – May 25, 2015
An Israeli military court has handed down a months-long prison term to the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and ordered him to pay more than a thousand dollars on charges on of delivering a speech at a pro-resistance celebration three years ago.
On Monday, the Ofer Court in northern Israel sentenced Abdul Aziz Duwaik to 12 months in jail and a fine of six thousand Israeli shekels (USD 1,550), Arabic-language Palestinian news agency Safa reported.
The Ahrar Center for Prisoner Studies and Human Rights condemned the verdict, demanding the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners currently being held at Israeli detention facilities, the 67-year-old PLC speaker in particular.
Fuad al-Khafash, director of the Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO), said the Tel Aviv regime has targeted the Palestinian parliament ever since the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas scored a landslide victory in Palestinian elections in 2006, preventing Palestinian lawmakers from serving their respective nation.
Khafash named Hassan Yousef, Mohammad al-Natsheh, Hassan al-Bourini, Mohammad Maher, Yousef Bader and Ezam Salhab as some of the Palestinian legislators that Israel holds captive in its jails.
Israeli soldiers abducted Duwaik in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) early on June 16, 2014. Palestinian sources said the senior Hamas official was taken away after his house in al-Khalil was stormed.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have also arrested at least sixteen Palestinians, including a number of teenagers, during separate raids on a number of houses across the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israeli military soldiers raided the town of Silwan, which lies on the edge of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and al-Quds on Monday, and detained eleven Palestinians.
Israeli forces took away five other Palestinians from the entrance gate of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied West Bank.
In recent months, Israeli forces have frequently raided the houses of Palestinians in the West Bank, arresting dozens of people, who are then transferred to Israeli prisons, where they are kept without any charges.
There have been many reports about the deteriorating health of Palestinian prisoners held inside Israeli jails.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in 17 Israeli prisons and detention camps. Moreover, 540 Palestinians are held without any trial under the so-called administrative detention, which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.
Israeli interrogators use ‘brutal’ methods to obtain false confessions
Ma’an – May 24, 2015
BETHLEHEM – Israeli interrogators are using “oppressive and brutal” methods to frighten Palestinian detainees and force them into confessing to attacks against Israel, a Palestinian official said Sunday.
Issa Qarage, who heads the Palestinian Authority prisoners’ affairs committee, made his comments during a visit to prisoners’ families in the northern West Bank village of Qusin in Nablus district, where he met with former detainee Noor Muhammad Hilmi Hamamrah, 15.
Hamamrah told him that during his interrogation in the Etzion detention center, Israeli interrogators had made him open his mouth while they used pincers to forcibly pry out part of his braces, causing bleeding.
An interrogator then told Hamamrah that he would pull out all of his teeth if he didn’t confess to throwing stones at Israeli vehicles, Qarage relayed.
Qarage said that the boy eventually made the confession.
Hamamrah was detained from his family home on April 15 at 3:00 a.m. and was taken in a military truck to the nearby Beitar Illit settlement where he was held for three hours before being taken to the detention center.
An Israeli prison spokesperson could not be reached for comment on Hamamrah’s account.
Prisoners’ rights group Addameer has long reported that treatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces tantamount to torture is “widespread and systematic.”
In 2014, international rights group Defense for Children reported that 93 percent of children detained by Israeli forces were denied access to legal counsel, while others endured prolonged periods of solitary confinement for interrogation purposes, a practice that amounts to torture under international law.
Virginia Cop Resigns After Tasering and Pepper Spraying Man Having Medical Emergency
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | May 22, 2015
A Virginia cop who tasered a man sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, following it with a ten-second blast of pepper spray into the man’s face, was forced to resign last week after his chief said he had used excessive force.
But Fredericksburg police officer Shaun Jergens said he only did it because the man in the car was not complying.
However, David Washington was experiencing a medical emergency, perhaps a diabetic seizure, which is why he struck another vehicle before running over a median and knocking over a city sign.
When the car came to rest, the 34-year-old man remained motionless in his car with the seat belt strapping him in.
“Get out the car or I’m going to fucking smoke you,” Jergens yelled after tasering and pepper spraying him.
“I can’t see,” Washington responded.
“That’s the point, get out. Don’t move around,” Jergens said, barking contradictory orders the way cops tend to do.
The cop ended up having to drag him out of the car, laying him face-down on the street where Washington remained handcuffed, continuing to moan that “I can’t see.”
Meanwhile, one of the three cops at the scene entered Washington’s car through the passenger’s side, causing the car to roll back on the suspect’s foot, adding to the pain and torture he was already enduring.
A female cop at the scene realized what was happening and jumped in the car to move it off his foot as Washington continued to moan in pain.
“You’re ok? We’re going to help you out,” asked one of the male cops who put him in that position.
Another cop then crouched down to Washington and asked, “you’re sick? Sick how?”
As if getting tased, pepper sprayed and his foot run over while laying face down on the hot asphalt wasn’t enough evidence of his medical emergency, it was later discovered he was having an actual medical emergency, not that any of the three cops were able to recognize that.
After all, they’re only trained to hurt, not help.
And that is important to understand anytime you hear the Police PR Spin Machine talking about how they are keeping everybody safe.
No, they’re only keeping themselves safe as was evident in this video where all three of them kept their guns trained on him, ordering him to show his hands when he was having a medical emergency.
Washington was transported to the hospital and will be charged with hit-and-run, hit-and-run (property damage), reckless driving, and driving on a revoked or suspended license.
In 2013, Fredericksburg police made the news for tasering a man for 42 seconds straight.
Below are three videos from each of the officers’ body cams.
“Fail to obey and we will break your legs”
Baraa Kalaid Madhun in his home
International Solidarity Movement | May 24, 2015
Al Khalil, Occupied Palestine – On the 21st of May, a 16-year old Palestinian, Baraa Kalaid Madhun, was banned from his own home in Al Khalil (Hebron). Armed Israeli soldiers came to his house at 8 pm and told him to step outside. Allegedly stones had been thrown at the military base, which is adjacent to Baraa’s home, and the soldiers were accusing him of this incident.
For four hours the Israeli forces searched the house, whilst Baraa was held at gunpoint outside. They then told him that for the next 30 days, he was not allowed to be in his house between 6 in the evening and 11 in the morning. The logic behind this arrangement is based on the assumption that if during these 30 days no stones were thrown, then Baraa would be found guilty of the initial incident. The soldiers threatened to break his legs if he did not acknowledge these restrictions. Since then, armed Israeli soldiers have been searching his house each night, to see if he is there.
This latest incident is one of many. The family is constantly being harassed by the Israeli occupation forces. Baraa himself has already been arrested six times. During those previous arrests, the soldiers have been very violent, once even fracturing his shoulder.
Free Speech Takes Huge Hit as Oakland Implements Anti-Protest Curfew
By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | May 24, 2015
Oakland, CA — This week, the mayor of Oakland has decided to use an old and unknown law to impose an anti-protest curfew to keep demonstrators off the streets at night.
This curfew does not apply to everyone in the city, only those who are involved in organized protests. Mayor Libby Schaaf put the order into effect in the midst of this week’s #SayHerName protest where women and children peacefully protested victims of police brutality.
During the demonstration, protesters were prevented from marching to the police station and were threatened with arrest if they stepped off of the sidewalk. Police informed protesters through a giant sound system that their march was not permitted, and that they could be arrested under Vehicle Code Section 2800, which makes it illegal to disobey anything a police officer says.
Cat Brooks, one of the organizers of the protest says that their right to freely and peacefully assemble was infringed upon.
“The fact is we were threatened with arrest for marching. This was a Black women’s and children’s rally saying to the police, please stop killing us, and our woman mayor organized the harshest response we’ve seen yet,” Brooks told the East Bay Express.
In an interview with the East Bay Express this week, Mayor Schaaf admitted that she ordered a prohibition on nighttime protests as a result of the demonstrations, and explained that she used a law that was already on the books.
“There have been no changes to any city policy or enactment of any new ordinances in any way to prohibit peaceful protests. We are making better use of our existing policies to prevent vandalism and violence. Our intent is to ensure that freedom of expression is not compromised by illegal activity and that demonstrators, bystanders, and property are kept safe,” Schaaf told the Express.
While the mayor admitted to the protest curfew, she denied that the protest itself was declared illegal.
“That demonstration was never declared unlawful and never ordered to disperse. My understanding is that protesters were told that once it became dark they needed to get off the roadways. Our intent is that by using better crowd management, not control, but management, that we can get demonstrators into safe spaces after sunset, once it’s dark, and this will better protect everyone’s safety, freedom of speech, and assembly,” Schaaf said.
However, local legal experts say that the new order is both illegal and unconstitutional.
“My general impression is the police took an unduly aggressive approach that not only violated their own crowd control policy, but also the First Amendment,” civil rights attorney Rachel Lederman told the Express.
“This was an unreasonable interference with the demonstration given that there had been no serious crimes committed. A local government can impose a reasonable time, manner, and place restriction on speech, but the Oakland crowd control policy specifically states that OPD will facilitate marches in the street regardless of whether a permit has be obtained as long as it’s feasible to do so. The reasonableness is determined by what’s actually happening there. You can’t ban street marches at night because on some past occasions some people broke windows. That’s completely unconstitutional,” Lederman said.
As we reported yesterday, The national demonstrations came on the heels of a report released Wednesday by the African American Policy Forum titled Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women. The forum is dedicated to telling the stories of a number of black women who were victims of police brutality.
NY Times Promotes Israeli Hypocrisy: “Outraged” Officials Deny Apartheid Label
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | May 21, 2015
Israeli officials have backed off from a plan to bar Palestinians from West Bank bound buses, protesting in loud terms that this would smack of “apartheid,” and The New York Times has devoted much space to letting these spokespersons have their say.
We hear from Mark Regev, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred mouthpiece, from opposition leader Isaac Herzog, and—at considerable length—from Israeli president Reuven Rivlin. We also hear indirectly from Netanyahu himself. Palestinians, who bear the brunt of segregated transportation policies, are represented by a single voice—politician and physician Mustafa Barghouti.
The plan would have forced Palestinians working inside Israel (those few who manage to get permits) to use designated entry points on their return. It was put forth by settlers who objected to riding on the same buses with Arabs and was originally announced last fall but put off until after the election.
The author of the Times story, Isabel Kershner, quotes the settlers along with the officials who denounced the plan, but in spite of many column inches devoted to this debate, she omits a significant detail: Although she writes that the plan has been “shelved” or “ended,” it is actually on hold.
Where the Times story failed to take note of this, others spoke up. The newspaper Haaretz states that it is “frozen,” and the Israeli liberal advocacy group Peace Now has said that “the defense minister must announce the cancellation of the bus segregation plan rather than settle for a suspension.” Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam predicted that “apartheid buses are what the government wants and will eventually get” and when this happens “the world be damned.”
Kershner’s story, however, leaves readers with the impression that the plan was withdrawn and skims over the inconvenient fact that it is not dead but merely in suspension. At the same time she emphasizes the rhetoric of denial emanating from Israeli officials.
Rivlin said it could have caused “an unthinkable separation between bus lines, for Jews and Arabs,” an idea that “goes against the very foundations of the state of Israel.” Herzog called it “a stain on the face of Israel and its citizens.”
Both men emphasized the harm it would cause to Israel’s image in the world, and to many observers this is precisely why the plan was put off at this moment. Its announcement came as Israel was in negotiations to prevent a suspension from the world governing body of soccer over the country’s discriminatory policies and as European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived to meet with Palestinian and Israeli officials.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a press release noting that the temporary hold on the bus segregation plan was “probably due to the negative fallout for Israel’s public image,” and Silverstein wrote that the plan had been in the works for two years but was going into effect when “the time wasn’t right.”
B’Tselem also states that suspension of the bus plan leaves in place a longstanding “policy of segregation and discrimination against Palestinians that has existed on the ground.” It cited the two separate legal systems in the West Bank—one for settlers and another for Palestinians—separate roads for use by Palestinians and settlers and an “official policy of separation in downtown Hebron, and elsewhere.”
The organization notes that Palestinians who ride the buses now are already forced to arrive early in the morning to go through check points and that these are workers who have been lucky enough to get permits to enter Israel.
In the Times story the reality of segregation and discrimination in the West Bank only finds brief expression in a direct quote by Mustafa Barghouti, thus placing it in a context where readers could dismiss it as little more than rhetorical claims coming from a Palestinian opponent. The bus riders who would suffer most from the segregation plan have no voice at all.
The emphasis is on Israeli denials. We hear at length from those who are outraged by charges of apartheid, who speak in lofty terms of Israeli standards and show a sudden fit of indignation over a bus plan that has been in the works for over two years.
Readers would benefit from a look behind this rhetoric. Times reporters know, for instance, that Israel maintains separate roads and separate legal systems in the West Bank, but here we find no challenge to the official efforts to claim the high road, even in the face of obvious facts on the ground.
The Right to Record Police
By REBECCA K. SMITH | CounterPunch | May 22, 2015
Last week, federal courts issued two decisions affirming the right of citizens to record police under the First Amendment. In Atlanta, a court held the police department in contempt of court for violating a prior court order to allow citizens to record police. In New York, a court held that recording police is a “clearly established right” under the U.S. Constitution, and that if a police officer violates that right, he or she can be sued in federal court.
First, in Anderson v. Atlanta, the court addressed a prior court order that had ordered the Atlanta police to implement reforms to their training policies and conduct mandatory in-person training for all officers regarding those reforms. In part, the new required policy states: “All employees shall be prohibited from interfering with a citizen’s right to record police activity by photographic, video, or audio means. This prohibition is in effect only as long as the recording by the citizen does not physically interfere with the performance of an officer’s duties.” An officer’s violation of this policy would result in dismissal.
In the court’s contempt order, it found that the Atlanta police had not made the required changes to its policy, and therefore had also failed to implement and enforce the required changes. The court held the Atlanta police in contempt of court, imposed sanctions, and awarded the plaintiff $30,000 in attorney fees for litigating the contempt motion. The court gave the police 45 days to comply with its order. The court stated that after the 45 days expired the court would impose a fine of $10,000 per day.
Second, in Higginbotham v. New York, the court addressed a lawsuit alleging that a journalist covering the Occupy Wall Street protests was falsely arrested and preventing from exercising his First Amendment rights. In 2011, the plaintiff had been working as a freelance video-journalist covering an Occupy Wall Street protest. The plaintiff had climbed on top of a phone booth to record a nearby arrest. A police officer ordered him to climb down but he did not immediately comply because there were too many people surrounding him. When he did begin to climb down, officers grabbed his legs, he dropped his camera, and he fell to the ground. The officers placed him in handcuffs and held him in custody for four hours before releasing him. He was charged with disorderly conduct, but the charge was later dismissed.
In the case, the court rejected the officers’ motion to dismiss the complaint. The court held that the complaint raised a plausible claim of false arrest. The court further held that the complaint raised a plausible claim that the plaintiff was arrested in retaliation for attempting to exercise First Amendment rights. The court noted that “[a]ll of the circuit courts that have [addressed the issue] have concluded that the First Amendment protects the right to record police officers performing their duties in a public space, subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.” After discussing the important goals of prohibiting government censorship and promoting free discussion of government affairs, the court held that “[t]he videotaping of police officers in the performance of their duties in public plainly furthers these First Amendment goals.” The court further held that “[v]ideotaping from a reasonable distance is arguably less of a hindrance to legitimate police activity than the verbal challenges [to police officers] that the First Amendment unquestionably protects.”
Rebecca K. Smith is Board Secretary and Cooperating Attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center.
Under Shadow of Trade Deal, US Pesticide Lobby Pressured EU to Dump Toxic Pesticide Rules
By Deirdre Fulton | Common Dreams | May 22, 2015
Under pressure from the U.S. and agrochemical industry lobbyists and amid ongoing negotiations for a controversial trade deal, the European Union dropped planned rules that could have led to the banning of 31 pesticides containing hazardous chemicals, a new investigative report has revealed.
The probe, led by the Brussels-based research and watchdog group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and French journalist Stephane Horel, exposes how corporate lobby groups like the American Chemistry Council, CropLife America, and the American Chambers of Commerce, mobilized to stop the EU from taking action on hormone (endocrine) disrupting chemicals (EDCs)—known to have significant health and environmental impacts.
“Hundreds of documents … show unambiguously how science is being manipulated to defend vested interests, manufacture doubt and delay a pioneering regulation.”
—Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory
According to the report—titled A Toxic Affair: How the Chemical Lobby Blocked Action on Hormone Disrupting Chemicals (pdf)—the examination of evidence “sheds light on how corporations and their lobby groups have used numerous tactics from the corporate lobbying playbook: scaremongering, evidence-discrediting, and delaying tactics as well as the ongoing [TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP] negotiations as a leverage.”
Specifically, the Guardian reports: “Draft EU criteria could have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). But these were dumped amid fears of a trade backlash stoked by an aggressive US lobby push.”
The newspaper adds:
On the morning of 2 July 2013, a high-level delegation from the US Mission to Europe and the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham) visited EU trade officials to insist that the bloc drop its planned criteria for identifying EDCs in favour of a new impact study. By the end of the day, the EU had done so.
The TTIP is a corporate-friendly trade deal, currently being negotiated between the U.S. and the European Union, that is already opposed by environmental, food safety, and labor groups for its lack of transparency, corporate concessions, and negative implications for people and the planet.
Common Dreams has previously reported on efforts by pesticide lobby groups to use ongoing trade negotiations to align regulatory standards by lowering them to U.S. levels rather than increasing them to the stronger safeguards in the E.U.
The new revelations only add fuel to the fire.
“This is yet further evidence that the European Commission is more than willing to trade off, weaken, or delay much needed regulation and protections for the sake of completing this TTIP trade deal,” Samuel Lowe, of Friends of the Earth, told The Independent.
“This investigation tells the story of a major ongoing lobbying battle,” added Nina Holland, CEO campaigner and co-author of the Toxic Affair report. “Hundreds of documents released by the European Commission following freedom of information requests show unambiguously how science is being manipulated to defend vested interests, manufacture doubt and delay a pioneering regulation.”
The Clock is Still Running: Neither NSA Reform Nor Reauthorization Advances in Senate
By Lee Tien | EFF | May 22, 2015
Tonight, the US Senate failed to move ahead with the USA Freedom Act, an NSA reform bill that would address phone record surveillance and FISA Court transparency and fairness. It also was unable to muster votes for a temporary reauthorization of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the section of law used to justify the mass phone records surveillance program. That’s good news: if the Senate stalemate continues, the mass surveillance of everyone’s phone records will simply expire on June 1.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act has been wrongly interpreted in secret by the government for years. We commend every Senator who voted against reauthorizing the unconstitutional surveillance of millions of law-abiding Americans.
In the wake of tonight’s vote, Congress must stop stalling and address the surveillance and secrecy abuses of our government.
The battle isn’t over. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling for another attempt to reauthorize Section 215 on Sunday May 31, only hours before the provision is set to expire.
EFF urges Congress to again reject Section 215 reauthorization, and then turn to addressing other surveillance abuses by the US government, including mass surveillance of the Internet, the secretive and one-sided FISA Court, and the problems of secrecy and over-classification that have created the environment that allowed such spying overreach to flourish.




