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Handcuffs, Leg Shackles and Tasers: The New Face of Punishment in the Public Schools

By John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | January 26, 2015

“In many parts of the country, teachers are viewed as beyond reproach, much like doctors, police officers, or clergy … and, therefore, are rarely challenged about their classroom conduct. In some cases, this means that actions that would be considered criminal if committed by a parent remain unchallenged by law enforcement if they occur in a school setting.”—Senator Tom Harkin, “Dangerous Use of Seclusion and Restraints in Schools Remains Widespread and Difficult to Remedy: A Review of Ten Cases”

Roughly 1500 kids are tied up or locked down every day by school officials in the United States.

At least 500 students are locked up in some form of solitary confinement every day, whether it be a padded room, a closet or a duffel bag. In many cases, parents are rarely notified when such methods are used.

On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums. Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers (a.k.a. police officers) in the nation’s public schools.

For example, in what may be the youngest example of a child being restrained in this way, in October 2014, a 4-year-old Virginia preschooler was handcuffed, leg shackled and transported to the sheriff’s office after reportedly throwing blocks and climbing on top of the furniture. School officials claim the restraints were necessary to protect the adults from injury.

In New York, “school safety agents” tied a 5-year-old ADHD student to a chair with Velcro straps as a punishment for throwing a tantrum in class. Police officers claim the straps were necessary because the boy had tried to bite one of the adults.

A 6-year-old kindergarten student in a Georgia public school was handcuffed, transported to the police station, and charged with simple battery of a schoolteacher and criminal damage to property for throwing a temper tantrum at school.

A second-grader in Arizona who suffers from ADHD was duct-taped to her chair after getting up to sharpen her pencil too often.

Kentucky school officials placed a 9-year-old autistic student in a duffel bag as a punishment acting up in class. Turns out, it wasn’t the first time the boy had been placed inside the “therapy bag.”

An 11-year-old special needs student had his hands cuffed behind his back and was driven home in a police car after refusing to come inside after recess and acting in an out of control manner by “passively” resisting police officers.

Unfortunately, these are far from isolated incidents.

According to a ProPublica investigative report, such harsh punishments are part of a widespread phenomenon plaguing school districts across the country.

Indeed, as investigative reporter Heather Vogell points out, this is a local story everywhere. It’s happening in my town. It’s happening in your town. It’s happening in every school district in America.

In 2012 alone, there were more than 267,000 attempts by school officials to restrain or lock up students using straps, bungee cords, and duct tape. The numbers are likely far greater when one accounts for the schools that underreport their use of such tactics.

Vogell found that “most [incidents] of restraints and seclusions happen to kids with disabilities—and are more likely to happen to kids with autism or emotional/behavioral problems.” Often due to their age, their emotional distress, or their disabilities, these young people are unable to tell their parents about the abusive treatment being meted out to them by school officials.

At least 500 students are placed in “Scream Rooms” every day (there were 104,000 reported uses of scream rooms in a given year). For those unfamiliar with the term, a “scream room” is an isolated, unmonitored, locked room—sometimes padded, often as small as four-feet-by-four-feet—which school officials use to place students in seclusion.

These scream rooms are a far cry from the tested and approved “time out,” which involves monitoring the child in a non-locked setting in order to calm him down. As psychiatrist Keith Albow points out, “Scream rooms are nothing but solitary confinement, and by extension, that makes every school that uses them a prison. They turn principals into wardens and make every student an inmate.”

Schools acting like prisons. School officials acting like wardens. Students treated like inmates and punished like hardened criminals.

This is the end product of all those so-called school “safety” policies, which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers.

Paradoxically, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.

Even in the face of parental outrage, lawsuits, legislative reforms, investigative reports and endless cases showing that these tactics are not working and “should never be used for punishment or discipline,” full-grown adults—police officers and teachers alike—insist that the reason they continue to handcuff, lock up and restrain little kids is because they fear for their safety and the safety of others.

“Fear for one’s safety” has become such a hackneyed and threadbare excuse for behavior that is inexcusable. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that explanation covers a multitude of sins, whether it’s poorly trained police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, or school officials who are ill-equipped to deal with children who act like children, meaning they don’t always listen, they sometimes throw tantrums, and they have a hard time sitting still.

That’s not to say all schools are bad. In fact, there are a small but growing number of schools that are proactively switching to a policy of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), which relies on the use of “engaging instruction, combined with acknowledgement or feedback of positive student behavior,” in order to reduce the need for unnecessary discipline and promote a climate of greater productivity, safety, and learning.  One school in Pennsylvania for children with significant behavior challenges found that they were able to “reduce the use of physical restraint from approximately 1,000 incidents per year in 1998 to only three incidents total in 2012” after switching to a PBIS-oriented program. If exposed to this positive reinforcement early enough in school, by the time a student makes it to the third grade, little to no intervention is required.

Unfortunately, these schools are still in the minority in an age that values efficiency, expediency and conformity, where it’s often faster and easier to “lock down” a kid who won’t sit still, won’t follow orders, and won’t comply.

Certainly, this is a mindset we see all too often in the American police state.

So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country? How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

Most of all, as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College, believes that school is a prison that is damaging our kids, and it’s hard to disagree, especially with the numbers of police officers being assigned to schools on the rise. What this means, notes Mother Jones, is greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

Students, in turn, are not only finding themselves subjected to police tactics such as handcuffs, leg shackles, tasers and excessive force for “acting up” but are also being ticketed, fined and sent to court for behavior perceived as defiant, disruptive or disorderly such as spraying perfume and writing on a desk.

Clearly, the pathology that characterizes the American police state has passed down to the schools. Now in addition to the government and its agents viewing the citizenry as suspects to be probed, poked, pinched, tasered, searched, seized, stripped and generally manhandled, all with the general blessing of the court, our children in the public schools are also fair game.

What can be done?

Without a doubt, change is needed, but that will mean taking on the teachers’ unions, the school unions, the educators’ associations, and the police unions, not to mention the politicians dependent on their votes and all of the corporations that profit mightily from an industrial school complex.

As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards. For a start, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.

“Children are the messages we send to a time we will not see,” Professor Neil Postman once wrote. If we do not rein in the police state’s influence in the schools, the future to which we are sending our children will be characterized by a brutal, totalitarian regime.

January 28, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Kiev takes path of war, selective approach to condemning civilian deaths – Churkin

RT | January 27, 2015

Ukrainian authorities are not making any efforts to hold a national dialogue, and are instead opting for military pressure and the isolation of eastern regions, Russia’s UN envoy said, accusing Kiev of being selective over which civilian deaths to mourn.

“This whole time Kiev was preparing for war. And they didn’t even hide it,” Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council on Monday. Since September, while evading any direct dialogue on the implementation of the Minsk agreement, Kiev has been strengthening its military positions in southeastern Ukraine.

“Along the frontline they deployed forces and equipment, including heavy weaponry; new mobilizations were announced, they put in new orders to military factories. At the same time, instead of measures for the economic reconstruction of Donbass, a policy of suppressing the uncontrolled region has been conducted,” Churkin said.

In his speech, Churkin repeated Moscow’s call for Western partners – especially Washington – to “stop egging on the Ukrainian hawks and covering their inhuman deeds.”

“The only thing that will lead to is an even greater catastrophe,” Churkin warned.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power accused Moscow of plotting to annex neighboring Ukraine.

“Russia’s end goal remains… to seize more territory and move the line of Russian-controlled territory deeper and deeper into Ukraine,” she said.

“This offensive is made in Moscow,” Power added. “It is waged by Russian-trained and Russian-funded separatists, who use Russian missiles and Russian tanks, who are backed up by Russian troops.”

British Ambassador Mark Grant took the anti-Russian rhetoric a bit further, accusing Moscow of transferring weapons to rebels in the east of Ukraine.

Churkin however, pointed out that Kiev has not made “a single step” towards constitutional reforms or an inclusive national dialogue with representatives of the rebel regions. Instead, Kiev has “chosen [the] course of suppressing the southeast of Ukraine with military means.”

“Apparently, peace in Donbass is not in [the] interest of Kiev’s ‘party of war’ in the first place,” according to Churkin, as representatives from Kiev did not attend the Minsk contact group meeting on January 16.

“Official Kiev is sabotaging another meeting of the contact group in Minsk, laying ungrounded claims to the level of representation of [Donbass] militias. The most important thing now is holding this meeting, not arguing about the level of representation.”

At the same time, Churkin assured that Russia is compliant with the Minsk agreement to settle the Ukraine crisis. “We are in contact with the sides, the leadership of Ukraine, and the rebels and representatives of interested countries, including in the Normandy format,” Churkin said.

The Russian envoy reminded the 15-nation Security Council of the hundreds of deaths that have occurred as a result of the Ukrainian military’s “indiscriminate shelling” of civilian areas.

Over the last week, over 100 people have been killed in the town of Gorlovka alone, and the Western media chose to ignore it, the Ambassador said, instead selectively focusing on two incidents – the shelling of a bus in Volnovakha and an assault on a neighborhood in Mariupol last week.

“And it’s quite clear why – both cities are being controlled by Kiev’s forces,” Churkin said. A similar tragedy in Donetsk, when 13 people were killed in the shelling of a bus stop, was not followed by mourning marches in Kiev, nor was an urgent meeting of the Security Council called, the Russian envoy said.

“We always condemn all attacks on civilians. And we mourn all civilian victims – unlike Kiev, which declares mourning and commemorations for civilian victims while picking which civilian victims in which regions to mourn,” Churkin said. “Are the people of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Republics some kind of second-class citizens?”

“It is impossible to ignore the fact that the tragedies of last few days are quite traditionally being used by Kiev to fan the flames of hysteria,” Churkin said. The accusations against militias pop up instantaneously, giving an impression they are being “prepared in advance,” he said, accusing Kiev of using any tragedy to call for more financial and military assistance from the US and its allies and to exert pressure on Russia.

“But as soon as the propaganda trick has come to an end, the interest in it falls very rapidly. After some time has passed, very often one finds that the information is very far from what was said initially,” Churkin said.

In light of this, Russia, according to Churkin, is urging an objective investigation into all of the January incidents in Volnovakha, Donetsk, and Mariupol, as well as earlier crimes – including the Maidan and Odessa tragedies.

Taking the floor at an emergency Security Council meeting, UN Under Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman told the session that a rocket attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol that killed 30 people on Saturday is a violation of international humanitarian law.

“Mariupol lies outside of the immediate conflict zone. The conclusion can thus be drawn that the entity which fired these rockets knowingly targeted a civilian population,” said Feltman, revealing the crater analysis by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

“We must all send an unequivocal message: The perpetrators must be held accountable and brought to justice,” he said.

The Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military operation in the southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, after the regions refused to recognize the country’s new coup-imposed authorities. The death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over 10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimates.

READ MORE:

US plays ‘instigator’s role’ in Ukraine crisis – Russian UN envoy

Mariupol spotter ‘confession’ another fake by Kiev – Russian Defense Ministry

January 27, 2015 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

FOIA Documents Reveal Massive DEA Program to Record American’s Whereabouts With License Plate Readers

By Bennett Stein & Jay Stanley | ACLU | January 26, 2015

The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act.

The DEA is currently operating a National License Plate Recognition initiative that connects DEA license plate readers with those of other law enforcement agencies around the country. A Washington Post headline proclaimed in February 2014 that the Department of Homeland Security had cancelled its “national license-plate tracking plan,” but all that was ended was one Immigrations and Customs Enforcement solicitation for proposals. In fact, a government-run national license plate tracking program already exists, housed within the DEA. (That’s in addition to the corporate license plate tracking database run by Vigilant Solutions, holding billions of records about our movements.) Since its inception in 2008, the DEA has provided limited information to the public on the program’s goals, capabilities and policies. Information has trickled out over the years, in testimony here or there. But far too little is still known about this program.

In 2012, the ACLU filed public records requests in 38 states and Washington, D.C. seeking information about the use of automatic license plate readers. Our July 2013 report, You Are Being Tracked, summarized our findings with regard to state and local law enforcement agencies, finding that the technology was being rapidly adopted, all too often with little attention paid to the privacy risks of this powerful technology. But in addition to filing public records requests with state agencies, the ACLU also filed FOIA requests with federal agencies, including the DEA.

The new DEA records that we received are heavily redacted and incomplete, but they provide the most complete documentation of the DEA’s database to date. For example, the DEA has previously testified that its license plate reader program began at the southwest border crossings, and that the agency planned to gradually increase its reach; we now know more about to where it has grown. The DEA had previously suggested that “other sources” would be able to feed data into the database; we now know about some of the types of agencies collaborating with the DEA.

The documents uncovered by our FOIA request provide additional details, but their usefulness is limited by the DEA’s decision to provide only documents that are undated or years old. If the DEA’s collection of location information is as extensive as the agency has suggested in its limited comments to legislatures, the public deserves a more complete and comprehensive explanation than the smattering of records we have obtained can provide.

These records do, however, offer documentation that this program is a major DEA initiative that has the potential to track our movements around the country. With its jurisdiction and its finances, the federal government is uniquely positioned to create a centralized repository of all drivers’ movements across the country — and the DEA seems to be moving toward doing just that. If license plate readers continue to proliferate without restriction and the DEA holds license plate reader data for extended periods of time, the agency will soon possess a detailed and invasive depiction of our lives (particularly if combined with other data about individuals collected by the government, such as the DEA’s recently revealed bulk phone records program, or cell phone information gleaned from U.S. Marshals Service’s cell site simulator-equipped aircraft ). Data-mining the information, an unproven law enforcement technique that the DEA has begun to use here, only exacerbates these concerns, potentially tagging people as criminals without due process.

Some major findings from the documents

The National License Plate Recognition Initiative includes a massive database containing data from both DEA-owned automatic license plate readers and other readers. Among the findings from the FOIA documents:

  • At the time of an undated slideshow, the DEA had deployed at least 100 license plate readers across the United States (eight states are identified: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and New Jersey). A 2010 document also explains that the DEA had by then set up 41 plate reader monitoring stations throughout Texas, New Mexico, and California.
  • The DEA is also inviting federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies around the country to contribute location information to the database. For example, the documents show that local and regional law enforcement systems in Southern California’s San Diego and Imperial Counties and New Jersey all provide data to the DEA. The program was “officially opened” to these partners in May 2009. Other agencies are surely partnering with the DEA to share information, but these agreements are still secret, leaving the public unable to know who has their location information and how it is being used.
  • Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is one of the federal agencies that has shared information with the DEA. An undated Memorandum of Understanding explains that the agencies will, “at regular intervals,” provide each other license plate reader data. It also authorizes the two agencies to further share each other’s data with other federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutors as well as to “intelligence, operations, and fusion centers.” This is a lot of location points. CBP collects “nearly 100 percent of land border traffic,” which amounts to over 793.5 million license plates between May 2009 and May 2013, according to CBP’s response to our FOIA request.
  • Additionally, any federal, state, or local law enforcement agent vetted by the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center can conduct queries of the database, located in Merrifield, Va.
  • The same undated slideshow suggests that there were over 343 million records in the database at the date of the slide’s publication (due to redactions, it is impossible to confirm that date from this document).
  • The unredacted parts of the documents and news reports suggest that the DEA recently changed its retention policy to six months for non-hit data. While this is an improvement from previous statements of DEA retention policy, it is still far too long. The government should not collect or retain information revealing the movements of millions of people accused of no crime. But even that long retention period is only meaningful if it comes with strict rules limiting data use, sharing, and access. Like its retention policy, the DEA should make these policies public.
  • The DEA says that the National License Plate Recognition Initiative targets roadways that the agency believes are commonly used for contraband transport. But it’s not clear what this means or what it is based on. Every highway in the United States must be regularly used for contraband transport. Is the DEA using this undefined mandate to target people of color? Without more information from the DEA, we have no idea.
  • One DEA document references steps needed to ensure the program meets its goals, “of which asset forfeiture is primary.” Asset forfeiture has been in the news a lot lately, criticized as a widely abused law enforcement tactic that doesn’t advance public safety but simply enriches police and federal agencies.
  • The program also apparently data mines license plate reader data “to identify travel patterns.” The extent of this data mining is unknown. Is the DEA running all of our license plate reads through a program to predict our likelihood of committing a crime? Are we all suspects if we drive on a certain road? What else does the DEA think it knows about us just from the collection and analysis of our locations via license plate reader data?

More answers are needed

The DEA’s license plate reader programs raise serious civil liberties concerns, and the agency should be open about what it is doing so that those activities can be subject to public debate. Among other questions, the agency should answer these:

  • How many license plate readers does DEA currently own and operate? In which states? And, how much did it spend on these license plate readers?
  • Which policies govern the use of the license plate readers? Which policies govern the use of the license plate reader database? Has the agency done a Privacy Impact Assessment on these programs?
  • How many license plate reader hits have resulted in arrest and prosecution of a serious crime? How many license plate reader hits have not correlated to an alert upon further investigation (a “mis-hit”)?
  • From which local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies does the DEA receive license plate reader data?
  • Which additional agencies does the DEA partner with? How many people have been approved to conduct queries of the DEA database?
  • Has the DEA used or attempted to use Vigilant Solution’s National Vehicle Location Service or a similar privately-run license plate reader database? Does DEA combine information from its own database with records in Vigilant’s, creating a mega-database in a public-private surveillance partnership?

As is the case with most police and federal law enforcement spy technologies, license plate tracking programs have flown under the radar of courts and legislators for far too long, silently collecting records about ordinary Americans in the cover of secrecy. When programs are secret, we have no way of challenging them or ensuring they conform with our values and the law. Before accountability comes transparency. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to release records documenting the federal government’s significant investment in automatic license plate readers and its unregulated and largely unseen location tracking programs.

January 27, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation forces close main entrance to al-Ram with concrete cubes

Ma’an – January 27, 2015

314709_345x230JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Tuesday morning placed huge concrete cubes in the middle of the main road at the entrance to the town of al-Ram in northern Jerusalem.

Mayor of al-Ram Ali Maslamani told Ma’an that Israeli forces arrived in the early morning hours and closed the northern entrance to the town with huge concrete cubes. The closure, he said, crippled the traffic at the busiest entrance to al-Ram.

The mayor added that his town is densely populated as it has about 60,000 residents the majority of whom use the northern entrance almost every day.

The northern entrance, says al-Maslamani, is the main exit to several other towns and villages.

“Closing the entrance will strangle the town more after it has been segregated by the separation wall,” added al-Maslamani.

He said that more than 100,000 people from neighboring areas visit the town every day to do shopping or visit banks and public service offices.

January 27, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

UNRWA Forced to Suspend Gaza Assistance Due to Lack of Funds

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UNRWA Report | January 27, 2015

The United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) has been forced to suspend its cash assistance programme in Gaza to tens of thousands of people for repairs to damaged and destroyed homes and for rental subsidies to the homeless.

Over 96,000 Palestine refugee family homes were damaged or destroyed during last summer’s conflict and the total funding required to address that need is USD 720 million. To date, UNRWA has received only USD 135 million in pledges, leaving a shortfall of USD 585 million. While some funds remain available to begin the reconstruction of totally destroyed homes, the Agency has exhausted all funding to support repairs and rental subsidies.

“UNRWA in Gaza has so far provided over USD 77 million to 66,000 Palestine refugee families to repair their home or find a temporary alternative”, said UNRWA’s Director in Gaza, Robert Turner. “This is a tremendous achievement; it is also wholly insufficient. It is easy to look at these numbers and lose sight of the fact that we are talking about thousands of families who continue to suffer through this cold winter with inadequate shelter. People are literally sleeping amongst the rubble, children have died of hypothermia. USD 5.4 billion was pledged at the Cairo conference last October and virtually none of it has reached Gaza. This is distressing and unacceptable.”

“It is unclear why this funding has not been forthcoming,” added Mr. Turner “but UNRWA has been a stabilizing factor in a very challenging political and security context and if we cannot continue the programme it will have grave consequences for affected communities in Gaza. People are desperate and the international community cannot even provide the bare minimum – for example a repaired home in winter –let alone a lifting of the blockade, access to markets or freedom of movement. We’ve said before quiet for quiet will not last, and now the quiet is at risk.”

UNRWA urgently requires USD 100 million in the first quarter of this year to allow families with minor damage to repair their homes and to provide ongoing rental subsidies, including to the thousands of families that left the UNRWA-run collective centers and found alternative rental accommodation. UNRWA is very concerned that if it cannot continue to provide the rental subsidy then large numbers may return to the collective centers, where almost 12,000 displaced Palestinians continue to seek shelter.

Christopher Gunness
Spokesperson, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Communications
UNRWA | Office of the Commissioner General | Jerusalem

January 27, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

North Sinai curfew extended by 3 months

Sinai Al Arish police sta copie

North Sinai police station – Photo by Virginie Nguyen
By Omar Ryad | Mada Masr | January 25, 2015

The government has extended a curfew in North Sinai by three months, citing ongoing security concerns in the region.

The curfew was initially put in place for three months on October 25, after attacks on military checkpoints that killed more than 30 security personnel.

It was set to expire Sunday, but the Cabinet elected to extend it for an additional three months, Cabinet Spokesperson Hossam al-Qawish said during a telephone interview with private satellite channel CBC extra.

Qawish said that the ongoing unrest in the region convinced the government that the curfew and other security operations need to continue.

The curfew is now set to expire April 25.

It was originally imposed from 5 pm to 7 am each day, with anyone outside during curfew at risk of being shot or arrested. It has cut short working hours and transformed North Sinai’s cities into ghost towns.

In December, the hours were reduced in some parts of North Sinai to run from 7 pm to 6 am, after a meeting between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and tribal elders in Sinai.

However, area residents told a Mada Masr correspondent in Arish that the curfew still remains a significant hardship.

Forcing businesses to close early has pushed the city into a general state of recession and increased robbery and thuggery, area residents say.

Instead of keeping crime down, residents say the checkpoints that implement the curfew “only protect themselves,” in addition to increasing the numbers of random arrests.

Crimes against property are not the biggest problem, says Arish resident Abu Abdallah al-Tarabeen. “We can handle all of this if it is for the general wellbeing, but what we cannot stand are the large numbers of dead bodies, reaching around 50 bodies, left out for over two years in the isolated northern areas in Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed,” he said, referring to a mass grave site in Arish.

A report released Saturday by the Ambulance Authority said that eleven bodies were buried around the grave site Tarabeen refers to, making it difficult for the authorities to process remains for burial or autopsies. According to Tarabeen, the 50 bodies were all killed by live ammunition in previous clashes.

Further inflaming tensions, on January 22 a family was shot minutes after the curfew was imposed at 7 pm.

Over the past months, soldiers have generally allowed a 30-minute grace period for employees, children and families to make their way home from the local market, but on that day, soldiers manning the checkpoint declared the grace period was no longer in effect and opened fire on civilians in the street.

One man was reportedly shot at while on the way home from buying wedding dresses for his three daughters. His wife and other relatives were also hit, and had to be transferred to intensive care.

The military has also evacuated and demolished homes in Rafah as part of a planned buffer zone along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

January 25, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Freed prisoner in serious condition at East Jerusalem hospital

Ma’an – 25/01/2015

JERUSALEM – Jaafar Awad, a young Palestinian man who was released last Wednesday from Israeli custody due to serious health troubles after a year of interrogation, was transferred Friday to Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem from a Hebron facility.

His parents, who escort him day and night, say his situation is worsening daily and he can’t speak or move.

Awad is attached to a breathing machine. His father told Ma’an reporter that Jaafar started to suffer after an injection he was given at a clinic in Israel’s Eshel prison six months ago. After that treatment, added the father, Jaafar started to have vision troubles in his left eye as well as diabetes, thyroid swelling and severe pulmonary inflammation.

“After his health conditions deteriorated seriously, a hearing was held at Ofer court and the court decided to release him after he was interrogated for 15 months,” the father told Ma’an.

He added that lawyer Jawad Bolous pleaded on behalf of his son and that the Israeli court decided that the decision included a fine of 40,000 shekels as well as a suspended sentence of 18 month to be dismissed after 5 years. The fine was paid by the Palestinian Authority.

“The judge told me that the court decided to release Jaafar because he was in a serious condition.”

The father explained that Jaafar was detained from his family home in November 2013. He was interrogated in Ashkelon and Eshel detention centers for 21 days and was accused of creating an armed cell and buying a vehicle with the intention to use it for running over Israeli soldiers in the Gush Etzion area.

Jaafar was in good health before he was detained and had been studying at the Modern University College in Ramallah, added his father, who added that his son had no prior health problems.

“Six months ago, he had fever and was taken to a clinic in Eshel prison where he was given a shot after which his health condition started to deteriorate day after day. He once fainted and was taken to Assaf Harofeh Hospital and recently he was taken to Ramla prison hospital. He has already lost 31 kilos.”

“Jaafar has been assassinated silently and slowly,” added his father, alleging that Ramla prison hospital isn’t a hospital but rather “an execution chamber for our kids.”

Jaafar had been detained in 2009 and served 30 months in Israeli custody before he joined college in Ramallah, his father says.

January 25, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Foreign Secretary refused to intervene for Brit rendered to Ethiopia

Reprieve | January 25, 2015

The Foreign Secretary refused to contact the Ethiopian government to protest its abduction of a British man, it’s emerged, despite warnings from Foreign Office (FCO) staff that the man was at risk of execution.

Andargachew ‘Andy’ Tsege, a father of three from London, was abducted in Yemen and rendered to Ethiopia seven months ago today. Mr Tsege, who is a prominent critic of the Ethiopian government, remains in incommunicado detention. The Ethiopian government has refused to reveal his whereabouts, or confirm whether it plans to carry out a death sentence imposed in absentia in 2009.

Internal FCO emails obtained through subject access requests by Mr Tsege’s family show that UK officials were extremely concerned that he would be mistreated or executed – but that despite this, nearly a month after the incident, the Foreign Secretary declined requests to intervene in his case.

An internal email sent by senior FCO staff several days after Mr Tsege’s disappearance says: “I think we should be aiming for a Ministerial call asap, given concerns about welfare and the DP [death penalty]… we should be raising at senior levels and getting in Ministerial follow-up (letter or call) asap to make clear how unhappy we are about this.”

A separate message suggested there should be consequences at “a UK citizen being kidnapped and returned against his will to a country which has passed two death sentences on him. A country which is in receipt of vast quantities of UK development assistance. Don’t we need to do more than give them a stern talking to?”

A number of urgent internal FCO messages asked the incoming Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond to contact the Ethiopian Foreign Minister in the days following the incident, the documents show. However, Mr Hammond’s office rebuffed the requests, saying: “we’ve also had a request from [Foreign Minister] Tedros’ office for an introductory call with the Foreign Secretary, but I don’t think we are going to be able to find time for that at the moment. […] On this letter, I’m nervous about asking the Foreign Secretary to sign something so negative in his first correspondence”.

The FCO has told lawyers for Mr Tsege’s family at human rights charity Reprieve that the UK Government has no grounds to challenge the legality of his removal from Ethiopia.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, said: “It is clear that those working for the Foreign Secretary know how perilous the situation is for Andy Tsege. They know that Andy has committed no crime, that his extradition was probably unlawful, and that there are grave risks to his safety. What’s shocking is that the Foreign Secretary appears time and time again to have blocked any meaningful action that could potentially bring this British father home to his family, unharmed. Andy has now been held in solitary and incommunicado detention for over seven months, under sentence of death. One has to question what interests the Foreign Secretary is putting above the life and safety of his citizen, when all those around him are calling for him to do more.”

January 25, 2015 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

77 Palestinians, Mostly Children, Displaced in Three Days

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IMEMC News & Agencies | January 24, 2015

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator James W. Rawley confirmed on Friday that, in the past three days alone, a total of 77 Palestinians, over half of them children, have become homeless.

He expressed concern over Israel’s recent spate of demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

According to Rawley, “demolitions that result in forced evictions and displacement run counter to Israel’s obligations under international law and create unnecessary suffering and tension.”

Home demolitions must stop immediately, Rawley demanded, in a press release that WAFA received.

UN concerns stem from the fact that some of the demolished structures were provided by the international community to support vulnerable families. Rawley explained: “At least eight of these structures were funded by international donors.”

Since 20 January, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded the Israeli demolition of 42 Palestinian-owned structures in the Ramallah, Jerusalem, Jericho and Hebron governorates.

In addition to those displaced, 59 Palestinians were affected, mainly due to the demolition of structures essential for their livelihood, mostly animal shelters.

According to OCHA figures, in 2014, “Israeli authorities destroyed 590 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C and East Jerusalem, displacing 1,177 people – the highest level of displacement in the West Bank since OCHA began systematically monitoring the issue in 2008.”

Area C of the West Bank is under complete Israeli control.

Humanitarian and Legal bodies and institutions such as the UN, OCHA and B’Tselem confirm that the planning policies applied by Israel in Area C and East Jerusalem discriminate against Palestinians, making it extremely difficult for them to obtain building permits.

Having no other choice, many Palestinians are forced to build without permits to be able to provide a shelter for themselves and their families, risking having their buildings demolished, in the process.

Rawley demanded that Palestinians must have the opportunity to participate in a fair and equitable planning system that ensures their needs are met.

January 24, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK Police officer who kicked mother tending to sick child cleared

RT | January 23, 2015

A police officer accused of repeatedly kicking and hitting a mother looking after a sick child in hospital has been cleared of actual bodily harm (ABH).

The woman was left with over 40 injuries after Warren Luke, a Metropolitan police officer, kicked and hit her after hospital staff told him she was refusing to leave.

Luke was cleared on Thursday of any crime at Wood Green Crown Court.

The mother, who remains unnamed for legal reasons, was looking after her daughter when the incident occurred in 2013. Hospital staff asked the woman to leave, the court heard. When she refused, four police officers were called.

A video played to the jury showed the mother explaining the incident.

“‘You’ve got to leave, you’ve got to leave,’” she reported Luke as saying.

“I kept playing with my daughter and then I saw him moving towards me. He was kicking me and kicking me. He had one hand on my head. When I fell on the bed he grabbed my hair and banged my head. I was screaming. I couldn’t defend myself. My ex-husband ran in and shouted, ‘why are you kicking my wife?’”

Luke, however, protested that the mother’s behavior had been “escalating” and he believed the child was in danger.

Rather than use a baton or gas, he told the court that he decided to strike the mother on her bicep, and then use what he referred to as a “distraction strike” to her face, using his boot.

He claimed his actions were in accordance with his training.

“I did kick out at the left side of her face as trained to do. My footwear was a boot but it’s light,” he said.

“I can’t say exactly where and how her injuries were sustained, I can only say what I did,” he replied, when asked how she sustained so many injuries.

The women was reported to have needed plastic surgery after the incident, and is said to have taken a year off work to recover.

He denied using full force on the woman, saying: “I wouldn’t say that I used full force, but I do remember hitting harder because it had no effect.

“I used police tactics with good reason that were absolutely necessary. I didn’t go too far. Whenever a police officer uses force you need to be accountable for it,” he added.

Witnesses described with horror the clash between the two, and said they were “appalled.”

Two police officers, who were called to attend to the woman, also gave evidence. One, Laura Riley, was seen crying as she gave evidence for the prosecution. Her colleague Mary Clark said it was “just horrific.”

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said Luke would undergo a misconduct review following the incident.

January 23, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Occupier’s Justice: Heads and Tails You Lose

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | January 23, 2015

Yesterday I had an idea for a short story to explain the unrelenting insanity of the occupation for ordinary Palestinians. Tell me what you think.

In my story, there is a Palestinian family, let’s call them the Jaabaris, and they live next to a Jewish settlement, let’s call it Kiryat Arba, close to Hebron deep in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

One day the settlers decide to build a synagogue on the family’s private land in an effort to force them off.

This family decide to stand their ground. Sadly, they have no way to stop the takeover of land that has been in their family for generations other than by appealing to the Israeli legal system. They petition the Israeli Supreme Court to order the synagogue demolished.

In the court room, the settlers argue that the land is not under Kiryat Arba’s control – it’s private Palestinian property – and therefore it is outside the court’s jurisdiction. The judges have no right to issue a ruling in this case, they claim.

The court disagrees and says the land is under Kiryat Arba’s control – ie the judges treat it as part of Israel – and therefore the court can issue a ruling. The judges’ verdict is a triumph for justice: the synagogue should be demolished.

However, now that the settlers have a piece of paper with the court’s decision stating that the land belongs to Kiryat Arba, they can bill the Palestinian family for years of arrears on property taxes amounting to $22,000 – more than the family earns in several years. If they don’t pay, the settlers will seize the land and sell it.

Heads the Jaabaris lose; tails they lose too. That’s Israeli occupiers’ justice.

What do you think? Have I gone a bit too far? Too crazy to be credible.

Or have I simply plagiarised this story from the Times of Israel, where exactly this just happened to the Jaabari family?

January 23, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Admits Former Guantanamo Detainee Innocent, Says Lawyer

teleSUR | January 23, 2015

Over a decade after being thrown in the military prison Guantanamo Bay, the United States has admitted Australian citizen David Hicks is innocent, his lawyer said Friday.

“I have no doubt, that whether or not the military commission clears David, he will certainly be cleared in the higher courts of the United States if we need to go there,” Hicks’ lawyer Stephen Kenny said, according to Australian broadcaster ABC.

Kennedy explained that the U.S. military commission is expected to deliver a verdict on whether Hicks’ conviction will be quashed within a month. According to Kennedy, U.S. courts have already deemed Hicks’ conviction invalid, and his innocence is no longer being disputed.

“(It’s) a fact we’ve known for some time, but it’s taken the court some time to come to that conclusion,” Kennedy said.

The lawyer also stated the Australian government should issue an apology, arguing the former government of John Howard was a staunch supporter of Guantanamo Bay while Hicks was held by the U.S. military.

“I’m sure David would appreciate an apology at the very least, and I’m sure he’d appreciate some compensation,” Kennedy said.

In 2001, Hicks was captured by the Northern Alliance militant coalition, which fought against the Taliban until late 2001. A Northern Alliance-aligned warlord sold Hicks to U.S. forces for US$5000, claiming the Australian had been fighting alongside Al Qaeda.

Hicks was held in Guantanamo Bay until 2007, when he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism. The media dubbed Hicks the “Aussie Taliban.” However, his lawyer has argued Hicks made the plea under duress, after enduring years of torture and mistreatment at the hands of U.S. forces.

In a 2004 affidavit, Hicks alleged he was sexually abused, routinely deprived of sleep, beaten, kept in solitary confinement almost 24 hours a day and administered unidentified medication. He also stated he saw other detainees savaged by dogs.

Hicks later said he only pleaded guilty to escape the U.S. prison.

After pleading guilty, Hicks was transferred to Adelaide’s Yatala Prison to serve the rest of his seven year sentence.

After nine months, Australian authorities released Hicks under a control order, and he now lives in Sydney.

January 23, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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