2 southeast Ukrainian regions to hold referendum May 11 as planned
RT | May 8, 2014
The councils of the People’s Republics of two southeastern cities of Donetsk and Lugansk won’t postpone the referendums on their regions’ future as part of Ukraine and will hold them as planned on May, 11, the cities’ anti-government activists said.
“This is not our decision [of the politicians] , this is the decision of people of Donbas region,” said Andrey Purgin, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, “People of Donbas [Region] got their chance to make a heroic deed and we can’t deprive them from this chance.”
The decision of holding a referendum as scheduled was approved on the council of People’s Republic of Donetsk unanimously.
“People don’t trust Kiev authorities,” Miroslav Rudenko, one of the Donbas self-defense leaders, told Interfax, “Also the reaction of [coup-appointed PM Arseny] Yatsenyuk to the proposal of Russian President [calling for an end to Kiev’s military operation] was inadequate.”
According to another self-defense leader Denis Pushilin, “the region’s people are determined to organize the referendum.”
“There are millions of people who are ready to cast their votes,” he added.
Meanwhile, the council of the People’s Republic of another eastern Ukrainian city, Lugansk, has decided not to postpone the upcoming referendum and to organize it on May 11, said Vasily Nikitin, from the press service which is organizing the referendum.
“The referendum will take place as planned. The ballots have been already arrived at the polling stations,” said Nikitin.
According to him, at the referendum people will be asked if they “support the state independence of People’s Republic of Lugansk.”
He also added that the results of the referendum on the region’s future will be announced Monday.
Leonid Slutsky, the Chairman of the Russia’s State Duma Committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States, said that the refusal of Donetsk and Lugansk regions to postpone the upcoming referendums is their sovereign right.
Russia by proposing to postpone the referendums wanted only to “solve the conflict peacefully and not to allow further escalation of crisis in Ukraine,” he said.
He added that Russia won’t send observers to Donetsk and Lugansk as these referendums are “their internal affair.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin will analyze the situation on eastern Ukraine’s refusal to postpone the referendum, said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
He added that Kremlin hasn’t yet received any proposals from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Ukraine’s crisis.
Google Maps
In April, activists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, announced they were planning to hold a referendum on their regions’ future as part of Ukraine on Sunday, May 11.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on anti-government protesters in southeastern Ukraine to postpone their May 11 federalization referendums.
“We are calling for southeast Ukraine representatives, supporters of federalization of the country, to postpone the May 11 referendum to create the necessary conditions for dialogue,” Putin said at a press conference with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter in Moscow.
Ukraine’s coup-appointed PM Arseny Yatsenyuk criticized Putin’s proposal to postpone the referendum.
“The fact that Russia asks to postpone some referendum? Then we need to inform the Russian president that Ukraine hasn’t planned any referendum on May 11. And if terrorists and separatists, who are supported by Russia, were ordered to postpone what wasn’t planned, then it’s their internal affairs,” he said.
Kiev on Thursday said the military operation in the south-east of Ukraine will continue, regardless of the decision made on the regional referendum.
Earlier Thursday, the head of Ukrainian National Security and Defense Committee, Andrey Parubiy, said that the military operation in the southeast of Ukraine will continue, regardless of the decision made on the Donetsk regional referendum.
“The counter-terrorist operation will continue unhindered, despite the presence of terrorist and insurgent groups in the Donetsk region,” he said.
Lieberman denounces Palestinian “traitors” over Nakba rally
Al-Akhbar | May 7, 2014
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday denounced as a “fifth column” thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel who joined a demonstration calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Around 10,000 protesters, many waving Palestinian flags, joined a rally inside the 1949 Green Line on Tuesday to remember 530 villages from which some 760,000 people fled or were expelled in the 1948 Nakba.
The rally took place as Israel marked the 66th anniversary of what it describes as its “independence day,” with Lieberman accusing the demonstrators of being traitors.
“Those who marched with flags of the Palestinian Authority demanding that it not give up on the right of return, are a fifth column whose aim is the destruction of Israel,” he told army radio.
He also addressed the demonstration on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
“To those Arabs that took part today in the ‘Nakba Day’ procession and waved Palestinian flags, I suggest that next time they march directly to Ramallah and they stay there,” he wrote.
But he acknowledged that those who joined the Nakba demonstration were only “a minority” among Israel’s Arab minority, who make up just over a fifth of the overall population of 8.2 million.
At the rally, which took place in a small village in the North, the protesters marched under the slogan: “Your ‘independence’ day is our Nakba” — Arabic for catastrophe.
More than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes by armed Zionist forces when Israel declared itself a state in May 1948. Today, with their descendants, they number an estimated 4.8 million.
Around 160,000 Palestinians stayed in their homes and took Israeli citizenship. Official figures published last week show they now number 1,694,000 people, or 20.7 percent of the population.
Lieberman, a hardliner within the ruling rightwing coalition, is an open proponent transferring densely-populated Palestinian areas inside the Green Line to the control of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in any future peace deal.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
US Government Begins Rollout Of Its ‘Driver’s License For The Internet’
By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | May 5, 2014
An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut. Calling this move ill-timed would be the most gracious way of putting it.
A few years back, the White House had a brilliant idea: Why not create a single, secure online ID that Americans could use to verify their identity across multiple websites, starting with local government services. The New York Times described it at the time as a “driver’s license for the internet.”
Sound convenient? It is. Sound scary? It is.
Next month, a pilot program of the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.
The NSTIC program has been in (slow) motion for nearly three years, but now, at a time when the public’s trust in government is at an all time low, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST — itself still reeling a bit from NSA-related blowback) is testing the program in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The first tests appear to be exclusively aimed at accessing public programs, like government assistance. The government believes this ID system will help reduce fraud and overhead, by eliminating duplicated ID efforts across multiple agencies.
But the program isn’t strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This “solution,” while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns.
[T]he Electronic Frontier Foundation immediately pointed out the red flags, arguing that the right to anonymous speech in the digital realm is protected under the First Amendment. It called the program “radical,” “concerning,” and pointed out that the plan “makes scant mention of the unprecedented threat such a scheme would pose to privacy and free speech online.”
And the keepers of the identity credentials wouldn’t be the government itself, but a third party organization. When the program was introduced in 2011, banks, technology companies or cellphone service providers were suggested for the role, so theoretically Google or Verizon could have access to a comprehensive profile of who you are that’s shared with every site you visit, as mandated by the government.
Beyond the privacy issues (and the hints of government being unduly interested in your online activities), there are the security issues. This collected information would be housed centrally, possibly by corporate third parties. When hackers can find a wealth of information at one location, it presents a very enticing target. The government’s track record on protecting confidential information is hardly encouraging.
The problem is, ultimately, that this is the government rolling this out. Unlike corporations, citizens won’t be allowed the luxury of opting out. This “internet driver’s license” may be the only option the public has to do things like renew actual driver’s licenses or file taxes or complete paperwork that keeps them on the right side of federal law. Whether or not you believe the government’s assurances that it will keep your data safe from hackers, keep it out of the hands of law enforcement (without a warrant), or simply not look at it just because it’s there, matters very little. If the government decides the positives outweigh the negatives, you’ll have no choice but to participate.
US Supreme Court Upholds Town Government Prayers
ACLU | May 5, 2014
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court of the United States upheld today a New York town’s practice of starting town meetings with official sectarian prayer. The practice was challenged by residents of Greece, N.Y. who objected to hearing government prayers, the vast majority of which were expressly Christian invocations, as a condition of attending public meetings.
“We are disappointed by today’s decision. Official religious favoritism should be off-limits under the Constitution,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Town-sponsored sectarian prayer violates the basic rule requiring the government to stay neutral on matters of faith.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend of the court brief supporting the residents of Greece.
“The constitutional requirement that church and state must be separated rests, in part, on the understanding that when government supports one religion over others, people who are not members of the favored religion are made to feel like outsiders by their government,” said Arthur Eisenberg, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Newly appointed Odessa police chief vows to revise release of anti-Kiev activists
RT | May 05, 2014
Addressing a pro-Kiev rally, Odessa’s new head of police spoke against ‘separatism’ and vowed to revise the earlier release of pro-autonomy activists.
Ivan Katerinchuk was appointed following deadly clashes and a fire on Friday that killed dozens in the southeastern port city.
Local media reported that a few hundred people attended the rally near the Odessa interior ministry on Sunday. Some of them were heavily armed with wooden and metal bats, chains, shields, and helmets.
Katerinchuk addressed the crowd with “Glory to Ukraine!,” to which they answered with the traditional “Glory to heroes!,” RT’s Irina Galushko reported from Odessa.
“We don’t ban anybody from peacefully demonstrating and expressing their opinions. But we are against those who are promoting separatism and the splitting of Ukraine. I think that is where we are united,” a YouTube video shows Katerinchuk saying in Ukrainian. “But that does not mean that we should break the law,” he added.
When speaking about the 67 released anti-government activists, he said that all will be investigated and it will be determined if they broke any laws.
He called on the Right Sector to exercise restraint and select individuals who will represent the group in order to easily communicate with it about further actions from police.
The new police chief received his position on Sunday, following Friday’s disastrous events in Odessa. After being appointed, he announced that the priority of police would be to avoid additional clashes.
The police chief was born in western Ukraine. He has worked with the police since 1983 and resigned from the force in 2010 after holding various leadership roles.
His last position was as police chief in Ukraine’s Chernigovskaya region, located in the northwest of the country.
A YouTube video from the Sunday rally shows one of the pro-Kiev leaders shouting, “Odessa must be cleared of Colorado beetles (a derogatory term for pro-autonomy activists) before May 8.”
The same video footage showed that one of the attendees of the rally was the same radical that was shooting at the windows of Odessa’s burning House of Trade Unions.
On Friday, dozens of people died in flames in Odessa, when radicals set ablaze the local House of Trade Unions with anti-government protesters trapped inside. The city is now in mourning for those who died, many of whom suffocated from smoke or jumped out of windows.
Around 100 people rallied in central Odessa on Sunday after blocking the local Interior Ministry department in a protest against the detention of anti-government activists following the tragic events on May 2. The protesters have been trying to prevent police from sending the detained, which reportedly include dozens of survivors of the Trade Unions House fire, to the regional court building.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk blamed Russia for being behind the Odessa violence. “What happened in Odessa was part of a plan by the Russian Federation to destroy Ukraine and its statehood,” Yatsenyuk said. “Russia sent people here to create chaos.”
The accusations were not backed up by any evidence. In fact, US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt said on Sunday that his country does not have evidence linking Russia to the tragic events in Odessa.
“We don’t have evidence of the Russian role in what – the tragedy that transpired on Friday. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk used some very strong words today, talking about the role that he believes Russia played,” Pyatt said in a telephone interview with CNN. “And this is something that we hope an impartial and systematic investigation will be able to get to the bottom of very quickly.”
However, the diplomat added that “we certainly believe that Russia is exercising influence across eastern Ukraine.”
Provocation: Murky forces instigating Odessa violence?
RT | May 5, 2014
Video footage filmed during the bloody events in Odessa that claimed dozens of lives on Friday shows a more complicated picture, with provocateurs instigating the violence.
Ukrainian authorities blamed the pro-autonomy activists for starting the clashes that led to the tragic fire at the House of Trade Unions. The interior ministry stated that anti-Kiev activists attacked supporters of Kiev authorities before retreating to the building for shelter, and threw petrol bombs at the crowd triggering the fire.
Russia’s Channel One television reconstructed the chronological order of events using publicly available YouTube videos detailing what happened in Odessa on Friday.
It began with a football match between two teams – Chernomorets Odessa and Metalist Kharkov. Despite the high political tensions in the region, authorities still allowed the match to take place, realizing that a few thousand pro-Kiev football fans would be arriving to the city.
Following the match, around 1,500 supporters of the Kiev authorities and football ultras came together for a march in support of Ukraine’s unity. The rally was sanctioned by local authorities.
Nationalists made their way towards the center of the city chanting “Glory to Ukraine” and “Death to enemies,” as well as “Knife the Moskals (derogatory for Russians).” Some people in the group wore ultra-nationalist movement insignia. They were armed with chains and bats, and carried shields.
The violence started when the pro-Kiev crowd was met by what looked like anti-government activists. They were wearing St. George ribbons – identifying them as pro-autonomy – and red bands around their sleeves. Some of the riot police officers present at the scene were wearing the same red bands around their sleeves.
Image from ontimer.livejournal.com
Then the visibly smaller group of alleged anti-Kiev activists started to attack the march, apparently provoking the demonstrators. Footage then shows a smaller group of men wearing red bands luring the pro-Kiev crowd into a different direction.
At some point, the police line opened up to let the men wearing red bands through and closed back up again. A video then shows a man standing behind the police lines shooting at the pro-Kiev crowd.
The provocations succeeded in triggering clashes, as both sides began to throw stones, and shots were heard.
The alleged anti-Kiev activists then disappeared and angry pro-Kiev supporters headed to the opposition camp based in front of the House of Trade Unions.
However, none of the original attackers with the red bands were there. Instead, a few dozen pro-autonomy activists were surrounding the camp. When the activists saw the angry mob approaching, they took shelter inside the House of Trade Unions.
Survivors of the fire say they had to barricade themselves inside the House of Trade Unions to hide from the agitated mob, which torched their tent camp.
Radicals then began throwing Molotov cocktails at the Trade Unions building, setting it on fire. Witnesses say those who managed to escape the blaze were severely beaten outside by the besiegers of the burning building.
But the Ukrainian Interior Ministry offers a different version of events, saying the victims of the violent unrest started the fire themselves when they began throwing Molotov cocktails from the upper floor.
Multiple videos of the incident, however, show Molotov cocktails flying from outside the building. Another video shows that some radical pro-Kiev elements were also inside the building, waving a Ukrainian flag.
The evidence leads one to conclude that the football fans could have been manipulated while unknown forces instigated the violence.
Which insignia has this “pro-russian activist of united Ukraine” forgotten to take off? (at left – the band of ukrainian flag; at right – the George band (glory anti-fascist world war 2)
A further point from Da Russophile :
The conduct of the British media in response to this massacre has been beyond appalling. So far not a single British newspaper has editorialised about the massacre. Following the sniper attacks on Kiev the British media had no hesitation in putting the blame on Yanukovitch though the evidence (to put it mildly) was far from conclusive. At an earlier stage in the Maidan protests sections of the British media devoted a phenomenal amount of time, reporting and commentary to the attack on Chornovil with all sorts of unsubstantiated speculations that Yanukovitch was personally behind it though evidence of that there was none.
Not only has the British media failed to give the Odessa massacre anything remotely approaching the amount of reporting the scale of the massacre justifies but it persists in pretending that there are uncertainties about who was responsible even though film and eye witness evidence is conclusive and even though (as I understand it) persons involved in the pro Maidan organisations involved in the massacre have openly bragged about it. Instead the Guardian in its editorial the day after the massacre preferred to editorialise about the wickedness of Russia holding a May Day party on Red Square
We had an article in the Daily Telegraph calling the local people who demanded the release of the surviving anti government activists saved from the fire and arrested by the Odessa police following the massacre a “mob” threatening Odessa with “anarchy”
We have an article in the Guardian today calling readers who post comments on Comment is Free critical of its pro Maidan editorial line “Kremlin trolls”.
Whilst The Times editorialises that Putin must stop his campaign of “subversion and coercion” against the Ukraine which has in Odessa has “inspired separatists” into “acts of war”.
I invite people to imagine how the British media would have reported this massacre if roles had been reversed and if it had been Maidan supporters who were burnt alive in the Trade Union building with an anti Maidan crowd filmed throwing in Molotov calls and baying for blood outside.
Time to End Military/CIA Torture Once and For All
By Steven Reisner | CounterPunch | April 30, 2014
In the face of continued revelations of United States’ torture policies during the Bush administration, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), today sent letters to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanding an end to all ongoing practices of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees. The letter specifically calls for revoking techniques permitted in Appendix ‘M’ of the current Army Field Manual, such as solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, forms of sensory deprivation, and environmental manipulations, which individually and combined have been condemned internationally as forms of torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and therefore violate the United States’ obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. In addition, PsySR expressed particularly concern that health professionals, including psychologists, have been engaged to support such efforts in violation of their ethical responsibilities.
Here is the letter:
April 29, 2014
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As an organization of health professionals dedicated to human rights advocacy, Psychologists for Social Responsibility strongly objects to practices that violate the ethics of health professions and lie outside the norms of international law and practice. The recent Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirms that, beginning during the Bush Administration, interrogation and detention practices were put in place by the CIA that constituted torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Practices once condemned under law and international treaty were soon redefined by the Justice Department to permit a “culture of torture” to proliferate under U.S. policy. These practices quickly spread to the detention centers of the Department of Defense and throughout the theaters of war. While legal progress has been made to limit these policies and practices, significant remnants remain under your authority. We write to you today to urge you to eliminate all existing procedures allowing for torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees.
In 2009, via Executive Order 13491, your administration officially announced its intention to end the torture practices developed and instituted under the Bush Administration. Interrogation practices that did not conform to the Army Field Manual were abolished. However, as documented by numerous legal and human rights groups, as well as by former interrogators,[1] the Army Field Manual still includes abusive techniques in violation of these standards.
We concur with the recent recommendation of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP)/Open Society Foundations report [2] calling for you to issue a new executive order banning interrogation techniques using isolation, sleep deprivation, exploitation of fear, and other methods that violate international standards regarding torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. We, too, urge you to remediate the ethical standards of the Army Field Manual via executive order.
The current edition of the Army Field Manual (2006) officially supports interrogations using “approach techniques,” including the creation, manipulation, and intensification of phobias and fears in prisoners (“Fear Up”) and the calculated psychological attack against ego or self-esteem (“Emotional Pride and Ego Down”). The “Emotional Futility” approach intends to create a perception in a prisoner that “resistance to questioning is futile.” The manual describes the purpose of this technique as engendering “a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness” in a detainee and notes the “potential for application of the pride and ego approach to cross the line into humiliating and degrading treatment of the detainee.”
Also problematic on both basic health and human rights grounds is Appendix M, added to this most recent version of the Army Field Manual (2-22.3). This special annex proposes a technique known as “Separation,” which includes the use of solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, forms of sensory deprivation, and environmental manipulations — all of which could theoretically be extended indefinitely — as ostensibly legitimate forms of treatment on “unlawful combatants.” The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture [3] and independent human rights organizations describe such practices as torture and/or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. As health professionals and human rights advocates, we are disturbed that such techniques are conducted under an official capacity and by executive order.
We are particularly concerned that health professionals, including psychologists, have been engaged to support such efforts, directly or indirectly, in violation of their ethical obligations and in violation of the policies of their professional associations.
As you must be aware, these practices are not only cruel, but also yield questionable intelligence and contribute to a perception of our country as a systematic violator of human rights. It would serve as a strong and principled legacy of your Administration if these remaining practices of torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment were finally and definitively ended.
We look forward to your timely response.
Sincerely,
Steven Reisner, PhD
President
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
cc: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
Steven Reisner is President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (www.psysr.org) and is a founding member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology (www.ethicalpsychology.org).
Notes.
[1] Scott Horton, “Interrogators C click here//harpers.org/blog/2010/11/interrogators-call-for-the-elimination-of-appendix-m/
[2] Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detai nee” target=”_blank”>Abuse in the “War on T/a>error”, IMAP/OSF Task Force Report, Nov. 2013. URL: http://www.imapny.org/File Library/Documents/IMAP-EthicsTextFinal2.pdf
[3] ”Solitary confinement should be banned in most ca ses,” target=”_blank”> UN expert says,” UN News C” target=”_bnk”>k”> UN expert says” target=”_blank”>nk”>k”> UN ex” target=lank”>lank”>nk”>” target=”_blank”> k”> UN expert says,” UN News Centre, Oct. 18th, 2011. URL: https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097
Shabak Torture Drives Israeli Palestinian Lawyer to Suicide
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | April 29, 2014
Amjad al-Safadi was an East Jerusalem defense attorney whose clients were Palestinian security prisoners. Two months ago, he himself was arrested by the Shabak and detained for 45 days. He was charged with aiding Palestinian militant groups and their detainees. During his detention he was tortured by Shabak interrogator goons. Among his claims were that electric shocks were used against him. He was released from prison and placed under house arrest (the same process used in the case of Majd Kayyal). Yesterday, five days after his release, he hung himself at his home and died.
News1, in that breathless credulous way Israeli media has of reporting Palestinian security “crimes,” claims (Hebrew) that four Palestinian lawyers were arrested (the charge sheet was filed on April 4th) after being recruited by a former prisoner to pass messages to arrestees from Islamic Jihad and Hamas housed in various prisons within Israel.
They were accused of “tens” of violations of various security statutes including “contact with a foreign agent,” “serving an unlawful association,” and “obtaining materials to facilitate in acts of terror.” The accused purportedly passed messages from the prisoners to the leadership of the militant groups with which they were affiliated. The attorneys were allegedly paid between $100-150 for each message delivered, with the funds coming from the militant groups in Gaza. The messages were designed to coordinate protests within the prisons against treatment of security detainees, including hunger strikes, attempts to establish “radio contact between Gaza and the prisons,” transfer of funds among the prisons and coordination between the organizations and their imprisoned leaders. The origin of these funds was allegedly an unnamed lawyer representing the organizations in Gaza.
For Israeli TV news coverage of the original arrests, see here.
Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know of my profound skepticism about virtually any criminal charge offered by the security services. While I haven’t been able to delve into the evidence offered, the charges in this case strike me as dubious, if not ludicrous. How some of the most highly surveilled prisoners in the Israeli prison system would’ve been able to create surreptitious radio communication between the prisons and Gaza, how they would have been able to transfer tens of thousands of dollars between prisoners and militant groups on the outside, how specifically the defendants aided in acts of terror–what materials they procured, and who they give them to? It all appears to be an elaborate fictional conspiracy.
These alleged activities began, according to the charge sheet in January 2012 and continued till their arrest. How such a conspiracy involving so much money, equipment and co-conspirators could’ve extended for a period of two years in some of the most secure facilities in the State of Israel beggars belief.
There are always readers who point out the heinous charges against the victims as if they were proven. So let’s keep in mind that not only weren’t the charges proven, the victims hadn’t been tried, let alone convicted. There is a presumption of innocence in most democracies, though my right-wing readers often conveniently forget this when a Palestinian is involved.
Whether or not al-Safadi was guilty of any of the charges, the very notion of torturing a defense attorney in a so-called democracy is beyond repulsive. What does it say about Israel that it’s torturers can make a well-educated professional man kill himself when released? Don’t Israelis understand that when their representatives do such heinous things it reflects on the entire nation? Or do they not care because they can create a wall between “us,” the Jews, and “them,” the Palestinians? What they do to “them” is somehow insulated from “us?”
All this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israeli ‘democracy’ is skin deep and reserved for the Jewish sector. Among Israeli Jews there is a prevalent notion that their country can be a democracy even with the Palestinian minority being denied democratic rights. The very notion is preposterous and indicates Israel is an ethnocracy rather than a democracy.
I have only been able to find one instance of an Israeli Palestinian prisoner committing suicide in an Israeli prison and none of prisoners killing themselves shortly after release from the torture chambers (there is of course the example of Ben Zygier, who committed suicide in his cell). It’s always thrilling when Israel achieves yet another milestone in its march toward democracy and the rule of law!
I contacted the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and asked what they knew about the case. Ishai Menuchin the director told me that they’d tried to locate Amjad within the prison system twice during his detention without success. They heard he was at the Russian Compound (Jerusalem). When they arrived to see him they discovered he’d been moved to Ramon, a different prison. When they asked to meet with him there they were told he’d been released.
US, UK run illegal facilities in Afghanistan: Karzai
Press TV – April 30, 2014
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai says the United States and Britain continue running “illegal” detention facilities in the country.
“After many decrees that have been issued by the presidential palace about not having any detention centers run by foreign forces, still foreign forces are detaining Afghan and putting them in prisons,” Karzai said in a statement on Tuesday.
“It’s a clear violation of the law of Afghanistan,” he added.
Karzai’s remarks came after an investigation panel revealed that six Afghan prisoners are held at a UK-run facility at Kandahar Air Field in the country’s south and 17 others at a facility at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, which is also run by British forces.
Ghalum Farooq Barakzai, the head of the panel, said that his team has not found any prisoners at the American facilities, stressing that such facilities should no longer exist.
Under pressure from Afghan President, the US signed an agreement with Kabul to transfer its prisons and inmates into Afghan custody. British forces in the country are only allowed to hold suspects for 96 hours and can detain them longer only in exceptional conditions.
Barakzai called on Britain to hand over any Afghans held in the facilities, saying that the 23 inmates detained ranging from several weeks to 31 months.
“All the detainees should be transferred to Afghan security forces in the areas where they were arrested. Then the judicial officials in that area will investigate them and put them on trial. If they are guilty they should be jailed, if they are innocent they should be freed,” he also said.
Earlier this year, Afghan government freed dozens of detainees held in the US-run Bagram prison.
In November 2012, President Karzai ordered Afghan forces to take control of the prison and accused US officials of failing to fully comply with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding on Detentions signed between Kabul and Washington.
The Dangerous VIP Palestinian Class
By Jamal Kanj | Palestine Chronicle | April 27, 2014
The Palestinian Authority (PA) must stop demeaning its people. One can understand being fooled once or even twice, but being fooled over and again every three to four years for the last 20 years is just going overboard.
It becomes a bit annoying to continue hearing cries from the same “deceived” Palestinian leaders repeating empty threats in response to Israeli intransigence and lies.
I heard it directly from several high level PLO officials that should the current negotiations fail to reach an agreement by April 29, the PA was prepared to join UN organizations. They spoke specifically of the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICCJ).
Early in April, Israel broke a nine-month-old agreement by refusing to release the final batch of Palestinian “hostages” as it agreed to with the US Secretary of State last July. Half-heartedly, the PA submitted applications to join 15 UN organizations.
Half-heartedly, because the token measure ratified accords obligating the PA to fulfil UN conventions, none of which could have empowered the PA to put an end to Israel’s wanton disregard of international law.
The decision to endorse UN treaties such as the 4th Geneva Convention, protocol one, Conventions against Corruption, Rights of the Child, Civil and Political Rights, Consular Affairs … etc., was most likely to mollify rising internal frustrations with the sham negotiations. It was not directed at Israel and this might explains the US’ muted displeasure with the toothless measures.
Now the PA is disingenuously leaking out information about dismantling the Authority and turning over its role of managing the occupation to Israel.
Israel and its America Israel Public Affair Committee (AIPAC) ex-staffer who is mediating the talks on America’s behalf, understand very well that the PA threats are for local political consumption just like the inconsequential move to join irrelevant UN organizations.
It is mind-boggling that the PA expects others to take its threats seriously. Shouldn’t they first take other steps such as ending security co-ordination to protect Israel’s illegal settlers? How about joining relevant UN organizations like ICCJ or endorsing article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention- which Israel is categorically violating- instead of signing the worthless protocol one.
Just like the self-proclaimed “chief” Palestinian negotiator who publicly resigned more than a month ago protesting, ostensibly, the lack of progress at the peace talk. In reality however, he was incensed by informal parallel secret negotiations conducted with Israel behind his back.
He backed off once assured of his role as the main collaborator. Interestingly though, he did not seem bothered enough to resign after Israel failed to carry out a feeble agreement he himself negotiated last July.
It is not just Israel’s disregard to the international law, but this type of Palestinian leadership – lacking self-respect- who represent the biggest threat to the future of Palestine. It is the groveling Oslo-created Palestinian VIP class.
VIP passes are renewable benefits bestowed by the Israeli army to supposedly facilitate the movement of Palestinian officials. Obviously, VIP Palestinian club members do not experience the reality of occupation and have for the most part enjoyed this status since the establishment of the PA in 1994 as long as Israel was content with their performance.
To be taken seriously, the PA must first end this joke and limit the “intravenous” VIP status for its officials to no more than two years.
Not to suggest a far-fetched “radical proposal” like ending security co-ordination with Israel, PA should at a minimum return all VIP passes and insist on its security coordinators and negotiating team to navigate Israeli military barriers like normal citizens.
Besides making Israel and AIPAC American’s mediator sit and wait, reminding these officials of the evil of occupation might be an incentive to change the way VIP holders negotiate with Israel.
– Jamal Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) writes weekly newspaper column and publishes on several websites on Arab world issues. He is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. (A version of this article was first published by the Gulf Daily News newspaper.)
Christian leaders tell youth to ‘tear up’ Israel army forms
Ma’an – 25/04/2014
JERUSALEM – Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna and former Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah on Friday urged Christian youth not to enlist in the Israeli military and to ignore Israeli “propaganda” encouraging them to do so.
The statement came after a meeting between the two religious figures on Friday, which followed reports on Tuesday that Israeli authorities would distribute military enlistment papers to Palestinian Christian youth who are citizens of Israel in order to encourage them to voluntarily sign up for military service.
The leaders called upon Christian youth who have received the enrollment papers to “tear them up and throw them away and not to engage with them in any way.”
The leaders also stressed the “firm national position of the Christians in refusing to join a military that exercises violence against the rights of the Palestinian people.”
The forms to be sent to Christian youth resemble the mandatory enlistment forms distributed to Jewish and Druze Israelis, and the army hopes that by sending these papers more youth will voluntarily sign up to enlist.
Although Christian Palestinian citizens of Israel are currently exempt from military service along with Muslims, a government decision made in February to re-classify Christians as a separate ethnicity distinct from “Arab” raised fears that mandatory enrollment would follow, as it did for Palestinians of the Druze religion in the 1950s.
About 10 percent of Palestinian citizens of Israel, also called “Arab-Israelis,” are Christians, while the majority of the remaining are Muslims and Druze.
Although the majority of Palestinians were expelled from their homes inside Israel during the 1948 conflict that led to the creation of the state of Israel, some managed to remain and their descendants today make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population.
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