[Onthebarricades] Fw: On the Barricades - repression global

Mon Nov 21 21:19:52 PST 2005

REPRESSION:  AUSTRALIA

Fascist pigs in Australia fine drivers for tooting in support of protesters!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15934596-1248,00.html

Australian Queer activist persecuted for occupation

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/622/622p6c.htm

Aussie law banning free speech used to persecute youths and black people

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/625/625p6f.htm

Persecution of dissident cleric in Australia

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1430499.htm

Immigration "control" is murder: another detained refugee dies in Australia

Fisherman trapped on boat for a week by pigs dies of "unknown causes" probably linked to racist crackdown

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/626/626p2.htm

Human rights activists denounce Australian ASIO repression, arrests without proof, assumption of guilt and persecution of Muslims

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1402223.htm

Australian customs goons steal sacred props from Papuan performers - threaten not to return

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1471452.htm

Fascist "anti-terrorism" secret detention laws plotted by state control-freaks - kafkaesque requirement may mean parents are jailed for telling the other parent of detention

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/3080

Sydney politicians plan ethnic cleansing of aboriginal area

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,15462157%5E421,00.html

Falun Gong sues over Canberra protest ban

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1389049.htm

Police-state terror in Australia - American protest activist deported

Spy goons now claim they can deport over encouragement of illegal protests as control freakery lurches out of control once more

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/protest-advice-led-to-us-activists-detention/2005/09/13/1126377315072.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/3022

Cops get off scot free for Palm Island atrocities, despite admissions their actions were illegal

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16047737-421,00.html

Screws persecute prison activists

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/639/639p5c.htm

State fascism out of control:  Nazi pigs threaten workers about swearing on picket line

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/641/641p2b.htm

Union activist persecuted for dissident article

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/639/639p4b.htm

Abuse in Australian detention centres

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/baxt-a04.shtml

Racist white Australia deports brown Australian citizen

http://www.countercurrents.org/racism-polya150505.htm

http://www.gabriellereillyweekly.com/gabrielle_reilly/australian_community_service/schapelle_corby.htm

By Gabrielle Reilly
Schapelle Corby: Schapelle Corby, a 27-year-old Australian, faces a maximum punishment of death by firing squad after 4.1 kg of cannabis were found inside her unlocked bodyboard bag at Bali airport last October. Schapelle is believed to have been an innocent victim in an Australian domestic drug smuggling racket between Sydney and Brisbane. The criminals however, did not remove the drugs in Brisbane according to the plan and Schapelle, unbeknown to her, arrived in Bali with drugs that had been planted in her bag along the way.  Schapelle Corby is due to have a verdict in mid-May. If found guilty in Indonesia of drug trafficking, she will most likely face the Indonesian firing squad a short time afterwards.  According to The Age "Corby's lawyers revealed an unidentified man had come forward and signed a statement naming three baggage handlers he says planted the drugs in Corby's unlocked boogie board bag.  Chief lawyer Lely Sri Rahaya Lubis said the three baggage handlers had since been jailed in Australia, while the man who made the statement was also in prison.  But Lely admitted it would be difficult to bring the man to Bali to testify, as he was a prisoner in Australia."

REPRESSION:  CANADA

$1,000 Fines Proposed for CSIS Sit-in Arrestees;

Bizarre JP Eventually Reduces fine to $50

SCARBOROUGH, MAY 27, 2005 -- The arbitrary nature of the secretive court
process which has jailed five Muslim men in Canada a collective total of
203 months was evident in the Scarborough municipal courthouse today for
the verdict and sentencing of three people charged following a brief,
nonviolent sit-in at the CSIS Toronto headquarters last October.

In a moment more fit for a circus sideshow than a "democratic
nation's" courtroom, a mumbling Justice of the Peace (JP) Cledwyn Longe
decided to deal with his own personal authority issues by laying $1,000
fines on Diana Ralph, Kirsten Romaine and Matthew Behrens, three of six
people charged at the sit-in, which marked three years in solitary
confinement for Hassan Almrei, one of the Secret Trial Five.

During their April trial, JP  Longe behaved abusively towards the
defendants, making senseless and arbitrary orders, ignoring relevant video
testimony, and walking out in the middle of Mona Elfouli's testimony about
the difficulties she and her children have faced during the five years her
husband, Mohammad Mahjoub, has been incarcerated without charge.

Longe was clearly disturbed at the April trial that individuals
came to court prepared to stand up for their rights and the rights of the
detainees with whom they held their solidarity sit-in. Like anyone in
power, he could have acted in a paternal, "if only they understood the
difficulties of my position" manner and dismissed it all as an interesting
sidebar to his normal roster of traffic and pet by-law violations.

But instead, like the power structure he represents, he chose to
lash out angrily both then and again today.

At 3 pm, defendants Romaine and Behrens rose to hear what they were
hoping would be a reasoned, detailed analysis of the submissions they had
made regarding the sit-in, and the necessity and related defences which
were laid before Longe in April.

But before the verdict was delivered there was trouble. After they
were identified by the court, the defendants sat at the defence table so
they could take notes on the verdict.

"You will stand in my court," he ordered Behrens and Romaine.

"I need to sit so I can make notes on your verdict," Behrens explained.

"Not in my court!" Longe responded in that "This is my court and
I'll do as I damn well please, Charter of Rights be damned!" manner.

"Fine, I will walk over here and lean against this bar, so I can
make my notes," Behrens proposed as he moved towards the edge of the
elevated desk.

"No, you will stand right there," Longe chided him.

An embarrassed court clerk, perhaps fearing this would devolve even
further, graciously handed Behrens a piece of cardboard to make notes
against while in a standing position.

Turns out there was nothing of note in the JP's so-called decision.

Rather than producing the reasoned, analytical approach to the
submissions and testimony that were presented to him six weeks earlier, he
mumbled like a school kid who hadn't done his homework and was faking his
way through the oral exam.

"Defendants occupied space...refused to leave...no proper defence
presented...guilty as charged..." he stumbled.

He turned to the prosecuting attorney, who had a long lineup of
traffic offences to deal with, and asked for a sentencing recommendation.
She said she would leave it in his hands.

He looked at us and pronounced his verdict.

"$1,000 fines." He was pleased. Putting us in our place. How dare
we come to his court and assert ourselves!

"That's an incredibly severe penalty for such a minor demonstration
for which there was no violence, no one was hurt, it was over in a matter
of minutes," Behrens explained.

"Well, I could have fined you $2,000," Longe beamed.

Obviously someone very much in love with his grandiose power.

"What are your reasons for this huge fine?" Behrens asked.

"I don't have to give you any," Longe replied.

"We were there not for ourselves, but for human rights, for
everyone," Romaine explained.

"That's irrelevant," Longe stated, just as he said the testimony of
Mona Elfouli was irrelevant before he walked out on her in April.

Behrens explained it was remarkable that an offence which didn't
even require a preliminary court summons and which, if the defendants had
simply ignored it, would have resulted in a $75 fine, had suddenly
ballooned into a major amount of cash.

But it made sense. If we had obediently accepted the notion that we
were guilty for our sit-in -- designed to draw attention to human rights
abuses here in Canada and the potential deportation to torture of the
Secret Trial Five -- then that would have been the end of it.

But because we decided to contest the notion that there was
something wrong with our act of necessity, to try and save the lives of
these men, their families, and the very notion of  due process itself, we
were to be punished.

It was an act very much in keeping with the nature of what we were
protesting at CSIS. Indeed, when Muslim men refuse to spy for CSIS, they
are thrown in jail for years without charge or bail, and threatened with
deportation to torture.

Obedience is rewarded, disobedience and conscience are punished.

In the end, Behrens explained that in similar cases, individuals
are often either given an absolute discharge or a fine of $100. Romaine
explained that she has no employment but that, even if she did, that was
not the point--why were we being punished for standing up for human rights?

"Irrelevant," came the favourite word of the JP, adding, "Fifty
dollar fine" in the same arbitrary manner in which he had pronounced the
first fine.

We assured him we would not pay it, and walked out of court to the
thumbs-up and smiles of most of those awaiting the opportunity to contest
speeding and parking tickets.

Last night, as he called from his solitary confinement cell, where
he has spent the past three years and 8 months, Hassan Almrei spoke about
the impending court decision.

"You know of course you are guilty," Hassan explained. "You guys
are guilty of being human, you are guilty of caring for people who spend
years in solitary confinement on secret evidence."

While we could have shared this with the JP, it would perhaps have
been declined -- like everything else that has to do with human rights and
democracy -- as "irrelevant" in his courtroom.

Undeterred, the defendants will continue to campaign to end secret
trials in Canada, and have marked their calendars for the 24 Hours Against
Torture vigil on June 8. Hassan Almrei has a bail hearing scheduled for
June 27 and 28.

For more info: tasc at web.ca or (416) 651-5800, www.homesnotbombs.ca

Apparently it's illegal to attempt suicide by self-immolation, according to Canadian statist goons

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/03/fire-legislature050503.html

Theft of possessions of relative of Gitmo victim, and even reading her diaries, permitted by pig-loving judge - but return limit set

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=7949

Election committee tries to ban Canadian
eco-newsletter
http://bc.indymedia.org/feature/display/1057/index.php

RCMP kill again with taser

http://resist.ca/story/2005/7/1/125217/8418

Canada police brutality investigated

http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/1/11526/87665

Innocent people jailed without charge in Canada, now at risk of deportation to torture and death

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=6651

Indigenous activists arrested by "anti-terror" goon squad

http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/29/133318/281

Activists jailed for Kamloops blockade

http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/17/124542/196

Consvervatives shown to be complicit in murder of indigenous protester by pigs

http://resist.ca/story/2005/5/31/75641/8285

Discrimination against the poor in local cohabitation law

http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/1/114036/3199

Canadian goons deport immigration activist

http://resist.ca/story/2005/4/26/11210/9194

Killed in Iran, persecuted in Canada - Iranian photojournalism banned

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1119131409564&call_pageid=1105528093962&col=1105528093790&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

REPRESSION:  EUROPE

Crackdown-culture TV show triggers pogrom in Holland

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=18871&name=Riot+erupts+as+man+admitssexual+abuse+in+TV+show

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4374461

Statist goons respond by trampling on media freedom, invading TV news station

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=19093&name=Media+union+angered+by+police+raid+

GERMANY:  State fascism on the rampage - paramilitary policing with helicopters and snatch-squads used in terror against graffiti artists

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/berl-a28.shtml

Fascist "anti-terror" laws lead to deportation of innocent refugee for being unemployed

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/immi-a03.shtml

Repression against Basque youth groups continues

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1805

Hungarian socialist arrested for wearing red star

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/584/letters.htm

Greece:  Absurd prosecution and stitch-up attempt against anarchists accused of sabotage against riot cops

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050718170401303

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050713125650816

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050709161617597

"Anti-terror" laws used to persecute Greenpeace in Denmark

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5240

Irish state signs away rights to US - American agencies to be allowed secret interrogations and property theft in Ireland

http://www.irishexaminer.com/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sg46g7Ks0cvBEsg7OWirIStPSk.asp

Irish cop brutality covered up

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050723223030154

British Algerian jailed in Italy on trumped-up charges

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=8469

Immigration "controls" kill - five die storming EU enclave

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4292490.stm

Martial law in Italy:  pigs seize control of transport depots in Genoa

http://www.cbc.ca/story/sports/national/2005/08/09/Sports/genoa050809.html

Vicious repression in Iceland - vehicles driven at eco-protesters, and foreigners stripped of rights

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=1889

Vicious racist crackdown could spark 25,000 deportations from Holland

http://www.scottishsocialistvoice.net/back%20issues%2005/issue%20218.htm

Real role of German "anti-terror" laws is to persecute protesters, admits report

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=6918

Greece: artist on trial for insulting the church!

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/66998/

Germany: journalist faces stitch-up for antifa activism as NPD and pigs collude

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1984

GREENPEACE ARE TERRORISTS?
In October '03 Danish Greenpeace activists hung an anti-Genetic Modification
banner on the Agricultural Council building in Copenhagen.
        In May 2005, the individual activists who carried out the banner
drop, along with the entire Danish Greenpeace organisation, were charged
with trespass under new anti-terrorist legislation which allows not just
individuals but an entire organisation to be charged with a criminal
offence.
        In June '05 Greenpeace was duly convicted under the "terrorist"
trespass charges and fined 30,000 dkr (approximately 4,000 Euros).  They
also had 20,000 dkr worth of equipment confiscated.
        A spokeswoman for 'Greenpeace Europe' told ELP "Greenpeace Nordic
were of course shocked to see laws intended to limit international terrorism
being used to convict organisations whose work is based on strong principles
of non-violence. Greenpeace has therefore appealed this verdict."
        Following Greenpeace's conviction, ELP has learnt that Amnesty
International has also voiced their concern for the consequences of this
law.  For more info see www.statewatch.org/news/2005/jun/04greenpeace.htm

REPRESSION:  ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Israel tortures women and children

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2520

Israeli prisoners photograph children naked

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2526

Mother pleads for right to visit imprisoned son

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2538

Child prisoners loses his voice due to Israeli torture

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2578

Physical and sexual abuse of children in Israeli prisons

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=81502&src=0

Soldiers shoot Palestinian boy for not collaborating

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10869&Itemid=1

Humiliation at the apartheid wall crossing points

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10890&Itemid=1

Death in custody due to Israeli human rights violations

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2612

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2666

Medical neglect threatens life of prisoner

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10947&Itemid=1

Israeli prisons are like hell, reveals former prisoner

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=2686

Pharmacist detained

http://imemc2.thinkhost.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10399&Itemid=1

Lethal X-ray machine kills elderly Palestinian woman

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=10743&Itemid=2

Israeli uses harmful and indecent equipment to scan Palestinians

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10978&Itemid=1

Israel uses paralysis gun against Bilin protesters

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10806&Itemid=1

Mass arrest of Palestinian workers in Israel

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11158&Itemid=0

Continued torture of Palestinian detainees in Israel - solitary confinement

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12197&Itemid=1

State terror in Hebron as soldiers arrest residents and activist

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11986&Itemid=1

Collective punishment in Bil'in as reprisal for protests

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/palmedialert/message/446

Israeli interference leads to death of elderly woman

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11862&Itemid=1

Why kill Nino?  Innocent Palestinian murdered by Israeli soldiers

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4000.shtml

Soldiers ambush, kidnap anti-wall protest organiser

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11543&Itemid=1

Village put under curfew to smash wall protests

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1891

Palestinian authority pursues the latest grab at authoritarian power by ripping down political posters

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050717-09433000-bc-mideast-flags.xml

Israel plots to smash Jerusalem mosque

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=8553

Israel wants to stop Palestinian compensation suits

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4012.shtml

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-6EJ3U2?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Palestinian prisoner loses sight because of Israeli torture

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=3333

300 Palestinian prisoners dying in Israeli jails

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12667&Itemid=1

Palestinian children given harsh terms

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12789&Itemid=1

Palestinians forced to drink piss

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11294&Itemid=1

Palestinian jailed indefinitely, blinded by dark cells, and kept in solitary confinement

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12866&Itemid=1

Israeli goons stop child getting medical treatment

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=Enews&id=3468

Knesset passes new anti-Palestinian laws

http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2005/87-2005.htm

Prison abuse - Israeli style

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13030&Itemid=1

REPRESSION:  GLOBAL

Massacre by UN forces in Haiti - dozens killed in attack on slum

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1860

Haiti pigs launch massacre at soccer match

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/8/26/171233/077

Social cleansing in Zimbabwe: when a dictator is as devastating as a tsunami

http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=817

Mass demolitions and other human rights abuses

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_1721780,00.html

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/629/629p20.htm

Mugabe lays waste to buildings in new terror tactic

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1908

More Zimbabwe social cleansing coverage

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/2003

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1999

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/2095

http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2005/06/20zimbabwe.html

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050527123156347

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=214

http://www.zlhr.org.zw/media/releases/may_24_05.htm

http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/opmuramb_overview_18june2005.html

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=12138

http://www.hrforumzim.com/frames/inside_frame_special.htm

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=12400

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=6837

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/zimb-j16.shtml

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/2744

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/629/629p20.htm

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_050723mugabe.shtml

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/632/632p11.htm

For a united socialist response to the attacks

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/580/zimbabwe.htm

Unicef report on Zimbabwe crisis

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0726-11.htm

Caterpillar caught supplying Zimbabwe

http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,5,793

Journalist arrested for filming raids

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=28269

Thousands arrested in Harare crackdown

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=11934

Troops carry out population purges in Filipino warzone - Manobo displaced

http://www.bulatlat.net/news/5-15/5-15-manobo.htm

"War on drugs" is war on hill tribes in Laos

http://gaizao.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=415

Montagnard refugees driven out of Cambodia

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0721-05.htm

Iran judicially murders two youths for being gay

http://www.beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2005/07/2999.shtml

Kangaroo court:  Tak Bai commission refuses to investigate massacre and insists on secrecy

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1609

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1610

Press freedom under attack in Thailand - censorship in Muslim South

http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Thai19july05na.html

Journalist on trial for criticising government

http://www.ifj-asia.org/page/thailand050718.html

Continuing detention of journalist in Iran

http://www.counterpunch.org/fiyouzat07142005.html

Ethnic cleansing against Uighur in China

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=7186

Human rights violating cop restored to position by Mauritius government

http://www.lalitmauritius.com/news.asp?newsid=626

More on repression at SEKA and women's day in Turkey

http://www.peoplesmarch.com/archives/2005/may2k5/TKP-ML.htm

Gay anarchist jailed and beaten in Turkish prison for conscientious objection

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1918

Manipur state goons plan shoot-on-sight against Meitei language activists

http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/09/stories/2005040902201300.htm

Bihar Dalit youth beaten by upper-class goons for getting educated

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/2753

8000 homeless and destitute as Bangladesh shanty town razed

http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2005-07-21&hidType=LOC&hidRecord=0000000000000000053376

Burma: fascist regime cracks down even further

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-6-2005_pg4_24

Soldiers massacre fishermen

http://www.mizzima.com/mizzima/archives/news-in-2005/news-in-July/20-July-05-39.htm

State terror in the rural hinterlands of the Phillipines

http://www.bulatlat.net/news/5-9/5-9-enemy.htm

Qatar strips 15,000 Qataris of citizenship - apparently for political dissent

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9268

Jordanian activist jailed for criticising US

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050605132858347

Vigilantism on the rise in Nepal

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-04-nepal-vigilantes_x.htm

Ethnic cleansing against Roma in Kosova

http://www.scn.org/roma/ethnic_cleansing.html

More on Kosova - Serbs evacuated, ethnic cleansing and conflict continue

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,1490685,00.html

Innocent Indians executed in Saudi Arabia

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/apr/20spec2.htm

Violent land clearances in Uganda - several killed

http://uganda.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/05/20/state_sponsored_banditry_on_the_rise_in_uganda.html

Museveni wants crackdown on dissidents

http://uganda.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/06/29/museveni_orders_'anarchists'_arrest.html

"UPDF forces and officials of other government-related military security agencies have committed and are still continuing committing multiple abuses against the human rights of northern Ugandans, including summary execution, torture, rape, child recruitment, and inhuman conditions of detention in unauthorized detention locations."

http://uganda.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/05/02/human_rights_violations_by_ugandan_government.html

Controversy over Indonesian drug stitch-up of Australian tourist

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1637

South Africa plans land grab against long-term factory squatters

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/624/624p20i.htm

Is the Iraqi resistance running its own little Gitmos?

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/19/a2.int.torture.0619.html

Ogiek flee as Kenya persecution escalates

http://www.ogiek.org/news/news-post-05-07-4.htm

Civil rights under attack in Indonesia - student jailed for "disrespecting" president

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1842

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1840

Fascistic crackdown against Shi'ites in Yemen - villagers terrorised and threatened, hundreds of innocent people arrested, Shi'ite clerics treated as heretics, mass rape threatened, books seized, doctors harassed.

http://www.jafariyanews.com/2k5_news/july/14shias_persecution_yemen.htm

Pakistan: planned demolition of football stadium draws protests

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance/message/1922

Police raid Pentecostal church
Masked special forces call worshippers 'sectarian,' 'prostitutes'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: April 23, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Michael Ireland
© 2005 Assist News Service 

Twenty masked special and plain clothes police raided an evening seminar at a church in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia autonomous republic in Russia. 

According to the Forum 18 News Service, police forced about 70 people outside the Work of Faith church April 14, calling them "sectarians" and "prostitutes," while they searched the building. 

Nearly 50 church members were held for five hours at the police station and fingerprinted. Udmurtia's interior ministry claimed the Pentecostals had "distorted" details of the raid. 

Pentecostal bishop Yuri Degtyar told Forum 18 he believes the public prosecutor now has things under control and that the investigation into police conduct during the raid will be "objective." 

"The public prosecutor's response was pro-active," he said Thursday from Izhevsk, about 700 miles east of Moscow. "They have taken control of the situation." 

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice questioned how, before the investigation had even started, Udmurtia public prosecutor Boris Sarnayev could announce to the press that "no police action aimed at humiliating people on religious grounds has been established." 

Twenty masked special and plain clothes police officers burst into premises owned by its affiliate church, Word of Faith, on the evening of April 14, breaking through a side gate although the main gates were open, the national Pentecostal union headed by Bishop Sergei Ryakhovsky reported in a statement. 

Shouting "Quick! We'll break your legs!" the officers directing the operation - one of whom was said to be drunk and brandishing a pistol - reportedly forced the approximately 70 people present, including pastors, worshippers and seminar participants, to stand facing an outside wall for approximately half an hour while both they and the building were searched. 

According to the union, the officers told Pastor Mikhail Russkikh that no search warrant was required after 6 p.m. and repeatedly called church members "sectarians" and "prostitutes," before detaining 46 of those present in a single cell at the local police station for approximately five hours. 

The Pentecostal Union statement says the detainees were interrogated individually, fingerprinted and photographed, some were told to sign blank witness statements, and one was hit when he refused to answer questions. No formal police charges were reportedly made. On Monday, the Interfax news agency reported a spokesman for Udmurtia's department of the Interior Ministry, which includes the police force, insisted the Pentecostal Union had "distorted" events and vowed his department would file suit against "a number of organizations and citizens" circulating information about the incident in the media if it proved unconfirmed by the public prosecutor's investigation. Asked Thursday how precisely the Pentecostal union statement had distorted events, a press spokesman at Udmurtia's Interior Ministry department directed Forum 18 to a Monday statement on the Udmurtia state authorities' official website. 

The statement maintained that an Izhevsk district public prosecutor had issued a warrant for an urgent search of the church's premises in connection with the April 9 discovery not far from the building of a murdered man. 

The statement also claimed that both the murdered man and a man accused of the murder had lived at the church's premises from 2003 onwards. The murderer had placed his victim's possessions at the church's premises and told police that a number of people with previous convictions lived there without registration. 

This, according to the statement, led to the April 14 search and detention of 46 people, against 22 of whom administrative charges were brought for not having registration. [Russian citizens are required by law to register at any locality where they stay for more than 90 days.] 

Bishop Degtyar insisted that only 12 people present at the church's premises did not have registration, being participants in Word of Faith's ex-convict rehabilitation project. 

"These twelve are people with difficult pasts trying to change their lives," he told Forum 18. "This was the only administrative violation, but it doesn't warrant police in masks scaring us all - there are civilized ways of conducting searches." 

In addition, he said, no mention of the murder investigation was made until several days after the search, and no one was questioned about it during the police interrogation. 

"The questions were rather: 'Why do you go to this church and not an Orthodox church?', 'How much money do you donate to your church?'" 

In a statement published on the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice website Tuesday, Degtyar also explained that the man accused of the murder had last been seen at the church's rehabilitation centre approximately 18 months ago and that the church had unfortunately not known he was using a false identity or was wanted by police in other parts of the country, "otherwise we would have turned him in to the law-enforcement agencies ourselves." 

The murder victim had also not been seen at the centre for a long time, maintained the statement. 

Work of Faith Church runs a number of social projects assisting the homeless, orphans and low-income families in addition to former convicts. 

"We are working to change society for the better," Degtyar told Forum 18. "We want it to be healthy and strong." In July 2001, Dmitry Mafenko, then leader of the church's anti-drugs project, was kidnapped with his assistant Pavel, and the pair have not been seen since. 

While acknowledging that local drug dealers are opposed to the church's activity, Degtyar stressed to Forum 18 that there was no connection between this kidnapping and the April 14 raid, which he put down to "local police arbitrariness." 

The church previously has had no conflict with the police, he added: "We pray for the authorities - the incident was completely unexpected, and many people are still in shock about it."
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