[Onthebarricades] Repression in the global South, part 2 of 3

[Andy]

[NOTE:  Banning a group for "supporting" terrorism, even for being directly a political wing of an armed opposition group, is usually a sign of determination by political leaders to prevent conflict resolution - adopted recently in Spain and Britain, and for a long time in Turkey, such a move would have prevented the ending of other conflicts such as in Northern Ireland.  It is also pretty much impossible to operate a democracy if the ruling elite is able to choose which other parties are allowed to operate.]
 
*  MOROCCO:  Islamist party banned after arrests
*  BHUTAN:  Atrocities against Nepalese documented
*  INDIA:  Police tactics against Naxalites denounced
*  INDIA:  Persecution of Islamic student group continues - 5 arrests
*  ETHIOPIA:  As clashes continue, Ethiopian forces retaliate against Ogaden civilians, carry out summary executions
*  LEBANON:  Palestinians left in limbo by lack of official status
*  PAKISTAN:  Lawyers freed - but Balochistan's "Nelson Mandela" still in jail
*  PALESTINE:  Israeli forces besiege university
*  ISRAEL:  Starhawk denied entry, deported
*  ISRAEL:  Palestinian beaten for filming arrest
*  ISRAEL/PALESTINE:  Crackdown targets leftists in Bethlehem
*  NIGERIA:  Crackdown on miniskirts
*  SWEDEN:  Court refuses to outlaw snakes
*  GREECE:  Squats under attack from cops, fascists
*  COLOMBIA/MEXICO/ECUADOR:  Killings of innocent students by Colombian military
*  Extrajudicial executions recorded in Colombian border incursion
*  ITALY:  Trial of anarchists for defending woman continues
*  ITALY:  Attempt to ban pigeon-feeding in Venice
*  ROMANIA:  Neoliberal cart ban leads to abandoned horses
*  MALAYSIA:  Indigenous community receive death threats
*  KENYA:  Police hunting Ogiek in reprisal for killing
*  THAILAND:  New drug war is threat to Akha
*  PALESTINE/ISRAEL:  How can a dying man be a security threat?
*  IRAN/AFGHANISTAN:  Refugees forcibly returned; country unable to cope
*  IRAQ:  Prison amnesty to exclude gay men

Publicly Archived at Global Resistance:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-morocco-islamists.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
February 20, 2008
Morocco Bans Islamist Party After Arrests 
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:11 p.m. ET

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco outlawed an Islamist party on Wednesday 
after authorities linked its leader to what they called a terrorist 
network rounded up by police this week.

The government said the network, tied to al Qaeda and other groups, 
planned a spate of killings in Morocco, a staunch ally of the U.S.-
declared global war on terrorism.

The outlawed party was al Badil al Hadari (Civilized Alternative), 
which had been among Islamist parties allowed to operate legally. It 
contested national elections in September.

Al Hadari's chief, Mustapha Moatassim, was among 32 people arrested 
in a police operation on Monday and Tuesday and accused of planning 
to slay top army officers, government ministers and some Moroccan 
Jews, the interior minister said.

"The network has a two-pronged strategy: one for political activity 
with al Badil al Hadari as its public face and another clandestine 
focusing on military action," Chakib Benmoussa told a news 
conference.

"The network set up a military wing named Special Action Group," he 
said, adding it had links with Algeria's Salafist Group for 
Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which last year changed its name to al 
Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.

"The network developed links with terror groups abroad to give 
military training to its members," he added, naming al Qaeda in 
Afghanistan and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Abdelhafid Sriti, Hezbollah's Al Manar television correspondent in 
Morocco, was among the 32 detained.

Benmoussa said members of the network, launched in 1992, had carried 
out six murders in Belgium, where its Moroccan leader, Abdelkader 
Belliraj, lived.

The allegations of links to terrorism against Moatassim were the 
first leveled at a leader of a legal Islamist party. 

WEAPONS

Three other small Islamist underground groups were linked to the 
network, Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's office said, as well as a 
group widely known as moderate, the Oumma Movement.

Oumma Movement, whose leader Mohamed Merouani was among those 
detained, applied for legal status as a party, but the Interior 
ministry dismissed its request last year.

Police discovered at least 34 weapons, including two Israeli-made 
UZI assault rifles, when they raided homes and offices of the 
suspects, Benmoussa said.

"The prime minister decreed the dismantling of al Badil al Hadari 
within the framework of the break-up of the Belliraj terrorist 
network and in the light of the proven links between this network 
and the creation of this party," Fassi's office said in a statement.

It also said a member of the network had carried out a hold-up on a 
Brussels subsidiary of business security firm Brink's CO in 2000 to 
steal 17.5 million euros, with the help of European gangsters.

"The heist from this hold-up enabled the network to introduce the 
equivalent of 30 million dirhams ($3.89 million) in 2001 to Morocco 
to fund its activities," it added.

Morocco's government, on alert since suicide bombings killed 45 
people in Casablanca nearly five years ago, says it has broken up 
more than 60 cells of terror suspects since then. It has arrested 
more than 3,000 people in the process.

The largest Islamic opposition movement, Al Adl Wal Ihssane (Justice 
and Charity), is tolerated by King Mohammed's government but banned 
from mainstream politics because of its open hostility to the 
monarchy.

The moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) has 46 
seats in Morocco's 325-member parliament.

(Reporting by Lamine Ghanmi; Editing by Charles Dick)
 
Drukpa atrocities on Nepali-speakers
BY UPENDRA POKHAREL 
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=138150

BHUTAN, Feb 19 - Following the declaration of armed struggle by 
Bhutan Communist Party Marxist-Leninist and Maoist (BCP-MLM) in 
Bhutan, Drukpas, the indigenous Bhutanese, have allegedly started 
unleashing atrocities against Nepali-speaking Bhutanese here, and 
local authorities are not helping the latter. 

According to victims, Drukpa employers are denying them their 
salary, while local administrators, almost all of whom are Drukpas, 
are beating them for no obvious reason. Some administrators have 
even begun threatening to force them into exile. 

A bus driver, who is a Nepali-speaking Bhutanese, said one Ekka 
Drukpa, the owner of local Chima Travels, mistreated him. "Drukpa is 
close to the Bhutanese King. No one dares speak against him despite 
his atrocities," said the driver who recently faced Drukpa rage. 

In another recent case, local police refused to register a complaint 
filed by one Ramesh Chhetri, an employee at Rinchen Supply Agency in 
Phuntsholing, after he was allegedly beaten up by his employer 
Rinchen Dorjee. "Dorjee stopped giving me my salary. Police refused 
to register my complaint against him," said Chhetri. 

Most Nepali-speaking Bhutanese, who have been issued citizenships of 
4th and 5th categories by the Druk government, have been doing low-
class jobs for a living, local Tilak Chhetri informed. 

"They are deprived of all government facilities," he said. The BCP-
MLM recently owned up responsibility for the bomb blast that 
occurred in the southern district of Samchi on February 3, 
stating "it was aimed at destroying election related documents of 
the government and starting a war against the government."

80,000 more Bhutanese preparing to come to Nepal

Meanwhile, Bhutanese refugee leader Tek Nath Rizal said that as many 
as 80,000 Bhutanese of Nepal-origin were preparing to leave for 
Nepal due to the local government's harsh treatment in recent days. 

Talking to journalists at Maidhar of Jhapa Tuesday, Rizal said, "The 
government has restricted free movement of Nepal-speaking Bhutanese, 
apart from denying them opportunities."

He claimed that no matter how many refugees are taken for third-
country resettlement, many others will arrive in Nepal and deepen 
the problem. 

He also charged that India was the main obstacle to the resolution 
of this problem. 

He was of the opinion that the Bhutanese refugee problem would be 
solved only through repatriation.
 
WEST BENGAL
Mahasveta condemns police tactics
Statesman News Service
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=192690

KOLKATA, Feb. 26: While the CPI-M leaders have been offering 
bouquets to police officers for arresting two senior leaders of the 
CPI (Maoist), intellectuals including Magsaysay award winner, 
Mahasveta Devi came down heavily on the state government today, 
alleging policemen have been "terrorising political workers" and 
harassing their family members on the plea of launching a crackdown 
on Maoist terror module. 

Speaking to the Media at the Kolkata Press Club this afternoon, 
Mahasveta Devi said, several people have joined CPI (Maoist) and 
lent their support to the Maoist outfit because of aggression on 
poor people by the ruling party in the state for a long period of 
time. 

"People have joined CPI (Maoist) after facing torture for a long 
period of time," she said. "Those who have joined CPI (Maoist) have 
not done anything wrong. Where will they go, if the state government 
doesn't stop aggression on the common people? Go and read the 
history of revolution. If you do so, you will come to know that 
people had to declare war against the rulers after facing sustained 
torture to change the society," said the writer. 

"I don't expect anything good from this government and the political 
parties running it. It is our misfortune that these political 
parties will rule us in the future, because the opposition parties 
in the state don't enjoy the support of the people," she said. She 
also highlighted the failure of the government to run the rationing 
system properly. 

Members of Bandi Mukti Committee (BMC), who organised the press meet 
announced they would stage a dharna in Metro Channel and in front of 
major correctional homes in the state on 28 February demanding 
release of political prisoners. 

Seventy-year-old, Ms Mankumari Saha, who came to meet the writer, 
alleged that "more than 40 policemen" had raided her house at Risra 
in Hooghly last night and even "broke down the collapsible gate" to 
enter her house to nab her son Pradip on the charges of being 
involved in a Maoist terror module. "Most of the policemen were in 
an inebriated state and they hurled abusive remarks at me after I 
told them to leave. The policemen have been harassing my son who is 
a human rights activist," said Ms Saha. The Magsaysay award winner 
and other intellectuals who spoke to the Media alleged policemen 
have sealed the house of one Mr Sushil Bachar at Barasat alleging he 
had given shelter to a Maoist.
 
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Five_suspected_SIMI_activists_held/articleshow/2932765.cms
 
Five suspected SIMI activists held
7 Apr 2008, 1525 hrs IST,PTI
 
GUNA: In the ongoing crackdown against banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), five suspected activists of the outfit were detained by police for interrogation here on Monday. 

They were detained following questioning of arrested SIMI leaders, sub divisional police officer (SDOP) Awdhesh Pratap Singh told reporters. 

Meanwhile, police arrested one more SIMI activist from Indore for allegedly indulging in illegal activities and aiding anti-national elements. 

The arrested SIMI worker was identified as Naved Irfan, police said, adding he was arrested from Khajrana area of the city. 

Thirteen top SIMI leaders, including its former chief Safdar Nagori, were arrested from a house in Indore on March 27 where they were holed up to conduct the meeting of the banned outfit. 

Since then over a dozen SIMI workers have been arrested from different cities in the state. 

 
[NOTE:  Allegations of terrorist involvement FOLLOW the ban, suggesting criminalization may be a self-fulfilling prophecy]

Apr 4, 2008 
India 'decapitates' jihadi group
By Sudha Ramachandran 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD04Df01.html
.
SIMI was charged with "anti-national and destabilizing activities" 
for "making controversial remarks questioning the country's 
sovereignty and integrity", "working for an international Islamic 
order" and of having "links with militant outfits and supporting 
extremism/militancy in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere". 

Critics of the ban said the allegations leveled against SIMI were 
vague and not adequately substantiated, that the offenses it was 
accused of and the provocative statements its leaders were alleged 
to have made were tame compared with those made by Hindu extremist 
groups against whom no action was taken. The proscription of the 
organization was followed by sweeping arrests of SIMI cadres. 
.

Police officials say that the arrest of the SIMI top brass is a 
breakthrough. But they are cautious about evaluating the impact it 
will have on the organization. "SIMI has been decapitated but this 
doesn't necessarily signal the beginning of the end of the 
organization," the senior police officer said, pointing out that the 
outfit's network is widespread and will be difficult to dismantle. 

More importantly, "SIMI enjoys the patronage of politicians." 
Hardcore activists, who were arrested in Maharashtra and Uttar 
Pradesh "have often been released on orders from above 
[politicians]", the police officer said.
 
http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2006/20060806_simi_india_muslims_organisation.htm
 
Media trial of SIMI
The Milli Gazette Online
6 August 2006
The Indian "mainstream" media planted a plethora of stories in recent months to convince the Indian public opinion that SIMI was a "terrorist" organisation which should continue banned. Slowly an environment has been built in which the Tribunal looking into the ban, which must pronounce its judgement before 7 August 2006, will not find it easy to escape unimpressed by the propaganda blitz unleashed by vested interests in the intelligence and security community aided by the BJP which has hijacked the "security" plank so much so that Advani went out on a fresh yatra on the issue and his holier than thou party tried to communalise the issue in Jammu where its leaders, including a former chief minister of Delhi, announced huge rewards to anyone killing "terrorists" - it was free for all to kill Muslims and claim rewards from the party which plundered India for more than six years. In the face of imminent arrest and court cases, these leaders quickly recanted their criminal announcements in the best traditions of their Sangh parivar which wrote pardon-me-please letters to the British colonialists and to Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. Below are two reports about SIMI which expose the hollowness of the official case against SIMI which was targeted by BJP as a soft target (editor). 
The case of the government against SIMI is based on thin ice
The last few months saw Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) a lot in the news with references to the faceless Intelligence Bureau's leaked "information" that "dreaded terrorists" are a part of SIMI or that "dreaded terrorists" were apprehended and they were "ex-SIMI cadres". One wonders why no one questioned the press as to why all of a sudden, after February 2006, SIMI started appearing in the news. The reason is quite obvious. SIMI was banned for the third time on 8 February 2006 and the ban notification itself said that "there is no violent incident involving SIMI since 2004". The government needed to first condemn SIMI in the eyes of the general public with the active aid and abetment of the mainstream media including "respectable" news papers and television channels who have carried on a vicious campaign against SIMI. Even before the Tribunal constituted to decide the correctness of the ban imposed by the government could arrive at a decision (expected before 7 Augsut 2006), SIMI was totally demonized in the eyes of the general public and the media trial of SIMI was over. All incidents that took place in the meantime like the hoax attack on the headquarters of RSS at Nagpur, the Aurangabad arms haul, the Mumbai blasts were immediately blamed on SIMI without a shred of evidence whatsoever. 

So one would assume that since this government and its agencies, which are ready to blame SIMI for all that is wrong in the country, must've had much to say against SIMI before the Justice B.N.Chaturvedi Tribunal hearing the case of the government to ban. Even in the course of hearings before the Tribunal, most newspapers were misreporting the proceedings. It would be interesting to see why the government had to resort to a media war rather than fight its case before the specially constituted tribunal. This was the case of the Government before the Tribunal:

The ban notification was issued by the Joint Secretary, Home Ministry, Mr BA Coutinho who stated before the Tribunal that it was his decision to ban SIMI. The ban notification and the background note stated that SIMI deserved to be banned for clandestine activities and links with 20-odd organizations through whom SIMI was allegedly operating. The background note clearly says that there was no violent incident in which SIMI was involved in the last 2-3 years. Coutinho, who was the main witness of the Government, stated before the Tribunal that the Government was not concerned with the period prior to the previous ban, that is 27 Sept 2003, and the period subsequent to the present ban, i.e., 8 Feb 2006. He also admitted that there was no action taken regarding the several allegations made in the notification against SIMI. The note mentioned that the erstwhile president of SIMI [Shahid Badr Falahi] was training Muslim youth in the use of lathis and in karate and judo. However, he said that the government despite having "information" about all this, did not register a single crime though they felt that such incidents amounted to crimes. This obviously casts a doubt on the truth of the allegation itself. If they knew that the former president of SIMI was training persons in judo and karate then what was the difficulty in prosecuting him for it? It is another matter that training in judo, karate and lathis is no crime in this country. There is no action taken by the Government with regard to a 19-page note issued by the government in support of the ban. 

When asked if the Government's case was contained in the notification and the note, Coutinho stated that its case was in 'addition' to the note and notification contained in "secret files" which could not be shown to SIMI as the Government claimed "privilege" on the said files. 

The note in support of the notification according to him was not the "only" material based on which Mr Coutinho sought the ban. Thus the government was not even willing to disclose the basis of the ban to the banned organization! Five large "secret" files were submitted in sealed envelopes to the Tribunal. The note which supports the ban and the notification in support of the note don't refer to any "secret" material. The case of the Government was that these five files and a VCD containing a movie were the "secret material". At the instance of the tribunal, however, the movie was shown. It turned out to be a movie titled 'Jehad-e Hindustan' which had clips of violence against Muslims from Gujarat obviously lifted from the many documentary films made on the Gujarat carnage in 2002 as also clips of violence against Palestine by Israel and clips of the demolition of the Babri Masjid etc. Any person who is reasonably computer-literate could have used existing digital footage to put together such a film. The voiceover was either songs or vitriolic speeches, the substance of which was difficult to decipher. None of it was in English, Hindi or any other language which any of the 34 government witnesses understood. The star witness of the government Mr Coutinho did not even know what the substance of the voiceover was. He did not have a transcript. He admitted that the VCD was of a very poor quality and it was difficult to decipher its contents. He could not show the connection between that VCD and SIMI in any manner. He also did not disclose who it was seized from. He also fished out several Urdu magazines which he claimed were found circulating in the market and stated that they were published by SIMI. He said that he did not know their contents or who published them or whether they were yet available in the market and did not know why they were not banned if publishing them amounted to crimes. In fact, in all those magazines the full details of the printer, editor and publisher were given, yet he did not even know about those details! To add to that, he "quoted" from his secret files and admitted that even the secret files did not say that the magazines belonged to SIMI or had any connection with SIMI. 

To prove its case against SIMI, the government cited several cases under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act registered between 1998 - 2001. Is it not surprising that SIMI has been in existence sine 1977 and had close to 24,000 members, a central office at Delhi and about 10 zonal offices, and several other offices with its activities known to all in civil society. All of a sudden it turned "criminal" and "terrorist" after the NDA regime with the BJP in the driver's seat came to power? In about 1998, the government of the day started registering cases systematically against SIMI's members and on 27 September 2001, it banned SIMI for the first time. Most members of SIMI especially office-bearers were picked up in the night of the 26-27th September itself and put behind bars. All kinds of false cases were registered during the next 5 - 10 days against most persons who were associated with SIMI. 

Most of these cases did not reach even the trial state and the government later refused to give sanction to prosecute. Several have resulted in acquittals due to the inconsistency of the statements of police officers themselves. After those cases no fresh cases were registered with any reference to SIMI or to any crimes under the Unlawful Activities Act till much after April 2006. The government had no evidence to offer by way of activities of SIMI during the entire period extending from 27 Sept 2003 to 27 Sept 2005. It was the Government's case in the words of their star witness Mr Coutinho that the present ban was a "fresh" ban. That it was based on the material for the period 27 Sept 2003 to 27 Sept 2005 or even 8 Feb 2006 (though technically SIMI could have had legitimate activities during the period of 27 Sept 2005 to 8 Feb 2006 as there was no ban operating then). However, after the ban was imposed on 8 Feb 2006 in four "crimes" cited in evidence, SIMI has been mentioned. No proof, however, has been placed to show the connection of those accused with SIMI. In fact, with regard to a case registered in Aurangabad against one Amir, who is supposed to have "confessed" that he is a member of SIMI. Way back on 9 May 2001 when he had been involved in some crime, SIMI had clarified in 'Lokmat Times' that Amir was not a member of SIMI. The newspaper clipping was filed by SIMI before the Tribunal and the government could not dispute it. 

Mr Coutinho specifically stated that the Aurangabad crime of May 2006 was not relevant and not taken into consideration while imposing the ban. Even the rest of the cases were grossly motivated. In Khandwa there were altercations between two communities on 12 April 2006 on the occasion of Id Milad. Several FIRs were registered and are probably forgotten by now. However, four days later, on 16 April 2006, another FIR was registered calling the clashes of the 12th of that month as a "conspiracy by SIMI" and several persons from far-off Jalgaon and Kota etc including young women, were arrested for this "crime". The house of the erstwhile president of SIMI Shahid Badr was also raided in the night of 5 May 2006 even as he was attending the hearing before the Tribunal in Delhi.

That being the case, the government at the end of the day relied only on the "Secret Files" as they had no real evidence to offer in support of the ban notification. The so-called "cases" against SIMI during the relevant period of 27 Sept 2003 to 27 Sept 2005 are the most shocking. None of them have a mention either of SIMI or of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. In particular, they are Crimes Nos. 882/2004, 632/2004, 618/2004, 101/2004 (all of Andhra Pradesh), none of which mentioned SIMI/ Students Islamic Movement of India nor had crimes under Section 10,11, and 13 of the Unlawful Activities Act or any crime of cession or cessation. In fact, the first three were cases in connection with protests by the Muslim community angered by the false implication of the 54-year-old Maulana Naseeruddin. In one of the crimes, the first accused is the local MLA. In another case, a local youth who was protesting, was shot in cold blood by the Gujarat police party then in Hyderabad. The last crime is a protest by citizens of Hyderabad against the visit of George Bush to Hyderabad.! The government has shown that it is willing to cite anything against SIMI in its desperate attempt to ban it. In Crime No. 40/2005 (Special Cell Delhi), the chargesheets did not have any mention of SIMI. As also in crime no 16/2003 (Gujarat) which is also of this period, the chargesheet does not mention SIMI.

The Supreme Court in Mohinder Singh Gill vs Chief Election Commissioner AIR 1978 SC 851. para 8. State of UP vs Lalai Singh Yadav (1976) 4 SCC 213 at paras 6,8,9,10,15,17; Harnam Das versus State of UP (1962) 2 SCR 487. paras 11-13) has clearly held that the decision of the government should speak for itself and stand on its own. It cannot be buttressed by affidavits filed later neither can material, that was not in contemplation of the government at the point of time it made up its mind, be taken into consideration. These cases further say that the court has to asses the case of the government based on the evidence it offers in support of the case and cannot rely on other material. In other words, the court cannot substitute its decision for that of the Government. Surely, therefore, on Coutinho's admission, the material that relates to the period prior to 27 Sept 2003 and after 8 Feb. 2006 cannot be taken into consideration. The government, even as per the decision of the Supreme Court in Sodhi Sukhdev Singh versus State of Punjab (1961) 2 SCR 371. @ 383, 384, 388 - 393 and 411, cannot take into consideration the "secret files" unless it files an affidavit explaining the reason it cannot disclose the contents of the document, the nature of the document and what injury to public interest would be if the same was disclosed to the banned association. In short, en masse "privilege" without any classification of the documents is not permissible.

If the Government has its way, it would like the Tribunal to decide the ban on SIMI solely on the basis of the "Secret Files" without disclosing any of its contents to SIMI or its counsel. If such a procedure were to be adopted, there would be no need to have a hearing. The tribunal can decide the case on its own without any reference to SIMI because, anyway, all the "evidence" is so secret that it cannot be shown to SIMI or its counsel. It is, of course, beyond one'es comprehension as to what is so secret about the files or evidence against SIMI. If one is to go by the VCD, then it is obvious that the government does not wish to disclose the files as they will only expose the weakness of the Government's case! In the case of the ban on RSS (which is the only case in Indian history where a Tribunal constituted to adjudicate a ban has lifted the ban), the tribunal of Justice P.K. Bahri refused to look into 'secret files' which the government did not wish to disclose to the banned association on the ground that when valuable fundamental rights of the association were being curbed by the ban, the adjudication of the correctness of the ban ought not to be done on the basis of secret files.

The alternative ground that the government tried to base its case on, is that the two judgments of the previous two tribunals are relevant for the purposes of the present tribunal. They deal with different periods and they have both blindly accepted the case of the government. For example, the Judgement of the Tribunal of 2003 blindly accepted the case of the government and even went to the extent of saying that if SIMI could mobilize funds for putting up a defence before the tribunal it certainly must exist! The 2001 tribunal said in its judgment that confessions though not acceptable under the Indian Evidence Act can be used by the tribunal! The correctness of the judgments are at large before the Supreme Court (2001 judgment) and the High Court (2003 judgment) and their facts do not pertain to the period in question. Yet the government in the absence of any other evidence is seeking to rely on them. If an organization which is supposed to remain banned for two years is again banned after the expiry of the two years on the basis of the previous judgment banning it, then there will be no end to the number of years for which it can be banned for the same old reasons.

The government also tried to make much of the language of SIMI's constitution. This constitution has been around since 1977 and no one objected to it till the BJP came to power and decided to ban SIMI in 2001. Why then is the Government so hell-bent upon banning SIMI? It's not an organization that is underground, its activities were out in the open, known to all and its representatives have through lawyers contested every ban imposed by the Government. No organization, which has terrorist and cessationist objectives and does not recognize the Indian constitution and sovereignty, has ever appeared before the tribunal adjudicating the ban. SIMI is obviously a soft target for the Government to show to the majority community that it is not appeasing Muslims. The government has chosen a legitimate and progressive Muslim organization to perpetrate its policy of gagging Muslims on the ground that its is extremist. There is nothing in Indian laws to call an organisation "extremist" merely because it has an open religious composition. 

The government has missed the point that having such religious organisation overground is in fact an insulation against the youth turning to terrorist and clandestine activities. Won't such ban result in the Muslim community of this country getting further alienated and wondering if anything that is "Muslim" will not be tolerated by the government of the day even if it is legitimate, over-the-ground and in the public sphere? It is an understatement to say that the Government has done a great disservice to the Muslim community and the country by banning SIMI. 

As the hearings before the tribunal were going on, several persons who were earlier with SIMI prior to the 2001 ban, were "picked up". They were referred to as "dreaded terrorists." "Cell phones" and "magazines" were "recovered" from them. The witch hunt became stronger as the case of the Government before the Tribunal grew weaker. SIMI's erstwhile members were unable to get a single news item putting forth their point of view published even in respectable newspapers with stated "secular and leftist" credentials. It certainly has ruined the faith of the Muslim community in the Government and the fairness of the Indian polity.
(To appear in The Milli Gazette's print edition of 16-31 August 2006)

There is no case against SIMI
The Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs by notification dated
8.2.2006 has banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) for the third time. SIMI was first banned on 27th September, 2001 immediately after the bombing of twin towers of the World Trade Center at New York, USA on 11th September, 2001. SIMI remained banned from September 27, 2001 to September
27, 2003 during which period several prosecutions were launched against its erstwhile members for crimes such as putting up posters, making speeches, putting up stickers etc. SIMI's name was also dragged into several prosecutions under the provisions of Terrorist And Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) or the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act
(MCOCA) or even the Unlawful Activities Provisions Act 1967 of persons who were not even members of SIMI but however, the Government alleged that they have been members of SIMI. In fact the erstwhile president of SIMI Shahid Badr Falahi, against whom 7 cases have been registered for putting up posters and giving speeches has already been acquitted in two. Despite the fact that it is the Central Government's case that they have not registered a single crime against any member of SIMI after May 2003, they have yet banned SIMI for the third time on 8.2.2006. In fact, the second ban of SIMI dated 27.9.2003 came to an end on 27.9.2005. Therefore SIMI was in existence between 28th September, 2005 and 7th February, 2006 but it was unable to function in any manner because of the fact that all its offices were yet sealed, most of its members were demoralized or had crossed the age of 30 years which automatically disentitled them to continue as a member of SIMI, as SIMI has an age limit of 30 years for membership and due to lack of offices and as all its accounts were frozen, some of the erstwhile members also had to fight the criminal cases foisted against them by the State. No persons would of course be willing to take up membership of SIMI fearing harassment and prosecution by the Government. In the background note to the ban, not a single instance of any activity of any sort has been mentioned for the period 28.9.2005 to 7.2.2006.

In this background, the 8th February, 2006 notification has been passed by the Central Government notifying the ban on SIMI under Section 3(1) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act but also imposing an immediate ban under Section 3(3) proviso of the said Act. According to the judgment of the Supreme Court of India in the case of Mohd. Jafar vs. Union of India 1994 Supp. 2 SCC 1, for an immediate ban to be imposed, the reasons should be distinct and different from the reasons for the ban itself. To cite an example, if the stated objectives of an organization are secessionist or unlawful in any manner, it could be banned under Section 3(1) and the ban will become operative if after hearing the case of the Central Government and the organization proposed to be banned, the Tribunal constituted to adjudicate the ban comes to the conclusion that the organization is such that it deserves to be banned. However when an immediate ban is imposed, the ban comes into effect immediately even before the adjudication is completed. For such a ban to be imposed, apart from the organizations' stated objectives, goals and aims being illegal if the organization is also involved in the violent secessionist anti-national activities it merits an immediate ban. Such special reasons would have to be cited by the Central Government to impose an immediate ban upon the organization in addition to the reasons for the ban itself. Such grounds further should not pertain to stale incidents but should pertain to incidents, which immediately precede the ban. In the case of SIMI, on all three occasions an immediate ban has been imposed and on none of the occasions were special reasons given for imposing immediate ban. By the notification dated 8.2.2006, immediate ban has been imposed though not a single instance of so called unlawful acts have been cited subsequent to May 2005. It is therefore surprising as to how an immediate ban has been imposed.

The ban notification which itself shows that there is no violent incident involving SIMI since 2004 yet says that SIMI has the potential to indulge in illegal activities. The reasons given for the ban are that SIMI if not banned would,
(i) Continue their subversive activities and reorganise its activists who are still absconding.
(ii) Disrupt the secular fabric of the Country by polluting the minds of the people by creating communal disharmony.
(iii) Propagate anti-national sentiments.
(iv) Escalate secessionism by supporting militancy.

Apart from making vague allegations as above without reference to any specific instances, the ban notification alleges that SIMI is involved in 'clandestine' activities or that it has secret links with militant organizations like Jaish-e-Mohd and Lakshar-e-Tiaba. No specific incidents of any crimes have been cited though numerous organizations have been named in the notification claiming that SIMI is involved with them or functioning through them in a pseudonymous fashion. Most of such organizations named in the background note to the notification either do not even exist and if they do, they have not been banned and no crime has been registered with regard to the functioning of these organizations. Some of them are respectable organizations such as Tamil Nadu Muslim Munetra Khazhagam which took part in the electoral process as alliance partner in the Democratic Progressive Alliance of which DMK and Congress in Tamil Nadu are members. TMMK participated in the electoral process both for Parliamentary and State Legislature elections. The President of the TMMK has represented the minority community before the United Nations' Council for Human Rights 9th Session of the United Nations Working Group on Minorities conducted by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva in May 2003 and also met the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh on 6th December, 2004 as a leader of a delegation from Tamil Nadu.

This being the case, the Government has to prove before 8th August, 2006, before the Tribunal constituted and headed by Justice B. N. Chaturvedi of the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi that the Government has a case against SIMI to confirm its ban. The Tribunal is traveling all over India to examine the witnesses being produced by the Government of India in the form of police officers and the SIMI is permitted to cross examine them. The Government has so far produced 3 witnesses in Maharashtra, one in Kerala and one in Tamil Nadu. None of these witnesses in their examination or cross examination have confirmed anything that has been said in the background note. All these are public documents. However, wherever witnesses do not have an answer in the allegations made by them they conveniently claim that the same are based on 'intelligence reports' and that they would not like to disclose such intelligence reports.

In fact, it is the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance which banned SIMI in September, 2001 and September, 2003. The Tribunals appointed to look into the previous bans (Justice S. K. Aggarwal in 2001 and Justice R. C. Chopra in 2003) confirmed the ban on SIMI on the basis of the statements of Government witnesses and called the statements of the erstwhile President of SIMI as a self-serving and also stated that the SIMI had the wherewithal to defend itself before the Tribunal and therefore obviously it meant that it existed. The fact that SIMI defended itself before the Tribunal was itself held against it. The challenge to the confirmation of the ban by the first Tribunal in 2001 is pending before the Supreme Court and the challenge to the decision of the second Tribunal is pending before the High Court of Delhi. In fact, SIMI activists and their Lawyers who appeared before 2001 and 2003 Tribunals claim that they were not even allowed to properly cross examine the witnesses, most of their questions were disallowed, evidence of witness of Government were given to them at the last minute and they were not given enough time to prepare for cross examination. In one instance during the adjudication of the 2003 ban, the venue and dates of hearing of the Tribunal in Gujarat was not clear to the local counsel as a result of which he could not appear during the sitting of the Tribunal. Taking advantage of the absence of representation by SIMI at the hearing, the most important witness against the SIMI who was the Joint Secretary of Government based in Delhi was flown to Ahmedabad and was examined and his affidavit was accepted without cross examination. He was not even supposed to depose in Gujarat. A writ petition moved by SIMI saying that they were not even aware of the time and place of the sitting of the Tribunal and therefore were unable to cross examine the witness and in any event that witness (Joint Secretary to Government of India) was supposed to be examined in Delhi and so his examination in Ahmedabad was deliberately done to not to give them the opportunity to cross examine him, had to be withdrawn as the High Court of Delhi was disinclined to entertain the same.

SIMI is one of the few organizations though religious and devoutly Islamic but has been over the ground and in existence in civil society. Even the ban document of 8.2.2006 does not accuse SIMI or its activities of any violent incident. Parallels can be drawn with organizations such as All India Catholic University Foundation (AICUF), which like the SIMI is involved in educational, cultural, religious and philanthropic activities. The stated objectives of the AICUF include following the catholic religion. SIMI has been praised for its philanthropic service after the earthquake in Gujarat, which it executed without collection of a cent of foreign funds. It clearly seems to be a soft target for the Government to show the majority community that the Government is not going slow on Muslim organizations. The Congress Government by banning it seems to be making a point that it is not going soft on Islamic fundamentalism and is using SIMI as a scapegoat to establish its aims.

It is also clear that a war is being carried out in the media against SIMI. After each hearing the affidavit of the Government is widely publicized in the news paper reports though no correspondent from any newspaper attends any of the hearings to acquaint themselves with the proceedings and to find out if the statements of the Government were able to withstand the test of the cross examination. Not a single Press person ever attended these hearings but very promptly the case of the government against SIMI finds mention in all leading newspapers. In Aurangabad and Nagpur crimes as late as May 2006 and the recent bombing of the Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur are being blamed on SIMI. There is no doubt that these are the crimes which are required to be dealt with severely under the provisions of the existing law. But it is only due to the fact that the government has absolutely no basis to support its ban on SIMI that subsequently events like the bombing of the RSS office or the recovery of arms from one Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmed are being blamed on SIMI. It is being said that these persons particularly Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmed is a part of SIMI. SIMI had clarified way back on 9th May, 2001 that this person Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmed had nothing to do with SIMI. However, the Press continues to report that he is a part of SIMI obviously at the instance of the Government Agencies. A sustained and concerted effort is being made to seek to reinforce these false impressions in the minds of the public that SIMI is a terrorist organization. This obviously will lead to interference with the judicial process of the Tribunal. The Supreme Court of India, the High Courts of various States and many Courts all over the world have held that press reports, movies, Television reports trying to show accused persons / defendants as guilty while they are being tried by judicial forum, certainly amounts to interference of justice and contempt of court because there is clear and present danger to the valuable right of the person to defend himself. Even if the Tribunal is not supposed to be influenced by the references in the newspapers but after an impression is being created in the minds of the public that SIMI is a terrorist organization by the so-called respectable newspapers and thereafter if the Tribunal holds otherwise for the lack of evidence, the said judgment of the Tribunal will be viewed with disrespect and suspicion by the citizens of this country. After the concerted and consistent media reports against SIMI especially after the ban was made and that too in the partisan manner by the newspapers without taking into consideration what transpires in the hearing but merely reproducing the affidavits of the government in the daily news papers, certainly amount to interference with the courts of justice. The ban being in the nature of a fetter on the right to association, right to religion and right to freedom of expression no useful purpose will be served if time and again associations are banned and not allowed to exist. This kind of an attitude on the part of the government will certainly lead to alienation of minority organizations from the mainstream. Very few organizations which have been banned under the Unlawful Activities Provisions Act have even cared to appear and challenge the ban before the Tribunal. They have simply refrained from appearing before the Tribunal adjudicating the correctness of the ban and the bans were confirmed. SIMI is one of the few organizations which has been appearing, leading evidence and contesting the ban through judicial process. However every ban imposed against any organization in the history of India has always been confirmed by the Tribunal appointed to look into the ban except in the case of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh whose ban was lifted by the Tribunal appointed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Given the fact that SIMI is a democratic organization with no motives or activities which are a threat to sovereignty of the country and that it has had no activities for the last five years, and no activist of SIMI has been found to be guilty for pursuing illegal activities for and on behalf of SIMI surely the government will not be helping the case of communal harmony by banning such an organization and singling it out for discrimination. Today SIMI has no members, no offices and no activities to speak for the last five years yet it stands banned. However, within a short period i. e., by the 7th August 2006 the fate of SIMI will be decided by the Justice B. N. Chaturvedi Tribunal.
 
 Ogaden rebels claim killing 43 Ethiopian soldiers
Wednesday 27 February 2008 04:15. 
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article26149

Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) 
Military Communiqué

26 Feburary 2008 - Forty three TPLF Regime troops have been killed 
with dozens more wounded in fighting between Ogaden National 
Liberation Front (ONLF) soldiers and regime forces over the last two 
weeks.

The bulk of the fighting has taken place in northern Ogaden in and 
around the Nogob province. Significant amounts of ammunition and 
over two dozen rifles as well as communications equipment were 
captured during the engagements.

One armored vehicle belonging to the regime was destroyed near 
Shilaabo town in western Ogaden during this period.

The TPLF regime continues to retaliate by targeting ethnic Somali 
civilians in Ogaden where arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial 
killings continue.

The regime has also re-instituted the practice of holding open air 
military courts in remote villages which often sentence local 
villagers to death by hanging without due process.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7325147.stm

Non-ID Palestinians in Lebanon limbo 
By Mike Sergeant 
BBC News, Sidon 

Mohammed and Maysa (centre) face many problems over their status
Mohammed and his sister Maysa are Palestinians, but they have no passports and no identity cards. 
They are not even given the status of refugees. Legally, they don't seem to exist at all. 
They are among about 3,000 so-called "non-ID" Palestinians in Lebanon. 
Many don't qualify for aid and have been unable to leave the refugee camps, find jobs or even get married. 
"Last year the government prevented me from doing my exams," says Mohammed, a 21-year-old student. 
"They arrested me because I don't have an ID. Without an ID, I can't do anything." 
"We face many problems," says his sister Maysa. "No travel, no marriage, no work. We live in the camp like a prison." 
Their mother Aida has lived a life of regret. 
"It's my husband's problem," she says. "If I had known at the time what a big issue this would be for us, I would never have married him." 
Late arrivals 
Aida's husband is one of the original "non-ID" Palestinians who came to Lebanon in the 1970s. His lack of official status has been passed on to his children. 
Their situation is very different from that of the majority of Lebanon's 400,000 Palestinian refugees. Most come from families who fled here when the state of Israel was created in 1948. 

I was forced to be a fighter. If this continues, I will tell my children and my grandchildren to be fighters too 

Ragheb Bitar 
But the "non-ID" Palestinians arrived more than 20 years later via Jordan. Many of them came to Lebanon to fight for the Palestine Liberation Organisation after its expulsion from Jordan in 1971. 
"They cannot move out of the camp. They cannot work officially. They cannot register their marriages, their births, their deaths. 
"They cannot own a car or a motorbike. So they face a lot of problems," says Mireille Chiha of the Danish Refugee Council, an organisation which has been working with the families. 
On a hill overlooking Ein al-Hilweh, the biggest refugee camp in Lebanon, I meet one of the original "non-ID" Palestinians. 
Surrounded by chickens and almond trees, Ragheb Bitar looks every inch the proud former warrior. He fought in many wars against Israel. 
But for the past 20 years, he hasn't been able to go beyond the camp's perimeter fence or see some of his children. 
"People without IDs, we are all prisoners," he says. "I was forced to be a fighter. If this continues, I will tell my children and my grandchildren to be fighters too." 
Promised liberty 
That is a possibility that is worrying the Lebanese government. Relations with the Palestinians have a complex and turbulent history. 

With hundreds of thousands of refugees already registered in this small country, the authorities have been reluctant since the 1970s to accept any extra burden. 
But that could finally be about to change. 
Dr Khalil Makkawi represents the Lebanese government. He says "non-IDs" will now get similar status to the others. 
"They will be able to move freely from one place to the other," he says "They will have the liberty to do whatever they want just like other Palestinians in Lebanon." 
The process of documenting the "non-ID" Palestinians will begin over the next few weeks. Why the change of policy? 
It's partly an acceptance of the reality that these people are Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, with nowhere else to go. 
Dr Makkawi also says that there is a potential security risk, if thousands of people are living in the camps with no official identity. 
Equality for "non-ID" refugees, though, won't help solve a much bigger issue. 
The fate of all the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon is still unsettled, after almost 60 years. 
 
http://freedetainees.org/248
 
Pakistan's Nelson Mandela
By Dazeylin 
Share This! Categories: Detainee, Disappeared and Pakistan Tags: No Tags. 
Pakistan's continued detention of the Baluch nationalist hero, Akhtar Mengal, is fanning the flames of insurrection
The years of western-backed dictatorship in Pakistan are coming to an end. Candidates supporting the tyrant Pervez Musharraf were trounced in last month's elections. Now, the democratically elected government of Pakistan's new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, has ordered the release of the judges that Musharraf deposed and detained. They were dismissed because they dared uphold the rule of law and challenge his regime's systemic violation of human rights.
The next big democratisation step being urged by the people of Pakistan is the release of the vast, unknown numbers of political prisoners. As well as the hundreds of people who are known to be detained, there are thousands more who have simply disappeared into hidden detention centres.
One of Pakistan's most celebrated political prisoners is the former chief minister of Pakistan-ruled Baluchistan, Akhtar Mengal, the president of the Baluchistan national party.
To the people of Baluchistan he is a nationalist hero. Many see him as their Nelson Mandela - unjustly jailed for defending the human rights of the oppressed Baluch people. His continuing detention without trial is fanning the flames of nationalist resentment and popular insurrection against Islamabad's tyranny.
According to Amnesty International and the Asian human rights commission, Mengal is illegally detained. Held in solitary confinement in Karachi prison since December 2006, he has been denied justice by the use of delaying tactics. In all this time, he has never been tried in an open court. Cursory court hearings have been conducted inside prison. No one, except one family member, has been allowed to witness any of the legal proceedings against him.
Mr Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the human rights commission of Pakistan, was present at the first hearing of Mengal's case in Karachi prison and this is what he saw: "Mr Mengal was brought into the courtroom and shoved into an iron cage with bars all around that stood in a corner away from his counsel."
Akhtar Mengal has not been arrested on corruption charges nor has he been charged with the abuse of power. He is facing trial for the alleged "abduction" of two undercover agents of Pakistan's security forces.
He was arrested, along with 500 party activists, in November 2006, the day before President Musharraf was due to visit Baluchistan. The mass arrests were apparently intended to stop party members from protesting against the savage Pakistani military operations on Baluch territory, and against the widespread arrests of Baluch human rights activists and their enforced "disappearance".
The events that led to his arrest began in April 2006. Mr Mengal reports that he and his family had been receiving threatening phone calls at the time. Because of these threats, he personally chauffeured his children to school.
On April 5, two men on a motorbike followed his car as he was taking his kids to school. Feeling menaced, Mengal stopped his car and asked the men who they were. They refused to explain themselves. Fearing for his safety, Mengal's security guards detained the two men and took them back to the Mengal residence, intending to hand them over to the police. By this stage, the two men admitted being army personnel.
The Pakistani senator, Sanaullah Baloch, recently recounted what happened next:
"Almost immediately, a large party of law-enforcement agency men arrived on the spot and took away their two colleagues who had been picked up, and laid siege to the house and its occupants.
On the intervention of the Sindh chief minister, it was agreed that no case would be filed if Mr Mengal's guards who were involved in the case were handed over to the police for questioning . Akhtar Mengal remained free till November 28, 2006, when the Baluchistan police arrested him, along with senior members of his party.
Since then, all proceedings are being conducted in camera. Repeated humiliation of the Baluch and their political representatives will intensify the animosity felt by the troubled Baluch population. The judiciary's tilted role and the unproductive hearings . have already shattered the credibility of the bench."
Akhtar Mengal is not the only political prisoner. Many other leaders from Pakistan's minority nationalities - Baluch, Sindhi and Pashtun - have been detained and abused on trumped up charges.
Veteran Baluch nationalists Sardar Attaullah Mengal, Nawab Khair Bux Khan Marri, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Sher Mohammed Marri and Mir Gul Khan Naseer have spent many years in prison for defending the human rights of the Baluch people and refusing to act as quislings for the Punjabi-dominated political and military establishment in Islamabad.
Senator Sanaullah Baloch has noted:
"Mengal's prolonged detention, mortification and the delay in the dispensation of justice has exposed the inequality that characterises our system. They also point to the inability of our courts to act independently without being influenced by the powers that be.
The (Pakistan) constitution guarantees that 'all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law'. The international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination also emphasises 'the right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice'. However, the Baluch have not been treated according to national and international laws. Constitutional guarantees and the courts have failed to protect their fundamental rights.
Akhtar Mengal, as a senior leader of a political party, is entitled to all basic rights and facilities. But he has been denied basic legal and human rights because of his political affiliations. The large number of political activists in Baluchistan, who have been detained and denied legal and prison rights, are entitled to just treatment in accordance with UN conventions. The government of Pakistan must abide by the laws of the country and international law and respect the rights of the Baluch. There should be an end to the injustice, intimidation and harassment being meted out to them."
JENIN: URGENT APPEAL 
Arab-American University Under Siege
Palestine News Network
March 24, 2008

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2561&Itemid=29


Jenin / PNN - For going on 18 hours now, Israeli forces have besieged the Arab - American University near Jenin City. Students are appealing for help. 

Via telephone, Student Council Member, Murad Abu Rabb is asking that humanitarian and media institutions intervene to lift the siege. "The presence in such density on the campus and neighboring area is unprecedented. Helicopters are circling overhead and they are launching flare bombs."

Israeli forces have arrested at least 30 students, while 10 others students and staff are still unable to leave the besieged student housing buildings. "We expect them to break down the doors at any moment."

All roads in the area are closed, while hundreds of residents, students and staff re unable to move. Director of Public Relations for the University, Jamal Sana, said that the siege on his building began "abruptly at 3:00 am." 

Israeli forces "set up barriers and aircraft began flying low and soldiers were jumping out. Dozens of soldiers are in the neighboring mountains. All faculty, students and staff are forbidden to move. They have spread themselves throughout every corner of campus."

A brother and sister were in the roads nearby and instead of passing home were held for hours under interrogation, reported their father Khalid Kamil.

In an adjacent village Israeli soldiers used dogs and explosives inside homes, forcing several families outside. They were also blowing up water wells, as reported by eyewitnesses.

Journalists were unable to get close, while one photographer was severely beaten. All were threatened with arrest and beatings if they did not leave, including from Reuters and Al Jazeera.
 
http://www.imemc.org/article/53454

American activist and feminist Starhawk denied entry and deported from 
Israel.
author Thursday March 13, 2008 15:25
author by Mary Firth
Starhawk, well known American activist was deported by the Israeli 
government on Thursday.

Starhawk, author of many works celebrating the Goddess movement and 
Earth-based, feminist spirituality arrived in Tel Aviv Wednesday, 12 March.

She was here to help teach a permaculture course in the northern West 
Bank as well as working with earth activists to develop a project in the 
Bethlehem area.

Dr. Joanne Taylor, a British psychologist commented on the deportation 
"clearly the Israeli authorities are paranoid even about letting people 
grow crops and conserve rainwater on their own land."

Declaring herself as 'a peace, environmental, and global justice 
activist and trainer, a permaculture designer and teacher, a Pagan and 
Witch', perhaps this earthy combination was just too threatening for the 
powers that be. Starhawk's key message is that the power we hold within 
ourselves has potential far greater than any people can have over us.

Certainly survival of the Palestinian people depends on being able to 
feed themselves; whilst even access to water is under threat from the 
Israeli military occupation, learning ways to recycle and store this is 
an urgent priority.

One of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality, 
Starhawk is also well-known as a global justice activist and organizer, 
whose work and writings have inspired many to action. Her works have 
been translated into many languages and her essays reprinted across the 
world.

An 'out' lesbian, Starhawk's newest book is The Earth Path: Grounding 
Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. It would seem that Israel has much 
to fear from such open-minded thinking and this cowardly move will only 
help spread her word more widely.
 
Israeli police violently assault and arrest a Palestinian citizen of Israel for filming them give a parking ticket to another Palestinian.
A Palestinian citizen of Israel was filming another Palestinian receive a parking ticket in Jaffa. The police then focus on the cameraman, assaulting him and arresting them both. The assault and arrest is captured on film.
watch the video and spread it around you
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/03/13/violent-arrest-of-cameraman-in-jaffa-by-israeli-police/

Political sweep of influential leftists in Bethlehem
Palestine News Network
March 3, 2008
http://www.uruknet. de/?s1=1&p=41891&s2=11

After a memorial for the death of founder of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash, in Bethlehem's Church of Nativity on Sunday morning, Israeli forces stormed the city early Monday and arrested eight of its members.

In a large incursion, as reported by security sources and eyewitnesses, Israeli forces stormed the West Bank city from all directions. Twenty military machines hit Deheisha Refugee Camp, raiding a number of homes, tearing them apart in invasive searches.

Six citizens were blindfolded, bound and taken away, including 53 year old journalist Hassan Abdel Jawad. He is a member of the board of the Palestinian Journalists Union.

Also arrested in Deheisha were 40 year old Naim Abu Akr, 33 year old Shabab Mezher, and 34 year old Mohammed Fawzi Al Sadjadi.

In the town of Beit Sahour, to the southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces arrested 44 year old Yousef Hiat, and then in Al Doha Village closer to Deheisha Camp the Israelis conducted a raid campaign and took a 36 year old government school teacher.

Eyewitnesses report Monday morning that Israeli soldiers began the arrest campaign at 2:00 am and ended at 5:00 am. Some 40 of the soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and all entrances and exits to Bethlehem were closed, with flying checkpoints imposed throughout the governorate.

Sources report that all the detainees are members of the leftist party and worked voluntarily in leading positions in the cultural community. This was seen as a political sweep of influential leftists.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/02/gender.equality
 
Nigeria's immorality is about hypocrisy, not miniskirts
A bill that seeks to stop women dressing indecently shows how warped our notions of culture have become.
My friend Funmi Iyanda hosts a talk show on Nigerian TV in which she interviews state governors, actors and pastors. Her social consciousness is crusading without being self-righteous, her journalism intelligent and honest, her mind deeply kind. One day last December, on her way back from Lagos, she was stopped by policemen. They pointed at her knee-length dress and called her a prostitute, a harlot, a useless woman. They told her she was immoral, that women like her were the reason Nigeria was in such a bad state. Other women have no doubt experienced similar harassment, but things will become worse, horrendously so, if the senate passes a bill that would criminalise "indecent" dressing: necklines must be two inches or less from the shoulders, and the waist of a female over 14 must not be visible. It would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.
When I told a male friend who lives in Lagos that this bill is an attack on women, he said it was not about women because the senator who sponsored the bill is a woman. Very facile reasoning, I thought. Gay people have supported institutionalised homophobia. Black police officers in the US have carried out anti-black racial profiling. I know men and women who don't accept any oppression of women. I know men and women who do. That the senator is a woman does not make the bill any less targeted at women. As Reuben Abati wrote in the Nigerian Guardian: "Men are quick to complain about how they are exposed to sexual intimidation from women. They do not talk about indecent dressing among men." 
As always, gender will be complicated by class: women who do not have cars, who have to hitch up their skirts to climb on okadas (motorbike taxis), who do not know a Big Man or Big Woman to call for help, who will be vulnerable to rape at police stations - these will be disproportionately harassed.
Many Nigerians have pointed out how silly the bill is when we have serious problems with power, health, education, roads, water. Still, to offer these alternatives is to give the bill a legitimacy of sorts. If we solved these serious problems, would it then be acceptable to punish a woman in a putative democracy who chooses to wear a miniskirt? 
This bill is, in a larger sense, about societies for whom women are safe scapegoats, and Nigeria is only one example. The country is immoral, and we must legislate morality by imprisoning women in miniskirts. (Most Nigerians use "immoral" to mean sexual. They rarely use the word to refer to real immorality: institutional corruption.)
Even challengers of the bill have mostly agreed that it might be a good thing to regulate immoral dressing, but best to leave it to private organisations. This is the populist way to reason in a country where a majority of people choose to be rigidly conservative when it is convenient. (But is dressing ever really an issue of morality?)
I was once asked to leave my church in Nsukka because my blouse had short sleeves (I refused); apparently my bare arms would tempt the otherwise pious men. To accept that dressing is a moral issue is to accept this: a woman must not tempt a man. We focus on Adam eating the apple because Eve gave it to him. We don't focus on Adam's responsibility, on why he did not say no. This Judaeo-Christian-Islamic notion of controlling the female temptress so as to save the helpless male dehumanises women and insults the dignity of men since it assumes that men are incapable of restraint at the sight of a woman's flesh. Or incapable of simply looking away.
"Culture" is the other justification. We must preserve our culture, and miniskirts aren't our culture. Rape and incest and sexual abuse of children are not our culture, even though they happen all the time. There are accounts of rape all over Nigeria, especially in urban areas, yet a collective silence reigns. This bill is particularly dangerous because it increases the likelihood of women being blamed for rape: if she hadn't worn that blouse, she would not have been raped.
Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in "real" African culture, before it was tainted by the west, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed. There are men and women who, while holding their imported cellphones and driving their imported cars, say that women should conform to certain gender roles so as to preserve our "real" culture. The historical truth is that most of these reductive gender ideas came from Victorian England. 
But assuming that we agree that there is such a thing as a "pure" culture and that we would like to return to it, then we would go back to pre-colonial west Africa when gender roles were fluid, when there was little gender differentiation in Yorubaland, and when Igbo women could marry women. The culture-preserving senator would be surprised if she were transported back to her home in 1800. Never mind low-cut blouses. The women trading in the markets would be bare-breasted. 
There has always been a strange dissonance between the public and the private in Nigeria. We say what we think we should in public. This bill has many supporters who must surely know that the moral decadence in our society is not because women are wearing miniskirts but because men and women are stealing and publicly thanking God after they have stolen; because the ability to speak honestly is compromised by a literal and figurative hunger; because we have embraced and codified the culture of hypocrisy. And it is this culture of hypocrisy that the bill will preserve.
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
· Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, which won last year's Orange prize for fiction; next Monday she will be discussing her work with the writer Jackie Kay at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London 
halfofayellowsun.com
The Guardian, Wednesday April 2 2008
http://www.thelocal.se/10700/20080326
/
 
Court rules in favour of man and his snakes
Published: 26 Mar 08 07:06 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/10700/

An environmental court has overruled both the County Council and Gävle municipality in central Sweden, finding there is nothing wrong with a man keeping 47 snakes--20 of which are poisonous--in his apartment.
According to the court, nothing demonstrates that people feel mental discomfort from living near a neighbor with snakes, according to the legal news website Pointlex.

Gävle municipality had denied the man the right to house the snakes in his apartment because "it is generally accepted that many people in society are afraid of snakes."

And the fear is also justified as it is not unlikely that the snakes could escape, the municipality contended. 

In his defence, the snake-man said that an insufficiently grounded fear shouldn't constitute a nuisance. 

The environmental court found that the man had a great deal of knowledge about snakes and that he seemed able to handle them appropriately. He was aware of all applicable animal protection regulations, and the snakes' living quarters were escape proof, assuming the outer door was closed.

An examination of the case also failed to provide support for the claim that Swedes in general feel discomfort from having a neighbor with snakes. 

And even if the snakes make some feel a bit queasy, their concerns can't be judged from a medical perspective to affect health and welfare in such a way that the snakes be considered a public nuisance according to Sweden's environmental code.
 
Subject: A report on the firebombing of Prapopoulou squat and more...
To: elp4321 at hotmail.com
During the night of 24-25/3/2008, Prapopoulou Squat at Halandri, Athens was firebombed. Neighbours claim they saw three men running out of the building right before the explosion that wrecked large part of the building, the roof and the library. (photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846797). 
 
Prapopoulou squat is managed by an open assembly, active in neighbourhood and environmental issues (for example, the protection of a local stream against privatization and constructions, activities against the sprawl arsons in Parnitha mountain, Athens etc). Their blog: http://protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com/
 
This arson came after a series of similar attacks against self-managed infoshops. Few examples:
 
24/12/2007: Second arson with an identical device containing mothball and bullets at Thersitis self-managed infoshop.
25/12/2007: Unknown persons broke in the offices of 4 base-syndicates, didn't steal anything, but messed stuff up.
1/1/2008: Unknown persons hurl a molotov coctail against Ypogeios at Kallidromiou social center (their blog: http://ypogeiws94.blogspot.com/).
4/1/2008: Arson at the Southern Suburbs Residents Initiative self-managed infoshop (their blog:http://www.prwkat.blogspot.com/).
 
Meanwhile, in the previous months, another 2 squats, Salamandra at Patissia and Millerou and Germanikou at Kerameikos were evicted by the police.
 
All these action, while evidence came to light proving the police's "special attention" (investigations and surveillance) on self-managed infoshops (Photos of the police reports: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846651) as well as the cooperation between nazi groups (that tend to undertake actions against infoshops and activists) and the official police (when they 're not the exact same persons, as in the case of this officer right here: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846633). One can see for example the photos of cops and nazis fooling around and working together (during the February 2 antifascist riots in Athens) at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=822697. Also, a document on nazi group leaders funding by the greek government, here: http://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/ertzfzlyr.jpg 


Earth Liberation Prisoners Support! - Greece
http://greekelp.blogspot.com
 
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41695
 
MEXICO: Rights Groups Protest Killing of Students in FARC Camp

By Diego Cevallos
InterPressService
March 21, 2008

Mexico City - Human rights groups in Mexico and Ecuador plan to take legal
action against the Colombian government for what they call the "unjustified
massacre" of four Mexican students in this month's attack on a FARC
guerrilla camp in Ecuador.

"It will be a lengthy process, carried out in different courts or
international bodies, which could take from three to 10 years, but we have
agreed to not allow this crime to go unpunished," Adrián Ramírez, president
of the Mexican League for the Defence of Human Rights (LIMEDDHH), told IPS.

In a cross-border aerial bombing and land incursion in Ecuador, the
Colombian military killed 25 people in a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia) camp on Mar. 1, including the rebel group's international
spokesman Raúl Reyes.

The attack ordered by the Colombian government, without notifying Quito,
prompted Ecuador to sever ties with Colombia and triggered an acute
political crisis in the Andean region, which was, however, resolved a few
days later.

Four Mexican university students were killed in the attack on the camp, and
a fifth was wounded and is recovering in a military hospital in Quito. It is
also possible that an Ecuadorean citizen was killed, although the body,
which is in the hands of Colombian authorities, has not yet been fully
identified.

Ecuadorean forensic experts have established that the four Mexican students
were killed while they were sleeping, when the bombs fell on the camp in the
wee hours of the morning.

Ramírez said LIMEDDHH and four other human rights organisations from Mexico,
the Quito-based Latin American Human Rights Association (ALDHU), and the
Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU) of Ecuador will work with the
families of the four Mexican students killed in the camp in taking legal
action against the Colombian government.

"We will take this as far as we have to," said the activist.

He said the groups would seek a condemnation by the Latin American
Parliament (Parlatino) and by the legislatures of Colombia and Mexico, and
that the case may be brought before the Mexican courts and before the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

"The final objective is to achieve sanctions for those guilty of this
crime," said Ramírez.

Álvaro González, the father of one of the Mexicans killed in the camp, said
he would resort to "the relevant bodies, whatever they may be, until those
guilty of the deaths of our children are punished."

ALDHU has already brought a lawsuit in Quito against Colombia for the Mar. 1
bombing raid, which it describes as a "terrorist act."

As Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa stated after the attack, forensic
evidence shows that several of the bodies had bullet wounds in their back,
fired from a short distance, indicating that they were the victims of
extrajudicial execution.

Colombia's incursion into Ecuadorean territory was condemned by the Rio
Group, Latin America's highest-level political forum, and "rejected" by the
Organisation of American States (OAS).

Ramírez and the families of the Mexicans killed in the raid are calling on
President Felipe Calderón to order an investigation by Mexican authorities
into what they call a "treacherous crime" in which high-powered bombs were
dropped, "possibly from U.S. airplanes."

Military and diplomatic sources told IPS in Ecuador that the United States
played an important role in the attack.

Although the Mexican government condemned the violation of Ecuadorean
sovereignty, it has so far refused to do the same with respect to the
murders of the Mexican students in the FARC camp.

However, Mexican diplomatic personnel flew to Quito to provide advice to the
students' families, who had travelled to Ecuador to identify and bring home
the remains of their loved ones.

The families returned to Mexico on Thursday and Friday.

The Calderón administration is carrying out an investigation to determine
what kind of ties the students had with the FARC. The information available
so far indicates that they were leftist activists who "sympathised" with the
guerrilla group that emerged in the mid-1960s in rural Colombia, and who
were involved in a FARC solidarity group at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM), where they studied.

The Mexican newspaper Excélsior reported Friday that the student activists
had sold and distributed at UNAM a video showing the military training
received by young people who decide to join the FARC.

However, the students' families and the human rights groups supporting them
say the students were visiting the FARC camp to carry out an academic study
on the last major rebel group active in Latin America.

UNAM denies that the students were on an academic mission linked with the
university.

Next week, LIMEDDHH and student organisations will stage demonstrations
demanding that the government condemn the killings of the Mexican students.

On Tuesday they will hold a march on the UNAM campus, on Wednesday an open
forum, and on Friday a protest outside the Foreign Ministry.

There is evidence that the camp in Ecuador was the site of ongoing
negotiations between the FARC and international negotiators for the release
of hostages held by the rebels, including French-Colombian citizen Ingrid
Betancourt.

"Colombia knew that, and attacked it anyway, violating the sovereignty of a
neighbouring country and killing innocent people, including the Mexicans,"
said the activist.

Ecuadorean President Correa and Betancourt's husband Juan Carlos Lecompte
have said that the raid and Reyes's death thwarted the imminent release by
the FARC of Betancourt and 11 other hostages. Lecompte said the release
operation had been scheduled for Mar. 14 or 15.

Diplomatic sources in Quito also told IPS that French negotiators were near
the camp, on their way to a meeting with Reyes, the day he was killed.

The press reported that the camp had areas for cooking, eating, sleeping,
and military and physical training, electric generators, and TV sets.

Bogota acknowledged that it violated Ecuadorean sovereignty, but argued that
it had a right to self-defence.

The camp was reportedly visited in February by a group of Chilean activists
who, like the Mexican students, had participated in Quito in the Second
Congress of the Bolivarian Continental Coordinating committee, made up of
radical leftist groups from around Latin America. (END/2008)
 
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=64725
  
A textbook definition of cowardice
March 17, 2008 · No Comments

International Criminal Court - The Hague
Blanche Petrich filed this report for La Jornada.
The Surviving Mexican Student Reveals that Colombian Soldiers Killed the Wounded and Those Who Had Surrendered
 
Yesterday the Mexican student Lucía Morett gave her first declaration to Ecuador's Attorney General, William Pesantez, from the Military Hospital in Quito, and testified that Colombian soldiers who bombed the FARC camp in the Sucumbios zone - where until now the bodies of 5 women and 17 men have been recovered - killed the people who were wounded and who'd surrendered.
The other two survivors of the massacre, Doris Bohórquez and Martha Peréz, two Colombians kept by force in the camp to perform domestic work, backed up her declarations with this statement, given in an interview with the Secretary General of the Latin American Association for Human Rights (ALDHU): "The soldiers were shouting for people to give themselves up, that their lives would be respected, and once they did so, they were killed."
 
The jurist, who represents the three survivors in their lawsuit against Colombia for an illegitimate act of war - an invasion using cluster bombs where wounded people were annihilated and the injured abandoned at the scene, among other crimes against human rights - said that ALDHU and the Ecuadoran human rights organizations "hoped to have the support of the Mexican government."
  
He said that he was also studying the possibility of presenting the case to the International Criminal Court, inasmuch as it was a military attack against a group of entirely civilian Mexican students, who were legally in Ecuador, where their activities were legal. "Of course first this initial stage of the process must be done away with, where the victims have been blamed as guerrillas and terrorists, as if that excuses the fact that they were massacred."
  
What expectations do they have of the Mexican government?
 
"Every sovereign country should protect its citizens outside of its borders. Mexico has done this energetically in the past, and we hope that this will not be the exception. These young people were civilian students who were here legally, their activities were legal and even the Attorney General has said so. Therefore they are victims of a massacre.
 
"The Mexican authorities will determine what to do, but next week we are going to submit a lawsuit to the Mexico's Public Minister and the respective authorities demanding protection of the people and their rights. If it is not done, it will be the Mexican people who will judge this conduct. As a civil Latin American society we will not rest until these crimes have been punished and that impunity does not remain," he indicated.
 
ALDHU delivered all the documentation to the Ecuadoran attorney general, certifying that the young Mexicans had entered on a 40 day tourist visa, where they visited various universities and interviewed social leaders and indigenous groups. They also presented a theatrical work at the Second Bolivarian Continental Congress in Quito, which was captured on video.
 
 
>From there someone proposed that they go to learn about a FARC camp," said Parra, referring to the substance of the statements made yesterday in the Military Hospital. "They were enthusiastic about the idea, first out of curiosity and second because some of them had been working on Latin American movements as part of their theses.
 
"On February 28 they took a bus to Lago Agrio, the city closest to the border. They arrived the morning of the 29th, went around the city and made contact with a man, an adult of few words, dressed in civilian clothing, who drove them in a vehicle for a little more than two hours. Later they traveled by boat on a river and then walked quite a long time until they arrived at the clandestine FARC camp around 6 p.m. on the 29th.
 
"There they were received by a woman who indicated a place where they could eat and assigned them sleeping places. They were to begin their interviews and activities the following day, but that very night they were bombed."
 
Lucía Morett said the bombing happened in two stages. She was wounded but protected herself with a backpack. She explained that after a few minutes the soldiers arrived. Five of them surrounded her and shone a light on her while she told them that she was a Mexican student. She mentioned the sexual harassment to which she was submitted. Later another wave of Colombian soldiers arrived, but with another uniform, who were identified as police. They didn't kill her but she mentioned hearing bursts of gunfire against groups of people who captive or wounded. Afterwards, they brought her to higher ground, underneath a roof, because the sun was already high in the sky. There they left her.
 
The young woman has an infected 10 centimeter wound in her backside which is difficult to heal. She has been in surgery a number of times.
 
Parra indicated that while the attorney general took her statement yesterday he was accompanied by Mexico's ambassador and consul. "This gave her comfort, because until last night she'd been very sorrowful, feeling that her embassy had practically abandoned her."
 
Yesterday the family of Fernando Franco arrived. His body was identified along with that of Juan González of Castillo. Today the arrival of the family of Verónica Natalia Velázquez Ramirez is expected. The Mexican embassy was also able to contact the family of Soren Ulises Avilés, graduate of the National Polytechnic Institute.
 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP) 
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives 
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19544.htm

By James Petras 

16/03/08 "ICH" -- - President Uribe's troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe's doctrine of 'preventive war' and 'extra-territorial intervention', calling the Colombian regime the 'Israel of Latin America'. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program 'Alo Presidente', in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia. 

Uribe's cross-border attack was meant to probe the political 'will' of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador's Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC's leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe's American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe's military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe's military efforts to 'free the prisoners'. 

Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes' policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies. 

What was at stake in Uribe's violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002. 

Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened - the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington's backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington's military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and 'trainers', funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces. 

Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe's extra-territorial 'act of war', I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá's repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980's many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party - the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and.5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in 'civil society'. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC's high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe. 

In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for 'evidence' that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials - but they came under aerial attack by Uribe's armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants - without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe's jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration. 

The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia's violation of Ecuador's territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting 'reconciliation' gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater - a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness? 

Less than a week after the Santa Domingo 'reconciliation' meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against 'violent groups whatever their origins'. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, 'reasons of state' take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter's insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela. 

Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance - even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington's top priority - as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years) - was to destroy the FARC. 

Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia's countryside; it is the FARC's military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia's armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC's logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington's pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated - the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony 'reconciliation' at Santo Domingo to be a 'great victory' for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia. 

With the 'neutralization' of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime - before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting - launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong 'march against state terror', hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of 'supporting the FARC', a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for 'association' with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe's most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign. 

Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of 'wiping out the FARC' - meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization. 

The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC - his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the 'terrorists'. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe's military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate. 

Uribe's failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams 'FARC supporters' at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises 'not to invade their territory again' unless 'circumstances warrant it.' So much for 'reconciliation.' 

The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime. 

Uribe's killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador's sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt's captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten - at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006). 
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 
BREAK THE SILENCE
(inspired by a few leaflets from ' Fuoriluogo')
Saturday 13th October 2007 at around 4am: a girl is sleeping in piazza Verdi in Bologna (northern Italy). Police on patrol decide that the girl's behaviour is 'abnormal' and must be corrected by compulsory sanitary treatment (TSO), which means internment in a psychiatric hospital and forced administration of psychotropic drugs. The cops call the ambulance while keeping the girl under their custody against her will.
Five comrades of the anarchist place 'Fuoriluogo' witness the episode and cannot help expressing their contempt at the police. They do their best to prevent the arrest of the girl. The police's answer is brutal: armed with truncheons and even guns they chase the comrades. As the latter flee, six more police vans are called on the scene and the short escape ends in piazza San Vitale. The 5 are handcuffed while being severely beaten by the cops. A few residents in the area are clearly indignant at the police's behaviour but do not intervene.
 
The accusations against the comrades are quite heavy: aggravated robbery (the cops have lost a pair of handcuffs), resistance and damage (of a police van in which one of the comrades had been taken). The 5 are immediately imprisoned in La Dozza prison. Two girls are eventually put under house arrest.
 
That very night and the following morning the police search the houses of other comrades in Bologna with the pretext that they are searching for the disappeared handcuffs. 
 
In the evening a spontaneous march in solidarity to the arrested anarchists is carried out. Some of the demonstrators decide to express their solidarity also through 'dangerous' writings on the walls of the town. Caught by Digos officers, they are arrested and tried summarily: Juan and Bogu are sentenced to 10 months and taken to prison whereas Davide, Alessio and Belle are sentenced to 4 months and put under house arrest. 
 
All the arrested anarchists are inflicted high surveillance regime and censorship on their mail.
 
In the following months, Cristian, Federico, Andrea, Madda, Manuela and Bogu are unlocked and put under house arrest without the possibility (in Bogu's case) to receive mail, make telephone calls and see anyone who doesn't live in the house. Juan, on the contrary, is still in jail and has been transferred from one prison to another a number of times. At the moment he is being held in Poggioreale prison (Naples).
 
In February 2008 another three anarchists are arrested (house arrest) following the same investigation concerning the former.
 
These are the latest in a long series of episodes that in recent months have brought about the adoption of suffocating repressive measures in Bologna. Prohibitions of all sorts are imposed all over the city and the centre is constantly patrolled by a massive presence of police. Houses and social squats are being evicted, camps of gipsy people are being demolished with excavators and all forms of social and political dissent are being criminalized. This is done in the name of 'social security' and to solve so called 'social uneasiness', topics that have been filling the front pages of the press with the intent of stirring a sense of social fear in the citizens and divert their attention from real problems, and of fomenting an atmosphere of cynicism, indifference and resignation. Right now that it is governed by a 'leftist' major, Bologna seems to be once again a laboratory where more and more refined and widespread techniques of social control are being experimented. It is the mayor of Bologna the father of the 'security laws' approved by the committee of Italian majors and eventually adopted at a national level thanks to home secretary Amato. 
 
In fact the 'question of security', far from being a local problem, has become the tour de force of all politicians in Italy, and a subject that gives left-wing and right-wing politicians the opportunity to be engaged in a game in which everyone tries to propose the most suitable solutions to suppress freedom. Day by day intolerance towards the 'weakest' categories is growing up. A system based on authoritarian subjugation establishes who are those to be protected and who are those to be persecuted, and inevitably exposes the excluded to cowardly violence: from the attacks against gypsy camps and the community of immigrants in general to the use of total institutions (prisons and psychiatric hospitals) and the more and more frequent raids carried out by gangs of neo fascists. 
 
This progressive and obvious devastation of social relationships is not carried out at random. On the contrary, we think it demonstrates that a well-thought process of restoration of order is under way, a process that is making giant steps in order to change the rules of this 'democratic' State. It is not a restoration directed to the past, it is rather a condition necessary to consolidate a political, economic and social system, which is strategically based on war. In fact, while the armies of all western States (including the British and the Italian ones) are engaged into massacring the poorest populations in order to 'export democracy' in every corner of the world, the suppression of any space where opposition and dissent can express themselves has become absolute priority at all levels, from the international one to the local one: massive militarisation of urban space, increase in the number of prisoners, deportation of immigrants and shameless persecution of all social struggles, from workers' strikes to squatting of houses, from protests against eco-devastation to opposition to war. Obviously the most persecuted are those who openly declare themselves enemies of the State and its social order. 
 
Those people who don't let themselves be deceived by the propaganda of the regime can therefore recognize the real causes of 'insecurity' and 'social uneasiness'. 
 
Deaths at work and fires in workplaces that are occurring in Italy almost on a daily basis cause more dead and injured than any criminal activity. At the same time the impoverishment hitting most people does not depend on thefts and robberies but on wages that are more and more inadequate to the cost of living.
 
The real insecurity is caused by the constant growth of precarious jobs, which are paid very poorly and do not offer any safeguard, by continuous dismissal of workers (due to the transfer abroad of businesses, where labour force is cheap enough according to the bosses' needs), by unaffordable renting prices and by a welfare that cannot offer anything, on the contrary: in Italy people die because of wrong sanitary treatment or get intoxicated by rubbish left to accumulate in the streets.
 
This is not only an Italian story: repressive strategies and social control aimed at preventing the excluded and exploited to unite against their common enemy are being adopted everywhere. 
 
This story, therefore, concerns all of us. 
 
SOLIDARITY TO THE ARRESTED IN BOLOGNA
LET'S PUT FIRE TO ALL PRISONS
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Dear friend,

SAVE THE PIGEONS OF VENICE!

I am writing to ask you to help prevent a plan to starve to death many 
thousands of pigeons in and around Venice's St Mark's Square.

For generations, locals and tourists alike have bought food from eighteen 
licensed corn sellers on the Square and fed the semi-domesticated flock.

Over the years, just as in Trafalgar Square, the birds have come to depend 
on this food source for their survival.  And, just as in Trafalgar Square, 
Venice's Mayor, Massimo Cacciari, is planning to outlaw the feed sellers 
from 1st May.  Even the traditional throwing of rice at weddings at Palazzo 
Cavalli, the nearby registry office, will be criminalised.

With the feeding of pigeons in the areas surrounding St Mark's Square 
already illegal, mass starvation amongst the birds is inevitable.

Mayor Cacciari is going further.  Already his officials are trapping large 
numbers of these trusting, semi-tame birds and breaking their necks. 
Incredibly, the barbarism even has the support of the Chief of Police, 
Marco Agostini, who described the birds as "unbearable".

Please email or write to Mayor Cacciari urgently, urging him to halt the 
culling and to abandon his plans to ban the sale of pigeon food.

Email:               sindaco at comune.venezia.it
Postal Address:   Comune di Venezia
Ca Farsetti
San Marco 4136
Venezia
Italy

Thanks for caring.

Yours for the birds,


SAVE THE TRAFALGAR SQUARE PIGEONS
 
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/17/wrom117.xml
 
Horses left to starve after Romania bans carts

By Gethin Chamberlain in Galati, Romania
Last Updated: 3:30am GMT 26/02/2008
 
Ribs showing clearly through their tattered flanks, the starving horses corralled on the edge of the eastern Romanian city of Galati are just a few days away from death.
·  In pictures: Romania's abandoned horses 
Once, they would have pulled wooden carts along the city's streets or worked in the fields, as horses have done in Romania for centuries. But now they have been abandoned by their owners, victims of a disastrous attempt to bring the country into line with European Union law by banning horse-drawn carts from main roads.
Over the past month, hundreds of stray horses have been found roaming the streets and parks of Romania's major cities. Many are half-starved and barely able to walk; some have died where they were discovered, unable to get back to their feet.
Pitifully thin and bearing the scars of frequent beatings, the horses rounded up in Galati will be sent to the slaughterhouse within days unless someone comes forward to claim them, or to offer them new homes. But there is little demand for an ailing animal in a country where an estimated one million working horses have been officially labelled an anachronism.
Some owners have decided it is cheaper to dump the animals than to keep them, since the cost of feeding a horse is now about £80 a month. Many people living in the countryside earn just £50 a month.
"People only care about exploiting the animal," said Corina Daniela Grigore, who runs the Help Labus animal welfare group in Galati, home to Romania's giant Mittal steel plant.
"They think that if it is no use to them any more they can just set it loose."
She said the authorities were struggling to cope with the scale of the problem and were turning to private groups for help.
"We had a call to say there was a sick horse next to the steel plant," she said. "We had to rent a truck to pick him up and we looked after him for four days, but his legs were injured and he could not get up off the ground. We had to watch him die."
Similar stories have emerged across Romania after police started to enforce laws banning carts from the roads in order to bring Romania into line with European road safety legislation.
Romanian police, who say they were under pressure from the EU to cut accident figures, blame horse-drawn carts for 10 per cent of the country's 8,400 serious road accidents last year.
Chief Commissioner Carol Varna, head of the Romanian police traffic safety department, said that more than 1,000 carts had been seized since officers started to enforce the law.
"There are some owners who just let their horses go when they cannot afford them any more," he said.
In the past month, at least 15 horses have been found abandoned in the centre of the capital, Bucharest.
Elsewhere in the country, campaigners have been told of animals pushed into ditches and beaten to death with sticks. Television news reports showing abandoned horses dying in the snow prompted 200,000 people to sign a petition calling for a new government body to look after animals.
Calin Alexandru, a vet who is co-ordinating Bucharest's attempts to deal with the problem, said it was a struggle to find homes for the horses. "We are seeing more and more abandoned," she said. "We cannot find their owners."
In response to the outcry, the government is introducing tough fines and jail sentences for anyone found to have beaten or abandoned a horse.
But horse owners, who face fines of up to £100 and the confiscation of both their cart and their animal if they are caught on main roads, believe that it is the end of a way of life.
Vasile Adresana, 25, said he had no choice but to get rid of his horse when the police started cracking down on the roads around his home town of Roman, in the north-east of the country.
"I used to work gathering wood which I would sell, but the government introduced these laws under EU pressure. Everyone ignored them for a while, but when the police started enforcing the laws there were many roads that I was no longer allowed to travel on with my cart.
"There was not enough thought given to the consequences."
His wife Miheala, 23, said one of their neighbours had kept his horse, but only because he could no longer get rid of it legally. "The animal is all skin and bone and he beats it all the time - he can't use it for anything and he gets frustrated, but it's not the horse's fault."
John Ross, a British equestrian who arranges riding holidays in Transylvania, said that the police were too quick to blame animals for the high accident statistics.
"The ban was slipped in stealthily," he said. "There are some villages where farmers cannot legally get to their fields any more."
. Additional reporting: Carmiola Ionescu in Bucharest

http://www.survival-international.org/news/2888

Penan receive death threats
9 JANUARY 2008

A small community of Penan tribal people in Sarawak, Malaysia, report  
that an official from the company logging their forests has threatened  
them with death.

The Penan say that the official, from the Malaysian company Samling,  
told them, ?If you people try to stop our plans, we will kill you.?  
The Penan have spent many years opposing the destruction of their land  
by Samling and other companies.

The Penan community of Long Data Bila is inside an area claimed by the  
Penan in a major land rights case, which has been awaiting trial since  
1998. Penan leader Kelesau Naan, who was recently found dead, was one  
of the four plaintiffs in the case. His relatives suspect he may have  
been murdered due to his opposition to the logging.

Commenting on the death of Kelesau Naan, Yap Swee Seng of human rights  
group Suara Rakyat Malaysia said, ?This .. development in Sarawak is  
worrying as it points to the taking root of the practice of enforced  
disappearance and extra-judicial killings, two of the most serious  
form of human rights violations.
 
--------------------------------------------------------- 
 
19. Jan 2008 - Elburgon / Kenya - WTN

Horrible reports from Elburgon speak of police and para-military units
hunting members of the Ogiek community, whom they allegedly blame for
the death of one police officer. Security personnel, however, could not
provide any evidence that the Ogiek are involved in this case at all.
The officer was shot in the head with an arrow.

Though the Ogiek, one of the hunter-gatherer tribes of  Kenya, regularly
carry bows and arrows to maintain their marginalized life while
collecting mainly honey and wild fruits from the forest, many other
peoples living in the area, like Kikuyu, Maasai and Kalenjin have armed
themselves with such traditional weapons since the post-election
skirmishes broke out in Kenya three weeks ago. After that police officer
died in hospital, a manhunt has been launched now to find the culprit,
but during the mayhem of the the search in the vast forests around
Mariashoni mainly the indigenous Ogiek are suffering from police brutality.

Last night more than 20 houses belonging to resident Ogiek in Mariashoni
/ Mau Forest were torched and burned to the ground by groups of Kikuyu
youth, who apparently did this after the Ogiek had fled from the houses
in order not to be entangeled in the police operation.  The Kikuyu youth
allegedly receive protection from the security personnel and could
launch the arsonist attack against the Ogiek while security personnel was
watching.

Roadblocks errected by Kikuyu youth along the road to Elburgon have so
far made it impossible for Human Rights lawyers to reach the zone.

Please see also www.ogiek.org  and support the relief aid to the Ogiek

www.ecoterra-international.org
 
Dear Friends:

We continue to chip away at the bus, will take some time yet. 
Your donation can help with this effort.

www.akha.org

There are quite a few things going on.
For one, Thailand has started a new drug war, promising it to be a killing show for the media. There have been no prosecutions of innocent people killed in 2003.
As the new PM says, if they were innocent, why did they die?

The US government has resumed military aid to Thailand. This is the reward for being lawless. The DEA is well established in Thailand and is no friend to the hill tribe. The Thai government would prefer to blame any woe on the hill tribe and drug problems are no exception.

The Thai Government says that the drug war will focus on Bangkok and border areas, which of course means the mountains in many cases and that means the hill tribe peoples.
 
-------------------------------------------------

How Can A Dying Man Pose A Security threat?
By Roi Mandel
Ynetnews

Na'al al-Kurdi, 21, from Gaza is dying of cancer; for the past four
months Na'al has been waiting for a permit from the State of Israel to
enter the country in order to receive medical care in one of its
hospitals. This permit has not been granted so far due to "security
concerns."

On Monday the High Court has ordered the State to reexamine its
decision regarding the transfer of seven Palestinian patients from
Gaza into Israel for treatment, and issue a decision on the matter
within one week.

The High Court's ruling came following a petition by Physicians for
Human Rights filed last week. Some of the organization's members said
they were astonished by the state's refusal to allow people in
critical condition to enter Israel on the pretense that they posed a
security threat.

The group petitioned the court last Thursday and requested that 11
patients in critical condition be allowed entry into Israel, or
passage to the West Bank or Jordan in order to receive life-saving
treatment there.

On Monday morning, shortly before the High Court handed down its
ruling on the petition, the Shin Bet declared it would allow four of
the 11 patients entry into the country.

'Can't even stand up'

One of those whose entry has been banned is Na'al, who suffers from a
carcinogenic tumor in his testicles. Na'al has undergone chemotherapy
at the Shifa hospital in Gaza, but last July his doctors recommended
that he undergo further tests at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

However, Na'al has not been able to obtain an entry permit, despite a
medical opinion supporting the move from the head of the Radiotherapy
Unit at the Wolfson hospital in Holon, Prof Eyal Pfenig.

Recently, Na'al's condition has deteriorated, and several days ago his
doctors found secondary growths in his liver and diagnosed him with
cholestatic injury related to jaundice.

Two other medical opinions by prominent Israeli physicians stated that
without urgent treatment, Na'al faces a painful deterioration in his
condition that would inevitably lead to his death.

PHR stressed that Na'al could no longer even stand up, let alone walk,
and wondered how a man in such state could be branded by the Shin Bet
a security risk.
 
AFGHANISTAN: Unable To Cope With Returning Refugees
By Anand Gopal
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41450

Afghan refugees return to camps like this in Kabul, with no 
prospects. 

Credit:Anand Gopal/IPS 

KABUL, Mar 4 (IPS) - The rate of return of refugees to Afghanistan 
from neighbouring countries is causing tremendous stress to the 
Afghan government and society, government officials here say. 

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees 
(UNHCR), in 2007 alone the Iranian government deported over 360,000 
Afghans, most of whom struggled to find adequate housing and social 
services. In addition, thousands more have returned to their home 
country voluntarily, assisted by UNHCR and government programmes. 

Shir Mohammed Etibari, head of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and 
Returnees, recently told reporters that the Afghan government does 
not have the capacity to absorb the large numbers returning from 
Iran and elsewhere. Officials here worry that the influx of refugees 
has sparked food, housing and job shortages and fuels resentment 
against the government. 

"We are trying to come to an agreement with Iran, because we are not 
able to provide for all of these refugees," says Abdul Qader Zazai, 
chief advisor to Etibari. 

Millions of Afghans fled their homes because of the decade-long 
Soviet occupation, subsequent civil war and the rise of the Taliban. 
According to UNHCR spokesman Ahmed Nadir Farhad, for decades Afghans 
constituted the world's largest refugee population -- at the height 
of the exodus, up to eight million Afghans were living outside their 
country, mainly in Iran and Pakistan. 

While aid agencies say that the rate of voluntary return has slowed 
due to the worsening economic and security situation, Iran is 
deporting large numbers and Pakistan is beginning to do so. 

The former refugees say that they are returning to a bleak 
situation, where a lack of social services, job and food insecurity 
have sparked disillusionment with the Karzai administration. "It is 
very difficult to find a job," Daoud, 35, a returned refugee from 
Pakistan, tells IPS. "Without a job, we have many problems. Since 
the government has not given us help, we can't afford most things. 
My daughter is sick but I don't have money to go to the doctor." 

The U.S. reports that Afghanistan's unemployment rate is at least 40 
percent, and rising every year. Kabul's population has swelled from 
an estimated 500,000 in 2001 to over three million, according to the 
Afghan Central Statistics Office, and returning refugees comprise 
the bulk of this increase. But employment opportunities under the 
Karzai administration and international presence are at numbers 
nowhere near the number of job seekers, fuelling widespread 
discontent. 

In addition, skyrocketing food prices threaten to push thousands 
into hunger. While the problem affects all Afghans, it hits the 
refugee communities the hardest. "We have nine people in my family," 
says Mohammed Tazib, 35. "During this winter, we can't support our 
family. Middlemen hoard the food and only sell it when the prices 
increase. We don't have enough money to get all of the goods we 
need. The government doesn't pass any laws to control the price of 
goods. The dignitaries in power -- especially Hamid Karzai -- have 
not even paid attention." 

The returning refugees also bring an additional problem to 
Afghanistan's streets - drug addiction. Iran has one of the highest 
drug addiction rates in the world, and thousands of Afghan refugees 
pick up the habit and spread it to their friends and family back 
home. 

Afghanistan now has close to one million addicts, transforming a 
country known to be relatively addiction free into one of the 
fastest growing drug populations in the world. 

Zakih, 33, returned from Iran six months ago. "When I was working in 
Iran," he recalls, "we worked very hard all day. At the end of the 
day, my boss, who was Iranian, gave me some drugs and said 'take 
them -- you will feel better'". 

Hundreds of addicts like Zakih live in abandoned parks and bombed-
out buildings around Kabul. Most are jobless and are forced to beg 
and steal to earn their drug money. 

"When someone is drug dependent and has no money, anyone can buy 
him," says Jehenzeb Khan, director of the United Nations Office of 
Drugs and Crime Demand Reduction Programme. "They are vulnerable to 
insurgents, petty criminals, and others." 

"This is directly affecting the health of the society," he 
adds. "When so much of the youth are addicted, it is difficult to 
rebuild our society." 

While the government cites a lack of resources, many insist that 
supporting the refugees is possible if the Karzai administration and 
foreign forces focused on developing social services and not just on 
waging counterinsurgency. 

"The Americans are more interested in killing their enemies than 
rebuilding the country," says one Afghan media worker, who requested 
anonymity. Washington currently spends close to ten US dollars on 
the war effort for every dollar spent on reconstruction. 

According to a recent report by the aid watchdog Action Aid, 
international "donors have failed to deliver money pledged for aid, 
distributing five billion dollars less than promised between 2002 
and 2006." 

Experts say that the trends augur ill for the future of the Afghan 
government. A U.N. news agency recently reported that the lack of 
economic prospects is driving poor youths into the hands of the 
Taliban and fuelling the insurgency. 

In the ghettos and makeshift refugee camps that dot Kabul, things 
have not yet reached this point. But the residents here agree that 
something must be done. "Government vehicles drive by our camp every 
day, without stopping." Daoud says. "We have too many problems -- we 
just can't continue like this."
 
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/01/010208iraq.htm

Iraq Prisoner Amnesty To Exclude Gays
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff 
Posted: January 2, 2008 - 11:00 am ET
(Baghdad) The Iraq government is considering the release of some 5,000 prisoners but a spokesperson said it would not include terrorists or homosexuals.
The Iraqi government has about 20,000 people in custody, while the U.S. military holds about 25,000.
Homosexuality itself is not illegal in Iraq, but police regularly arrest gays on other charges often trumped up.
The amnesty bill drafted by the Shiite-dominated government falls far short of Sunni demands. About the only thing on which the two sides agree is that imprisoned gays not be freed.
The amnesty would cover less than a quarter of the total number of people held in Iraqi prisons, and none of those held by the American military.
Sunni parliamentarians have criticized the bill for its limited scope. They have argued that most prisoners are charged with terrorist crimes, rendering it ineffective. Some also fear referring the bill to Iraq's gridlocked parliament will actually delay prisoner releases.
The total number of gays being held is not known. And, they may be the lucky ones, according to some LGBT activists.
Death squads imposing strict Islamic law are reportedly responsible for the murders of hundreds of gay men across Iraq.
Last year the leader of an exiled Iraqi LGBT rights group told a London conference on homophobia that that militias blamed for the murders of hundreds of gay men and women are sanctioned by the government and the US-led coalition is doing little to stop the killings. (story)
Ali Hili said that the Badr and Sadr militias - the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq - are routinely rounding up men and women, primarily in Baghdad, suspected of being gay. The men and women are never heard from again.
Five members of Hili's own group were taken away in November of 2006.  About a dozen members of Rainbow For Life, another Iraqi LGBT group also have been seized and are presumed dead.
Another 70 have been threatened with kidnapping Rainbow For Life has said.
In 2006 the Iraq government strongly criticized a U.N. report on human rights that put its civilian death toll in 2006 at 34,452, saying it is "superficial" because it included people such as homosexuals.
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