[Onthebarricades] Repression news, August 2008

[global resistance roundup]

United States

* Sharpton, activists convicted over road blocks
* Texas - amid protest, ban lifted on dorm displays
* RNC protesters face "terror" charges (later dropped)
* Women targeted for prosecution in nonviolent port protests
* Execution despite problems finding vein
* Judge dismisses case against "11-year-old terrorist"
* Charges dismissed against lawyer in port protest
* Abortion tax protester convicted
* No convictions so far in Denver protest cases, money wasted
* Inquiry sought on brutality against veteran protesters
* Olympia May Day activist arrested twice
* Elderly women get eviction notices for protesting
* Convictions for Rove arrest

Global North

* UK: Animal rights protesters raided for banner drop as use of raids to 
persecute spreads
* AUSTRALIA: Palm Island resident sues over violent arrest
* AUSTRIA: Human rights under threat in animal rights raids
* MACEDONIA - GREECE: Detention of journalists protested
* NORTHERN IRELAND: Draconian punishment for legitimate prison resistance
* UK: Rightist columnist wises up to police state
* UK: Police seek to extend stop-and-search terror even further
* SPAIN: Galician independence activists on trial
* NEW ZEALAND: Jailed for website
* ISRAEL - PALESTINE: Olive grove defenders arrested
* ITALY: Vindictive statists still chase dissidents on decades-old 
allegations
* AUSTRALIA: Police violence, repression at parties
* AUSTRALIA: State persecution causes panic attack, hospitalisation for 
Palm Island repression victim

Global South

* INDONESIA: Bali - sex worker crackdown drives workers itno villages, 
spreads HIV
* TURKEY: Police violence, killing cause for concern
* MALAYSIA: Hindu protest group banned
* PHILIPPINES: Threat to deport migrants for protesting
* WEST PAPUA: Australians jailed for sightseeing
* AUSTRALIA - INDONESIA: Criticism of Australian govt's complicity in 
state murder
* LAOS: Repression against Hmong protesters
* KOREA: Police arrest website owner for encouraging protests
* KOREA: Protester jailed for internet rumours
* SINGAPORE: Convictions for peaceful protest
* BURMA: Long jail sentences for oppositionists
* TAIWAN: Accusations of repression at protests
* MEXICO: Police arrested for protest killings
* MEXICO: New cover-up attempt over Brad Will killing
* EGYPT: Broadcaster under attack for showing protest pics
* TUNISIA: Attacks on free expression, human rights activists
* DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Migrant biometric surveillance planned
* JORDAN: Writers protest indictment of poet for blasphemy
* KENYA: Parents blamed over school uprisings, "discipline" demanded
* KENYA: State bans mobile phones in schools over uprising
* KENYA: Protesting students allowed to sit exams - but not to mix with 
colleagues
* BAHRAIN: Repressive arrangements for protester appeal
* KOREA: Continuing concerns about repressive protest law












http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/260940

In protest of the shooting, Al Sharpton rallied his troops and brought 
several roadways to a halt in May when the officers were acquitted on 
all charges earlier this year. The group's rally for Sean Bell blocked 
blocking the streets and entrances to the Triborough, Manhattan, and 
Brooklyn bridges. More than two-hundred were arrested for disorderly 
conduct, including Sharpton and Bell's parents, but only eight of those 
charges stuck.

Yesterday, Al Sharpton and his cohorts, who were arrested and charged, 
were found guilty of disorderly conduct. The guilty verdict in this case 
is not a criminal offense.

Since they were locked up following the May incident, the judge ordered 
the sentence as time served. They were each ordered to pay a $95 US 
court fee as well, for which Sharpton has graciously volunteered to pick 
up the tab for all of the disorderly conducteers. And according to the 
New York Times, Judge Larry R. Stephen explained his verdict:
[he was] “sympathetic to the underlying causes which gave rise to the 
protests and demonstrations,” he added, “The evidence is overwhelming.”

“My view is, if you decide to take a bullet for the team, you should not 
complain about the consequences that flow from that act,” Judge Stephen 
said.

Sharpton, however, continued with his justification over the protest:
“I hope the city would think about how the pedestrians who couldn’t walk 
that day, and the drivers who couldn’t drive, were no different than the 
three young men who sat in the car that day and were shot at”
while others saw the verdict as injustice saying “For the judge to find 
us guilty of any crime when the police were found not guilty of 
anything, there’s no justice.”





http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-utsigns_10tex.ART.State.Edition1.4b273ed.html

Amid protests, ban lifted on dorm displays at University of Texas
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, October 10, 2008
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
kmbrooks at dallasnews.com
AUSTIN – Students at the University of Texas at Austin will be allowed 
to put political signs in their dormitory windows, officials decided 
Thursday, reversing a policy that had caused a growing uproar across 
campus in recent days.
UT leaders also decided to lift the punishment of two students who had 
been barred from registering for spring classes for refusing to remove 
their Barack Obama signs from their dorm window. They had argued that 
they had a right to political expression in their homes.
The policy, in place for more than 15 years, bans signs of any kind in 
windows – for aesthetic reasons, officials say – but allows students to 
put them up on doors, inside the halls and on other parts of campus.
A new rule was put in place Thursday allowing the signs until a 
committee created by UT President William Powers Jr. can look at the 
policy and recommend changes.
"I am keenly aware that this prohibition is of intense concern to many 
members of the student body, as well as the larger community," Mr. 
Powers said in an e-mail to students. "I believe that the free 
expression of ideas is crucial to our educational mission and that our 
rules should foster civil discourse and debate."
The news was welcomed by students from all sides of the political spectrum.
"Fantastic!" said Ashley Crutchfield, who had removed her McCain/Palin 
sign for fear of being kicked out of her dorm. "I will absolutely be 
putting my sign back up in my window, and I think this is, for the time 
being, excellent."
The university maintains that the policy is legal because the school 
offers plenty of alternatives for students to practice their free-speech 
rights.
But the adamant protests of the College Republicans, University 
Democrats and other students caused officials to rethink the policy, 
said Jeff Graves of the Office of Legal Affairs.
On Wednesday evening, cousins and roommates Connor and Blake Kincaid 
were barred from registering after being told during an on-campus 
hearing that they'd be punished if they didn't remove the signs. Connor 
Kincaid and his father, Austin attorney Mark Kincaid, were prepared to 
take the policy all the way to court, the 20-year-old sophomore music 
major said.
Student groups were encouraging all dorm students to put up signs in 
their dorm windows as a form of civil disobedience, hoping to force the 
university to hold thousands of hearings between now and Election Day. 
The school's decision Thursday avoided that – for now.
"This is a victory for us, a victory for students, and it shows what 
happens when you get the College Republicans and University Democrats 
working together," said Zack Hall, president of the University 
Democrats. "I wish that could happen a little more in Washington.
"But we still have a lot of work to do to make sure this isn't just a 
policy for the interim," he said.





http://www.workers.org/2008/us/rnc_1009/

‘Terrorism’ charges levied against RNC protesters
By Tyneisha Bowens
Published Oct 4, 2008 10:05 PM
For four days in September the top-ranking members of the Republican 
Party staged their national convention in St. Paul, Minn., to officially 
announce the presidential and vice presidential candidacies of John 
McCain and Sarah Palin. While corporate interests and corrupt local 
politicians welcomed the Republicans with open arms, the citizens of the 
Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul organized mass protests and 
pockets of resistance all over the city.
In preparation for the protests and plans to shut down the Republican 
National Convention, the city of St. Paul was given $50 million for 
security, which it used to terrorize protesters and residents of the 
Twin Cities before and during the RNC. Harassment included preemptive 
raids on private homes and public meeting spaces with no warrants or 
legal reasoning; the arrests of 800 protesters, journalists and locals; 
brutality and torture in the jails and detention centers where 
protesters were held; and the use of gas, concussion bombs, pepper 
spray, rubber bullets and marker ammunition on protesters.
Of the 800 arrested, eight—Monica Bicking, Robert Czernik, Garrett 
Fitzgerald, Luce Guillen-Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Max 
Spector and Eryn Timmer—are being charged with “conspiracy to commit 
riot in furtherance of terrorism.” This is the first use of this charge, 
under the USA Patriot Act. The charge is a second-degree felony that 
could result in several years in prison for these eight brave organizers.
The eight are members of the Welcoming Committee, an 
anarchist/anti-authoritarian group that organized activities to shut 
down the RNC. Their arrests took place on Aug. 30 and Sept 1, six of 
them in raids of homes and public meeting spaces.
It is clear that the RNC 8 are political targets being used to set a 
repressive precedent against organizers and activists across the 
country. The U.S government is setting the stage for mass repression of 
movements for social and economic justice by equating activism to 
terrorism. This can be seen in the arrests and charges of the eight as 
well as the new presence of an active military unit, fresh from Iraq, 
which has been placed within U.S. borders to put down acts of “civil 
unrest” and subdue groups and individuals.
Organizers across the country are mobilizing support for the RNC 8 
through fundraising for legal expenses, letters of support, building 
awareness locally and nationally as well as putting pressure on 
Minnesota elected officials to drop the charges and free the eight. 
Their trials are underway at the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center in 
St. Paul.
This is the time to stand together against the repression of our right 
to call out and act against injustice, our right to stand up against 
oppression, war and poverty. It is time for us to call for justice for 
the RNC 8 and all political prisoners.
For more information on the RNC 8 and their trial dates visit rnc8.org.
________________________________________
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and 
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without 
royalty provided this notice is preserved.






http://www.olyblog.net/women-targeted-prosecution-nonviolent-port-protests

Women Targeted for Prosecution in Non-Violent Port Protests
Submitted by listening on Sun, 10/26/2008 - 5:12pm.
(Olympia, WA 10/25/08) Prosecutors have brought charges against twenty- 
six people arrested during a non-violent women's protest in November, 2007.
Thoughtful, Moral Demonstrations
For two weeks in November, hundreds of demonstrators blocked military 
equipment from moving through their publicly owned port. On November 
13th, 39 women were arrested during a non-violent demonstration in 
solidarity with each other, women nationally, and the women in Iraq. 
Patty Imani, one of those charged, said Friday: "Thousands of women have 
been killed in Iraq. It's obscene that the city's response is to jail 
those of us who were only trying to stop more from dying." The women in 
Olympia saw the suffering that the United States' occupation of Iraq was 
causing, to the Iraqi people and particularly to the women of Iraq. The 
protest was carefully planned to bring attention to how the war has 
effected the lives of women in Iraq and the United States.
Inappropriate Prosecution
The City has waited nearly a year to bring these charges, and has 
suspiciously brought these new charges less than a week after their 
other cases against port protesters were dismissed. Also, prosecutors 
have a history of targeting women and people of color in protest cases. 
Twenty-six demonstrators have been singled out for prosecution, 25 of 
whom are women.
A Call for Solidarity
Those being prosecuted are calling for solidarity and support from all 
those who are concerned that women and people of color are being 
targeted for carrying out their constitutionally protected right to 
non-violently dissent. Defendants are available to speak to the press.





http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008310434_apwaportprotest.html

October 25, 2008 at 8:50 AM | Page modified October 25, 2008 at 8:50 AM
E-mail article Print view
Charges filed against 26 Wash. demonstrators
Thurston County prosecutors have filed misdemeanor charges against 26 of 
the 42 anti-war demonstrators who were arrested at the Port of Olympia 
protesting Fort Lewis-Iraq war shipments.
OLYMPIA, Wash. —
Thurston County prosecutors have filed misdemeanor charges against 26 of 
the 42 anti-war demonstrators who were arrested at the Port of Olympia 
protesting Fort Lewis-Iraq war shipments.
Each of the 26 was charged Friday with one count of attempted disorderly 
conduct and one count of obstructing a law enforcement officer. Most of 
those charged were women.
For one week in November, protesters blocked shipments of Stryker 
vehicles and other military cargo from the Port of Olympia to Fort 
Lewis. The military equipment was used in the Iraq war.
Larry Hildes, a lawyer, said he was angry the charges were filed so 
close to the one-year statute of limitations running out.
Hildes said some of the women who were arrested Nov. 13 were forced to 
disrobe in plain view of policemen at the Olympia City Jail.
Thurston County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jon Tunheim said the charges 
were brought against the 26 protesters after a review of video and 
photographic evidence and the police reports his officer had received.







http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10537716&ref=rss

Murderer's protests prove in vain
4:00AM Thursday Oct 16, 2008

Richard Cooey. Photo / AP
LUCASVILLE - The first convict to die by lethal injection in Ohio in 
more than a year argued to the end that his obesity would make it 
difficult for prison staff to find suitable veins in his arms to deliver 
the deadly chemicals.
During preparations for his execution yesterday, Richard Cooey shouted 
for one of his lawyers as prison staff tried to insert a shunt in his 
left arm.
"He was worried that we were on the brink of another botched execution," 
said Greg Meyers, a lawyer with the Ohio Public Defender's Office.
There were no difficulties, said a spokesman for the Southern Ohio 
Correctional Facility, where Cooey was executed for killing two 
University of Akron students in 1986. He was one of two people executed 
in the United States yesterday.
Cooey, who stood 1.7m and weighed 121kg, said in numerous legal filings 
that his obesity made death by lethal injection inhumane. Problems 
finding veins had delayed other executions in Ohio.
- AP






http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/01/15/gharani_guantanamo/index.html

Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 17:35 EST
Judge not buying feds' case against 11-year-old terrorist
It's no secret that the government doesn't exactly have ironclad cases 
against some of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Even so, actually 
seeing the flimsiness of one of these cases is shocking -- it would be 
funny if it weren't so devastatingly sad.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the release of 
detainee Mohammed El Gharani. The feds argued that Gharani, a 
21-year-old born in Chad, had traveled to Afghanistan to train and fight 
with al-Qaida.
While there turns out to be little evidence for this claim, it's at 
least vaguely plausible. The government’s other accusation against 
Gharani, however, is laughable. He's alleged to have been a member of a 
London-based al-Qaida cell, but at the time the government claims this 
happened he was 11, and living in Saudi Arabia. This prompted Leon to write:
Putting aside the obvious and unanswered questions as to how a Saudi 
minor from a very poor family could have even become a member of a 
London-based cell, the government simply advances no corroborating 
evidence for these statements it believes to be reliable from a fellow 
detainee, the basis of whose knowledge is -- at best -- unknown.
This brings up another topic in the news about Guantanamo recently. In 
response to the discussions about the time it will take the Obama 
administration to close the facility, conservatives have taken to 
crowing that the president-elect's going to have a hard time reconciling 
high-minded liberal ideals about the rule of law with the harsh reality 
of the situation. (Call it the “You can’t handle the truth” argument.)
Here, for example, is the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb:
Barack Obama has come up with a clever strategy on Gitmo -- order the 
closure of the U.S. prison there and take the next one to eight years 
figuring out how best to implement the new policy. The left has given 
him a pass on this as they will give him a pass on just about anything 
for the foreseeable future, but the implication is clear: Obama has no 
idea what to do with men... who pose a very real threat to the American 
people but cannot be convicted in federal court for the crimes they have 
already committed.
Of course, there are people in Guantanamo who constitute a graver threat 
than Gharani does. But this case is the kind of thing that should at 
least make people like Goldfarb think a little harder about the argument 
they're making in favor of keeping the prison open.
― Gabriel Winant







http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/261591

The New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench has ruled that a man convicted 
last fall of not paying income tax because he refuses to be part of 
government funding for abortions must pay his taxes.
Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

David Little has lost his appeal before the New Brunswick Court of 
Queen's Bench. Little is a devout Roman Catholic and stopped filing tax 
returns and paying taxes years ago to protest against government-funded 
abortions.

In a court in Fredericton, NB, Little, representing himself, argued his 
conviction last year on three counts of not paying his income taxes 
should be overturned because it violates his religious beliefs under the 
Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Little made a two-and-a-half hour submission before Judge Hugh McLellan. 
The presentation included quotes from the Bible and his strong belief 
that abortion is "an abomination."

The judge interrupted him twice reminding Little he should stick to 
legal arguments, not moral, religious or political ones.

The judge ruled that despite Little's intense beliefs, he did not show 
any legal error by the judge who convicted him and dismissed the appeal.

"The first time any court does something on such a precedent, it's of 
considerable importance. So we've always felt along the road it's going 
to end up in the Supreme Court," Little said.

Little had pro bono help from a lawyer who believes in his cause, but 
did not identify the lawyer, saying only that he was from outside the 
country.

Little is confident he will win his case, and that it will force the 
Canadian government to change its laws on abortion.

"I'm gonna be in jail until I rot, because I'm never gonna file again 
until the law's changed," Little said.

His goal has from the mid-1990s been to be charged with tax evasion to 
raise the profile of his cause.

Little has a website to raise money for his defence and has moved his 
family to Alberton in western P.E.I. in May of this year because 
abortions are not performed in Island hospitals. Little is supported by 
several wealthy benefactors.





http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/633944.html

Charges dismissed against Olympia lawyer during anti-war protest
The Associated Press | • Published October 25, 2008
TACOMA – Charges against an Olympia lawyer who refused to show 
identification during an anti-war protest at the Port of Tacoma have 
been dismissed.
The lawyer for Legrand Jones had argued that it's not a crime to refuse 
to identify yourself to police.
Attorney William Ferrell said police were stopping people without cause 
during the July protest to gather information and discourage demonstrators.
The Tacoma News Tribune reports that Municipal Court Judge Karl Haugh 
also dismissed a trespassing charge Thursday against Jones, who was 
accused of approaching a port fence with a "no trespassing" sign.
Ferrell argued that such signs usually mean the area on the other side 
of the fence is off limits, not the area in front of the fence.





http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/17795540/detail.html

No Convictions So Far For Denver Convention Protesters
Charges Dropped In 7 Cases, Jurors Deadlocked In 2 Cases
POSTED: 10:35 am MDT October 24, 2008
UPDATED: 10:50 am MDT October 24, 2008

DENVER -- Denver prosecutors have come up empty-handed against the first 
nine protesters facing trials stemming from the Democratic convention.
The city attorney dropped charges against seven protesters who faced 
trials this week. Jurors deadlocked on the other two, and a judge threw 
out one of them, saying "no reasonable person" would convict the 
defendant in a second trial.
Prosecutors haven't decided whether to retry the other case.
More than 150 people were arrested in Denver between Aug. 23 and Aug. 28 
in convention-related incidents. Up to 60 were facing trials after they 
refused plea agreements.
City Attorney David Fine defended the prosecutions, he said some people 
on the deadlocked juries had voted for convictions.






http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/18589/NYCLU_seeks_probe_into_protest_melee_at_Hofstra_debate

NYCLU seeks probe into protest melee at Hofstra debate
Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:44:30 -0500
Summary:
Kudos to the New York Civil Liberties Union for taking up the case of 
anti-war protesters outside this week’s presidential debate.
While America’s next president was strutting his stuff inside Hofstra 
University, 350 American citizens were trying to resurrect the 
antiquated notion of democracy outside.
After being denied entry into the debate, representatives of Iraq 
Veterans Against the War and students were corralled by police. One 
attendee, Nick Morgan, sustained injuries to his cheek and was knocked 
unconscious when a police horse mounted the sidewalk on which he had 
been told to stand.
More importantly, the issues that protesters sought to air were largely 
absent from the “debate” – which international commentators seem to have 
decided was more about an obscure politically illiterate plumber named 
Joe, than the state of the world and America’s role in worsening it.
[Posted By Szamko]
By Patrick Whittle
Republished from Newsday
Police brutality meted out to veterans and students as presidential 
candidates debated
A day after an anti-war protester was injured in a melee with Nassau 
police outside the Hofstra presidential debate, the New York Civil 
Liberties Union called for the department to conduct an investigation 
into its use of horses to control the crowd.
The protester, Nicholas Morgan of Washington, D.C., was among 15 people 
charged with disorderly conduct. Morgan and 13 others are due in 
District Court in Hempstead on Nov. 10, while one protester pleaded not 
guilty yesterday. At least one other person was injured, but police said 
none of the injuries were serious.
The melee happened when police refused to allow a protest group, Iraq 
Veterans Against the War, into the debate. Mounted police pushed a group 
of about 200 protesters from various organizations away from the gates, 
inciting some demonstrators to push back. Morgan, 24, an Iraq War 
veteran, was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured cheekbone.
[end excerpt]








http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/599030.html

Man charged in Olympia May Day protest arrested again
THE OLYMPIAN | • Published September 28, 2008
• Comments (0)
Recommend (0)
A man arrested on suspicion of felony malicious mischief and riot during 
a May Day protest in downtown Olympia was arrested again Friday.

Daniel K. Wilson, 20, was arrested by Olympia police and booked into the 
city jail on suspicion of malicious mischief.
Olympia police say Wilson was taking part in a Critical Mass Ride when 
at about 5:50 p.m. an officer reportedly saw him write a profane message 
with a black marker on the side of a white box van. The van was parked 
on the north side of Legion Way and Adams Street.
Wilson was one of many bicyclists with the group Critical Mass that took 
to the streets during rush-hour, which caused traffic back-ups and 
delays for motorists, police said.
In the earlier arrest, Wilson was taken into custody along with two 
others who threw rocks, breaking windows at the Bank of America 
downtown. police allege.







http://www.mediaisland.org/en/seniors-get-eviction-notices-after-tree-protest

Seniors get eviction notices after tree protest
Submitted by pirate on Thu, 09/25/2008 - 16:06.
Sept 25, 2008 AP
SHREWSBURY, Mass. - Two elderly women who tied themselves to a crab 
apple tree to protest its removal say they're being evicted from their 
senior housing complex.
Lee Perrone, 74, and Pat Henry, 65, were protesting the Shrewsbury 
Housing Authority's decision to cut down the tree to make way for a 
trash bin. The women say the housing authority is now retaliating 
against them.
Henry said she spent seven consecutive days — about 10 hours a day — 
tied to the tree.
"It's a beautiful tree. It blooms. It's a beautiful sight we can see 
from our porches," she said.
Henry, Perrone and Ethel Casey, 85, last week tied themselves together 
with rope strung through patio chairs and around the tree, taking breaks 
for trips to the bathroom and meals.
Henry said the eviction notice she received Tuesday says she has 30 days 
to leave her apartment at Francis Gardens for "obstructing members of 
the Shrewsbury Housing Authority from carrying out their duties."
Casey said she did not receive an eviction notice because she sat with 
the other women after the tree removal company left.
A Worcester attorney has filed a court action to try to stop the evictions.
The executive director of the housing authority declined comment.






http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/rovearrestii.html

4 Found Guilty in Citizen’s Arrest Attempt on Rove
DES MOINES, IA - The four Iowans arrested while attempting to effectuate 
a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove were found guilty of trespassing Friday, 
November 21, 2008, in Iowa District Court in Polk County. Retired 
Methodist minister and Peace and Justice Advocate, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, 
as well as three Des Moines Catholic Workers, Edward Bloomer, 61, Kirk 
Brown, 25, and Mona Shaw, 57, were arrested at the Wakonda Country Club 
in Des Moines, Iowa, where Rove was scheduled to speak at a Republican 
Party Fundraiser last July 25, 2008.
On that date the four had presented Des Moines Police with a written 
arrest complaint citing Iowa Code provisions for making Citizen's 
Arrests as well as citing Federal Statute violations they claimed Rove 
had violated. The four maintained during their trial that they were 
acting within the guidelines of Iowa Code that obligate private citizens 
to make such an arrest if they believe a felony has been committed and 
turn Rove over to police officials to bring Rove before a judge for 
formal indictment.
Instructions to the jury allowed that a citizen's arrest was potentially 
justification for the defendants to refuse to leave the property and 
that if it was reasonable for the defendants to believe the subject of 
their arrest had committed a felony that then they should find the 
defendants not guilty. The jury returned a guilty verdict for each 
defendant nonetheless.
"It's astonishing that there are six people who still don't find it 
reasonable to believe that Karl Rove has committed a felony," defendant 
Mona Shaw said after the verdict.
Sally Frank, attorney for the defendants, said in court that she will 
file a motion to set aside the verdict and that the verdict will be 
appealed if the motion is denied.
Judge Colin Witt sentenced three of the defendants to the minimum $65.00 
fine plus court costs. One defendant, Kirk Brown, stated he could not in 
conscience pay the fine and was sentenced to one day in jail instead.
Rove remains unindicted for any misconduct during his affiliation with 
the Bush administration and has refused to cooperate with a 
Congressional subpoena in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.
To date there have been more than 4200 US Military deaths in Iraq, 900 
in Afghanistan, about 70,000 casualties (wounded as well as those 
removed for other injuries and illnesses), and more than 400,000 Iraqi 
and Afghani citizens killed and many more wounded.

Background
Four Iowans were arrested Friday, July 25, 2008, while attempting to 
make a Citizens' Arrest of Karl Rove in Des Moines, Iowa. Citing Iowa 
Code provisions for making Citizen's Arrests as well as citing Federal 
Statute violations they claimed Rove had violated, the four were stopped 
at the gate of the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines where Rove was 
scheduled to speak at a Republican Fundraiser.

The four arrested are retired Methodist minister and Peace and Justice 
Advocate, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, as well as three Des Moines Catholic 
Workers, Edward Bloomer, 61, Kirk Brown, 25, and Mona Shaw, 57. All four 
were cited for trespassing and released.

The four maintained that they were acting within the guidelines of Iowa 
Code that obligate private citizens to make such an arrest if they 
believe a felony has been committed and turn Rove over to police 
officials to bring Rove before a judge for formal indictment. By law, a 
federal judge should consider the charges and determine if an indictment 
should be made. A copy of their Arrest Statement is below.

Brown and Shaw made a similar attempt last March when Rove spoke at the 
University of Iowa, Iowa City. Brown and Shaw were arrested and released 
without charges following that attempt. Deaths in the Middle East since 
the March attempt number in the thousands including, 151 more US troops 
have been killed in Iraq, and 284 killed in Afghanistan as well as far 
more citizens of those two nations.

Rove remains unindicted and recently refused to cooperate with a 
Congressional subpoena in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. Despite 
mounting evidence of Rove's wrongdoing concerning leading the U.S. to 
war as well as other actions, Congress and the U.S. judicial system 
remain reluctant to bring charges against either Rove or the Bush 
administration. Recent evidence includes Articles of Impeachment 
presented by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Vincent Bugliosi's new 
book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" carefully lays out a 
case against Bush and his administration for war crimes and felony 
murder. Bugliosi was prosecutor for the Charles Manson Family murders 
and author of the book "Helter Skelter," which dealt with that crime.

To date there have been 4,125 US Military deaths in Iraq, 896 in 
Afghanistan, 66,775 casualties (wounded as well as those removed for 
other injuries and illnesses), and more than 200,000 Iraqi and Afghani 
citizens killed and many, many more wounded.







http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/411564.html

Animal rights protesters raided for banner drop
SchNEWS | 25.10.2008 00:44 | Animal Liberation | Health | Repression | 
South Coast
CIBA PUNKS - Issue 652

IN THE VIRTUAL REALITY OF THE CRACKDOWN ON ANIMAL RIGHTS PROTESTS

The British Govt’s attempts to smash the animal rights movement have 
long been catalogued in SchNEWS over the years, but this week it turned 
from the pernicious to the ridiculous as Police stretched their already 
tenuous use of the word ‘blackmail’ with regards to animal rights 
protest...

Last Tuesday (14th) some activists did a banner drop protesting against 
Ciba Vision, a subsidiary of Novartis, from an overpass over the 
motorway near Ciba Vision’s premises at Hedge End, near Southampton. 
Ciba Vision make contact lenses, and are a client of vivisection lab 
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). The protest was just outside the 
exclusion zone which limits protests near the premises of a list of 
companies associated with HLS as named on the injunction against SHAC 
(See SchNEWS 581). The two were not arrested, and only had their details 
taken by police for a possible court summons.

But things turned serious last Friday at 10am, when police kicked the 
door down at the house they were staying. With a search warrant 
regarding Tuesday’s banner-drop, 25 coppers arrived - including 
Hampshire Police’s two ‘animal rights specialists’, Martin Foster and 
Andrew Tester - and some plain-clothes CID to do the interviewing. The 
two banner-droppers were arrested for criminal damage and conspiracy to 
blackmail – because, the police said, they had used spraypaint to make 
the banner, and that spraypaint had been used in other actions against 
HLS targets previously! Their clothes were confiscated for forensic 
analysis, to see if they could be linked to a recent ‘home visit’ on the 
manager of a HLS client which involved paintstripper on his car and 
other nasty surprises. As one of them said, “It’s as though police think 
we’re the only people in Hampshire with spray cans”.

This was the third time this same household had been raided in the past 
year, and police also took a computer, owned by another resident, who is 
currently one of the defendants in the upcoming SHAC trials (see below). 
A total of six computers, three printers and ten mobile phones have been 
taken from this household during these raids.

How can a banner drop in a public place – for all intents and purposes a 
legal, non-violent action - blow out into a possible charge of 
‘conspiracy to blackmail’? With the evidence at hand this case would get 
laughed out of court - that is unless the police try to pin something on 
them – but this is just the latest chapter in the British Govt’s 
tenacious and heavy handed campaign to smash animal rights activism in 
this country.

Said one of the arrestees - “If they take what is legal protest, and use 
it to arrest people, it forces protesters underground because if they 
put their faces to actions – even legal ones – they risk having their 
house raided and being dragged into court cases with possible prison 
sentences. The Police are the biggest recruiters for the ALF (the name 
used for covert, anonymous animal rights actions).”

“Any animal rights activist saying ‘I will continue to protest until 
they stop’ is now seen as tantamount to blackmail. But what is happening 
to SHAC and other animal rights groups is going to happen to other types 
of campaigns.”

TRIAL & ERROR

Rumbling in the background to this weeks incident is the first of two 
SHAC trials, which is currently into it’s third week and is due to last 
over four months, ending in January. The second trial begins then, but 
it may be affected by the results of the first. Eight have been charged 
- two with blackmail and the others with ‘conspiracy to blackmail’. 
Since then, four are on remand and three have pleaded guilty.

But what is all this ‘blackmail’ thing about? Since 2001 SHAC have 
published the names of companies doing business with HLS, and initially 
sent them polite letters saying, ‘Do you know what HLS do? Please stop 
dealing with them.’ Since then there have been demos and ALF-style 
actions against some of them.

It turns out that some of the companies involved did stop working with 
HLS. Many did so after being visited by police, who told their 
management that now they were on the SHAC website they needed to beef up 
security - warning staff of dire threats to life and limb and advising 
them to check under their cars for bombs. These companies include those 
making cages, other torture equipment, and supplying transport and other 
services to HLS, as well as clients using HLS’s ‘research’ on animals.

The police and prosecution are alleging that, by hosting the names of 
companies that work with Huntingdon Life Sciences, SHAC are giving a nod 
and a wink to ALF-style attacks. Yes covert attacks have taken place 
against HLS related targets – including paintstripper on cars, 
phonecalls and letters to directors’ homes and more – and people have 
been prosecuted for various offences in the past – but these attacks 
against HLS (and associated companies) are not being linked to the SHAC 
defendants in this trial. Instead re-publishing public information and 
writing to companies about animal abuse inside HLS’ labs is made to look 
like a scene from a Mafia movie where the don says “...we wouldn’t want 
any nasty accidents to happen to you on your way back from the animal 
murdering lab, would we now.”

This trial is just the latest court case involving animal rights 
activists, coming after the recent Sequani trials which saw Sean Kirtley 
banged up for four years for running a website (See SchNEWS 634). In May 
2007 police made 32 arrests across the UK in ‘Operation Achilles’. 700 
police were involved as homes and animal sanctuaries were raided, with 
police seizing computers, mobile phones and cash in what a popular 
weekly direct action newsletter described as a ‘fishing expedition’ (See 
SchNEWS 586).

But while HLS are being protected by the bootboys and laws of the 
British state, they are in fact in a tenuous state. They took a loan 
from the British Govt in 2001, and are battling to repay it. Novartis 
are being targeted because they are a major client of HLS, which HLS 
would sorely miss, and their status on the New York Stock Exchange is 
another weak point for them. If they get kicked off the NYSE before 2011 
– as has happened in the past due to the international efforts of SHAC - 
they will go into liquidation.

That animal rights activists are portrayed in Britain as ‘extremists’ or 
‘terrorists’ is deeply ironic seeing as they are about protecting 
animals from torture.

* See also www.shac.net
SchNEWS
Homepage: http://www.schnews.org.uk







http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,24561073-3102,00.html?from=public_rss

Palm Islander sues for $1m over police riot arrest
Article from:
Tanya Chilcott
October 28, 2008 12:00am
A PALM Islander who beat charges of rioting is suing the State 
Government for $1 million claiming he was assaulted by police.
David Bulsey was captured on TV footage trying to physically restrain 
fellow islander Lex Wotton during the riots off Townsville in 2004.

Mr Bulsey was allegedly thrown naked from his bed by armed police who 
arrested him the morning after the riots, which saw the police compound 
burned to the ground.

His long-term de facto Yvette Lenoy was seven months' pregnant at the 
time and had to be medically evacuated to the Townsville Hospital where 
she later gave birth prematurely.

Wotton was convicted on Friday of leading the riots.

Mr Bulsey was the first of a group of men to have charges against them 
dropped.

Mr Bulsey, 56 and Ms Lenoy, 33, are suing the State Government for 
$500,000 each, claiming police assaulted them.

In a statement filed in the Supreme Court registry in Townsville it was 
alleged Ms Lenoy was drinking tea about 5.50am on November 27, 2004, 
when police with guns drawn broke down their front door.

Mr Bulsey and six children were in bed at the time.

Ms Lenoy was ordered on to her stomach, the claim alleged, but 
eventually told she could sit because of her pregnant belly.

"The police officers entered the bedroom where the first plaintiff (Mr 
Bulsey) was sleeping naked and threw him on the floor, whereupon one 
police officer placed his booted foot on the first plaintiff's head and 
another police officer placed his boot on his back," the statement said.

Mr Bulsey was taken outside in a towel before being given a pair of 
jeans to put on in the street. in front of his neighbours. He was then 
interviewed and jailed.

The claim stated he was released on bail a fortnight later on the 
condition he did not return to Palm Island, where his de facto partner 
and now seven children lived.

"On the 20th of July 2005, at the closure of the prosecution case 
against the first plaintiff, the prosecutor conceded that there was no 
prima facie case for the first plaintiff to answer, whereupon the 
magistrate dismissed the charged and discharged the first plaintiff," 
the claim stated.

It went on to claim police should have known Mr Bulsey tried to stop the 
riot and was otherwise not involved in it.

The claim stated Ms Lenoy suffered pain, humiliation and distress at her 
children being left alone while she was in the Townsville Hospital and 
her partner was in jail.





http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs_entry.asp?eid=1516

Human rights under threat in Austria?
26 June 2008 at 08:54 by Oor Wullie
Tags: Austria hunger strike animal rights

There's a protest planned for London tomorrow at the Austrian Embassy. 
The issue surrounds the detention of 10 animal rights campaigners in 
Austria imprisoned under a new law intended to fight organised crime gangs.
According to supporters of the detainees, the chairman of one of 
Austria's biggest animal protection groups is being force fed in prison 
after nearly 5 weeks on hunger strike.
They say that in the early hours of May 21st, special forces of the 
Austrian police, many armed, in black clothing and wearing masks, forced 
entry to 23 homes and offices of animal protection campaigners across 
Austria. Fourteen people were arrested.

All the premises were searched and and police took away computers, 
discs, mobile phones, videos, cameras, photos, video tapes, papers, 
records, and databases.
Among those targeted were groups such as the Austrian Vegan
Society, and mainstream animal protection groups VGT, Vierpfoten, 
Respekttiere and TierWegehave, as well as other campaigners and 
individuals.

Most of the groups have been left without the basic means to continue their
legal and political work or even communicate with supporters and 
friends. The
police have stated that the examination of the computers will probably only
start next year, because they are very busy, so there is little prospect of
these groups recovering in the near future.

Ten people are being held without charge in pre-trial detention, which could
last for months. One of those in detention, Martin Balluch, the Chairman of
VGT, has been on hunger strike for almost 5 weeks in protest at his 
treatment
and continued detention without charge, and is now being force fed in 
the prison
hospital.

The official justification for the continued detention without charge is the
controversial Austrian Law 278a StGB which outlaws the "formation of a 
criminal
body". This law was intended to fight organised crime gangs, such as drug
smugglers, gun runners or people traffickers.
Campaigners say that instead it is being used as a political weapon by 
the current Austrian government to silence legal campaigners and to 
break up the animal protection movement, which has had some remarkable
success in recent years. Many of those detained have played a key role 
in very
successful political campaigns, including a ban on fur farms, an end to the
keeping of battery hens and a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses

One supporter said in an email to me: " It is shocking and disturbing 
that such terror and corruption can take place in a modern, so-called 
democratic country in Europe. If those in power in Austria are allowed 
to get away with this, it isn't just animal rights campaigners whoare in 
danger, but all groups around the world fighting for social justice, 
human rights, the environment, and all who value justice and compassion over
corruption and profit.

The demonstration on Friday 27th June in London is part of a growing wave of
international protest against the Austrian government's treatment and of 
lawful animal protection campaigners.
For more information please read the following article published by The 
Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/05/animalwelfare.austria
Thanks for your time.





http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2008/10/15/nb-04

Skopje protests detention of Macedonian journalists in Greece
15/10/2008
SKOPJE, Macedonia -- The foreign ministry on Tuesday (October 14th) 
delivered a note of protest to the head of the Greek Liaison Office in 
Skopje, Alexandra Papadopoulou, following the detention of four 
Macedonian journalists in Greece earlier in the day. "Macedonia 
considers [the journalists' detention] an inhumane act," the note read, 
calling on Greek authorities to take appropriate measures and prevent 
such incidents in the future. Police detained the journalists -- two 
reporters and a cameraman from the A1 and A2 TV stations and a 
correspondent from the Nova Makedonija daily -- in the village of 
Zabrdani, near the northern town of Florina. They underwent questioning 
for over one hour at a police station and had to present special permits 
issued by Greece for taking photographs. Later, police released them but 
barred them from talking to local residents. Macedonian Prime Minister 
Nikola Gruevski described the episode as "outrageous".
The Greek government responded, describing Skopje's statements as yet 
another "provocative attempt at the utter distortion of reality" and "an 
unacceptable attempt to interfere with Greece's internal affairs". 
(Vecer, Dnevnik, Utrinski Vesnik, Eleftherotypia, Kathimerini - 
15/10/08; MIA, Makfax, A1, Sitel, ANA-MPA, ERT, Naftemporiki - 14/10/08)







http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhidkfsneyau/rss2/

Governor attacked in protests at Portlaoise Prison

15/10/2008 - 08:11:40
An investigation is underway into an incident at Portlaoise Prison in 
which inmates threw the contents of their chamber pots at the governor 
and prison officers.

The incident followed a search of a cell on one of the wings housing 
republican prisoners.

Reports this morning say prison officers were investigating allegations 
that an INLA member had created a home-made weapon out of a soup ladle.

A number of inmates subsequently protested that they were being unfairly 
targeted.

During these protests, two of the prisoners were brought to the 
segregation unit.

Governor Ned Whelan was later attacked while making his regular rounds 
of the jail and extra staff were called in to deal with the situation.

The five prisoners involved in the incident are believed to have been 
punished by being locked in their cells without access to phone calls or 
visits for a month.









http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/01/the-onward-marc.html

07 January 2009 9:47 AM
'It's not debatable,' they bawled. My chilling encounter with Britain's 
jack-booted paramilitary police
This posting is about the horrible thing that has happened to our 
police, which I will get to in a moment, but first let me explain how I 
had the unpleasant experience I underwent last Saturday evening. First, 
let me explain what I was up to. I was absolutely not taking part in any 
street demonstration. Nothing could have induced me to join the march to 
protest against Israel's attack on Gaza. This is not because I agree 
with the attack - as readers know all too well by now. It is because I 
am not prepared to demonstrate alongside militant Islamists, supporters 
of Hamas or people who carry ridiculous placards calling for a 'Free 
Palestine'.
Whatever the formerly occupied territories might be under the unlimited 
rule of Fatah and Hamas, they would certainly not be free in any normal 
meaning of the word. They would fall under the rule of repressive, 
intolerant and ( especially in the case of Fatah) corrupt mini-despots. 
The fate of the Arabs of the region, since the creation of the 
Palestinian Authority, has been shameful. This is one of the many 
reasons why I do not support the 'Two-State Solution'.
For the same reason I never took part in the demonstrations against the 
Iraq war, though I opposed it as much as anyone who did. The same 
people, the Islamist fanatics and the 'Free Palestine' crowd, would be 
along too. And I once turned down an invitation to speak at such a 
demonstration. The old Roman saying "Non Tali Auxilio" "Not with such 
allies" seemed to apply very strongly. My cause wasn't theirs, even 
though I shared an objective with them. I don't imagine they missed me 
all that much.
This sometimes happens if you follow your own instincts and stay true to 
yourself. You lose all ways. Your former friends suddenly become your 
snappish, scornful opponents. Your enemies suddenly applaud you, if 
rather faintly. It isn't specially pleasant ( in fact, praise from foes 
is more hurtful than the denunciations of friends, in my experience).
In this state of mind, I left the Mail on Sunday office on Saturday 
evening, planning to walk to Paddington Station and go home. The Israeli 
Embassy is nearby, on Palace Green, but Palace Green is a closed street, 
blocked by gates, and anti-Israel demonstrators cannot get close to the 
actual building. Instead, they tend to gather opposite the gates, and 
when there are more than a few dozen of them, they block the whole street.

This is what had happened on Saturday. I couldn't get through, so I went 
round by back streets to the other side of the (fairly small) protest. I 
began walking eastwards along Kensington Road. Suddenly, out of the 
gloom I saw more demonstrators approaching me, presumably stragglers 
from Trafalgar Square, come to shout at the Israelis. That didn't bother 
me. They were quiet and peaceable.
What did bother me that, in front of the demonstration was a sort of 
skirmish line of black-clad, helmeted figures, each carrying a large 
round black shield and a big club. All were wearing clompy, macho boots 
and ( if my memory serves me right) leather trousers as well. They were 
both ridiculous and creepily frightening, and - to my eye - wholly 
unBritish.
I've seen riot squads lurking (and on some occasions turned loose) in 
Moscow, Prague, Paris and East Berlin. In such places, everyone knows 
that they are the fist of the strong state. But when I observed these 
formations, they were one of those interesting things about being 
abroad, rather than in Britain, where we had no need of such things. You 
knew never to approach them, make eye contact with them, get within 
range of them. They were dangerous, officious and all-powerful, and 
longing for trouble. Ask them the way or the time? They'd think you were 
mocking them and club you over the head for your pains.
I agree that things have been changing here for quite a while. But this 
lot were far more fearsome than anything I'd previously glimpsed in this 
country.
They were part-astronaut, part-samurai, all menace. They were also 
pointless. I couldn't see any reason for this riot squad to be there. 
There was no trouble, before or behind or beside them. Later on, they 
might be needed, in which case I'd stay well away from them. But now, 
they were just there. So I behaved as if they were what they weren't, 
normal constables. I carried on walking towards them, peaceably, on my 
lawful business. I'd already made a big diversion to avoid the main 
demonstration. If I had to go back the way I'd come, I'd need to go 
miles to get round. If there had been any obvious reason to do so, I'd 
have done it. But there wasn't.
That was when they started bellowing at me. "Get back!" (or something 
like that). I looked round to see if I had accidentally got into the 
middle of a sudden melee, but the street was as peaceful as it had been 
before, and the marchers were still advancing quietly behind the 
black-garbed figures.
I held out my hands in a shrugging, mock-pleading gesture and began to 
ask why I couldn't just walk on the pavement undisturbed. "I am", I 
began to say " a private person on his way to Paddington station".
I didn't finish. I couldn't. The figures began bawling again, in a 
strange robotic chorus of Arthur-Mullard-like voices. And this is what 
they bawled :"It's not debatable!" . Then they bawled it again "It's not 
debatable!". And then one more time, I think. I don't think words like 
"debatable" come naturally to such people. I think this is what they had 
been trained to say in some riot-rehearsal long ago, to clear aside some 
imaginary band of quarrelsome troublemakers with fancy ( and outdated) 
ideas about their rights. Instead, they had to make do with me, the only 
man in London silly enough not to flee at the very sight of them. It 
even crossed my mind to think that they might have been longing to bawl 
"It's not debatable!" ever since they had been trained to say it, and 
here was their chance.
It's an interesting set of words, especially for police officers to use 
in a free country with free speech, where power is supposed to subject 
to the law and the police are supposed to be the servants of the people. 
It was clear that they thought I had no business even looking at them, 
let alone asking them ( as I believe I'm entitled to do) under what law 
they were acting. Until recently I'm quite sure they'd have had no legal 
right to order me about like that without explanation. Nor would they 
have tried. I'd have been allowed to pass, as it was quite reasonable 
for me to do. I know this as the veteran of many demonstrations in other 
days, and one who developed some respect even as a far left-winger for 
the restraint and level-headed, humorous good sense of the police ( as 
they then were) on such occasions.
But all that's gone. Such persons are not, like old-fashioned coppers, 
servants of the law. They are servants of the state and you'd better 
believe it. Technically the law now supports them, but only because the 
whole purpose of the law has been subverted so that it doesn't restrain 
the police at all in such circumstances. 'Terrorism' of course, has been 
the pretext for it. But most of us, most of the time, don't see the ugly 
face of the thing we have created by letting this happen.
No doubt some catch-all 'Anti-Terror' statute, making disobedience 
itself an offence, without regard to what was being ordered, would have 
been absurdly invoked if I could have found one of them willing to 
answer such a question. If it hadn't been for my polished shoes, 
middle-aged professional appearance and expensively-acquired plummy 
baritone, I suspect things might have ended rather more abruptly. Even 
these robocops are still a little restrained by the dying conventions of 
our disappearing freedom, and they could have guessed that it would have 
been faintly unwise to get rough with someone like me. Ten years from 
now, this won't be true. We'll be like the continentals, hating and 
mistrusting our cops and being hated and mistrusted by them in return.
As it was, I had time to ask the foremost of them, in what I hoped were 
wondering tones "Are you a police officer?", with the emphasis on the 
word "police", and then to answer on his behalf "No, you're not. You're 
some sort of paramilitary force" . The expression I was groping for was 
'militia' but by then I was too enraged ( my patriotism was grounded in, 
amongst other lost things, pride at having an unarmed, peaceful police 
force - and the loss of this precious possession brings me close to 
tears) and dismayed to find the right word. They continued to advance 
towards me, like a sort of human street-sweeping machine, so I admitted 
defeat and stepped into a side road to watch them go by.
This, alas, was not enough. After the robocops had passed, a second 
rank, this time of more ordinary but still militarised officers in 
high-visibility vests, came hurrying importantly up , brusquely and 
arrogantly ordering me and several other baffled subjects of Her Majesty 
to move back down the side-road. What was coming? A nuclear convoy? 
Barack Obama? The national gold reserve? I resigned myself to missing 
several trains and waited to see what all the fuss was about.
What then passed was two parts of the square root of nothing. The 
mighty, bass-voiced police escort preceded a high-pitched straggle of 
perhaps 300 demonstrators, many of them women, walking quietly down the 
road and followed in turn by a phalanx of police vans. Then nothing. In 
my demonstrating days we'd have turned round and gone home rather than 
marched, with a group as small as that.
Quickly, before another riot squad turned up, I returned to my original 
route and went home, only to find that my mobile phone had mysteriously 
stopped working. It recovered soon after I left the area.
This horrible development, the transformation of our police into a state 
gendarmerie, has many causes. One of them is the way in which our 
politicians - and much of the public - have simply forgotten, or never 
even knew, the intricate arrangements made to ensure that we did not 
suffer this fate. Parliament at the beginning of the 19th century 
resisted the foundation of a Metropolitan force precisely because such 
bodies had invariably become engines of repression all over the 
continent. Sir Robert Peel only got the measure through by ensuring that 
our police force was subject to law, policed by consent, and was not 
allowed to become a militia.
The rules were set ( see my book 'the Abolition of Liberty') so as to 
ensure we didn't have a Prussian or Gallic riot squad in London, and 
very effective they were until quite recently. But now we are moving 
quite fast towards the very fate that MPs feared 200 years ago.
The paradox is that we have these grim jawed enforcers ( predicted 
rather accurately in Constantine Fitz Gibbon's amusing future fantasy 
thriller 'When the Kissing Had to Stop' back in the early Sixties) but 
that the criminal classes have never had such an easy time.
How can this be? My theory is fairly simple. In a liberal state, the 
police are weak on crime because it is officially regarded as a social 
disease, not really the fault of the criminals. But they are tough on 
individuals who tackle crime themselves, because they threaten the state 
monopoly of law-enforcement (worse, their methods, if generally allowed, 
would be more popular than the feeble methods of the state police); and 
they are tough on street protest because they represent a state which 
regards itself as good, and so sees all protestors as automatically 
malignant. How do you think totalitarianism would establish itself in a 
once-free country? What do you think it would look like? I think it 
would look like this. Fortunately, it is still debatable.







http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/13/knife-crime-police-gang-violence

Police seek new rights for searching rail passengers
• MPs asked to change 'conditions of carriage'
• Home secretary seeks new powers against gangs
• Alan Travis, home affairs editor
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 January 2009 17.59 GMT

Blunt 2: the Metropolitan police operation to cut knife crime comes to 
the Elephant & Castle railway station in south London. Photograph: John 
Stillwell/PA
Passengers who buy a London train or tube ticket would automatically be 
giving their consent to be searched, under proposals now under 
consideration.
Senior British Transport police officials told MPs today that they 
wanted to change the railways' "conditions of carriage" to close a 
loophole that means officers using mobile knife-detecting arches at 
stations have no legal power to search someone who sets them off unless 
they have a reasonable suspicion that they are breaking the law.
Assistant Chief Constable Paul Crowther of British Transport police told 
the Commons home affairs select committee that, as the law stood, it 
often made more sense to search passengers who deliberately avoided 
going through the arches.
The proposal emerged as Alf Hitchcock, the Metropolitan police assistant 
commissioner, said the programme had made a significant impact. 
Hitchcock, who heads the government's drive against knife crime in 
police forces across the country, said the forces involved had achieved 
percentage reductions "in the mid-teens" since it was launched last June.
The police figures support the broad picture of improvement indicated in 
Home Office figures published last month, which were the subject of 
stern criticism from new Whitehall watchdog, the Statistics Authority. 
The authority said the numbers were were "selective" and "unchecked".
The Home Office also confirmed today that the home secretary, Jacqui 
Smith, wants to introduce banning orders to tackle gang-related 
violence. She is considering legislation to allow civil injunctions to 
be used to ban individual gang members from visiting particular areas or 
wearing insignia or clothes that signal their allegiances.
The idea was given a lukewarm reception by the Labour chairman of the 
select committee, Keith Vaz, who said he preferred to see measures that 
tackled the underlying causes of gang culture rather than another method 
of simply containing the problem.
British Transport police say the proposal to make an agreement to being 
searched a condition of buying a railway or tube ticket would put the 
railways on the same footing as public events such as football matches 
or concerts. Consent is already a condition of travel in the United States.
Crowther told MPs the issue had arisen since 100 mobile search arches 
were deployed at railway stations and other crowded public places as 
part of the drive against knife crime.
"We want to conduct these measures with the support of the public and 
the community," he told journalists today. "I think we would need to 
engage in debate about whether there was an appetite for that and 
whether people saw it as reasonable and proportionate."
The transport police chief told MPs they could currently use the arches 
only to scan people who volunteered to go through them, unless they had 
a reasonable suspicion the travellers were breaking the law. Police 
codes of practice ban voluntary searches.
"In effect, a suspect may not be searched, even where consent is 
provided, in an absence of 'reasonable suspicion'; a procedural 
stumbling block to the unfettered use of knife arches," said transport 
police evidence to the MPs' inquiry into knife crime.
"An exception to the procedural prohibition on the conduct of voluntary 
searches, however, is where submission to examination is a condition of 
entry to a named premises of a specific location. In relation to 
policing the railways, one [possibility] may be to have as a condition 
of carriage, when people purchase a ticket, that they agree to being 
searched."






http://www.rootforce.org/2008/10/30/infrastructure-targeting-independistas-going-on-trial/

Infrastructure-Targeting Independistas Going on Trial
Oct 30th, 2008
Three activists accused of carrying out sabotage actions for Galician 
independence are being tried by the Spanish government: Maria Bagaria is 
accused of setting fire to trucks being used to build a hydroelectric 
power station and is facing 3 years in prison; Giana Gomes and Ugio 
Caamanho are accused of using explosives to destroy an ATM at a 
Caixagalicia bank, and face 19 and 21 years, respectively. The trial 
begins November 3.
Caixagalicia has been targeted for its involvement in destroying the 
Galician countryside with eucalyptus plantations and infrastructure 
projects such as highways and a high-speed train (AVE).
Our only information on this case comes from this article (in Spanish) 
which says that the prisoners have widespread support among many members 
of the Galician public. If we find out more and it seems relevant, we’ll 
let you know.
UPDATE (Nov. 4 2008): The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network has 
supplied addresses for two of the prisoners; the third is out on bail. 
More information is available on this website, which is presumably in 
Galician: www.ceivar.org.
GIANA RODRIGUES GOMES
Modulo Verde Apartado 206
Centro penitenciário de Brieva
Ctra. De Vicolozano
05194 Brieva (Ávila)
Spain
UGIO CAAMANHO SAM-TISSO
Prisión de Puerto de Santa Maria I
Apartado de correos 555
Ctra. Jerez-Rota km. 6.4
11500 Puerto de Santa Maria (Cádiz)
Spain






http://www.stuff.co.nz/4733438a11.html?source=RSSnationalnews_20081020

Protesters call for release of contempt prisoner
Monday, 20 October 2008

Supporters of an Auckland-based American businessman jailed after 
failing to remove material from his website are staging a protest 
outside Mt Eden prison this afternoon.
Vince Siemer is serving a six month jail term for contempt of court 
after failing to remove the material relating to Auckland accountant 
Michael Stiassny.
Siemer's supporters say he was jailed unlawfully on an unproven 
allegation of defamation.
The protest calling for his release is planned for 3.30pm.
Siemer had filed court action in order to be released from jail until he 
appeals the sentence later this month, but the Supreme Court dismissed 
his application on Friday.
- NZPA






http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127985

Adei Ad Attackers Released; Human Rights Group Protests

by Maayana Miskin

(IsraelNN.com) Four Israeli anarchists who took part in a violent attack 
on the fledgling community of Adei Ad in Samaria on Wednesday were 
released just hours after they were arrested. Arabs and Israeli leftists 
who were granted permission to harvest olives near the town went on a 
rampage, attacking a Jewish home, brutally killing a guard dog, and 
burning holy books. Most attackers fled when Jewish residents of the 
town returned from their own olive harvest, but four were captured and 
detained until police arrived. Their release sparked protest from the 
Judea and Samaria Human Rights Group, which accused police of bias 
against Jewish farmers.

While several Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria have been forbidden 
to enter the area during the olive harvest for fear that they might 
interfere with Arab farmers, the group said, Jewish farmers are not 
protected. Arabs often abuse their ability to access olive orchards near 
Jewish communities in order to attack, members of the group pointed out. 
Inadequate enforcement of the law on local Arabs puts Jewish farmers in 
danger, they said.
Human Rights group head Orit Struck wrote a letter to GOC Central 
Command Gabi Shamni asking him to explain the situation. Stuck demanded 
that Shamni say why the anarchists were released, under what conditions 
they were released, whether or not they will be forbidden to enter Judea 
and Samaria and if so, for what period of time. In addition, she asked 
him to say what steps are being taken to prevent Arabs given permission 
to harvest olives near Jewish communities from exploiting the situation 
to attack Jews and Jewish property.
Struck also took issue with Shamni's failure to reply to previous 
inquiries. “Almost two months ago I asked you to address the intolerable 
rift between the defense granted by law enforcement agencies to 
different groups in Judea and Samaria: the over-enforcement meant to 
protect the Arab farmer, next to the under-enforcement that abandons the 
Jewish farmer and his field,” she began.
"For whatever reason, you haven't seen fit to answer my letter, despite 
the fact that the law requires you to do so,” Struck continued. 
“However, you did manage in that time to sign more exile-orders for 
Jewish residents of the region. I remind you again of the important 
principle of equality before the law, which is the foundation stone of 
the rule of law that you oversee.”
Last week, three Arab men attempted to infiltrate the town of Har Bracha 
in Samaria after getting permission to enter the area in order to 
harvest olives. The three were spotted and fled, and were later arrested 
in a nearby village.






http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-10-17-red-brigades-controversy_N.htm?csp=34

Italian terror victims protest France's inaction
Posted 10/17/2008 4:48 PM | Comments 8 | Recommend 3

ROME (AP) — The head of a victims group said Friday he has written to 
France's first lady protesting Paris' decision not to extradite a former 
leftist terrorist to Italy because she is in poor health.
Giovanni Berardi, president of the Italian Association of Victims of 
Terrorism, told RAI state TV on Friday that he had sent the letter to 
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian-born first lady who has become 
personally involved in the case of convicted terrorist Marina Petrella.
In the letter, parts of which were read on the evening TV news program, 
Berardi said it is "a sacred duty" to provide medical assistance to 
those in need, but that this should not be used as an excuse "by those 
who have committed crimes to escape justice."
Bruni-Sarkozy visited the severely depressed woman in the hospital both 
before and after her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, decided not to 
extradite Petrella for humanitarian reasons.
In 1992, Petrella, who was a member of the Red Brigades, was convicted 
in absentia in Italy of complicity in the murder of a police chief a 
year earlier. She was sentenced to life in prison.
Now 54, Petrella has been in France since the 1990s and was jailed last 
year. But a French court ordered in August that she be freed after she 
was diagnosed with severe depression.
Sarkozy's decision, which was announced Sunday, caused an outcry from 
politicians and relatives of victims in Italy.
"I harbor no resentment or desire for vengeance ," wrote Berardi, whose 
father was a police officer killed by the Red Brigades in 1978. "The 
right to justice must be given back to the victims of terrorism."
The Red Brigades plagued Italy with attacks mostly in the 1970s and 
1980s. The group's most notorious act was the 1978 kidnapping and 
slaying of former Premier Aldo Moro.





http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuId=77&ContentID=104610

Party riots keep Perth police busy
26th October 2008, 11:00 WST

Three out-of-control parties, including a fight involving up to 100 
people outside a Morley house, kept police busy in Perth’s northern 
suburbs overnight.
A police spokesman said officers had attended wild parties in Balga and 
Wanneroo, as well as the Morley incident which required 15 police cars 
to respond to quell the massive brawl.
The spokesman said police had gone to the corner of Rodda and Crimea 
Streets in Morley about 12.40am after reports that a huge group of men 
had spilled out of a house party and were fighting in the street.
The huge police contingent managed to quickly bring the situation under 
control and shut down the party.
The spokesman said there were no reports of serious injury but police 
had arrested a 17-year-old youth and charged him with disorderly conduct.
Just 10 minutes after police first arrived at the Morley address, 
officers were called to another huge fight between about 30 men outside 
a party in Wanneroo.
The spokesman said police had attended the address about 12.50am and 
most of the men had fled the scene. It was believed the fight had 
started after a large group of gatecrashers arrived at the party.
Police patrolled the area for 30 minutes but were not able to locate the 
gatecrashers. No arrests were made and there were no reports of serious 
injury.
Then at 4.45am, police were called to another rowdy party in Balga. The 
spokesman said five police cars had gone to the party, which was quickly 
shut down.
One man had been arrested and charged with assaulting a public officer 
while a woman had been taken to hospital with unknown injuries.
PERTH
RONAN O’CONNELL






http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,24543795-3102,00.html?from=public_rss

Palm Island riot accused Lex Wotton rushed to hospital
Article from:
Tristan Swanwick
October 25, 2008 07:05am
ACCUSED Palm Island rioter Lex Wotton remains in hospital this morning 
after he was rushed there with breathing difficulties as a jury 
deliberates his fate.
Wotton had a panic attack and suffered shortness of breath and was taken 
to Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital about 8.30pm last night.
Wotton, 40, is charged with rioting with destruction after an attack on 
Palm Island police in November 2004.
The Brisbane District Court jury is expected to continue its 
deliberations today.





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

Sex workers pushed to roam Bali's villages

Jakarta Post - October 26, 2008

Andra Wisnu, Denpasar -- Commercial sex workers
have been found roaming some of Bali's more remote
villages, increasing the possibility of a wider
spread of HIV, a report from the Bali Regional AIDS
Commission (KPA) revealed Friday.

Yahya Hanshori, program coordinator at the Bali
Regional AIDS Commission who works with the
island's HIV-infected former sex workers, said sex
workers began working in Bali's villages after
public order officers tightened their grip on the
island's cities.

Yahya, who delivered the report at the KPA office
in Denpasar, said the condition had forced sex
workers to develop new ways to receive income,
including by stationing themselves in areas that
were not as fiercely monitored.

"But sadly, this only increases the possibility of
a wider spread of HIV because villagers are even
less aware of sexually transmitted diseases than
city people,"he said. "This is a really, really
troubling development."

According to the report, only 20 percent out of the
estimated 3,000 sex workers in Bali use condoms
during intercourse, which, Yahya said, led to an
HIV infection rate of 840 males who pay for sex
services each year.

Yahya, who could not specify how many sex workers
had been found in villages or the name of the
villages, said the commission would continue to
monitor these sex workers while offering free
counseling on the prevention of HIV infection to
anyone.

"Obviously we are trying to work together with sex
workers and those key population groups who are
most prone to HIV infection,"Yahya said.

"We simply do not want this disease to hit anyone,
so I urge those who feel like they need counseling
to come to the KPA,"he said.

Bali still struggles to contain HIV because the
island is known as a destination spot for tourists
looking for sex workers. The sex industry continues
to thrive due to the island's popularity with
tourists and its dependency on the tourism
industry.

The government established the KPA to contain the
spread of HIV by offering free contraception and
education on sexually transmitted diseases to sex
workers and drug users, another population group
prone to HIV infection.

The report, which is based on interviews and
monthly reports from Bali's hospitals, further
revealed there were a total of 2,323 known cases of
HIV infection on the island in September this year.

Heterosexuals and people in the age group of
between 20 and 29 make up the largest number of
people known to be infected with HIV, while
Injected Drug Users and people in the age group of
between 30 and 39 make up the second largest group.

The KPA has estimated that there are actually more
than 4,000 people living with HIV or AIDS in Bali.

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








http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGPRE200810227806&lang=e&rss=recentnews

October, 22 2008
Turkey: One dead and scores injured as police breakup demonstrations

The recent death of a protester in Turkey, and the allegations of 
excessive use of force by police and other ill-treatment of 
demonstrators must be investigated, Amnesty International said today as 
protests continue in the southern city of Adana and the eastern city of 
Doðubeyazýt.
Reports that imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah 
Öcalan had been ill-treated by prison guards sparked demonstrations in 
provinces across southern and eastern Turkey and in Istanbul, starting 
on 17 October. In some instances the protests became violent after 
police used force to prevent demonstrations taking place -- stones and 
Molotov cocktails were thrown at police and property was damaged.
Police used plastic bullets and live ammunition to disperse 
demonstrators. One protestor, named as Ahmet Özhan, was killed in the 
town of Doðubeyazýt, eastern Turkey, and many others, including some who 
are critically wounded, remain in hospital with gunshot wounds and other 
injuries. Many of the injured are children. It was reported that of 62 
people who have been hospitalized, seven were police officers.
According to the Turkish Human Rights Association, more than 200 people 
are currently being detained in relation to the demonstrations. At least 
one child is being held in an adult detention facility.
Amnesty International acknowledges the difficulties faced by law 
enforcement officers when policing violent demonstrations and also that 
the Turkish authorities have an obligation under international law to 
provide for the safety and security of people and property. However, the 
Turkish authorities must carry out these obligations in accordance with 
international standards, particularly the principle that force may only 
be used by law enforcement officers when strictly necessary and to the 
extent required for the lawful performance of their duty.
“The Turkish authorities must ensure that police do not use excessive 
force against demonstrators. They must also investigate promptly, 
thoroughly and impartially the death of Ahmet Özhan and the allegations 
of ill-treatment against other protestors” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty 
International's researcher on Turkey.
International standards require that law enforcement officials must, as 
far as possible, apply non-violent means before resorting to 
proportionate use of force and firearms, which should be used only if 
other means remain ineffective. Law enforcement officers may use 
firearms only when less dangerous means are not effective and only to 
the minimal extent necessary, in order to protect themselves or others 
against an imminent threat of death or serious injury.
Amnesty International also calls on the authorities to ensure that law 
enforcement officials and detaining authorities respect the absolute 
prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment.







http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/16/asia/AS-Malaysia-Indian-Group-Banned.php

Malaysia bans ethnic Indian protest group

The Associated Press
Published: October 16, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysia has banned an ethnic Indian activist 
group it accuses of inciting racial hatred, but the group's leaders said 
Thursday they are only demanding equal rights for minorities in the 
Muslim Malay-dominated country.
The banned group, Hindu Rights Action Force — or Hindraf — shot to 
prominence last November when it led tens of thousands of ethnic Indians 
in a rare street protest calling for an end to pro-Malay policies and 
better opportunities for Indians, who form the bottom rung of Malaysia's 
social ladder.
The protest was seen as a watershed in the country's politics, 
emboldening Malaysians unhappy with the government and boosting 
opposition parties to spectacular gains in general elections in March.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar issued the ban order late Wednesday, 
saying Hindraf was an "extremist group" and "detrimental to public order 
and security."
Hindraf "is clearly using religion as a tool to create disharmony 
between religions and between races," Syed Hamid told reporters at a 
news conference Thursday.
The order will almost certainly fuel anger among the ethnic Indian and 
Chinese minorities, who are chafing at the highly unpopular government's 
policies favoring majority Malays in education, jobs and business 
opportunities.
Hindraf had applied last year to become a legally sanctioned group. But 
the ban, effective immediately, means it no longer has any hope of 
receiving legal status. Anyone who joins activities associated with the 
group can be prosecuted and faces up to five years in prison, said N. 
Surendran, a lawyer who frequently represents Hindraf supporters.
"It's a way to criminalize Hindraf... with the aim to stamp out the 
movement," Surendran said.
Syed Hamid said the ban was not a "political move" and defended the 
order as necessary for public security.
"If Hindraf activities are not stopped, public safety and harmony of 
Malaysia's multiracial society will be put at risk," he said.
Muslim Malays account for 60 percent of Malaysia's 27 million people 
while ethnic Chinese and Indians, who are mostly non-Muslims, make up a 
third.
The protest led by Hindraf last November was quelled with tear gas and 
mass arrests, and five of the group's top leaders were jailed under a 
strict security act that allows for indefinite detention without trial. 
Its chairman, P. Waytha Moorthy, fled the country and now lives in exile 
in London.
In an emailed statement Moorthy said the group would continue fighting 
for the "downtrodden Malaysian Indians who have been systematically 
marginalized, suppressed and oppressed."
The country's ethnic Indian's will not "wither away with this illegal 
declaration," Moorthy said.
R. Shan, another Hindraf leader in New York, called the ban "a flagrant 
violation (of) basic human rights" and warned the government "can no 
longer carry on bullying the minority" Indians.
Hindraf's complaints about discrimination are echoed by many ethnic 
Chinese as well as academics and intellectuals. But the government, 
despite its heavy losses in the elections, denies there is widespread 
disenchantment.
Syed Hamid dismissed suggestions that the ban, coming just weeks before 
the important Hindu festival of Diwali on Oct. 27, will further alienate 
ethnic Indians.
"Hindraf doesn't represent the Indians and doesn't have many 
supporters," he claimed even though most Indians voted against the 
government.






http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20081027-168762/Foreigners-shouldnt-join-protests

Foreigners shouldn’t join protests
By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:54:00 10/27/2008

Filed Under: Warnings, Immigration, Protest, Migration, Laws
MANILA, Philippines -- The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Monday 
reiterated its warning that foreigners participating in anti-government 
protests actions can be deported for violating the country’s immigration 
laws.
Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan renewed the warning after the 
bureau monitored some foreign activists with members of militant groups 
who demonstrated against the ongoing Global Forum on Migration and 
Development (GMFD).
“Perhaps, they are not aware that the BI can initiate deportation 
proceedings against them if they continue to join these mass actions,” 
the immigration chief said, adding that the foreigners “should not abuse 
our hospitality and their privilege to stay in the country.”
He added that the BI can also place the foreigners in the immigration 
blacklist of undesirable aliens to prevent them from re-entering the 
Philippines for abusing their privilege to stay in the country.
“Foreigners should have no business joining these mass actions because 
it is tantamount to meddling in our country’s internal affairs,” Libanan 
said.
He also stressed that since the foreign activists entered the country as 
tourists, their participation in these demonstrations is a violation of 
the conditions of their admission and stay as temporary visitors.
Libanan said reports reached him that various television stations had 
aired news footages of protest marches organized by leftist groups to 
protest yesterday’s opening of the four-day GFMD at the Philippine 
International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.
Television stations even aired interviews with some of the foreigners 
who joined the mass actions by the militant groups, he noted.
More than a thousand delegates from 151 countries are taking part in the 
conference.






http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/jailed-australian-sightseers-to-appeal/2009/01/16/1231608979874.html

Jailed Australian 'sightseers' to appeal
January 16, 2009 - 5:50PM
Five Australians jailed for illegally landing a plane in Indonesia's 
Papua region are likely to appeal their sentences, Foreign Affairs 
Minister Stephen Smith says.
Queensland pilot William Henry Scott-Bloxam, 62, was sentenced to three 
years in prison yesterday for flying a small plane into Indonesia 
without permission last September.
The four passengers - Scott-Bloxam's 54-year-old wife Vera, 57-year-old 
Hubert Hufer, 51-year-old Karen Burke and 60-year-old Keith Ronald 
Mortimer - were sentenced to two years in a Papuan prison.
Fines of 25 million rupiah ($A3,400), which could be exchanged for an 
extra two months imprisonment, were also imposed on the passengers.
The group embarked on their ill-fated sightseeing adventure from Cape 
York, in far north Queensland, and landed in Papua in the belief they 
could apply for visas on arrival.
Mr Smith said the five had received consular and legal assistance from 
the moment of their arrival and detention.
Consular assistance was continuing for the group, who were likely to 
appeal, he said.
"I'm advised that the sentencing of the court is open to appeal," Mr 
Smith told reporters in Perth.
"So on the basis that we are fully expecting an appeal to the sentencing 
of the court, it would be inappropriate for me to reflect upon the 
sentencing of the court in the first instance," he said.
The group have seven days to appeal their sentences.
Mr Smith said once an appeal was made they could apply for bail.
The group were released on bail while the charges were dealt with.
AAP






http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/18/2394690.htm

Priest wants Govt to protest Bali bombers' execution
Posted Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:22am AEDT
Updated Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:32am AEDT

Indonesia is preparing to announce details of the militants' impending 
executions. (ABC News )
High profile Catholic priest Frank Brennan has called on the Australian 
Government to speak out against the execution of the three Bali bombers 
as it draws nearer.
Father Brennan said Australia needed to maintain a strong stance against 
capital punishment - including for the Bali bombers - or risk confusing 
the issue.
"We all feel profound sympathy for the victims and the victims' 
families," he told a death penalty panel discussion at the Ubud Writers 
Festival in Bali today.
"It's no denial of our sympathy to say we have a deep sympathy for you 
and your plight, but we still maintain a constant philosophical 
approach, namely that the death penalty in all circumstances is wrong."
His comments came as three Islamic militants on death row over the 2002 
Bali bombings were today visited by family members as Indonesia prepares 
to announce details of their impending executions.
Indonesia's attorney-general today reportedly reiterated the men would 
be put to death this year, and he would announce the month next week.
"Information is expensive ... later on the 24th, I will not announce 
everything," Hendarman Supandji said on Indonesia's ElShinta radio.
Indonesia's Constitutional Court is expected to rule on Tuesday on a 
side challenge by the bombers' lawyers, who have argued the country's 
use of firing squads to carry out executions amounts to torture.
Defence lawyer Achmad Michdan said Amrozi and Imam Samudra were visited 
by their wives, mothers and other relatives at their Nusakambangan 
Island prison, off Central Java, today.
He said relatives of Amrozi's brother Mukhlas would visit next week.
The men were convicted of playing key roles in the October 12, 2002, 
Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Rush hopeful
Meanwhile, death row Australian drug mule Scott Rush has written a 
letter read to the Bali writers' festival, hoping for changes to laws 
which one day might overturn his own death sentence.
"I'm not a writer but I am a convicted criminal," the now 22-year-old 
Rush wrote.
"I have been through some very rough times and have experienced some 
very long, slow nights.
"I have had a lot of time to think and I'm very sorry for what I have 
done and what I have caused.
"I still hope that one day I can show I'm capable of reform."
- AAP





http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-10/2008-10-28-voa19.cfm?CFID=92831706&CFTOKEN=71581761&jsessionid=8830cc051eab7622194e1d721471462b3c34

Rights Group Calls on Laos to Release Information on Hmong Protest Leaders
By Ron Corben
Bangkok
28 October 2008
Corben report - Download (MP3)
Corben report - Listen (MP3)
A human rights group has called on the Lao government to release 
information regarding several Hmong refugees who led protests in 
Thailand earlier this year and were later repatriated to Laos. As Ron 
Corben reports from Bangkok, Human Rights Watch also wants Lao 
authorities to allow independent witnesses to verify the well being and 
whereabouts of Hmong refugees sent back to Laos.

The report released Tuesday raises fresh concern over the whereabouts of 
five Hmong who led protests in Thailand in June. The refugees were 
protesting Thailand's policy of holding them in camps.

The five were among 5,000 who marched at the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp, 
370 kilometers north of Bangkok on June 20.

Hmong refugees in Huay Nam Khao camp (File)

The refugees had been held at the camp for more than a year.

Afterward, 800 protesters were forcibly repatriated to Laos, while 
thousands more were returned to the camp.

Human Rights Watch says eight protest leaders and their families were 
sent back to Laos. The report quotes witnesses as saying three of the 
men were later released from a prison in Laos after being detained for 
three months.

Sunai Pasuk, a Human Rights Watch spokesman in Thailand, says the group 
is worried about the remaining five.

"We have concern that leaders of Lao Hmong who have been politically 
active while they were in the shelter in Thailand may face prosecution 
after they were sent back to Laos. Now many of them have disappeared," 
said Sunai." "That has increased our concern."

Hmong refugee families stand behind bars at a Thai detention centre in 
Nong Khai province near Thai-Laos border (File)
The report also criticizes Thailand's policy of blocking United Nations 
officials from verifying that Hmong who go back to Laos do so voluntarily.

Thai foreign ministry officials say no one has been forced back to Laos.

Sunai says the report repeats earlier requests for more openness.

"What Human Rights Watch want from the Lao government is to provide 
transparency, to provide honest and transparent information regarding 
the whereabouts of the refugees, particularly the leaders of the Lao 
Hmong, and to allow for international agencies to have regular and 
unhindered access to the resettlement areas," added Sunai.

During the Vietnam War, the Hmong fought alongside United States forces. 
After the war ended in 1975, many were forced to flee Laos, with 
thousands crossing into Thailand.

Since then many have been granted homes in the U.S., Australia and other 
countries.

Both Thailand and Laos say the current refugees are economic migrants, 
not victims of political persecution.






http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2008102057938

Protest Leading Fugitive Arrested in Seoul

OCTOBER 20, 2008 08:44

A deputy leader of an online community against President Lee Myung-bak 
was arrested yesterday on the charge of leading illegal street 
demonstrations.
Baek Eun-jong, 55, was apprehended by the Jongno Police Station in Seoul.
“We arrested Baek yesterday," a police spokesman said. "He had been 
hiding in the (Buddhist) Jogye Temple for more than 100 days. We will 
send him to an arraignment hearing for his involvement in illegal 
protests.”
To evade police, Baek sought safety at the temple on July 5, along with 
fellow fugitives. He ventured out Saturday to join a demonstration at 
Cheonggye Plaza and got arrested.
The goal of the street protest, meanwhile, changed from blasting U.S. 
beef imports to urging action on the economic downturn. Over the last 
two months, they had not held a rally.
A total of 1,100 members of leftist groups held a demonstration at the 
plaza Saturday, criticizing the Lee administration for the national 
economic crisis. They said recent tax cuts will help only the top one 
percent of the income bracket and blasted the police crackdown on 
protestors as undemocratic.
Authorities said the latest protest was an overture for continuing 
demonstrations to topple the administration by highlighting the hobbling 
economy. The protesters plan to launch a new organization this coming 
Saturday.






http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/South_Korea_jails_man_for_internet_lies_during_beef_protests/rssarticleshow/3631392.cms

South Korea jails man for internet lies during beef protests
23 Oct 2008, 0910 hrs IST, AFP

SEOUL: A South Korean court has jailed a man who spread false Internet 
rumours that police raped a demonstrator during protests against US beef
imports, officials said on Thursday.

In the latest legal action against Internet rumour mongers during the 
protests, court officials said the man was sentenced to 10 months in 
prison plus two years' probation and ordered to perform 160 hours of 
community service.

The court said the man used a fake identity to join a website and posted 
two articles alleging police had raped one participant in the protests, 
which rocked the country a few months ago.

"He was fully aware that his post was untrue, but he even went so far as 
to fabricate pictures to support the false argument, posing a great 
danger to society," the court said in its judgement.

Internet postings fuelled the mass protests, which began in May after 
Seoul lifted a ban on US beef imports. The ban had been imposed in 2003 
over fears the meat was infected with mad cow disease.

The rallies died down after Seoul negotiated extra safety conditions for 
the imports.

Courts have punished several groups and individuals for breaking the law 
in various ways during the sometimes violent rallies. The demonstrations 
took on an anti-government flavour and rocked the administration of 
President Lee Myung-Bak.







http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/384955/1/.html

Two fined a total of S$1,800 for taking part in protest
By Shaffiq Alkhatib, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 24 October 2008 0130 hrs

SINGAPORE: Two men involved in a protest against recent price hikes have 
been fined a total of S$1,800.

31-year-old PhD student, Ng E-Jay, and 44-year-old freelance offshore 
engineer, Jeffrey George, admitted to taking part in an unlawful 
demonstration dubbed the "Tak Boleh Tahan" protest near Parliament House 
on March 15 this year.

They, together with 17 other similarly accused persons – including 
Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Secretary-General Chee Soon Juan, his 
sister Chee Siok Chin and lawyer Chia Ti Lik – turned up in full force 
at the Subordinate Court on Thursday with their supporters.

While nearly all of them claimed trial, Ng and George did otherwise and 
threw in the towel.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Isaac Tan said the two men took part in the 
rally even after they found out from the SDP website that a permit was 
not granted for the event.

In his mitigation, Ng's lawyer, Dennis Chua, said his client took part 
in the protest as he was "very passionate" about issues on how the 
rising cost of living affected the average Singaporean.

He told District Judge Ch'ng Lye Beng that Ng was an "offender of 
conscience" and had no intention to cause any mischief during the rally.

Ng was fined S$600 for taking part in the illegal assembly and George 
was fined a similar amount for the same offence. At a separate hearing 
later in the evening, the latter was fined a further S$600 for taking 
part in an illegal procession.

DPP Tan informed District Judge Liew Thiam Leng that on that day, George 
had walked from the driveway of the Parliament House towards the nearby 
Funan DigitaLife Mall.

Police ordered George and the other alleged protesters to halt, but they 
refused to do so. The authorities arrested them after repeated warnings, 
said DPP Tan.

The remaining 17 accused persons intend to proceed to trial on Friday.

- CNA/so






http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/25/2401289.htm

Burma opposition members 'jailed over protests'
Posted Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:43pm AEDT
Updated Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:42pm AEDT
Burma's Opposition National League for Democracy says six of its members 
have been given long jail sentences for their part in protests last year.
It says a court in the central city of Mandalay sentenced the six to 
terms of between two and 13 years each.
They had been charged with inciting people to harm the peace of the state.
About 200 members of the NLD were detained during and after the protest 
marches, dubbed the "Saffron Revolution" in reference to the colour of 
the robes worn by monks who led the protests.
The marches began in protest at rising fuel prises but quickly grew in 
number to become the biggest uprising against Burma's military regime 
since 1988.
Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962.





http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/25/2003426858

DPP accuses KMT of stifling protests
ROAD RAGE: DPP Taipei City councilors said the KMT had reserved the use 
of several streets to block pan-green camp protests during the visit of 
ARATS chief Chen Yunlin
By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Oct 25, 2008, Page 3
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused the Chinese 
Nationalist Party (KMT) of scheming to deprive people of their right to 
protest in key locations during the visit of Association for Relations 
Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) next month.
DPP Taipei City councilors Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) and Chien Yu-yen (簡 
余晏) said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin 
(郝龍斌) of the KMT had helped the KMT to obtain permits to use 
Ketagalan Boulevard next month in an attempt to prevent the pan-green 
camp from staging a rally there to protest against the Chinese 
official’s visit.

Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said 
on Thursday that he expected to meet Chen on Nov. 3 in Taipei, with the 
schedule expected to be finalized during a preparatory round of talks in 
China on Monday.

“The KMT government cleared the roads to make sure that Chen Yunlin will 
not hear Taiwanese people’s opposition to his visit,” Chien said 
yesterday at the Taipei City Council. “The KMT takes Chinese people’s 
dignity seriously, but how about the dignity of Taiwanese people?”

According to Taipei City’s Public Works Department, the KMT has obtained 
permits to use Ketagalan Boulevard from Nov. 3 to Nov. 9, as well as 
Yuanshan Park (圓山公園) and Zhongshan N Road Sec 3 and Sec 4 from Nov. 
3 to Nov. 15.

Chien said the KMT obtained permits to use the roads around the Grand 
Hotel in Taipei, where Chen is expected to stay, to prevent members of 
the pan-green camp from protesting outside the hotel.

KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said in response that the party 
applied for the permits long before Chen’s schedule had been confirmed, 
and that the party did not intend to prevent pan-green camp protests.

At a separate setting, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), when asked 
for comment, said that the KMT had booked the roads to prevent the 
public from expressing opposition to Chen’s visit.

This constituted an infringement of the freedom of speech, she said.

Tsai called on the KMT not to “play tricks” to limit people’s right to 
express themselves.

She said the KMT government would have to accept full responsibility if 
any conflict were to erupt at the DPP’s planned overnight vigil as a 
result of the party not being able to gain permission to use Ketagalan 
Boulevard.

Chen, Chiang and their respective delegations are expected to discuss a 
wide range of topics, including food safety concerns related to China’s 
tainted food exports, the establishment of direct shipping and cargo 
charter links and increasing the number of direct passenger charter 
flights on weekends between Taiwan and China.

Meanwhile, in response to speculation that Chen might avoid visiting 
Tainan following the confrontation between ARATS Vice Chairman Zhang 
Mingqing (張銘清) and pro-independence advocates in the city on Tuesday, 
Chiang yesterday said the foundation would respect whatever schedule 
China has planned for Chen’s visit.

People First Party Legislator Lin Cheng-er (林正二) yesterday raised 
concerns at the legislature over the safety of Chen and his delegation.

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) responded by saying that he had on many 
occasions given his assurance that there would be no gaps or lapses in 
security during Chen’s visit.

Lin asked Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) whether the 
government was ready to provide airtight personal protection for Chen 
and his group.

“Absolutely,” Liao said.





http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44166

MEXICO: Police Arrested for Killing Indigenous Protesters
By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Oct 7 (IPS) - The recent killings of six indigenous people 
and the injuries suffered by 17 others in a clash with police in the 
southern Mexican state of Chiapas were the result of a strategy of 
"criminalising social protest" adopted by the state’s "supposedly 
leftist government," according to a prominent local human rights group.

Thirty police are under investigation or arrest in connection with the 
deaths.

In Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state, "most expressions of indigenous 
discontent are treated as criminal acts, whether openly or in a veiled 
manner," Jorge Luis Hernández, an activist with the Fray Bartolomé de 
las Casas Human Rights Centre, told IPS.

On Friday, Oct. 3, around 40 police officers swarmed into the village of 
Miguel Hidalgo, which is home to 750 families of the Tojolabal 
indigenous community, and used tear gas in an attempt to evict local 
protesters who had occupied the entrance to a nearby Maya archaeological 
site since Sept. 1.

Hundreds of protesters were blocking the entryway to the Chinkultic 
ruins, which belong to the state, to demand that locals be given a role 
in administering the site, and that some of the revenue brought in by 
the tourism it draws be reinvested in infrastructure and other projects 
in the area.

Instead of dispersing when the police began their operation, the 
protesters fought back with sticks and rocks, and seized, disarmed and 
locked up a number of police officers.

The police then sent in 300 reinforcements to free their colleagues, and 
six indigenous people were killed and a number of villagers and police 
were injured in the resulting violent confrontation.

Five injured villagers were still in hospital on Tuesday, one seriously 
wounded by gunfire.

The 36 locals who were arrested during the incident were released in 
exchange for the return of the guns seized from the police by the 
community.

"What happened in Miguel Hidalgo is part of a pattern adopted by the 
authorities in Chiapas in response to protests by indigenous people, 
regardless of their political or religious affiliation," Hernández said 
in a telephone interview with IPS from the human rights group’s offices 
in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas.

The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Centre was founded in 1989 
by Catholic bishop Samuel Ruíz, a follower of liberation theology, which 
is based on a "preferential option for the poor."

In Mexico, indigenous people are variously estimated to make up between 
12 and 30 percent of the country’s 104 million people (the smaller 
estimate is based on the number of people who actually speak an 
indigenous language). But in Chiapas they form a much larger proportion 
of the population.

Since December 2006, the Chiapas state government has been led by 
Governor Juan Sabines of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution 
(PRD).

But Sabines, a former member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party 
(PRI) that ruled Mexico from 1929-2000, has had several public 
differences with the PRD.

Hernández, who pointed out that a number of state government officials 
belong to the PRI, said the characteristics of the administration are 
more along the lines of that party than the PRD.

After Friday’s incident, Sabines visited Miguel Hidalgo to apologise and 
offer his condolences. "The government here is not fighting with the 
people; these incidents did not only happen to you, they happened to 
everyone in Chiapas," said the governor.

"Justice will always be on the people’s side," said Sabines. "I am 
outraged by what happened; you can count on me."

The state government promised to punish the police who were responsible 
for the violence, indemnify the victims’ families, provide scholarships 
to their children and pensions to their widows, and launch productive 
projects in the community.

But Hernández said that although the state government took an 
"apparently different stance this time, the pattern of criminalising 
social protests remains in place."

The human rights group has closely followed a number of cases in which 
indigenous people in Chiapas have been oppressed, mistreated or framed 
on false charges.

Hernández challenged the state government to take the investigation of 
the incident in Miguel Hidalgo all the way up to Sabines’s close 
associates in the government, and to hold them accountable if they are 
found to be responsible. "We’ll see if this goes any farther than rank 
and file police officers," he said.

The Human Rights Centre documented several incidents of what it 
described as "repression" in rural areas of Chiapas blamed on "state 
agents" this year.

In April, several indigenous villagers were threatened with fines or 
jail terms by officials for working on privately-owned land located near 
an archaeological site.

In July, the police forcibly evicted indigenous people who had occupied 
land caught up in an ownership dispute. And in September, the police 
entered an area under the influence of the Zapatista National Liberation 
Army (EZLN) to arrest two locals who were not facing any charges, the 
human rights centre reported.

The EZLN, a barely-armed indigenous guerrilla group, staged an armed 
uprising in the state in January 1994, demanding justice, democracy and 
respect for native rights. Two weeks later it agreed to an armed truce 
with the government and since then has been holed up in remote 
mountainous jungle areas of Chiapas, where a number of villages remain 
under its control, although it has lost the degree of national and 
international influence or solidarity it once enjoyed.

In Chiapas, where most of the population is indigenous, the literacy 
rate stands at 80 percent, 11 percentage points lower than the national 
rate, and life expectancy is two years lower than the national average 
of 74.5 years. (END/2008)







http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/world/americas/18mexico.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Mexico Says U.S. Journalist Was Killed by a Protester

By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: October 17, 2008
MEXICO CITY — Bradley Will, a journalist from New York City, was shot 
and killed at close range by an antigovernment protester during civil 
unrest in the state of Oaxaca two years ago, the Mexican authorities 
said Friday, a conclusion that was challenged by Mr. Will’s family and 
human rights groups.
The protester, Juan Manuel Martínez, was arrested in Oaxaca on Thursday 
and accused of homicide. Another man, who was accused of protecting him 
as he fled, was also arrested, said Víctor Emilio Corzo Cabañas, a 
deputy federal attorney general.
Officials said the two men were members of a coalition of left-wing 
organizations, the Oaxaca People’s Popular Assembly, that was seeking to 
topple the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz.
The death of Mr. Will had drawn widespread attention because of the 
Mexican government’s failure to solve a string of slayings of 
journalists, as well as its lack of response to the killing of 17 
protesters during the months of unrest in Oaxaca.
Mr. Will, who was 36, had gone to Oaxaca to cover the protests, which 
began with a strike by teachers in May 2006. The strike escalated into a 
larger movement after Mr. Ruiz tried to crack down on the teachers in June.
The left-wing coalition demanded that Mr. Ruiz step down. They shut down 
the city of Oaxaca, the state capital, and some protesters burned buses 
and buildings.
Mr. Will had been in Oaxaca for four weeks shooting video of the 
protests for the New York chapter of the Independent Media Center, a 
left-leaning media collective, when he was shot on Oct. 27, 2006. His 
death, and the killing of three other people that day, prompted the 
president at the time, Vicente Fox, to send in the federal police to 
clear the streets.
Although Mr. Will was one of 18 people killed during the protests, the 
federal government has dropped the investigations into every case except 
his. Protesters contend that many of the killings were carried out by 
government-backed paramilitary thugs.
Officials have argued that Mr. Will was killed by nearby protesters 
during a street battle between the demonstrators and groups loyal to Mr. 
Ruiz.
Human rights groups, including the National Human Rights Commission in 
Mexico, have called on the attorney general’s office to broaden its 
inquiry to include the possibility that Mr. Will was shot from a distance.
Kathy Will, Mr. Will’s mother, blamed right-wing paramilitary groups for 
her son’s death and accused the government of trying to point the blame 
elsewhere. “It’s been two years of the same thing,” Ms. Will said in a 
telephone interview. “They are absolutely determined to pin it on 
somebody nearby.”
The left-wing coalition in Oaxaca said in a statement that the two men 
under arrest were innocent and that they had been mistreated.
Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.







http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2416362,00.html

Broadcaster fined over protest
27/10/2008 13:10 - (SA)

Cairo - An Egyptian court fined the head of a broadcasting company on 
Sunday for operating without a licence, judicial sources said, after the 
firm aired shots of protesters stamping on a picture of the country's 
president.
The court ordered Nader Gowher, chairperson of Cairo News Company, to 
pay 150 000 Egyptian pounds for possessing satellite communications 
equipment and operating a network without a licence.
Images from an anti-government labour protest taken by Cairo News 
Company had been aired on stations including pan-Arab satellite channel 
al-Jazeera.
Gamal Eid, a lawyer representing the company, said the ruling was a 
result of broadcasting images from the protest.
"The security agencies succeeded in presenting a scapegoat but they 
cannot extinguish the anger of the people expressed in what happened to 
the picture," he said.
Three people were killed and nearly 150 injured over two days of unrest 
in the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla el-Kubra in April, the 
culmination of more than a year of strikes by workers at a giant 
state-run factory.
Arab governments, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have sought to entrench 
state control over broadcasters. Arab states passed a satellite charter 
this year which echoes language found in press laws used by some Arab 
countries to prosecute journalists critical of their governments.
Egypt jailed a challenger to President Hosni Mubarak in presidential 
elections in 2005, charging him with forgery, and often arrests members 
of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group.
- Reuters






http://allafrica.com/stories/200810270197.html

International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House (Toronto)
Tunisia: TMG Protests Restrictions And Attacks Against Rights Defenders 
And Websites
24 October 2008
The members of the Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 18 
freedom of expression organisations who belong to the International 
Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) network, are concerned about 
recent attacks against human rights defenders and representatives of 
independent media outlets in Tunisia. The TMG believes that these 
attacks are part of a broader pattern of intimidation against 
journalists and free media advocates perpetrated by the Tunisian 
authorities to curb freedom of expression in the country.
The TMG has been informed that the website of "Kalima" ( 
http://www.kalimatunisie.com ), an independent online newspaper that has 
unsuccessfully attempted to register in the country since 2000, was 
recently attacked by hackers who completely destroyed its content. The 
damage was so severe that "Kalima"'s webmasters have been unable to 
access the site since 8 October, and it will now need to be rebuilt. We 
are pleased that "Kalima" will re-launch again and hope it will not be 
destroyed again.
Disconcertingly, "Kalima"'s website, which was recently re-launched as a 
multimedia platform and archive and could be a very important source of 
information for Tunisian citizens, is one of several independent 
Tunisian and foreign websites with a political or human rights focus 
that have been intermittently inaccessible to Internet users in Tunisia 
during the past several years.
Furthermore, members of the TMG strongly condemn the recent attacks by 
plainclothes political police officers against "Kalima"'s editor and 
founder Sihem Bensedrine, who is also head of the Observatory for the 
Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation in Tunisia (OLPEC), IFEX's 
member in Tunisia. Bensedrine was subjected to physical and verbal abuse 
in downtown Tunis on her way to a solidarity rally for writer and 
activist Zakia Dhifaoui, currently serving an eight-month prison 
sentence in connection with her human rights advocacy work.
Commenting on the incident, TMG Chair and Index on Censorship Associate 
Editor Rohan Jayasekera said: "The Tunisian authorities' intolerance of 
peaceful, independent opinion is well known and well recorded and 
increasingly condemned by Tunisia's international partners. Yet this 
kind of thuggery continues to prevail."
Naziha Rjiba, Deputy President of OLPEC and a well-known writer, is now 
also under intensifying pressure. The TMG is alarmed to hear that she 
has been summoned to appear before a public prosecutor on 27 October, 
after she wrote a critical opinion piece in the opposition weekly 
"Mouatinoun" about the destruction of "Kalima" in which she accused 
Tunisian authorities of being behind the attack. The 22 October issue of 
"Mouatinoun" has been banned.
Rjiba's husband, Mokhtar Jallali, a member of the National Council for 
Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT), is currently in jail after being involved 
in a fatal traffic accident for which he was not responsible. CNLT says 
that he is being detained in order to "settle scores with rights 
defenders, because Jallali is a member of CNLT and the husband of Rjiba, 
whose pen name is Om Zied. CNLT says "the family has already received 
indirect threats targeting their security and freedom."
In a separate incident this week, Internet writer, lawyer, and human 
rights activist Mohammed Abbou was prevented by immigration authorities 
from leaving Tunisia. On 22 October, Abbou was about to board an 
airplane to Paris to participate in a live broadcast for the Qatar-based 
satellite TV station, Al-Jazeera, when immigration police prevented him 
from leaving the country on the grounds that he lacked documentary proof 
that his period of conditional release was over.
Abbou was sentenced in 2005 to 18 months in prison for "having published 
information that would disturb public order" and for "insulting the 
judiciary" in an article posted on the Tunisnews website in August 2004, 
as well as to two years in prison for an alleged incident at a 2002 
conference. He was released from prison in July 2007 and his period of 
conditional release ended in August 2008.
Members of the TMG urge President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and government 
authorities to abide by Tunisia's international human rights 
obligations, as well as to the commitment to freedom of expression and 
access to information, as reported in the final documents of the World 
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which took place in Tunis from 
16-18 November 2005. The TMG has written to Frank La Rue, the new UN 
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to 
freedom of opinion and expression, requesting he monitor the situation 
and visit Tunisia ( see: 
http://www.ifex.org/download/en/TMG_LaRue_letter_Oct2008.pdf ).






http://dr1.com/news/2008/dnews111108.shtml#10

Biometric ID cards for foreigners
Interior and Police Minister Franklyn Almeyda has told Listin Diario 
that a nationwide foreigner registration program would be implemented 
starting in the first quarter of next year. Foreigners will be issued 
biometric identity documents. He said the registration program could 
take a year. He said the plan also involves carrying out a census to 
determine the number of foreigners living in the DR. This would run 
parallel to the implementation of biometric ID cards for Dominicans. He 
said this plan would define who is legally in transit, who is here 
illegally, and who is a permanent resident. He said his department 
contracted Gallup to poll Dominicans on the issue of regularizing the 
status of foreigners in the DR. The foreigners will receive an ID card 
as foreigners.
Almeyda also told Listin Diario that the Ministry of Interior & Police 
is responsible for migration issues, and that the Department of 
Migration and the Police fall under his ministry.
The Central Electoral Board (JCE) is the institution responsible for 
issuing the cards after a person's legal status has been determined by 
the Department of Migration.
________________________________________








http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/238162,jordanian-writers-protest-indictment-of-poet-on-religious-grounds.html

Jordanian writers protest indictment of poet on religious grounds
Posted : Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:27:26 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : Middle East (World)

News Alerts by Email click here )
Amman - The Jordanian Writers Association (JWA) on Wednesday blasted the 
indictment of Jordanian poet Islam Samhan for allegedly insulting Islam 
after using verses from the holy Koran in his love poetry, and called 
for his release. Similar calls were also made by the Amman-based Centre 
for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) and the Cairo-based Arabic 
Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).
The 27-year-old poet, who works for the independent daily paper Alarab 
Alyawm, was referred to the court earlier this week by the Press and 
Publication Department (PPD) after accusing him of violating the Press 
and Publication Law in his newly published poem collection "Grace Like a 
Shadow."
Samhan, who was arrested on Sunday, denied the charges, saying that he 
had no intention to offend Islam or the Koran, according to judicial 
sources.
JWA chairman Saoud Qbeilat expressed disappointment over Samhan's 
detention and indictment as a "strange decision and serious development 
... Such a measure is likely to suppress freedom and creativity."
Qbeilat also protested a fatwa (religious judgment) issued by the 
Kingdom's mufti Nouh Qudah, the country's top religious authority, who 
labelled Samhan as an "infidel" and described the use of Koranic verses 
in his poem collection as an act of "blasphemy."
PPD Director General Nabil Momani said that there was more than one 
reason behind referring Samhan to the public prosecutor's office.
He said Samhan's book was printed by an unlicensed press and thus the 
writer violated the article 35 of the Press and Publication Law, which 
stipulates that the writer or publisher of any book that is printed or 
published in the country should submit an advance copy to the PPD.
He said that the book also violated the law's article 38 which prohibits 
the publication of any material that entails libel, slander or insult to 
any religion, in line with the constitution.
"The issue is in the hands of the judiciary and we accept whatever 
ruling the court issues," Momani said.






http://allafrica.com/stories/200810270572.html

Kenya: School Riots - Probe Finds Parents Guilty
Caroline Wafula
25 October 2008
Nairobi — Parents are in the spotlight over child neglect, with a 
parliamentary committee recommending that they send their children to 
boarding schools only when they attain 11 years.
The team investigating school unrests notes that some parents take their 
children to boarding schools at tender ages, thus denying them family 
comfort and parental care.
"Some parents have neglected their children and relegated their 
responsibility to teachers, who are also too busy to guide them," the 
committee on Education, Research and Technology notes in its findings 
tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
The concerns have led the team, chaired by Mosop MP David Koech, to 
recommend that boarding primary schools be limited to the admission of 
children aged 11 and above.
The role of parents
The team stresses the role of parents in the upbringing of their 
children: "The way parents handle their children in the formative years 
will impact on the discipline of children in later years," it notes.
The committee says evidence gathered from interested parties shows that 
parents have failed to impart the relevant cultural values to their 
children.
"Some parents are poor role models to their children; some drinking and 
fighting in front of their children, in which case, some children extend 
the same vices to schools," the team says in its report
It notes, at the same time, that some parents overprotect their children 
whenever they make mistakes in schools, adding to student indiscipline.
Also of concern to the investigating team is that some rich parents give 
too much pocket money to their children and drive them to and from 
school in expensive cars.
This makes the children display undesirable behaviour later in life, 
such as drinking, smoking and being rude to everybody.
The committee also accuses moral decay in a society that lacks a value 
system. "Students are therefore a direct product of the moral decadence 
in the society," it says.
Lack of respect
There is lack of respect for seniors by the youth and a complete 
disregard for taboos and expected norms.
The team blames this state of affairs on politicians as well the 
religious and professional elite whom it accuses of failing to impart 
values to the youth, "leaving them to assimilate all that goes on on 
television and the internet."
The committee recommends the strengthening of spiritual and moral 
character building and pastoral care in schools by acquiring resident 
chaplains.
The MPs recommend also that schools inculcate values in youth by 
organising special interactions with eminent people.
With regard to role modelling, the Koech team urges people holding 
positions of authority to project a good image and seek ways to resolve 
conflicts in order to encourage the youth to grow into responsible adults.
Schools should adopt a system of counselling in which a teacher is 
identified and assigned a specific number of students to work with them 
as a "foster parent."






http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/23/2311544.htm

Kenya bans mobile phones to stem school riots
Posted Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:43am AEST
The Kenyan Government has banned the use of mobile phones in schools in 
a bid to stem a string of deadly riots that have rocked the country.
"I am banning the use of mobile phones by our students in our schools," 
Education Minister Sam Ongeri told parliament.
The ban, which takes effect immediately, comes a day after police 
charged dozens of students with arson after weekend riots that left at 
least one student dead and several injured.
Officers charged several students on Monday over the burning down of 
hostels and other violence that had shut down 20 secondary schools 
across the country, said police spokesman Eric Kiraithe.
"We will continue arresting the students for the crimes they commit," 
said Mr Kiraithe.
More than 300 secondary schools have gone on strike in Kenya over the 
past month, while students have destroyed properties worth millions of 
shillings as they protest poor living conditions and bad management.
Mr Ongeri said mobile phones had been used to coordinate the riots, 
which he blamed on widespread political incitement and drug abuse.
"We cannot afford careless actions; we cannot afford a carefree 
attitude. If we don't have discipline in our schools, life will be 
chaotic," he told reporters.
-AFP





http://allafrica.com/stories/200810220086.html

Kenya: Students Who Took Part in Riots to Sit for Exam
19 October 2008
Nairobi — Students who participated in school riots four months ago in 
central Kenya have been conditionally allowed to sit for KCSE examinations.
The affected students will have to find alternative accommodation 
outside the schools during the exam period and will not be allowed to 
mix with their colleagues.
The schools have also made arrangements for extra security in case the 
indisciplined students try to disrupt the exams.
Not to allow
In Nyeri South District, the school management of Wamagana Girls 
Secondary School has resolved not to allow a candidate implicated in the 
recent school unrest to reside at the school.
However, the Form Four candidate will sit for her examinations while 
commuting from her home, about 5km away.
The principal, Mrs Beatrice Maina, said that the student was secluded so 
that she might not influence the rest of the student fraternity negatively.
The decision was arrived after a meeting between the school's board of 
governors, the teacher and parents.
In Murang'a North and South districts more than 50 candidates will have 
to get their own accommodation as they sit for their exams next week. 
They were expelled for engineering strikes last term.
More than 40 secondary schools went on strike last term protesting over 
mock examinations.
"The decision to expel them was reached by the BOG members after they 
were identified as having led in the strikes and they will have to get 
their own accommodations.
"They are however not many since most schools expelled between two and 
four candidates," said Murang'a North district education officer Kaugi 
Micheni.
Wahundura Boys' High School has the largest number of expelled students, 
but the school principal, Mr Michael Kinyua, is optimistic that the 
candidates will perform well.
State of the art
"We have no reason to panic. Our candidates are well prepared, we did a 
lot of counselling and worked overtime to recover time wasted when the 
students went on strike. We are sure we will perform very well," Mr Kinyua.
At Kiru Secondary School, the principal Mr Chege Kariuki, said that all 
students were readmitted after the strike.
At Mananga in Mathioya Division, five students were expelled, but they 
are lucky since the institution is a day school.
In Meru, 14 students of Gikumene Girls implicated in an arson attack on 
the school's dormitory early this year will sit their Form Four exams 
while residing outside the school.
The students were part of a group that was expelled. Also affected were 
four students from Kanyakine High School.
The students were expelled after they went on strike demanding that 
their school bus be fitted with state of the art entertainment equipment.
The students from the two schools have now rented houses outside the school.
Relevant Links
• East Africa
• Kenya
• Education
A student from Gikumene Secondary told the Nation that the affected 
students are not allowed to mingle with other students and are not 
allowed to visit the boarding section.
In Embu, all Form Four candidates who were either expelled or suspended 
from school for various reasons will sit for the examination.
Elsewhere at Kiamutugu Boys' Secondary school in Kirinyaga District, 
examinations will commence under tight police security.
About 30 candidates who participated in school riots will sit their 
exams under close police watch to ensure they do not cause trouble.
Reports by John Njagi, Waikwa Maina, Charles Wanyoro, Silas Nthiga and 
George Munene
(Daily Nation)






http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=230774

Tight security for suspected rioters' case
By NOOR TOORANI, Posted on » Monday, October 06, 2008
BAHRAIN's courts were once again under lockdown yesterday as 11 men 
convicted of rioting, torching a police car and stealing police weapons 
launched an appeal.
Riot police surrounded the Justice Ministry complex in Diplomatic Area, 
and the men's relatives had to be escorted out of the courtroom at the 
end of the hearing.
Their case appeared for the first time in the High Criminal Appeal 
Court, which adjourned it until October 19 to summon witnesses for 
cross-examination.
The men's lawyers urged the court to overturn their convictions, which 
were originally handed down by the High Criminal Court in July.
They were among 15 men charged with rioting during the Eid and National 
Day holidays last December.
However, four of their co-defendants were acquitted of charges against them.
One of those found guilty was jailed for seven years and fined BD9,985 
for causing unrest, violence against police and hurling a Molotov 
cocktail inside a police car.
Another four were jailed for five years for causing unrest, violence 
against police, torching a police car and stealing guns and ammunition.
Six were jailed for one year each for obtaining and possessing a gun and 
causing unrest.
Defence lawyers previously claimed that all 15 defendants were arrested 
as a result of a misunderstanding by police.
They claimed they were attending a peaceful gathering to mourn the death 
of Ali Jassim Makki, who died during a protest in Jidhafs a few days 
earlier.
The lawyers claimed it was a religious gathering, but those present 
started fighting back when police tried to break it up.






http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200810/news20/20081020-1805ee.html

October 20. 2008 Juche 97

"Law on Assembly and Demonstration" in S. Korea Termed Unjust

Pyongyang, October 18 (KCNA) -- The Catholic Human Rights Committee of 
south Korea laid bare the injustice of "the law on assembly and 
demonstration" on Oct. 13.
The committee held that the said law which stipulates that "any 
demonstration likely to pose a direct threat to social order should not 
be allowed" is ambiguous in the standard to judge it.
In fact, there is great possibility of rallies and demonstrations 
critical of the "government" policies being banned in advance by the 
above-said law as the right to judge the "direct threat" is in the hands 
of the police authorities, the committee noted, and continued:
The "law on assembly and demonstration" infringing upon the freedom of 
assembly is illegal.
On Oct. 9 the Seoul Central District Court filed a suit in the 
"Constitutional Court", recognizing the illegality of some of the 
provisions of the above-mentioned law.