Filed under: Middle East | Tags: Apartheid, Colonialism, Imperialism, incarceration, Israel, Israeli Apartheid, Militarism, Occupied Palestine, Palestine, Palestinian, Political Prisoners, Prison, Racist, Settler-Colonialism, State Terror, Terror, White Supremacy, Zionist
26 June 2009
Source: Electronic Intifada
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) – The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.
The report, “Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse,” based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, 26 June.
It follows a report published in May by the UN Committee Against Torture that had criticized the continued mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.
The UN report also condemned Israel’s refusal to allow access to a secret detention centre known only as Facility 1391.
The report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) states that Israel’s various security agencies, chiefly the (more…)
Filed under: Global, Middle East, North America | Tags: America, Apartheid, Barack Obama, Colonialism, Ethnic Cleansing, Gaza, Gaza City, gaza Strip, Hamas, Historic Paliestine, Imperialism, Ismail Haniyeh, Israel, Israeli Apartheid, Likud, Militarism, Occupied Palestine, One State, Oslo Accords, Palestine, Palestinian, Palestinian Authority, Racism, State Terror, Two-State, US-Israel, West Bank, White Suprmeacy, Zionism, Zionist, Zionist Entity
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25 June 2009
Soruce: Electronic Intifada
When Hamas, unexpectedly, won the 2006 parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the message from the one-third of the Palestinian people living in those territories was clear: no more of the “peace process” facade — with its untiring “two-state solution” slogan that never materialized, and no more of the bread crumbs offered to the new inauthentic NGOized, Osloized leadership classes. (In the years since the 1993 Oslo accords, funding NGOs — nongovernmental organizations — has been a major means for foreign governments to influence, co-opt and neutralize Palestinian politics. This process of “Osloization” made some Palestinian organizations more loyal to their funders than to their principles.)
Many of those who voted Hamas into power were not, in fact, supporters of the organization, but rather disgruntled Palestinians looking for change and reform after 13 years of futile, meaningless negotiations that did huge damage to the Palestinian cause and transformed it from a liberation struggle supported by millions all over the world into a (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: armed Forces Speical Powers Act, Colonialism, Imperialism, Indian Occupation, Kashmir, Militarism, Military, Patriarchy, Self-Determination, Shopian
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Source: South Asia Citizens Web
The news of the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian in Kashmir is deeply shocking. We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms.
We are also deeply disturbed by the reaction of the State. Instead of speaking out against this flagrant violation of human rights, and particularly the right of women to live safely and with dignity, instead of taking speedy and firm steps to bring the perpetrators to book, the State and the new administration first denied the rape of women and then attempted to justify it by (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Chauvanism, Colombo, Colonial, Colonizer, Dictatorship, Fascism, Fascist, Genocide, Imperialism, Imperialist, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapakse, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, Racist, Sri Lanka, Tamils, United National Party, United Peoples Freedom Alliance
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23 June 2009
Source: World Socialist Website
In an extraordinary, anti-democratic move, the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka—the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)—has begun to sound out amending the constitution to allow President Mahinda Rajapakse to remain in office beyond his six-year term without facing a new election.
For weeks, the government has been whipping up a climate of communal triumphalism following the army’s victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Now it is seeking to exploit the atmosphere to entrench Rajapakse in the powerful post of executive president.
Under the present constitution, presidents can serve (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Afghan Taliban, AfPak, Benazir Bhutto, Buner, Chand Bibi, Colonialism, Fata, Feminism, Flogging, Honour Killing, Imperialism, Iran, ISI, Madrassa, Malakand, Maulana Fazlullah, Militarism, Mujahideen, Mullah Omar, Nizam-e-Adl, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Paternalism, President Asif Ali Zardari, Protests, Punjab, Racism, Saba Mahmood, Sharia, Shirin Ebadi, Sindh, Sufi Mohammed, Swat, Swat Flogging, Swat Taliban, Taliban, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US bombing, US Drone Attacks, US Invasion, War, Women's Rights, Yusuf Raza Gilani
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( Dated Piece | 30 April 2009 )
Source: Open Democracy
The distorting glare of the mainstream media obscures a more complex reality in restive Pakistan
Who are the ” Taliban” in Pakistan? Islamist militants in the country have won significant international attention after wrestling control over the Swat Valley, the restive region in northern Pakistan where elements of sharia law are now in place. Yet these militants do not self-identify as “Taliban”, unlike the Afghan Taliban who chose the name for themselves, and preferred it to the then generic term “mujahideen”. The term “Taliban” means students; the original Taliban were educated in madrassas, religious schools. Groups and individuals that are being labelled the “Taliban in Pakistan” (TIP) are very different from their Afghan counterparts in important respects. It is pertinent not just to think through the implications of these differences but also to raise questions about why distinguishing details are being lost in the media frenzy of recent months.
In Swat, the group that has gained the most notoriety in recent months calls itself Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi (TNSM). This can be roughly translated as the “Movement for the (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: AIADMK, Anti-Tamil Pogroms, Armed Resistance, Bandaranayaka-Chelvanaagam, Britain, British Colonialism, Buddhist Clergy, Chemical Weapons, Colombo, Colonization, Congress Party, DMK, Ethnic Cleansing, Freedom Struggle, Genocide, Imperialism, Indian Imperialism, Insurgents, Internally Displaced Persons, Jaffna LIbrary, Karunanidhi, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Liberation, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, PMK, Prabakaran, Racism, Resistance, Saddam, Self-Determination, Self-Governing Authority, Sinhala, Sinhala Chauvinism, Sinhalese Eelam, Sovereignty, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Sri Lankan Army, Sri Lankan Government, State Terror, Tamil Diaspora, Tamil Eelam, Tamil Nadu, Terrorism, United Nations, United States, War Criminal, War on Terror
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June 2009
Source: Liberation
On May 18 2009, the Sri Lankan Government declared its ‘final victory’ over the LTTE, by displaying the body of the slain LTTE chief Prabakaran. Since then, the Sri Lankan regime and its army have indulged in an obscene orgy of humiliation. The body of Prabakaran, an international icon for the Tamil movement for self-determination, was displayed by jeering soldiers as a trophy – reminiscent of the manner that Saddam’s capture and killing was displayed by the US. Not content with months of unremitting shelling and chemical assaults on thousands of Tamil civilians, nor with the extermination of the Tamil self-determination struggle’s leadership, the Sri Lankan government is determined now to humiliate the surviving Tamils and flaunt the victory of its racist war. Prabakaran is being slandered as a psychopath and a coward, and his body is being cast into a mass, unmarked grave – to obliterate and tarnish the very memory of the Tamil struggle. And the Sri Lankan State is sponsoring (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Azad, Colonialism, Kashmir, Militarism, Nation-State, Occupation, State Terror
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( Dated Piece: 4 February 2009 )
Source: National Radio Project
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Listen to this Interview @ http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2009/0509.html
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Arundhati Roy is the celebrated author of “The God of Small Things” and winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. “The New York Times” calls her, “India’s most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence.” She is the winner of the Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom. Her latest books are “The Checkbook & the Cruise Missile,” with David Barsamian, and “An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire.”
David Barsamian: You’ve been spending at lot of time in Kashmir and you were just there again. There has been a series of elections over the last couple of months, and these elections have been heralded, at least by the mainstream press here in India, as a great referendum for freedom and democracy and a rebuke for the separatists. What is your understanding of what exactly happened in terms of the elections?
Arundhati Roy: Really, the difficulty about it, the thing I worry most about, is losing the language with which to describe what’s happening there. Because it’s almost as though you need a deep knowledge of what’s going on there to be able to understand what happened. In August, even then I was there, and all over the world it has been reported, there was an incredible spontaneous uprising, and there were hundreds of thousands of people on (more…)
Filed under: Middle East, North America | Tags: American People, Ashkelon, Barak Obama, BG Group, British Gas, British Gas Group, Colonialism, Colony, Consolidated Contractors International Company, Ehud Olmert, France, French President, Gaza, gaza Strip, Genocide, Ha'aretz, Hamas, IDF, Imperilaist, Israel, Israeli Air Force, Israeli Cabinet, Israeli Occupation Forces, Israeli Sovereignty, Lebenon, Meir Dagan, Militarism, Mossad, Mossad Chief, Nicolas, Obama Inauguration, Obama's Inagural Speech, Onslaught, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Gas Fields, Racist, Sarkozy, Settler-Colony, Terror, Terrorism, UNICEF, United Nations, War, White Supremacy, Zionism, Zionist Terror
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16 January 2009
Source: Sunday Monitor
Israel’s invasion on Gaza could be the most significant event yet on the global political calendar. It overshadowed the Christmas festivities of the past year, blurred the New Year celebrations and threatens to diminish the most anticipated Obama inauguration on January 20. Indeed, the only item to look for in Obama’s inaugural speech is likely to be his views on the massacre of Palestinians.
His legendary oratory notwithstanding, Obama will have a tough time telling the world and the American people that the change he promised was around the corner. The world looks much gloomier than that night when he accepted his election.
By 2p.m. on Wednesday this week, 879 Palestinians, largely women and children had been confirmed dead by official sources. Another 4,698 had been injured in the continuing Israeli bombardment that started on December 19, 2008.
The Diplomatic footwork that was initiated by (more…)
Filed under: Africa, North America | Tags: AFRICOM, Arms, Barack Obama, Bush Administration, East Africa Counter-Terrorism Initiative, Militarism, Oil, President Bush, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, U.S.-African Military Relations
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7 December 2008
On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom. Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a military command for Africa; instead, U.S. military activities on the African continent were conducted by three separate military commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.
Until the creation of Africom, the administration of U.S.-African military relations was conducted through (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Azad, Colonialism, Divide and Rule, Extremism, Hindutva, Imperialism, India, Islam, Jammu, Kashmir, Militarism, Nation-State, Pakistan, Pandit, Partition, Secularism, Terrorism
Srinagar, August 22: The gathering at Idgah maidan for Friday prayers and a rally that was addressed by leaders of the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
August 24, 2008
Source: Guardian
For the past 60 days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half a million heavily armed soldiers, in the most densely militarised zone in the world.
After 18 years of administering a military occupation, the Indian government’s worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage. This one is nourished by people’s memory of years of repression in which tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been “disappeared”, hundreds of thousands tortured, injured, and humiliated. That kind of rage, once it finds utterance, cannot easily be tamed, rebottled and sent (more…)
