Sakher al-Hallak brutally tortured and killed, Syria says he committed suicide
August 31st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
This is just one story from the living nightmare that Syrians have been forced to endure since pro-democracy protests began in January leaving thousands of civilians dead, injured and arrested. According to Hazem al-Hallak, his brother Sakher was savagely tortured before he died in Syrian custody. The authorities claim he committed suicide, but al-Hallak says his brother’s eyes were gouged out, rope marks were on his hands, his genitals were mutilated and his body had electric shock marks.
Al-Hallak’s death is documented in a new report by Amnesty International about 88 people who have died while in Syrian detention.
Protests in Bahrain Continue, Boy Killed by Tear Gas Cannister
August 31st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Bahrain’s Shia majority continues to protest for greater social, political and economic rights while the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family responds with more brutal crackdowns, this time taking the life of a 14-year-old boy. His death comes only days after the UN Human Rights Chief criticised Bahrain’s treatment of its pro-democracy protesters.
Warning: The reality of this clip is disturbing.
The Syrian People
August 31st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
picture by Zdzisław Beksiński
walls to scrawl graffitti on
slabs of stone for carving
if you crush it it sings a song
changes colour with a stamping
meat to hang upon a hook
wire conducting electricity
balls to kick around the yard
to reduce to pure simplicity
wet cloth to dessicate
sweet sounds to silence
flaps and buttons to be tugged off
obscenities to be licensed
unruly features to be trimmed and then
punished, then punished, then punished –
the guilty corpse, the damned – to be
punished, dissected, turned inside out
so all the world can see
Sinking the Mavi Marmara
August 31st, 2011 § 1 Comment
(Gallo/Getty)
The following is my most recent piece for Al Jazeera.
The release of the findings of the UN panel of inquiry into the May 2010 Israeli attack on the Turkish Mavi Marmara, part of the Freedom Flotilla endeavoring to deliver aid to besieged Gaza, was recently delayed for the fourth time since the originally scheduled release date over three months ago.
Israel initially claimed the delay occurred at the behest of Turkey; Turkey claimed it happened at the behest of Israel. The latter version of events would seem to be validated by a Sunday report on Israel’s Channel 2, according to which Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the US to delay the release another six months. According to Haaretz, the UN panel’s findings will nonetheless be published this Friday.
Either way, the latest delay follows Netanyahu’s unsurprising affirmation that Israel will not apologise for the deaths of eight Turkish activists and one 19-year-old Turkish-American activist shot - most of them execution-style - by Israeli commandos (IDF) who intercepted the ship.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned of a Turkish “Plan B” in the event that an Israeli apology does not indeed materialise.
Inverting cause and effect
From the point of view of the Israeli regime, an apology is not required given that the IDF commandos, and not the slaughtered activists, were the victims of the encounter at sea.
This innovative approach to logic was presented by IDF spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch at a post-attack press briefing, during which she announced that the passengers of the Mavi Marmara had engaged in “severe violence against our soldiers”. Liebovitch’s alarming summary of premeditated passenger violence involving weapons “grabbed” from commandos did not address the issue of why the IDF had not thus thrown a wrench in the works by simply refraining from raiding the ship.
Facts vs. Fiction and the MEK’s PR Campaign
August 30th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
MEK leader Maryam Rajavi with Michael Mukasey, Rudy Guiliani, Frances Townsend and Tom Ridge.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of State produced a comprehensive report exposing the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK) for what it is — an exiled Iranian fringe group with a record of terrorism, violence, political opportunism and the abuse of its own members.
It states
…our mutual distaste for the behavior of the regime in Tehran should not influence our analysis of the Mojahedin.
and that
Shunned by most Iranians and fundamentally undemocratic, the Mojahedin-e Khalq are not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.
But that was years ago and any day now the MEK could be delisted from the U.S foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. Virtually unchecked, its well-funded lobbying blitz in Europe resulted in its delisting from the U.K. and E.U. terror lists. This has enabled it to create a larger support base there than it has in North America. It particularly enjoys a significant audience among past and present British parliamentarians such as Lord Corbett of Castle Vale (Robin Corbett). Corbett is the chairman of the “British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom,” the main British MEK lobby group. In addition to the U.S. heavy-weights with high national security officials that the MEK has paid to appear at its European rallies are Iranians and non-Iranians like the people pictured here and here.
After its successful test run in Europe, the MEK set its sights on the world’s most wanted ally and now its crazed leader Maryam Rajavi (her husband’s whereabouts are unknown) is knocking on Washington’s door saying all the right things about the “Mullahs in Iran” while using key buzz words like “democratic”.
Over the years the FBI, Human Rights Watch, the Rand Corporation and several U.S. mainstream news outlets have produced in-depth investigations detailing the group’s past and present, some revealing the absurdly high “speaking fees” it provides to prominent figures who have appeared at its events. But even with a steady flow of damning information available, it is still spreading non-factual claims through its lobbying representatives. One way it does this is by issuing regular press releases through PR Newswire (a well-known online marketing tool) which are then reproduced as articles on news websites (see here and here for one example). Its lobbyists regularly talk to the press which is forced to quote them and MEK representatives have also been given full editorial slots in major U.S. newspapers.
Libyans: Passive Tools?
August 30th, 2011 § 4 Comments
Reuters
Somebody said to me recently, “The Libyans will soon be doing business with Israel, whether they like it or not.” Here we go again: the assumption that the Libyans have no agency of their own, even after they’ve so dramatically taken the initiative to change the course of their own history. Yes, Libyans took help from NATO, Qatar, and the UAE when they found themselves with no other option. This doesn’t mean they are fated to be slaves of the West. Even Iraq doesn’t do business with Israel, and Iraq has suffered a full-scale US occupation.
Such easy assumptions about the Libyan people arise from racism, usually of the unconscious, ‘well-meaning’ variety. This racism consists, first, of indifference to the people’s plight under Qaddafi, or outright denial of their plight. The rose-tinted view of life under the dictator is reminiscent of the Zionists who assure us that Gaza has swimming pools and shopping malls and that Palestinian Israelis live better than any other Arabs. The rush to highlight the crimes of the revolutionaries (sometimes relying on Qaddafi regime propaganda) is accompanied by silence over the far greater crimes of the quasi-fascist tyranny.
Libyans (and, to a degree, Syrians) are seen as passive tools in the hands of the devilishly clever White man, as childlike people who don’t know their own best interests, as people best advised to shut up and enjoy being tortured for the sake of the greater ‘anti-imperialist’ good. The right of the Libyans to life and freedom, and to make their own decisions, becomes less important than the right of certain people to feel self-righteous.
Libya’s Hidden Casualties of War
August 30th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Lured by pipe dreams of a better life, African migrant workers pass through Libya en route to Italy or stay there as low-paid laborers. But ever since the civil war and revolution broke out, many have been stuck there with nowhere to hide or go.
Al Jazeera English reports that over 30 men from African countries have been imprisoned by anti-Qaddafi forces and that the migrants have been subjected to horrible crimes including theft, violent attacks and the rape of women. While there is no proof, the rebel forces are the most likely culprits as far as the night-time attacks go.
Everyone in Libya is suffering, but these people have sacrificed everything in search of work and now they are stuck in a sort of black hole produced by a political conflict that has nothing to do with them. Unlike Libyan citizens, these refugees have little to protect themselves with legally or physically.
Also read Evan Hill’s latest report about the rape of up to 2 dozen migrant women.
Three Films (Victory and Music)
August 29th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Three films from the Syrian Revolution. The first is a good illustration of why the revolution will win. Uniformed insecurity forces chant the tired old ‘with our souls and blood we sacrifice for you, Bashaar.’ It’s clear that their hearts aren’t in it. At least one soldier looks completely bewildered. The people of Inkhel respond by chanting ‘with our souls and blood we sacrifice for you, o martyr.‘ Their hearts are certainly in it. The second film (after the break) comes from Kisweh, a suburb of Damascus, and you should play it with the volume up. It demonstrates the Syrian appreciation of rhythm and drums as well as of freedom (hurriyeh). The third is a song sung by ‘Najwa from Nawa’ – Nawa is a village in the Hawran – calling on Bashaar to ‘irhal’ – get out.
Six Years After Katrina, The Battle for New Orleans Continues
August 29th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
(Getty Images)
by Jordan Flaherty
This article was published on The Root.
As this weekend’s storm has reminded us, hurricanes can be a threat to U.S. cities on the East Coast as well as the Gulf. But the vast changes that have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina have had little to do with weather, and everything to do with political struggles.
Six years after the federal levees failed and 80 percent of the city was flooded, New Orleans has lost 80,000 jobs and 110,000 residents. It is a whiter and wealthier city, with tourist areas well-maintained while communities like the Lower 9th Ward remain devastated. Beyond the statistics, it is still a much-contested city.
Politics continue to shape how the changes to New Orleans are viewed. For some, the city is a crime scene of corporate profiteering and the mass displacement of African Americans and the working poor; for others it’s an example of bold public-sector reforms, taken in the aftermath of a natural disaster, that have led the way for other cities.
No Way to Honor Dr. King
August 27th, 2011 § 3 Comments
by Medea Benjamin
The ceremonies for the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC were kicked off on August 24 at an event billed as Honoring Global Leaders for Peace. But some of those honored are a far cry from King’s beloved community of the poor and oppressed. The tribute to peacemakers, organized by the MLK National Memorial Foundation, was mostly a night applauding warmakers, corporate profiteers and co-opted musicians.
The night started out with great promise when MC Andrea Mitchell mentioned Dr. King’s brilliant anti-war speech Beyond Vietnam as a key to understanding the real Dr. King. And sure, there were a few wonderful moments—a song by Stevie Wonder, a speech about nonviolence by the South African Ambassador and a quick appearance by Jesse Jackson in which he managed to spit out a call to “study war no more.”
But most of the evening’s speakers and guests of honor had little to do with peacemaking. One of the dignitaries thanked at the start of the program was Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, representing a country that uses $3 billion a year in precious U.S. tax dollars to commit war crimes against Palestinians.
Then came a parade of representatives of corporations that want to cleanse their image by being associated with Dr. King. The first was General Motors VP Eric Peterson. His company took billions from government coffers to keep it afloat, then showed its “generosity” by donating $10 million of our tax dollars to the memorial. Mr. Peterson gave a speech paying tribute to the company’s first black board member, Rev. Leon Sullivan. Peterson claimed that the Sullivan Principles, principles that established a social responsibility code for companies working in South Africa, helped abolish apartheid. The truth is that the Sullivan Principles ended up being a cover for U.S. corporations—like General Motors–to continue doing business in racist South Africa instead of respecting the international divestment campaign.
