Human Rights

January 13, 2011December 11, 2020

Song for Bradley Manning

The Chair of the US House Committee on Homeland Security shows why Wikileaks is essential. His words are simply repellent and fascistic.

WikiLeaks today condemned calls from the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security to “strangle the viability” of WikiLeaks by placing the publisher and its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, on a US “enemies list” normally reserved for terrorists and dictators.

Placement on the US “Specially Designated National and Blocked Persons List” would criminalize US companies who deal with WikiLeaks or its editor. “The U.S. government simply cannot continue its ineffective piecemeal approach of responding in the aftermath of Wikileaks’ damage,” King wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the US Treasury, Geithner. “The U.S. government should be making every effort to strangle the viability of Assange’s organization.”

’The Homeland Security Committee chair Peter T. King wants to put a Cuban style trade embargo around the truth—forced on US citizens at the point of a gun,’ said Julian Assange.

’WikiLeaks is a publishing organization. It is time to cut through the bluster. There is no allegation by the US government or any other party, that WikiLeaks has hurt anyone, at any time during its four-year publishing history, as a result of anything it has published. Very few news organizations can say as much.’

’WikiLeaks has “terrorized” politicians from Kenya to Kansas over the last four years. Quite a few have lost office as a result. That doesn’t mean we are “terrorists”—it means we doing our job. We intend to “terrorize” Peter King, Hillary Clinton, corrupt CEOs and all the rest for many years to come, because that is what the people of the world demand.’

King noted that some U.S. companies had voluntarily cut off ties to Wikileaks, but that a New York publisher had recently agreed to pay Assange for an autobiography. Assange has said the eventual book royalties would help ’keep Wikileaks afloat’.

’By targeting WikiLeaks and the US publisher Knopf for economic censorship, King reveals his abiding hatred for the US constitution. When the founding fathers wrote, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”, they did not provide an exception for blustering fools like Peter T. King.’

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Exclusive Interview: Julian Assange on Murdoch, Manning and the threat from China
Wikileaks volunteer detained and searched (again) by US agents
Welcome to AnonOps Network
Wikileaks: Publication of Twitter data may violate EU law
I’ve got secret files on Murdoch as ‘insurance’, claims Assange
“WikiLeaks condemns US embargo move”
The Media’s Continuing War On Wikileaks

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Rabbi: Sins led to woman’s murder
Israeli ambulances refuse to enter ‘unrecognized’ Palestinian villages
Iran says US, Israel ‘sabotaged’ Lebanon govt
Israeli troops capture Lebanese man: army
Torture by Israel : 1999 to the present
The Holocaust, Palestine and the Arab World: Gilbert Achcar interviewed
Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: ‘Palestinians to the Ovens!’
Thirteen homes and three school buildings destroyed by Israeli forces
DANKNER: Decline to brutality – I am ashamed
Israeli FM’s visit protested in Greece
Erdogan says Israeli FM is despicable

Other Links

What if Tunisia had a revolution, but nobody watched?
Police Stopped Loughner’s Car on Day of Shooting
The social significance of the Arizona massacre
Mayhem Spreads in Tunisia; Curfew Decreed
Soldiers on the streets as Tunisian violence reaches capital
Tomgram: William Hartung, Lockheed Martin’s Shadow Government
Steve Bell on Sarah Palin’s ‘blood libel’
Tunisia in turmoil
Letters from Tunisia
Ghetts, the census and Guantánamo Bay
Flood shark sightings have residents on edge
The CIA File on Luis Posada Carriles
How Haiti was abandoned : the broken promises of support for Haiti from the world’s most powerful governments–and the neoliberal agenda they are pursuing instead.

January 12, 2011August 24, 2022

Flooded in, with an Eye on Israel’s Persecution of the People of Gaza

While Nutanyahoo postures about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons in an effort to clutch a flimsy veil of victimhood over Israel’s fascist expansionism, Israel is terrorising the defenceless people of Gaza vigorously, with continued bombings and executions. It is Israel who is the belligerent, expansionist invader and its latest aggression occurs while Hamas implores militants not to fire rockets at the zionist usurper.

Electronic Intifada highlights the fate of another casualty of Israel’s hideous siege on Gaza – the murder of sick 20 year old Anas Saleh by Israel’s official siege flunkeys.

Meanwhile, Palestine-based human rights organizations have called for a criminal investigation into the death of a 20-year-old Gaza resident, as Israeli officials prevented him from leaving Gaza in order to receive life-saving medical treatment for advanced liver disease.

Several human rights organizations — including the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — have demanded prosecution against Israeli officials for their culpability in his death. In a public statement, the organizations report that Israeli authorities had known about Saleh’s critical medical needs, and had denied his permit to leave Gaza nevertheless (“Human rights organizations demand criminal investigations into the death…,” 6 January 2011).

“… [T]he denial of an exit permit in these circumstances is an act against the legal obligation to provide medical treatment to save the life of the patient, an act which brought about, or at least hastened, the death of the deceased,” the statement read. “The aforementioned act, or failure, raises the suspicion of manslaughter, and/or causing death by negligence …”

If Im Tirzu has its way, there will be no ‘leftwing’ human rights organisations to report on Israel’s crimes against humanity. As usual, this ziofascist organisation omits to mention the massive tax deductible donations received from the international community including Australia, for illegal apartheid Israeli settlements and other land theft by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza is completely unacceptable and illegal.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) released a report on 10 December on Israel’s use of collective punishment against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip (“The Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip: Collective Punishment of the Civilian Population,” 10 December 2010 [PDF]).

In its report, PCHR states that by enforcing the blockade since June 2007, Israel is in grave violation of international law and reiterates that “nothing substantial has changed” since Israel’s alleged “easing” of the closure in June 2010.

“The closure is prohibited as a form of collective punishment and results in the infliction of great suffering on the civilian population, which is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions,” PCHR states in the introduction to the 102-page report. “It is a crime that entails individual criminal responsibility for those involved in this policy at various levels, especially at the level of planning, organization and active implementation of the closure. Ultimately, the closure may amount to persecution, which is a crime against humanity.”

PCHR stated that the international community is mandated to take action to “put an end to the illegal closure of Gaza, which is inherently illegal and criminal in its nature.”

“By failing to do so,” PCHR added, “the international community bears responsibility for the intentionally manufactured socio-economical crisis that is progressively destroying Gaza, and depriving its people of their most fundamental human rights and dignity.”

Now is the time to ramp up boycotts, divestments and sanctions of apartheid Israel. As governments have failed, and continue to fail to act to stop Israel’s iniquity, all people of conscience must do so.

And as for us? we’re still flooded in. If it doesn’t rain tonight, we’ll doubtless be able to escape our paradise to collect the mail tomorrow morning. Not so lucky are the people of Brisbane who are awaiting a flood peak at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. Please stay safe, don’t take chances and use your brains!

Palestine / Israel Links

Striking Israeli diplomats refuse to provide assistance to citizens abroad – As part of its sanctions against the foreign ministry, employees announce that they will not help citizens who lose their passport, need medical attention or face legal troubles around the world.
Israel blacklists 163 foreign charities suspected of supporting terrorism (fails to blacklist its own land-thieving JNF associated Keren Hayesod and United Israel Appeal charities)
Meridor tells Haaretz: Knesset plan to probe left-wing NGOs is dangerous
Israel begrudges Palestine its fragile tourism
#Israeli blood diamonds, forever on your conscience. #BDS campaign for Valentines day #Palestine
MKs demand names of Israeli firms boycotting settlements
Al-Jazeera reporter asked to remove bra by Shin Bet
‘Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring’
Birthright Israel calls on its alumni to ‘take back Zionism’
Asa Winstanley appearance on Epilogue, Ken Livingstone’s book review show
Fayyad meets outgoing NZ ambassador
Israel’s public relations policy: never apologise, always confuse

Wikileaks Links

Drug companies tried to get rid of Helen Clark when she was health minister, leaked US Embassy cables claim
Wikileaks have WMDs say US, Evening Standrd poster, Brick Lane, Shoreditch, Hackney, London, UK
Assange fears of trial in US justified, says expert
Irony Plus : Remarks to the Washington Center’s “Politics and the Media” Seminar Students

Other Links

Australia floods threaten Queensland capital; 14 dead, dozens missing
Drift had been asked by engineers to open windows and doors to let the river through – they will either sink or be washed away. They won’t have flood insurance, because they’re right on the river.
Clinton to Yemen: Murder Those Anti-American Muslims!
Brisbane braces for massive floods
Queensland Flood: What You Can Do

January 11, 2011December 11, 2020

No, Nutanyahoo, East Jerusalem is Palestinian

Clinton admonishes Israeli perfidious land thievery, but will the US or any of the Quartet actually do anything? Unless the US is willing to apply tangible pressure, pigs might fly sooner.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Jews have a right to live anywhere in Jerusalem, defended on Monday a settlement project that drew criticism from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Israeli bulldozers cleared the way for 20 new homes for Jews in East Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in a 1967 war and which Palestinian want as the capital of a future state, by demolishing a derelict hotel on Sunday.

Clinton, in Abu Dhabi on a tour of U.S. Gulf Arab allies, called the Israeli action a “disturbing development” and said it “undermines peace efforts to achieve the two-state solution.”

A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office made no direct reference to Clinton’s criticism, but said “there should be no expectation that the State of Israel will impose a ban on Jews purchasing private property in Jerusalem.”

Here’s the EU report on East Jerusalem, which still clings to the illusion that two states are possible:

EU East Jerusalem 2010 by Angela Godfrey-Goldstein

In Haaretz, Carlo Strenger comments:

All they seem to care about is to establish their patriotism through ‘Judaizing’ Jerusalem and other areas; to grab another building from Palestinians; to show how “Jewish” they are by proposing anti-Arab legislation and by attacking NGOs that try to protect Israel the liberal democracy.

The frenzy of the ‘Judaization’ of Jerusalem has now crossed the tipping point where the international community is no longer willing to just stand by. A while ago 26 former EU leaders, many of whom during their careers had been staunch friends of Israel, asked for sanctions against Israel. This has now been followed by a call of EU consuls to recognize East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital; to place observers at each venue where Israel wants to destroy Palestinian buildings.

The ominous signs that Israel will soon be under great international pressure are mounting, and proposals for specific steps of boycott and sanctions are taking shape. One is to deny Israelis who live in the West Bank entry to the EU, and to forbid the sale of any Israeli products from the West Bank.

Palestine / Israel Links

Daily Israeli Crimes Against Humanity
Farmer ‘killed by Israeli fire’ in Gaza – more like Israel fascists executed another innocent civilian
Angry Arab says that after Bill Clinton got in, Arabists were ‘eliminated’ from State Dep’t
Remnick takes another step– the occupation is ‘deeply wrong’

Wikileaks Links

Greenwald on the climate of fear created by the US in reaction to Wikileaks : “People who spout pieties are never targeted with censorship, since there’s nothing to censor. Only those whose views are threatening or marginalized are subjected to such measures.”

January 10, 2011December 11, 2020