Egyptian Ministry of Interior asks for more funding for advanced security equipment to put down anticipated strikes or riots...
Tarboush tip: Arabist
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Not Enough Bread? Let's Get more Weapons...
Sunday, May 11, 2008
After Egypt, Jordan...
...bans any event commemorating the Nakba. For the sake of "public security", I presume?
Tarboush tip: Angry Arab
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Egypt asks mobile firms to bar anonymous users
Not so much asks as orders...The reuters article said it affects several hundred thousand users but when I went to Vodafone to register my line so that I could send text messages, the employee told me there were more than 4 million lines (and that could be Vodafone alone, though I didn't ask for specification). When I slyly said, why does politics have to interfere in everything, he replied It's not our business, we're just following orders...
Tarboush tip: 3arabawy (check out the cute picture in his post, which says "Down with King Mubarak the First")
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Egyptian State Goons Want People to Forget the Nakba
They indirectly intervened to cancel the events of Nakba week, and interestingly enough the event at Townhouse gallery (which I live very close to) was ignored by them because it doesn't have much of a popular Egyptian crowd that frequents it. This is the same Egyptian state that likes to delude itself that it achieved a glorious victory over Israel in 1973 (and then went promptly and made "peace" in 1978). AUC professor Jalal Amin the other day said that in his daughter's junior high school exam around that time, all the questions in the Arabic comprehension section had sentences about the gloriousness of peace in it.
Tarboush tip: Electronic Intifada and Serene Assir
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Dr. Al-Arian Transfered to Custody of Immigration Authorities on Friday
Dr. Al-Arian's hunger strike continues; he has lost 34 pounds. Please contact the Attorney General:
Attorney General Michael Mukasey
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
To the Attorney General:
I am writing to request that you restore some degree of integrity to the justice system of our country by releasing Dr. Sami Al-Arian on 11 April 2008, as agreed to by both Dr. Al-Arian and the US Government in April of 2006.
Dr. Al-Arian's case has made me lose a great deal of faith in the justice system of our country. It used to be the one branch of government that I was taught to believe was governed by principles. It turns out that this same justice system is willing to keep a man in prison for two and a half years after a jury of his peers failed to convict him of a single charge.
This is not the justice system that I grew up respecting.
I demand that:
1. Dr. Al-Arian was promised release and expedited deportation in 2006. This must be honored immediately.
2. The Department of Justice must cease abusing it's power through continual grand jury subpoenas and new criminal charges.
3. Given Dr. Al-Arian's hunger strike, there are serious concerns about his health. He must be released and allowed to return to his family for humanitarian reasons.
4. Dr. Al-Arian's imprisonment, and the US Government's abuses of power, have come to the attention of the entire world. His release may restore some level of respect for our institutions in the world view, as well as at home.
PLEASE ALSO CONTACT
1. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Immigration Field Office
Vincent Archibeque
Acting Field Office Director
2675 Prosperity Avenue
Fairfax, VA. 22031
Phone: 703-285-6200
2. Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
Fax: (703) 299-3339
UPDATE:
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace
April 12, 2008
Dr. Al-Arian Placed in Punitive Detention
VIRGINIA-- At 1 a.m. on Saturday, Dr. Sami Al-Arian was moved by hostile prison guards from a regular holding cell at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup, Maryland, to the "Special Housing Unit." The SHU is an extremely punitive and restrictive section of the prison where inmates are placed in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, usually in freezing temperatures.
Prisoners are normally moved there for violating prison rules. However, in the case of Dr. Al-Arian, he has always been placed there without reason or any explanation. In the SHU, prisoners are subjected to continuous, deafening alarm sounds and have little contact with the outside world. With no medical supervision, this is an extremely dangerous place for Dr. Al-Arian to be during his hunger strike, which is on its 41st day. Dr. Al-Arian was also held in solitary confinement for 37 months before and during his trial. This was a deliberate attempt by the government to break him down physically and psychologically and to prevent him from preparing for his trial.
Amnesty International has written several letters decrying the prison conditions of Dr. Al-Arian, calling his treatment "gratuitously punitive" and "inconsistent with international standards for humane treatment."
The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace urges all conscientious individuals and organizations to contact the Howard County Detention Center and call for humane treatment of Dr. Al-Arian. We also call on media outlets to cover these abuses, which so far have received no attention.
TAKE ACTION
Call the Howard County Detention Center and ask that Dr. Al-Arian be removed from the Special Housing Unit, where he does not belong, and that the prison ensures he is given proper medical treatment during his hunger strike. The number is (410) 313-5200.
see the Free Sami Al-Arian website for more information.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
At Last
...my two friends have walked out of Qasr El-Nil police station. One of them said that she and all the other women were treated well and not harmed physically and that her father was allowed to bring her food. But all the men arrested were beaten up badly.
In other news, both of them really need to take a bath.
This is NOT the end of the story for us. There are still many more people in jail for definite and indefinite periods until their "interrogation" is completed. Please, everyone who is reading, inform your friends in the states, tell them about all the USAID money that goes into the pockets of the Egyptian rulers instead of the Egyptian people, and that is used to buy arms for and fund this brutal repression. This is the best thing that we as Americans can do to try and bring more justice in the Middle East. The corrupt regimes of countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al, would be on much shakier ground were it not for our government's material (and moral) support.
A Cairo scholar (yes, the same source as the April Fools camel joke of last week) named Ian had a very cogent and concise point to make, for which I thank him:
"The true nature of the system we call the "capitalist state" -- or otherwise the universal productionist order -- is revealed in moments like this. Such things used to happen in the West, until states there embedded discipline, individualism and consumption more deeply into the social body, at the same time upgrading the police and distancing the population from power by a complex institutional labyrinth that leaders there call democracy. We must remember that the killing of workers, like torture, is a sign of state weakness, and that Egypt's economic position is a function of corrupted elites backed by martial law and an international division of labour established by Western imperialism. It is our moral duty to be in support of the people in their struggle for justice and the means of life."
Monday, April 07, 2008
Another Minor Killed in Mahalla
Confrontation between student and security officer at Helwan University (Photo by Mohamed Hossam Eddin, Al-Masry Al-Youm)
According to another strike blog, at about 10pm, state security forces shot 15 year-old Mohammad Ahmad al-Sayyed in the head as he was watching clashes between them and brick throwing youth. He was martyred instantly. The police are also firing tear gas into homes and apartment buildings. More than one person is saying than scenes in Mahalla eerily resemble pictures from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Did anyone say occupation?
In other words, the chief kooks of Egypt disagree about the haram-ness or halal-ness of the strike (English translation).
10:30 PM, Apr 8: My friends still haven't been released. The Egyptian bureaucracy rules state that the order for release must be "executed" within 24 hours of its issuing, and it has been over 33 hours now. However, one of the fathers and a cousin and a lawyer is inside the police station and with them and they are doing OK. They are afraid they will go out and start demonstrating immediately, especially given that there are local elections going on which the Muslim Brotherhood has called people to boycott.
Spontaneous Demos, Power Slashes
The anonymous blog for the strike says there is a spontaneous demonstration going on in front of `Abideen courthouse downtown. Also, the electricity in the Delta town of al-Mahalla has been cut. Al-Mahalla has been the scene of intense worker organizing in textile mills in recent months, and where 2 people, plus a small child were killed yesterday.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
This Could Happen to Anyone- Get It? His Rights Are Our Rights.
CONTACT: http://judiciary.house.gov/Contact.aspx
It has been requested recently that letters urging Dr. Al-Arian's release be sent to Judge Gerald Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and to congressional leaders.
Supporters are also being asked to write letters directly to Dr. Al-Arian.
Please write:
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
(202) 307-6777 Fax
askdoj@usdoj.gov
Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20530-0001
House Judiciary Chair:
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
john.conyers@mail.house.gov
Senate Judiciary Chair:
Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
To contribute to Dr. Al-Arian's legal defense, please send checks to:
National Liberty Fund
P.O. Box 1211
24525 E. Welches Road
Welches, OR 97067
Saturday, March 29, 2008
In Commemoration of Land Day
Sunday is Yom al Ard, or Land Day, in Palestine and Israel. The activities held on the 30th of March each year mark the anniversary of protests in 1976 against the theft of Palestinian-owned land inside of Israel by the state. Six people were killed in the Galilee, and hundreds injured.
To my knowledge, not even the anniversary of the Nakba is recognized as popularly throughout the West Bank, Gaza and Israel as Land Day. The Nakba happened in 1948. Land Day is used to address the ongoing arbitrary confiscations of Palestinian property since that time, whether in Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza.
For Land Day, demonstrations are organized in cities, towns, villages, and refugee camps throughout all of historic Palestine. They are especially pertinent in areas where new confiscations are taking place. This year, the focus is on Jaffa, where 500 families have been issued eviction notices before the neighborhood is razed to make way for Jewish development. (Notice the grounds for eviction: that the residents "invaded the properties." Many Jaffa residents are internally displaced persons who have been deprived once of their property, and were forced to take up residence in the homes of Palestinians who fled before them.)
Check out this interview with Father Shehadeh Shehadeh, an organizer of the original Land Day protest in 1976.
Unrelated to Land Day, I would also like to bring your attention to this article on the assassination of the four men in Bethlehem a few weeks ago. I am sorry that I did not take a picture of their martyr poster when I had the chance. It shows the four, who are from different political factions, all standing together with weapons raised. I find it ironic, considering the way that they died: unarmed, sitting in a car waiting for their food order. As if the poster, like so many others, is an attempt to bestow some meaning on their deaths, which are no more than cold-blooded murders for which no investigation will ever take place and no justice will ever be served.They did not even have the chance to move. Their bullet-ridden bodies were still sitting upright when passersby pulled them from the car.
It was the moral equivalent of a team of Palestinians, disguised as Israelis, driving an Israeli car into Tel Aviv and gunning down four off-duty Israeli soldiers.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Did you know discrimination is technically illegal in this country?
It doesn't seem to matter what side of the Wall you're on, nor what citizenship you have. If you are Arab in any area of Israel or Palestine, your blood is worth less in court.
Israeli policemen fired into a crowd of their fellow citizens in October of 2000, killing 13. The event corresponded with the start of the Second Intifada, and Palestinian citizens of Israel were demonstrating in support of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
This week, the Israeli court system has dropped all cases against the policemen involved. No one will be prosecuted for the killings of unarmed Israeli civilians, because they happened to be Arab.
BBC Article
Adalah Press Release
Reports on October 2000 Killings
Thursday, January 03, 2008
The War on Blogging
The Christian Science Monitor ran a good article on Fouad al-Farhan, the Saudi blogger detained and charged by Saudi Arabia for non-security-related charges (okay?). They are seeking "an apology" from the blogger for his criticism of Saudi's arrest of Jeddah-based civil rights activists, who were charged with supporting terror. Al-Farhan, a visible blogger who blogged under his real name, is not clear on what he is supposed to apologize for. Man, it's like third grade all over again, but on a national level.
This has stunned Saudi's blogging community, though they cannot be too surprised. Saudi Arabia, which has not freedoms of expression or press, is supposed to be liberalizing since King Abdallah took over. This is a major test of just how far that is coming along.
Saudi Arabia must free Fouad now! See the website to support him.
The article points out that currently Egypt and Tunisia are holding bloggers, as well. These, and the many attacks on journalists, are egregious excesses by despotic regimes at war with their own citizenry. KABOBfest stands in solidarity with Fouad, Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, and all bloggers being punished for their words.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
OH SNAP! Almontaser Sues NYC Mayor
That's great May, now back to things that actually matter…
This morning the NY Times reported that Ms. Debbie Almontaser, the founding principle of NYC's Khalil Gibran International Academy, filed a lawsuit against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Education Department Chancellor Joel I. Klein for suppressing her freedom of speech and "conspire-[ing] to deny her the opportunity to regain her position as principle."
If you recall, a few months ago Ms. Almontaser was pressured into resigning after a few spineless officials - pandering to a gang of racist Zionuts and xenophobic turds who launched a smear campaign against her for explaining that the Arabic word for "intifada" literally means "shaking off" - made it damn near impossible for her to continue in her duties as school principle.
Well, she's suing now. And seeing as this is a clear cut case of her first amendment rights being violated, she's likely to win too. So in advance, I'd just like to thank all the racist douche bags (namely the Stop The Madrassa Coalition) who made it possible for another influential pro-Palestinian to turn millionaire. I'm sure Ms. Almontaser will use her new found wealth for something really evil and anti-Semitic too… like…gasp…education!
More KABOBcoverage on Ms. Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran International Academy.
Monday, November 19, 2007
You know you’re in Palestine and/or Israel when…
At lunch, your colleagues pull a foot-long cow tongue in a plastic grocery bag out of the freezer, look at it, and put it back.
When you tell other people about said tongue, they don’t understand why the above scenario is funny.
Your colleagues miss work because they are protesting the water shut-off to their village in Israel by the national water authority.
The water cutoff demonstration doubled to protest house demolitions.
They march through sewage backup in the same village.
You are at risk of losing your hearing, not from gunshots or tear gas but from a massive amount of freely-attainable fireworks during wedding season, which thank God is coming to an end.
The sky turns purple. (the sky actually turned purple today)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
What Does Justice Mean in Jena?
The national spotlight is falling on Jena, a rural Louisiana town. Six black teenagers are being charged with attacking a white teenager after a racial provocation. According to the AP:
The six teens were charged shortly after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white teens who hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.The kid who was badly beaten suffered a swollen face and lost conciousness. He was did attend a "school function" that same night, indicating that his injuries were not necessarily permananent.
Based on what little I know of the case, the initial charges of "attempted murder" seemed extreme, which is why they were lowered so quickly. But more important questions are coming up. Protestors are raising an issue about the selective application of "justice."
The controversy is an interesting one. Thousands of people from all over the region came to the city to protest the disparate treatment of a justice system long rife with inquality. They are outraged the noose hanging was not punished and demand leniancy due to what is a clear provocation.
Many White people look at this situation and see a vicious attack that needs to be punished. They will doubt that historical violations justify a vicious attack by many on one.
Black people will see this in light of hundreds of years of continuous mistreatment and injustice -- and the nooses as one significant symbol of the legal system's long historical collusion with the forces of racism.
This view is only exacerbated by the still unresolved demand for justice -- for reparations from slavery (coerced, unpaid labor), segregation, and the history of lynching and violence in which local and state governments legalized or tolerated (lynchings were rarely punished). The six teenagers may or may not articulate this view, but any people who suffered such crimes would internalize it and live it out.
In short, the whites who want to see these 6 teenagers punished have the if-an-alien-landed view, devoid of any historical placement or any crucial context. That is fine for perpetuating ignorance and societal imblance, but it contributes nothing to the legacy of understanding needed to right the wrongs of the past.
In my moral universe, I cannot see this beating as justifiable. Yes, words and symbols can be painful reminders of the past -- and I would classify a noose hanging as a free speech act -- though one that should mitigate the punishment of the teens (and I would include their young age as another factor). Just as most school fights go unenforced criminally (usually just school suspensions), this one should too. The students who hit the boy should be punished, and the boys who hung the nooses should be shamed by the school and their peers.
More importantly, problems like this call for the long overdue step of a major racial reconciliation by the federal, state and local governments. They should issue offical apologies to African-Americans, and offer communal and individual reparations. This may not be complete justice, but it could mark a new era in race relations. And don't let the Oprah's, 50 Cent's, LeBron's, and Condoleeza's of the country fool you: the historical crimes this country was founded on are still unaccounted for.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
La illaha il Allah, wa Metallica habeeb Allah
British newspaper The Times reported yesterday that James Hetfield, lead singer of the one and only Metallica, was recently detained and questioned at Luton airport for his "Taliban-like" appearance… he has a long and stringy beard.
Fortunately for him, he was able to convince airport staff and security that he was, in fact, not a hairy Mooooslum, but a rock god. According to The Times, he was released shortly after - just in time to play the London leg of Live Earth.
Interestingly, subsequent reports state that Hetfield denies the incident altogether. (It's likely that it didn't happen... cause let's be honest - the dude ain't brown)
Nevertheless, the fact that such a story would make international headlines is telling of the "sad but true" state of affairs that the Arab & Muslim communities are facing with racial profiling and numerous other infringements upon their civil liberties that seem to follow them "wherever [they] may roam." (HA! Ok khalus, enough with the cheese-ball Metallica jokes - I'm done.)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The Case For Norman Finkelstein
Last week, DePaul University in Chicago denied professor Norman Finkelstein tenure despite widespread support for him by DePauls faculty and staff.
Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry, now has less than a year remaining on his contract with the political sciences department of DePaul University in Chicago. He lost his bid for a lifelong post after a four to three vote of the promotions and tenure board.
The decision came at the end of several months of wrangling, both within the Catholic university and within the wider academic and Jewish communities in the US. Mr Finkelstein has argued in his books that claims of anti-semitism are used to dampen down criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and that the Holocaust is exploited by some Jewish institutions for their own gain.
This is the best commentary I have read so far about professor Finkelstein, his work, and the meaning of his tenure denial to academic freedom, especially those academics who dare to challenge Israel and her US rottweilers' version of history and events of the Middle East conflict...
Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, has been relentless in exposing what he calls "The Holocaust Industry": the institutions and organizations that have used the holocaust (the actual historical event) to justify Israel's criminal assault upon the Palestinian population and international law. Among these organisations, he includes the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and a host of other fellow travellers. There is no doubt that Finkelstein's work has stoked controversy. But that shouldn't detract from what makes his tenure treatment so worrying: Finkelstein is undoubtedly a path-breaking and serious scholar.
Finkelstein argues that most US commentators obscure or avoid the clear historical and diplomatic record in examining the Israel-Palestine conflict by ignoring or downplaying international law, fooling the US public into believing that Israel's occupation is just, necessary, and lawful. One such example is the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks - a failure that has been attributed, at least in elite circles within the United States, to Yasir Arafat's intransigence. In actuality, what Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak offered Arafat was something no Palestinian leader could accept: a Bantustan state reminiscent of the African national territories.
Monday, June 11, 2007
A World Apart Within 15 Minutes
A short film by young Palestinian filmmaker Enas Muthaffar.
It was referenced in the New York Times article Israel and the price of blindness on May 27th:
Jerusalem - A three-minute Palestinian movie says what needs to be said about estrangement and violence in the Middle East. It features a woman driving around Jerusalem asking for directions to the adjacent West Bank town of Ramallah. She is met by dismay, irritation, blank stares and near panic from Israelis.
The documentary, called "A World Apart Within 15 Minutes" and directed by Enas Muthaffar, captures the psychological alienation that has intensified in recent years and left Israelis and Palestinians worlds apart, so alienated from each other that a major Palestinian city has vanished from Israelis' mental maps.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Jenin: The Invisible Town
Your weekend reading material...
Sarah Helm wrote in the Guardian last week about "My search for the West Bank's 'invisible' town"
Sarah Helm set off by car to see Palestinians in Jenin but soon found that her road map was of no use. In the four decades after the Six-DayWar, a labyrinth of walls, unmarked roads and checkpoints has arisen,hiding whole towns from Israeli eyes.Read on...
'Jenin? you want to go to Jenin?', asked a Palestinian villager,standing near an unmanned Israeli roadblock somewhere in the northern West Bank. The villager scratched his head as if surprised to hear the city's name, although we could not have been more than five miles away as the crow flies. 'It's a problem', he said.
'Where exactly is it? Which direction?' I asked anxiously. Having circled the area for so long, I had lost my bearings. I was last in Jenin - due north of Jerusalem beyond the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus - five years ago to write about a suicide bomber who killed himself and 15 Israelis, including a family of five, in a Jerusalem pizzeria. Back then Jenin was still on the map.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The New West Bank
This new map of the West Bank, issued by the UN and published in the Financial Times, reflects the new realities continuing Israeli occupation and practices has created.
40% of the land mass is off limits to Palestinians. Remember, the West Bank is only 18% of historic Palestine area, most if that is already known as Israel.
Along with the restricted land area, the many fixed and even more mobile check points make population movement next impossible, to say little of goods and services, or even ill patients waiting for hours at checkpoints, some times resulting in their death.
The FT references the latest Amnesty International human rights report. This damning document provides a detailed breakdown of evidence, cases, testimonials, and photos of Israeli criminal practices of oppression and collective punishment.
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