Join Naomi Klein, Neve Gordon, Noam Chomsky and thousands of others and tell Israel not to jail Ezra Nawi, one of Israel’s most courageous human rights activists.
His crime? He tried to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region.
Nawi, a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent, is a threat to the settlers and the Israeli government because he has brought international attention to efforts to illegally remove Palestinians from the Hebron region. He will be sentenced in July.
Watch these young Israeli soldiers demolish the home, arrest Nawi and then laugh about the depravity. Truly lost in the darkness.
If Gordon Brown were to open the way for a truly independent and open inquiry into the invasion and occupation of Iraq he would quite likely find himself in the dock for war crimes.
I’ve been crunching some numbers on the UK’s European Parliament election results. And despite the system they use supposedly being “proportional”, they show significant disproportionalities.
Joe Karam, instrumental to David Bain’s not guilty verdict, after 13 years:
Karam [said] he joined the Bain case in 1996, when he “very naively believed all I would do was take my concerns to the authorities who would take over from there. Unbelievably, they didn’t — they thought I was the enemy.”
“What I’ve really been driven by is an absolute certainty that David Bain was railroaded — that he never got a fair go. That’s what’s kept me going really.”
He says he’s spent virtually all his money on the case over the past 13 years.
Check out this video of war criminal Condoleezza Rice passing the buck when questioned by some students about torture.
Student: Waterboarding. Is waterboarding torture?
War crim: Er, the President instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture. So that’s … and by the way, I didn’t authorise anything. I conveyed the authorisation of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorisation, subject to the Justice Department’s clearance. That’s what I did.
So, first, denial but it gets better. I couldn’t quite get the next question but this is her answer:
War crim: … and, I just said, the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and so by definition, if it was authorised by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.
That old chestnut. “Well he told me to do it, and furthermore, he’s above the law.” We’ll see Condi, we’ll see.
… when compensation is finally paid out, the government, unbelievably, docks room and board, or “saved living expenses” calculated on the basis of what a frugal person might have spent on their own upkeep if they were free. “As if you voluntarily popped into the local prison,” says Young, contemptuously. “Yes, it would have cost them something to live — but you’ve taken their liberty. If you can afford £50bn to bail out a bank you can afford to compensate someone for 27 years in prison.” McManus estimates that Hodgson will pay a minimum of £100,000 for the privilege. The appeal was paid for by legal aid, but it does not cover the process of applying for compensation. And so he will have to pay legal fees too.
“It’s like [the state is] projecting some of the responsibility back on to the individual,” says Turnbull. “As if he should have made a better job of proving his own innocence and not allowed the system to make the mistake it did. It’s like accusing a rape victim of being provocative, spreading the responsibility beyond those who should be taking it. He should have been set free immediately, compensated magnificently and put through a system to restore him to as near his normal self as possible, and yet none of things are happening.”
Bindmans is … preparing to launch a legal challenge against the use of “kettling”, the police tactic used to pen in 5,000 people during the G20 protests and a strategy which led to protesters suffering asthma and panic attacks. John Halford, a partner in Bindmans, said that the firm had held talks with Climate Camp legal advisers on Friday to prepare to launch a judicial review against the containment of protesters.
Halford said that “kettling” is legally justifiable only when there is no alternative to address actual or imminent violence. He said: “There is much to suggest that ‘kettling’ was the first thing resorted to as a response to a peaceful demonstration that was considered a nuisance by the police. Worse, many protesters have reported unprovoked baton charges and other forms of intimidation while they were penned in. We plan to ensure all of this is examined by the courts.”
I’ve experienced kettling before as part of a peaceful demonstration in 2003 against the world’s largest arms trade fair, DSEi, held every other year at East London’s ExCeL Centre. I spent most of my time in the kettle trying to explain participatory economics to the police. An engaging lot to be sure.
This Bill was to have its second reading in the UK’s House of Lords today. The Bill would make pubic companies publish the difference between top directors’ pay and the average wages earned by the lowest paid 10% of their workers.
While a small step it’s laudable when you consider the amount of damage income inequality does to society and its people. It will be useful to know which companies are doing the most damage and which aren’t. And, while it’s a small step, it’s an interesting Bill in that it makes anyone who opposes it look like a right prat, especially in this economic climate.
Dick Taverne and Miles Templeton discussed the Bill on BBC Radio’s Today programme this morning. You can listen to it here. Good to hear a House of Lords member promoting income equality.