Al Haq’s memorandum provides a solid legal framework for advocating Palestinian rights, based on the recommendations of the 2004 International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the wall Israel built on Palestinian land, and the internationally accepted 2001 general rules on legal obligations of states when international law is violated. International legal scholars have endorsed the memorandum including Professor John Dugard.

The report also gives legal backing to governments wishing to sanction Israel, stating that ‘it is lawful for any injured party, including any affected State, to take “countermeasures”’.

The document is in particular relevant for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement because it explicitly strengthens the legal basis for activism against Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. The document presents useful examples of public and corporate complicity. The following summary of the legal paper focuses on information which is particularly relevant for the BDS movement.

Israeli settlement development is a state enterprise

Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory violate Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Israeli governments, the Israeli military, the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization (WZO) played a crucial role in the strategic and operational planning at the early stages. More recently, settlement expansion has been driven by the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Ministry of Defense – including the Minister’s Assistant on Settlement Affairs – the Israeli military and its “Civil Administration” in the occupied territories, regional and local authorities, and the Settlement Division of the WZO, writes a 2005 official government report. These bodies have mapped Palestinian land allocated for confiscation, identified suitable locations for settlements, supported their construction, and facilitated populating them with Jewish Israeli settlers. Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are therefore the outcome of a state enterprise and not merely the work of the settlers.

Moreover, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and the courts, in particular the Israeli High Court, have passed over the years legislation and jurisprudence to “justify” the settlement enterprise.

Complicity of institutions and companies

Several public and private actors receive contracts or subsidies for their services to Israel’s settlement enterprise such as postal authorities, academic institutions, the Israeli labor union (Histadrut) and Israel’s national water company Mekorot, which plays a key role in the discriminatory water supply to Israeli settlements and Palestinian communities in the occupied territories.

Other players in the settlement enterprise are Israeli security, trade and export companies, such as Elbit, Agrexco and Mehadrin. Businesses and associations provide essential services for the maintenance and development of the settlements in the area of construction, transport, supply, and services in health, education, culture and sports.

Moreover, private Israeli security companies such as G4S Israel perform tasks in the occupied territories that were traditionally executed by the Israeli security forces. G4S provides equipment and services for the incarceration of Palestinians or the operation of checkpoints and the police headquarters in occupied Jerusalem.

IT companies like Hewlett-Packard subsidiary EDS Israel provide and maintain surveillance and other security-related technology for the Israeli army and settlements.

Israeli banks provide the financial infrastructure and services for all settlement activity including foreign companies.

States must ensure Israel’s respect for international law

During the 45-years settlement enterprise, Israel has realized dramatic changes of the status and demographic composition of the occupied territories. It violated the Fourth Geneva Convention and human rights treaties, as well as customary international law prohibitions on colonialism, racial discrimination and apartheid.

All 194 states who ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention are responsible to ensure Israel’s respect of the provisions of the Convention.

Under the International Convention against Torture, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, states have the obligation to ensure that persons responsible for serious breaches amounting to international crimes are brought to justice.

In addition, all states have the legal obligation to cooperate to bring Israel’s international crimes to an end. They should also not recognize the illegal situation created by Israel in its settlement enterprise, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation. Therefore, all states have to ensure that its organs, public and private entities, and persons whose activities are attributable to the state under international law, do not violate these obligations. This includes state-funded or otherwise-supported aid agencies and businesses performing certain official functions in the settlement enterprise.

Complicity of states in Israel’s international crimes in relation to settlements

Many states are complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise by rendering unlawful aid or assistance via state organs, entities and individuals whose activities are attributable to the state. Grave examples are military aid or cooperation with Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Official aid or support for the construction and development of Israel’s wall, checkpoints, terminals, prisons and detention centers are other examples.

The same counts for aid or support the so-called joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zones in the occupied territories, which benefit Israeli business, undermine Palestinian development and exploit Palestinian labor. States are also complicit by allowing direct, often tax-exempt, support of the illegal settlements by Jewish and Christian Zionist organizations registered in their country.

A grave act of complicity is the international protection the United States provide to Israel. Through diplomatic pressure on other states, in the full knowledge of the circumstances, it obstructs efforts of states – within and outside the United Nations – to counteract Israel’s serious breaches.

Furthermore, states who cooperate with or support settlement activities of Israeli state-organs or public and private entities violate the legal obligation not to provide aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful situation. This happens in numerous cases of official cooperation in the area of trade and research, including the EU. State support to activities or projects of (transnational) business companies who contribute to Israel’s unlawful settlement enterprise in the occupied territories. Such aid or assistance amounts to recognition of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied territories.

The 2010 OECD decision to accept Israel as a member, with its settlements in the occupied territories but without the occupied Palestinian population, is mentioned as another grave example of complicity.

Complicity of donor governments and state funded aid agencies

Donor governments and state-funded aid agencies render aid or assistance to Israel’s settlement enterprise when they construct Palestinian infrastructure, in particular roads, which indirectly contributes to the maintenance of Israel’s regime of segregation and apartheid in the occupied territories and the expansion and entrenchment of Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories. The same counts for the procurement of materials or goods for humanitarian and development aid from Israeli suppliers implicated in violations linked to the settlement enterprise.

In addition, states or state-funded aid agencies provide recognition of the settlement enterprise when they abide by Israel’s illegal permit regime in the occupied territories, or when state representatives conduct relations with Israeli organs or entities endorsing the illegal settlement enterprise.

Moreover, donor governments and state-funded agencies provide recognition when they fail to hold Israel accountable for its serious breaches in public statements or UN resolutions, or tolerate destruction or damage of aid-infrastructure or aid-equipment by the Israeli army without military necessity, or by private settlers.

States can lawfully impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel

The serious breaches linked to Israel’s settlement enterprise in the occupied territories legally affect all states. Therefore, states are entitled to act individually or collectively on behalf of the Palestinian victims. They can lawfully take countermeasures such as reprisals or sanctions, because Israel has failed to comply with its obligation of cessation of the illegal settlement enterprise and reparation for Palestinian victims.

To bring down Israel’s settlement enterprise states can, for example, lawfully adopt measures to prohibit import of Israeli goods or export to Israel, suspend cooperation agreements with Israel, impose other forms of embargoes on trade and cooperation; freeze funds and assets of the Israeli state, entities and persons responsible for the serious breaches; bar Israeli banks from international financial transfers (SWIFT); and suspend agreements on landing rights of airplanes or impose flight bans.

However, states have failed to adopt appropriate countermeasures to end Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. That is why the BDS movement campaigns against governments, local authorities, companies or other actors who are involved in Israel’s breaches of international law against the Palestinians in the occupied territories. The BDS movement can build on the legal arguments presented in Al Haq’s paper to strengthen its strategy and actions.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Dear Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh:

I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem News.com. I would like to urgently bring to your notice and reiterate my concern about the treatment and care given to women and children who experience sexual assault in light of a series of disturbing news reports on this issue.

While on the one hand we acknowledge that the increasing numbers of news reports of sexual assault in the country could be indicative of women’s improved ability to report the crime, what concerns us about these reports is that they consistently reveal the woefully poor treatment meted out by state authorities to those who experience such violence.

One of the more recent and disturbing examples of this is the case of Soni Sori, who, after alleging sexual assault in police custody in Chhattisgarh state in October 2011, has waited for a long time for independent medical treatment and care without police intimidation or bias. The Chhattisgarh police took her to the Kolkata medical college hospital for independent medical treatment and examination following a Supreme Court order on October 20, 2011. After a hiatus of over six months, the Supreme Court of India issued another order on May 2, 2012, directing that Soni Sori be taken to New Delhi for follow-up medical treatment. Even six months after the alleged sexual assault, the Chhattisgarh state government has yet to register any First Information Report (FIR) and investigate the allegations of custodial torture.

The reports of bias and damaging stereotypes against survivors of sexual assault are endemic and cut across a range of government or other officials who provide assistance. These include the police, local government officials, public prosecutors, hospitals, staff of children’s homes, and even some judges in many parts of the country.

I remain deeply concerned by the extent of such bias and the poor care for those who experience sexual assault and would like to draw your attention to government reports that have recommended further government action:

• Recommendations of the Planning Commission Working Group on Women’s Agency and Empowerment: The Working Group recommended a ban on the two finger test, a medical examination that reinforces damaging stereotypes about rape survivors, and also stated that a range of services should be provided to rape survivors, including one stop centers. In particular it recommended that the government consider the “[s]etting up of One Stop Crisis Centres, on pilot basis, for providing shelter, police desk, legal, medical and counselling [sic] services to victims of violence under one roof” and that such a “center should be connected to a 24 hour Helpline.” The Working Group also recommended that “a Helpline for women preferably, an all-India one, with an effective back office social-legal support system should be established in the XII Plan. This would cover victims of domestic violence, rape and other atrocities against women.”

• Recommendations of the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage: The expert group recommended that the role of a community health worker be expanded to include prevention of gender-based violence and promotion of mental health services, and also envisaged post-violence trauma care at the village level (sub-center).

• The report of the Working Group on National Rural Health Mission for the XII Five Year Plan (2012-2017) states that “there would be a greater emphasis on rolling out programmes related to the prevention and a health system response to gender–based violence.”

Sexual assault could jeopardize the health of a survivor in many ways. These include pregnancy, exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and mental health concerns. The Indian government has an array of programs as part of its National Rural Health Mission, the Integrated Action Plan for Selected Tribal and Backward Districts, the proposed National Urban Health Mission, and the National Mental Health Program, but these have thus far not included detailed norms, monitoring parameters, guidelines, or related training for reproductive, sexual, and mental health care services for women and children who experience violence, especially sexual assault or abuse.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development announced a scheme for financial assistance for victims/survivors of rape in the country, which will in some ways assist women who have little or no money to pay for the post-trauma services they desperately need, but this scheme has yet to be implemented.

India is party to many international treaties that oblige it to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s and children’s rights to life, health, freedom from violence, and access to justice without discrimination. The Indian Constitution also guarantees the fundamental rights to life and equality before the law and equal protection of the law.

I hope you will treat this as an urgent national priority and take the following measures:

• Instruct all state governments to actively monitor the progress of registering first information reports (FIRs), investigating and prosecuting reports of sexual assault, and hold accountable those police officers who are not promptly registering FIRs, investigating crimes, and filing chargesheets.

• Constitute a high-level task force on response to violence against women and children. The expert group should develop a multi-pronged, coordinated response to gender-based violence, especially sexual assault, within a clear time frame and in a transparent and consultative manner.

Such a high-level task force should include representatives from the ministries of home, health, finance, women and child development, law and justice, road transport and highways, department of information technology, and leading experts in the fields of forensic science, reproductive and sexual health, mental health, and human rights.

The high-level task force should advise the government concerning the creation of a set of accessible, affordable, quality multidisciplinary joint response teams, one-stop crisis centers, and witness and victim protection programs, which are together funded by the central and state governments. These should have clearly specified norms for implementation, monitoring, and evaluating such responses. In particular, there should be a clear standard protocol for police action in accordance with international human rights law and existing Supreme Court guidelines and mechanisms. There should be a clear mechanism for monitoring police action and holding police accountable for inaction and interference while providing health care to those who experience violence.

The high-level task force should outline norms and standards for responses to violence against women and children, especially sexual assault, without discrimination based on language, caste, tribe, religion, political or other opinion, occupation, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, migrant, HIV or other status. In particular, the task force should ensure that treatment for those living with HIV, disability, persons from transgender communities, sex workers, and those reporting sexual assault by police is provided in a nondiscriminatory manner.

• Integrate within programs like the National Rural Health Mission, the proposed Urban Rural Health Mission, and the Integrated Action Plan for Selected Tribal and Backward Districts, a strong response to violence against women and children, especially sexual violence, outlining clear entitlements and services that should be provided at the village, block, and district levels, both community-based and facility-based. These services should include access to emergency contraceptives, prophylactic medications, counseling, and information about HIV and other sexually transmittable diseases.

• Allocate and disburse funds for the implementation of the existing scheme for financial assistance for victims/survivors of rape and develop a monitoring framework to evaluate how well this scheme is being implemented across the country.

I hope you will treat this as urgent national priority. I look forward to receiving information regarding the steps taken by your office to initiate measures in response to the concerns raised and recommendations made in this letter. Please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information.

AUTHOR: William Nicholas Gomes
URL: www.williamgomes.org
E-MAIL: williamgomes.org [at] gmail.com

Chairman-PFF Mr. M Ali Shah speaking to the audience

February 13, 2012

Ms. Nadia Gabol
Minister for Human Rights
Government of Sindh,
Pakistan secretariat, Barrack 92,
Karachi, Sindh Province
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 21 9207044
Tel: +92 21 9207043 +92 21 9207043 +92 21 9207043 +92 21 9207043
E-mail: lukshmil@yahoo.com

Re: PAKISTAN: Fisher folk activist suffers an illegal raid by the Rangers

Dear Ms. Nadia Gabol,

Name of victims:
Mr. Muhammad Ali Shah,
Chairman Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF)
Gen. Secretary World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP)
Karachi, Pakistan

.Resident of Ibrahim Hyderi, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan

Names of alleged perpetrators:
Lt. Col. Jawaid and the Rangers Officers on duty on February 9, 2012

Date of incident: 9th February 2012..
Place of incident: The house of the victim, Ibrahim Hyderi, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

I am writing to voice my deep concern regarding the harassment and illegal, gratuitous raid at the house of Mr. Muhammad Ali Shah by the Rangers. Mr. Shah is a fisher folk activist and human rights defender and the chairperson of a very prominent civil society organization Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum. A troop of around twenty-five Rangers raided Mr. Shah’s house on the 9 February.

According to the information I received, On Thursday 9 February, 2012 around 7pm in the evening, Mr. Shah out of the spirit of camaraderie participated in a protest organised by the labourers of M/S MASCO (A Germen Garments Factory situated in Ibrahim Hyderi, Karachi) against the unjust and inhuman working conditions imposed by the management.
The peaceful protesters suffered a brutal crack including being fired upon from the upper floors of the building and also by direct firing by the MASCO Security team resulting in many casualties. Moreover a number of protesters were then abducted by the police. They were given no reason for their arrest. Mr. Shah condemned the criminal and inhuman acts of the factory management and unlawful support of the Police. He talked to the officials and had the labourers released.

This act of kindness towards the poor labourers infuriated the factory owner and he contacted one of his friends in the rangers named Lt. Col. Jawaid.

I am informed that the Rangers already had a grudge against Mr. Shah due to his campaign against the contract system that led the Rangers to take control of various water bodies thereby preventing the fisher folk from carrying out their occupation. Lt. Col. Jawaid therefore wasted no time in taking up his friend’s unofficial complaint. The same evening he phoned Mr. Muhammad Ali Shah, abused him verbally and threatened him with kidnapping and death. He warned Mr, Shah to keep himself away from social work or get ready to bear the harsh consequences. Mr. Shah clarified him that he was not undertaking any unlawful acts and that he was only showing support to the people who are deprived, marginalized and victims of injustice.

According to the information I have received Lt. Col. Jawaid became even angrier and sent 20-25 armed Rangers at around midnight to kidnap Mr. Shah and teach him a lesson. The soldiers cordoned off the area where Mr. Shah lives as if they were acting against some terrorist threat and raided his house without having any legal order or complaint in black and white. Fortunately, Mr. Shah was not at home at that time otherwise he might have been treated brutally before being abducted.

I would like to emphasize that this case should not be merely taken as a violation of rules and procedures but, even more seriously as a criminal act as well as a human rights violation. It is no doubt a sheer example of felony and misdemeanor. However this is not a new trend as the agencies have been implacable in their attitude towards Mr. Shah as he always stood at the forefront to defend the human rights violations by state and non-state actors.

In order to condemn this act and forestall the possible threats and assault, the Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum-PFF held a series of protests throughout the entire province of Sindh.

I therefore, urge you to initiate an inquiry into this matter of harassment of a human right defender and fisher folk activist. I urge you to take action and prosecute the relevant personnel of the rangers, in particular, their commander, Lt. Col. Jawaid and condemn this act of sheer unlawfulness and misdemeanor.

Yours sincerely,

AUTHOR: William Nicholas Gomes
URL: www.williamgomes.org
E-MAIL: williamgomes.org [at] gmail.com

Freedom Front Plus member Jaco Mulder

Eric Nkuna and Fortunato Simbine -who had been attacking and terrorising Afrikaner families on Krugersdorp’s smallholdingings throughout 2009– yesterday were found guilty of four charges of housebreaking and armed robbery: Eric Nkuna also was found guilty of executing Afrikaner family-man Juan van Eeden, 28, in Noordheuwel on 10 October 2009. The court heard that these two armed black males had waged a reign of terror throughout the Krugersdorp smallholdings area – and which included very cruel, long-term psychological and physical torture of their Afrikaner victims.

Ügen Vos writes in Beeld from KRUGERSDORP regional court that Eric Nkuna and Foftunato, the two black attackers who had terrorised Afrikaner families at the West Rand throughout 2009, were found guilty on four charges of housebreaking and armed robbery: and that Nkuna also found guilty of murdering a local Afrikaner resident due to ‘insufficient evidence’. Nkuna and Simbine were infamous for their campaign of terror in 2009 during which they often tortured their Afrikaner victims psychologically and physically: the mother of two little girls testifying that the men had asked her children ‘who they wanted shot dead first, ‘mommy or daddy’?

Magistrate Keith Page found Nkuna guilty of murdering Juan van Eeden (28) op 10 Oktober 2009 in Noordheuwel, Krugersdorp. Page ruled however that there was insufficient evidence to link Simbine to the murder. State prosecutor Micky Thesner emphasized the evidence before the court that the residents ‘often were tortured psychologically and physically’.For instance, during their attack on Mrs Marie Cloete and her two- and seven-year-old daughters, and Mr Harry Kok on 25 February 2009 the Afrikaners were held at gunpoint for hours.Mrs Cloete testified that Nkuna and Simbine smoked a marijuana-cigarette during the family’s ordeal: and asked her children ‘which one of your parents should be shot dead first’. They apparently surmised that Mr Kok was the father of the children, she testified. Nkuna also threatened to rape Mrs Cloete in her youngstest child’s bedroom. The attackers drove off in her Ford Tracer.

Juan van Eeden was executed with a single-shot through his neck:

Mr Juan van Eeden ‘s murder also was horrific, the court heard. Mr Van Eeden tried to lock himself in the main-bedroom of his home on 10 October 2009 while Nkuna broke in at 2am. Nkuna broke down the bedroom door and ‘coldbloodedly shot dead Van Eeden with a neckshot’, the court heard.

Finger-print on their .45 pistol was linked to cartridge at Van Eeden’s murder scene:

On 22 Oct 2009 the two terrorists had also attacked Mr Johan Potgieter in Noordheuwel after poisoning his staffordshire-terriër. However this was a crucial turning point for the police in tracing the two men: Potgieter was able to push an emergency service’s button while the two armed black males stormed into his bedroom. In their haste to flee before the armed response unit would arrive, they lost a .45 pistol – with Simbine’s finger-print on it. And this .45 pistol provided the positive proof, the vital link that the cartridge which was used to murder Mr Van Eeden, was directly linked to Simbine. On 23 October the gang attacked Mrs Johanna Paulina Erasmus at her home in Noordheuwel. They tried to strangle her, then beat her unconscious with a spanner and fled with a Mercedes Benz 230 which was traced by her tracking company and the West Rand Reaction Unit – and both men were arrested.

The terror campaign against the Afrikaners of Krugersdorp continues unabated: even Freedom Front Plus MEC Jaco Mulder feels unsafe inside his own Noordheuwel home…

However while these two men have been arrested and tried, the campaign of terror against the Afrikaners around Krugersdorp continues unabated. On Nov 1 2011, Krugersdorp Noordheuwel families suffered a wave of senseless knifing attacks: with one girl surviving with horrid mutilations carved into her body by two black men in a frenzied attack. The 22-year-old girl lives right across the home of the Gauteng premier Mrs Nombula Mokonyane…

The girl was attacked at 11am on Nov 1 2011 in her home in Noordheuwel Krugersdorp. She was deliberately mutilated by the two black males with knives who stabbed her repeatedly in the frenzied attack She fought back courageously and managed to send an SOS to her mother – which caused her attackers to flee. Nothing was robbed.

This incident was only one of a series of senseless knifing attacks targetting Afrikaners throughout this region. The victim’s identity is not released for security reasons, the police said.

Freedom Front Plus member Jaco Mulder said after the incident he no longer feels safe with his family in their Noordheuwel home. Mulder, who is a MEC- member of the Gauteng provincial security committee, said that there are spates of attacks and house-breakings targetting people in their homes. “The criminals clearly do not fear any of the law-enforcement agencies in South Africa. Criminals move around freely in suburbs, and use exquisitively-detailed intelligence and information about the daily habits of their identified victims. The SAPS and the neighbourhood-watch initiatives are falling down flat when it comes to crime-intelligence.’

This is the way the above terror-campaign against the Afrikaner families of Krugersdorp was reported by the English-language SA news media: they very carefully avoided any mention of the fact that all the families targetted were Afrikaners… on smallholdings: Guilty verdict for two Mozambicans – February 7 2012 at 09:45am Two Mozambican criminals who terrorised homes in Krugersdorp, west of Joburg, in 2009 have been convicted on four counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, according to a report on Tuesday. Eric Nkuna and Fortunato Simbine targeted townhouse complexes in the Noordheuwel area, frequently inflicting psychological and physical torture on their victims.Nkuna was also found to have murdered Juan van Eeden, 28, at his townhouse complex, but there was insufficient evidence to link Simbine to the crime, Beeld newspaper reported.In one incident, a family was held captive for hours, the mother was threatened with rape and the two daughters, who were seven and two respectively, were asked which of their parents should be shot first.In a separate case, Simbine left a fingerprint at the scene of the crime after holding up Johan Potgieter at his home.In another incident, a woman was choked, then beaten with a monkey wrench, before they stole her car.Sentencing will take place later this week.

In other news today, the housekeeper of Cheetahs logistics manager Sakkie Wessels was arrested for suspected link to a killer-gang one of whose members, the now arrested Moses Malatji, has been charged for torturing to death the Afrikaner artist-dj Paul van Vuuren of Phalaborwa. Staansaam self-defence unit of Phalaborwa reports that the housekeeper of Cheetahs team logistics manager Sakkie Wessels was arrested for suspected links with a violent crime gang. The gang is suspected of recently breaking into his farm-house. The gang is also suspected of spreading a reign of terror across the Free State and countrywide. One of its members (picture) who was recently arrested is suspected of the gruesome torture-murder of artist Paul van Vuuren, 55, of Phalaborwa.

Percy Van Rooijen, Wes Geldenhuys warn urgently that many farm-attacks targetting Afrikaner smallholders are expected at the Brits smallholdings
Feb 7 2012 – 11:00 am: Wes Geldenhuys – Urgent: all farmers on smallholdings and farms in the Brits region – Hekpoort, Wolhuters Kop, Sandfontein, DeKroon, Sonop settlement and surrounding areas, be alert: A trucker reported that the blacks are going ‘all-out’ in those NW areas to murder and plunder us. Farm-attacks will be inevitable with organised groups of five to six each from about 7pm at night especially when you are watching TV inside. They figure you are drunk during those times on weekends. This trucker does not want to report this to the police because he’s scared they will kill him.”

Mr Geldenhuys who issued the warning, lives in Amanzimti and is in the security business there – escorting for small companies. Just after 5am am on Tuesday Feb 7 2012 he writes me that ‘when he drove up to his business, a trucker-trailer was in his parking area where the crew had spent the night. I woke them up, asking them to move. ‘The driver, I estimate aged about 50, got in behind the wheel, and I ask him where’s he’s from, since we’re speaking with each other in Afrikaans and he says from Brits. I ask him about the way things are going there, and he tells me that he’s talked to these blacks in that area and what they were planning.”

AUTHOR: Adriana Stuijt
URL: http://censorbugbear.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: a.j.stuijt [at] knid.nl

Nigeria

Death toll rose to 39 Sunday after bomb exploded at a Catholic Church in Nigeria’s town of Madalla in Niger state just as another church bombing and two suicide attacks were witnessed in other northern cities. The explosion at St. Thesera’s Catholic occurred after a Mass to celebrate Christmas while the second church bombing took place in a Mountain of Fire church in central city of Jos where constant clashes have taken place between Muslims and Christians. Also on Sunday, police in cities of Damaturu in Yobe state and Maiduguri in Borno state said the number of wounded are still being counted as a suicide bomber attacked the two restive cities.

The carnage in Madalla left at least 17 cars damaged by the bomb which killed those who queued up to drive or board commercial vehicles to their homes. The increase in number of deaths from an initial 25 came as more died in hospitals where they were taken to for medical attention. The owners of these vehicles queued up to drive home after the early morning mass where the message of love, peace and joy was delivered to herald the Feast of Nativity. Sadly, what we met was this ugly situation.” the pastor of the church, Rev. Fr. Isaac Achi said.

One of the victims was found on the roof of the church while several dead bodies were littered in gutters and other parts of the premises. “The victims have been moved to different hospitals but at St. Lucas hospital, nine of my parishioners were recorded dead. At Diamond Hospital, a little baby of 5 years who was injured could not locate his parents.” Achi said adding that some other victims were commercial vehicle operators who came in to pick passengers home.

Angry youths gathered to protest after the attack but were dispersed by the police. The explosion in Jos killed a police officer and while three vehicles were destroyed. The spokesman for Islamic radical sect, Boko Haram, Abu Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks. “The officers of Search and Rescue Team of NEMA in collaboration with stakeholders have evacuated at least 10 dead bodies from the explosion scene at Madalla to hospitals.” Spokesman for he National Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Yushua Shuaib said that the evacuation exercise was still going on and military men were also involved. In Yobe state, the police commissioner, Mr. Tanko Lawan said a suicide attacker targeted the headquarters of the oil rich African country’s secret police, State Security Service (SSS).

Boko Haram sect, which wants to install an Islamic government, has been waging war on Nigeria state in its quest to fulfil its ambition but the Nigerian military also battles them especially in their northern stronghold. More than 100 people mostly their members were killed last week when the army engaged them in gun battles in Damaturu, Maiduguri and Potiskum. Nigeria is a circular state with Muslims and Christians having equal share of the 150 million people in the country. Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for several bombings and shootings in the north and capital city of Abuja. A suicide bomb attack by the group at the United Nations headquarters in July killed 26 persons and injured more than 70. The group’s leader, Muhammed Yusuf was killed in 2006 during an insurrection which claimed more than 800 lives.

AUTHOR: Paul Ohia
URL: www.paulohia.blog.com and www.paulohia.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: paulohia [at] yahoo.co.uk

Other political leaders also voiced grave concern over the case and according to a statement by Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ; “This ruling takes its place in Turkish judiciary history as one of the defective rulings. I hope the deadline for the correction of the ruling has not passed. If not, and if the Supreme Court corrects the ruling, they [could rectify the situation] (Hurriyet Daily News).”  Bozdağ also added that the court erred in using its judicial discretion in favor of the convicts instead of N.Ç., as the court ruling included only the minimum sentences for the accused rapists, despite their ability to place the maximum sentences on the accused.  According to reports some of the 26 defendants facing rape charges were acquitted, while others were sentenced to serve only between one to four years for the rapes.

The court based their ruling and sentencing on an earlier version of the country’s penal code, which underwent significant revisions in 2005, which provided lesser punishments for defendants found guilty in cases of sexually assaulting children. “In the old penal code there was a very clear article which said it didn’t matter if you were under 15 [years of age] or over 15… if any rape or sexual assault happened with the consent of the girl or the woman, then the sentence would be reduced,” said Pinar Ilkkaracan of the group Women for Women’s Human Rights, who lobbied for the 2005 revision of the Turkish criminal code (CNN). Fevzi Elmas of the Supreme Court of Appeals, stated in an interview that, “The evaluations of the court were correct. We made a decision. This decision is not definite, it is also not possible for this decision to be changed by making noise (CNN).”   Umit Kocasakal, head of Istanbul’s bar association, told CNN-Turk television that the decision was “bloodcurdling (AP).”

The case clearly has the country outraged and calls for a clear evaluation on the country’s laws and judicial interpretation, and shows our global dissociation with victims’ rights. In my piece in August, When Will We Stop Blaming Victims? and May piece, Ending the Blame and Shame of Child Victims of Sexual Assault and Abuse,  I discussed the issue of placing the blame of abuse, assault, and/or human trafficking on that of the victim.  In my opinion “any indication of a notion that leaving children to believe there is no one in a position of authority to protect them, and that they are the sole responsible person for their own safety, is a blatant statement of neglect” and judgement like the case in Turkey only go to compound the issue of child protection as children and abuse victims will not seek assistance if they feel they will not be protected.  This case only fails to protect the victim, but re-victimize the victim.

It continues to appear that on an international scale we continue to have many hurdles to overcome in our misunderstanding of the needs of victims. Victims’ identification, rights and services, while improved, remain extremely underfunded, and awareness about the issues, despite an increase in reports compared to previous years, still need to become more and more mainstream. We must in no way place any level of blame on the victim… especially a victim whose abuse or rape began when they were only a child.  Shame should never be used against a victim. We must remove words such as blame and shame from our mindsets or we can never truly seek to assist survivors of any abuse in a quest to lead thriving and sustainable lives. Let us seek to protect and defend our children and not to shame and blame them for our own failures to act.  Additionally we must insure our laws and judicial system are on the side of the child and victim.

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org

A third prisoner was hanged in the town of Khoramdareh (west of Iran) this morning, reported the German news agency Deutche Welle, couting the Fars news agency. The prisoner who was identified as “R. Sh.” (age not known), was convicted of murdering another security officer identified as Behzad Jafari.

According to the Fars news agency “R. Sh.” has murdered the security officer Behzad Jafari on October 8th. two weeks before the execution.

AUTHOR: Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam
URL: http://iranhr.net/
E-MAIL: amirymoghaddam [at] gmail.com

Anwar al-Awlaki

A United States unmanned drone yesterday killed the 40-year old cleric Anwar al-Awlaki somewhere in the Yemeni governorate of Jawf together with some other people that accompanied him. US officials believe that Awlaki was involved in an operational role in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Also they think that Awlaki, who held dual American and Yemeni citizenship, was the man who recruited and prepared a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a US airliner heading to Detroit by detonating explosives that were sewn into his underpants. (The attack was prevented by an attentive Dutch passenger). Awlaki, they believe, was particularly dangerous because his sermons in flawless English reached a very wide audience.

The Yemeni government announced that Al Awlaki was “targeted and killed” around 9.55am outside the town of Khasaf in a desert stretch of Jawf province, 140 kilometres east of Sanaa. Yemen’s Defence Ministry and US officials said a second American militant was killed in the same strike: Samir Khan, a US citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced Inspire, an English-language Al Qaeda Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. US and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.

The operation that killed Al Awlaki was run by the US military’s counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command – the same unit that killed bin Laden. US president Barack Obama declared Al Awlaki’s killing a “major blow” to Al Qaeda’s most active affiliate, and vowed a vigorous US campaign to prevent the terror network and its partners from finding safe haven anywhere in the world.

What is particularly worrisome in cases like the killing of Awlaki, Bin laden (and many others in and around Pakistan), is that many seem to believe that this is an acceptable practice in the war against terrorism. In fact these kinds of operations are nothing but extra-judicial killings, or rather: state sponsored murders that neglect all basic rights of its victims. The proper way to dal with people like Osma bin Laden, Awlaki and others like them, is to capture and try them. And by following that path it also would have been possible to determine what role Bin Laden exactly played in the preparation of the 9/11 attacks, or, in Awlaki’s case, to determine whether he was really responsible for the recruitment of the Nigerian underpants- bomber. And what is true of the allegations, which can be heard all over Yemen, that AQAP, or at least the Yemeni branch of it, is not really that dangerous at all, as it is to a large extend interconnected with forces loyal to president Ali Abdallah Saleh, or even a tool in Saleh’s hands, which he uses to show the Americans and the West in general, how indispensable he, Saleh, is in the combat against the terrorists acts that AQAP commits.

By killing Awlaki we will never hear more about him and his role in AQAP than the myths and rumours that were spread by various secret agencies. It is like the Israeli practice of ‘targeted killings’, which are also no more than state sponsored murders, and in which cases we also rarely hear whether there was even proof that connected the person(s) killed to certain acts (the recent killing on 18 August of six Palestinians connected to the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza after the attacks on a road near Eilat comes to mind).

I don’t know who started this practice of exta-judicial killings and when. Was it the Israelis who inspired the Americans or the other way round? The bottomline however, remains that killing a person – unless it is to stop him/here from committing a terrorist act that he/she is perpetrating just that very moment – is completely unlawful and violates the most basic rights of any person. It is shameful that the highest US authority – president Obama – backs the practice and even applauds it.

And of course the practice to kill with missiles usually also kills bystanders:
The National, a paper in Dubai, reported that more people were killed in teh attack than the official sources initially mentiond. A tribal leader who requested anonymity gave an account of the strike based on information from Khamis Arfaaj, the owner of the house in which Al Awlaki was staying. Mr Khamis said Al Awlaki and six others took their breakfast and moved about 600 metres away from the house. Once they had their food ready, they noticed aircraft overhead. They moved to their car but a missile hit it. It killed Al Alwaki, Salem bin Arfaaj, Mohammed al Naaj and Khan. Mr Khamis said two others thought to be from the Gulf and a seventh person who remains unknown were also killed. He said the bodies were collected into four sacks and buried in the village of Al Khasf. He said Al Awlaki was in transit to neighbouring Marib province.

Residents of the area said at least seven US drones were seen patrolling the skies during the last three weeks.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl

Egyptian security officials said in early September that they were cracking down on the network of tunnels used by smugglers from the coastal enclave.
Including Tuesday’s victims, eight Palestinians have been killed while working in tunnels in September. Five Palestinians were killed in three separate tunnel collapses earlier this month. Medics say over 160 Palestinians have died in the network of underground tunnels since Israel imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip in 2006.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl

http://www.genocidewatch.org updated its Genocide warning for South Africa on 20 Aug 2011 from 'Boer farmers' being at risk of genocide stage 5 to include ALL WHITES and Women being at risk of Stage 6 genocide at the hands of "ANC Youth, black Marxist racists'. It did not continue its previous stage 5 warningthat 'foreign black Africans' were also at risk.

Genocide Watch: “Julius Malema must be removed as leader of the ANC youth league… he is a violent Marxist-racist just like Winnie Mandela.” Genocide Watch updates South Africa’s whites and women (high rape rate) to Stage 6 (of the 8 stages) of genocide at the hands of ANC Youths and Black-Marxist Racists”.

Stage 6 of 8 stages of Genocide: PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defense. Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come.

7. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces — should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the U.N. is paralyzed, regional alliances must act. It is time to recognize that the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene.

8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or an International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.

Dr Gregory Stanton of GenocideWatch.org has changed South Africa (and Zimbabwe) to Stage 6 of genocide – when death lists are drawn up, propaganda targetting the target-groups distributed, murder-groups are formed, armed attacks against the target-groups are starting to culminate in a full-out Genocide, and victims – (in this case more than 800,000 of the 3-million Afrikaner-whites are already living in hundreds of marginal land-sites in dismal squatter conditions) — are being forced into marginal land sites where they are denied food-aid by the regime. Stage 7 is the all-out genocide. Stage 8 is the denial of the genocide which in South Africa already occurred much earlier, during stages 4 and 5 — with the ANC-regime’s denial of its genocidal attacks against Boer farmers and its constant official attempts to hide these facts by stopping its recording these ‘farm-attacks’ in seperate categories on the official police statistics site http://www.saps.gov.za. Stanton writes: “Julius Malema must be removed as leader of the ANC youth league. He is a violent Marxist-racist. Just like Winnie Mandela.”.

Nearly 600 asylum-applications from South Africans
Legally, this designation by the world’s acknowledged expert-organisation on the process of genocide (genocide is not a singular event, it is a long-drawn out process), also means that Boers can use this status – as was already done under status 5 — to be legally admitted as ‘political refugees’ from this government-directed genocidal violence targetting them in South Africa.

Thus far 360 ‘South Africans’ have obtained political asylum in a variety of Western countries, including the USA, Canada, and Ireland. More than 200 applications also are still pending.

It also means that this fact will also be added to the two charges of genocide lodged by Boer-organisations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in April and May this year.

Up to August 20 2011, two at-risk minority groups were listed in South Africa – the ‘Boer farmers’ and 10-million black-African Refugees. The Boers have been listed at stage 5 since 2002. On August 20 2011, this rating was changed to include ALL whites in South Africa, at risk of Genocide Stage 6. The ‘whites’ now are targetted actively ; they are being publicly demonised and identified as the ‘enemy-group’; many calls are placed in the public media calling for their mass-murders, including the murders of white babies with the song ‘One Bullet – One White Infant’. There are reports that name-lists of white local-level leaders, identified through their participation in the citizen-policing forums, are being submitted to central government agencies. ANC youths are actively engaged in planning and announcing plans to take over all the (estimated 12,000 white-owned private farms) with organised violence-driven youth groups; groups are being trained at military bases at the moment. These newly-trained (8,000-member) ANC youth league members officially are going to help carry out ‘rural census’ from early next year. The ANC-regime does not explain why it is necessary to provide military training and arms to these groups. Stage 8 is the denial of the genocide and attempts to hide it by the perpetrators.

Many of these stages blend into each other: for instance in Stage 6, the victims are also being ‘forced into marginal land-sites or camps’ where they would be left to starve. This has been happening with the whites in South Africa when they were still in Stage 5: when the ANC-regime made black-racist laws barring the Boers/Afrikaners from the entire labour market only because of their ethnicity: more than 800,000 of the 3-million Boers now languish on marginal land-sites: being denied food-aid, government benefits and denied access to the entire labour market under the ANC-regime’s sonamed ‘black economic empowerment laws’. These laws are used to ethnically-cleanse ‘whites’ from their traditional towns and smallholdings because they rapidly become empoverished and homeless.

AUTHOR: Adriana Stuijt
URL: http://censorbugbear.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: a.j.stuijt [at] knid.nl