From: <peacethrujustice@aol.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 12:13 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] INFO BRIEFS: Justice Matters - RAJAB 1432 A.H. (June 28, 2011)
THE PEACE THRU JUSTICE FOUNDATION
Contents:
Justice In America: A Tale Of Two Crimes
by Abby Zimet
Consider Paul Allen, 55, a former mortgage CEO who defrauded lenders of over $3 billion. This week, prosecutors celebrated the fact they got him a 40-month prison sentence. Consider Roy Brown, 54, a hungry homeless man who robbed a Louisiana bank of $100 - the teller gave him more but he handed the rest back. He felt bad the next day and surrendered to police. He got 15 years. Justice in America has a ways to go.
<http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/06/24-8>
Supreme Court Rejects Abu Ghraib Lawsuit Over Detainees' Abuse Claims
06/27/11 10:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from former detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq who wanted to sue defense contractors over claims of abuse.
The justices turned aside the appeal Monday from Iraqis who said they or their relatives were abused by interrogators employed by two firms, CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp. A divided federal appeals court had dismissed the lawsuits.
The firms provided interrogators or interpreters to assist U.S. military guards at the prison that served as the backdrop for pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions. Military investigators later concluded that much of the abuse happened in late 2003 – when CACI and Titan's interrogators were at the prison.
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Two Arrested in Alleged Seattle Terror Plot
The two suspects appeared in federal court Thursday in tan prison garb and listened as prosecutor recited the charges against them. Detention hearings were set for Wednesday.
By CBS/AP
Story Created: Jun 23, 2011 at 3:38 PM AKDT
(CBS/AP) SEATTLE - Two men intent on attacking a military recruiting station to inspire Muslims to defend their religion from U.S. actions abroad were snared by FBI agents in a terror plot sting, authorities said Thursday.
Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., of Los Angeles, were arrested Wednesday night after they arrived at a warehouse garage to pick up machine guns to use in the attack, an FBI agent wrote in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
The machine guns had been rendered inoperable by federal agents and posed no risk to the public. The two suspects appeared in federal court Thursday in tan prison garb and listened as prosecutor recited the charges against them. Detention hearings were set for Wednesday.
Their court-appointed defense lawyers declined to comment. The suspects could face life in prison if convicted.
Authorities learned of the plot early this month when a third person recruited to participate alerted the Seattle Police Department, the complaint said. Investigators immediately began monitoring the men, and the confidential informant continued to string them along by promising to obtain weapons.
The building, the Military Entrance Processing Station on East Marginal Way in Seattle, also houses a daycare. Recruits for all military branches are screened and processed there...
To read the full report:
Thursday, June 23, 2011
'9/11 Unveiled' presented to the chairman of The 9/11 Commission
Mr. Kean is co-chair of the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) which which released a new report — "Preventing Violent Radicalization in America."
Following brief remarks by Mr. Kean, Peter Bergen (NSPG member and Director of the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation), and Peter Neumann (Founding Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London and BPC Visiting Scholar) offered brief comments on the report, and engaged in a discussion moderated by Siobhan Gorman, Intelligence Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
During the question and answer period, I rose to support Mr. Neumann's recommendation for engaging with Muslim communities, and asked "which Muslim communities?" I added that groups such as the NSPG, and those in the US government, tend to engage with those Muslims who agree with them, and shun those that don't. Dialog with only those who agree with you is not very effective.
I then handed copies of "9/11 Unveiled" to Messrs Kean, Nuemann, Bergen, and to Ms. Gorman. The book is a free download at TWF.org.
The event was filmed, and should be available for viewing later at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Enver Masud
Founder and CEO
The Wisdom Fund
Hillary Clinton gives green light for Israeli attack on Gaza flotillaSubmitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 14:14 In comments yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to lay the ground – indeed almost provide a green light – for an Israeli military attack on the upcoming Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which will include the US Boat to Gaza. Among the passengers aboard the American boat will be 87-year old Kindertransport survivor Hedy Epstein, and author and poet Alice Walker. In all it is expected that about 10 ships, carrying 1000 people from over 20 countries will take part.
Clinton must know that Gaza is not part of what any country recognizes as "sovereign" Israeli territory, and therefore neither are Gaza's territorial waters. Any boats entering Gaza's waters would not in fact be entering "Israeli waters" as Clinton claimed. Clinton also, presuming she is properly briefed rather than misled, must also know that last year Israel attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla when it was in international waters and GPS data showed that it was actually heading away from Israel. By invoking Israel's supposed "right to self-defense" against civilian boats trying to reach Gaza, we must understand that Clinton is telling Israel the United States will not stand in the way of another military attack. And by citing Israel allowing construction materials into Gaza to make the case that the flotilla is "unnecessary" because "aid" can reach the Palestinian people in Gaza, Clinton is engaging in the ultimate obfuscation. People in Gaza have been reduced to penury and rendered dependent on aid by decades of Israeli occupation, siege and military attacks. The issue is not the delivery of aid but freeing the people by lifting the siege. It is an abhorrent position to suggest – as Clinton seems to – that if people in Gaza receive enough calories or a few building supplies then we should not be concerned about Israel's siege. The Palestinian people of Gaza are not caged animals for whom sufficient care consists of shoving rations through the bars of their prison. Israel's siege is intended as a form of collective punishment and has been declared illegal by the ICRC. Israel, as The Electronic Intifada reported, is engaging in military drills to intercept this unarmed civilian flotilla. In light of Clinton's statements, if any blood is spilled it will not only be on Israeli, but also American hands. Prosecuting flotilla passengers under "material support" lawsNot content with tacitly encouraging Israeli violence, in another alarming development, the State Department has apparently threatened that Americans who board boats to Gaza could be jailed or fined for supporting terrorism. Haaretz reports:
In effect, the US now seems to be defining any support for any Palestinians, including a besieged civilian population, as support for Hamas, and therefore support for "terrorism." This mirrors its use of such "material support" laws as a pretext to investigate and persecute Palestine solidarity, antiwar, and labor activists exercising their First Amendment rights at home. |
Although we can't be sure, this list attempts to identify American Muslims acting as spokespersons for the U.S. Dept. of State. Compiled, from a list of about 2000, by the staff of The Wisdom Fund — www.TWF.org ; Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Case #200604684, dated 9/14/2006.
Alice Walker: Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza
Pulitzer prize-winning American writer Alice Walker is on board an international flotilla of boats sailing to Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade. Here she tells why:
Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to linktype="link">? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content. It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young. How are they to learn, otherwise?
Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?
There is a scene in the movie Gandhi that is very moving to me: it is when the unarmed Indian protesters line up to confront the armed forces of the British Empire. The soldiers beat them unmercifully, but the Indians, their broken and dead lifted tenderly out of the fray, keep coming.
Alongside this image of brave followers of Gandhi there is, for me, an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American south in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help - our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters - and came to stand with us.
They got as far as the truncheons and bullets of a few "good ol' boys'" of Neshoba County, Mississippi and were beaten and shot to death along with James Chaney, a young black man of formidable courage who died with them. So, even though our boat will be called The Audacity of Hope, it will fly the Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner flag in my own heart.
And what of the children of Palestine, who were ignored in our president's latest speech on Israel and Palestine, and whose impoverished, terrorised, segregated existence was mocked by the standing ovations recently given in the US Congress to the prime minister of Israel?
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left. One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.
As adults, we must affirm, constantly, that the Arab child, the Muslim child, the Palestinian child, the African child, the Jewish child, the Christian child, the American child, the Chinese child, the Israeli child, the Native American child, etc, is equal to all others on the planet. We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.
I once asked my best friend and husband during the era of segregation, who was as staunch a defender of black people's human rights as anyone I'd ever met: how did you find your way to us, to black people, who so needed you? What force shaped your response to the great injustice facing people of colour of that time?
I thought he might say it was the speeches, the marches, the example of Martin Luther King Jr, or of others in the movement who exhibited impactful courage and grace. But no. Thinking back, he recounted an episode from his childhood that had led him, inevitably, to our struggle.
He was a little boy on his way home from yeshiva, the Jewish school he attended after regular school let out. His mother, a bookkeeper, was still at work; he was alone. He was frequently harassed by older boys from regular school, and one day two of these boys snatched his yarmulke (skull cap), and, taunting him, ran off with it, eventually throwing it over a fence.
Two black boys appeared, saw his tears, assessed the situation, and took off after the boys who had taken his yarmulke. Chasing the boys down and catching them, they made them climb the fence, retrieve and dust off the yarmulke, and place it respectfully back on his head.
It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put - without delay, and with tenderness - back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.
That is why I sail.
The Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir by Alice Walker is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. A longer version of this article appears on Alice Walker's blog: alicewalkersgarden.com/blog
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Day of Action: Newburgh 4 Sentencing
Wednesday June 29
8:45AM: PRESS CONFERENCE AND RALLY - CITY HALL
9:30AM: MARCH TO COURTHOUSE 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY
Sentencing of Newburgh 4 has been moved to June 29 - 10am.
THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TAKE A STAND
FOR THE NEWBURGH 4 BEFORE THEY ARE SENTENCED!
The press conference will be followed by a march to the federal courthouse at 9:30 to pack the court for the 10 o'clock sentencing. Every person counts! Your presence is needed!
Contacts:
Alicia McWilliams: 347 299-4973, aliciamcwllms@yahoo.com
Ayesha Hoda: 646-267-5057, hodayesha@gmail.com
More on the Newburgh 4 and The Movement:
As many of you know, the entrapment case of the Newburgh 4 reveals the extent to which the government can and has gone in order to manufacture crimes that sustain and reinforce the 'threat' of 'terrorists.' In the Newburgh 4 case the government implanted a so-called informant (in actuality a provocateur) in the community with the express purpose of inciting and enlisting men to carry out government manufactured 'terrorist' plots--plots that would later be 'foiled' by the government as well.
According to "Targeted and Entrapped," a recently released report by the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice (CHR&GJ) at NYU, the horror of the Newburgh 4 case can be located in these four findings:
1) That: the involvement of informants took place without any "previous evidence to suggest that the defendants were planning to commit violent acts before the FBI or NYPD intervened"
2) That: "The government informants not only held themselves out to be Muslims but focused their incitement on Muslims." The focus on the targeting of Muslims is most evident in the government informant's insistence that ALL of the men enlisted in the 'plot' be Muslim.
3) That: "The government's informants aggressively pushed ideas about the violent jihad and even encouraged the defendants to believe that it was their duty to take action against the United States." The government even "provided defendants with- or encouraged the defendants to acquire- material evidence, such as weaponry....which would later be used to convict them"
4) That: "the government relied on the defendants' vulnerabilities-poverty and youth, for example-in its inducement methods."
Although the defendants were convicted last October, the NB4 case has brought to the fore several important issues, including the question of government misconduct, racial and religious discrimination and several due process rights issues including the right to a fair trial. Please see CHR&GJ's report, Targeted and Entrapped, for further details about this and other cases involving informants and entrapment, at:
http://www.chrgj.org/projects/docs/targetedandentrapped.pdf
--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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