Sunday, Dec 14th
Last update09:33:21 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
As if the United States did not have a bloated enough prison population – which I think nearly every single American realizes is a painful truth – our school systems are being transformed into yet another way to funnel people into the private prison system.
School systems around the country, but especially Texas, have begun criminalizing what would otherwise be normal childish behavior.
An Afghan investigative commission accused the American military Saturday of abuse at its main prison in the country, repeating President Hamid Karzai's demand that the U.S. turn over all detainees to Afghan custody and saying anyone held without evidence should be freed.
The demands put the U.S. and the Afghan governments on a collision course in an issue that will decide the fate of hundreds of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operators captured by American forces. The head of the Afghan investigation said U.S. officials told him many of those militant suspects were taken based on intelligence that cannot be used in Afghan courts.
A jury trial for five anti-torture activists begins on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 in D.C. Superior Court before Judge Fisher. They are charged with unlawful conduct in the citizen’s gallery at the House of Representatives on June 23, 2011, and face jail time if convicted.
“Our strategy is to put Guantanamo on trial,” says Josie Setzler, a human rights advocate and grandmother from Ohio, “and demand that Congress and the President close Guantanamo and restore the U.S. Constitution.” The press conference will discuss the court case and the larger issues of torture, Guantanamo, and the NDAA.
On the third anniversary of the Cast Lead onslaught, we remember the anonymous soldiers who fired on a red car, in which a father, Mohammed Shurrab, and his two sons were returning home from their farm lands.
It is not fair that the officer who then served as GOC Southern Command of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, will be the only one remembered on this anniversary. Indeed, the list of fighters who should be mentioned and recalled is long.
Anti-democratic legislation's been passed. More's coming. Individual liberties are threatened, including those of minorities. Affected groups include those named above and anyone criticizing government policies, including Jews.
Annually, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) publishes its "State of Human Rights - Situation." For 2011, it documents "grave violations of rights in Israel's prisons and describes a rising trend of restrictions of liberty" overall, including:
They are linked because ultra-Orthodox coercion stems in large part from ultra-Orthodox control of key ministries in the Israeli government. Israeli prime ministers give the ultra-Orthodox control over these ministries in return for the Knesset votes that keep them in power.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is “enraged” today, according to reports, after the existence of a confidential European Union memo was revealed which noted that Arabs inside Israel face discrimination.
The document focused on a number of measures being pushed in Israel’s parliament limiting criticism of the government and efforts, which are being pushed by Lieberman’s party, to strip Arabs of citizenship if they do notswear a loyalty oath to Israel as a “Jewish” state.
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