Peace and Justice Post

Asian Human Rights Commision, Sept. 29, 2011

Urgent Appeal Case : The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that human rights defender Mr. Perumal Sivakumara (32) of Kalpitiya Road, Norochchole in the Puttalam District has died after being tortured in public by officers attached to the Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka Police. Perumal a well-known civil rights activist had gone to the town along with a friend to buy some medicine. At that time a large number of people had gathered at the church because a stranger had been terrorizing the village. When Perumal approached the gathering police officers arrived and started to beat some of the people. Despite the pleadings of Perumal he was severely tortured and later admitted to the Puttalam Base Hospital where he later died. No investigation has been started into the torture and extrajudicial killing of Perumal. This case is yet another illustration of the exceptional collapse of the rule of law in the country.

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This week marks the beginning of what is supposed to be the final 100 days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But if U.S. troops are to leave Iraq at the end of this year as promised – repeatedly – it will take grassroots pressure to counter the growing “occupy-Iraq-forever” chorus in Washington.

Despite the fact that there is a Bush-era agreement with the Iraqi government to leave, despite the fact that the majority of Iraqis and Americans don’t support a continued U.S. presence, and despite the fact that Congress is supposedly in an all-out austerity mode, strong forces – including generals, war profiteers and hawks in both parties – are pushing President Obama to violate the agreement negotiated by his predecessor and keep a significant number of troops in Iraq past the December 31, 2011 deadline.

It’s true there has already been a major withdrawal of U.S. troops, from a high of 170,000 in 2007 to about 45,000 troops today (with most of the troops being sent over to occupy Afghanistan instead). That number, however, doesn’t tell the whole picture. . .

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Iranian peace activist Narges Mohammadi at her home in Tehran in 2001. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

A prominent Iranian human rights activist who was taken seriously ill after being detained by the authorities has been sentenced to 11 years in jail.

Narges Mohammadi, 39, the deputy head of Iran‘s Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), a rights organisation presided over by the Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, was picked up last year by security officials who raided her house in middle of the night without a warrant for her arrest.

She was taken to Tehran’s Evin prison where she was kept in solitary confinement but was released after a month and taken to hospital.

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DUBAI — A Bahraini special court has upheld life jail sentences served on seven Shiite opposition leaders convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime in the Gulf kingdom, BNA official news agency said.

Jail sentences against seven other activists, ranging between two to 15 years and including Sunni opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif, were also upheld by the national safety appeals court, it said, quoting military general prosecutor Colonel Yusof Fulaifel.

Seven others, one sentenced to life in jail and the remainder to 15 years, remained at large and had not appealed against their sentences.

The appealed verdicts will go to a civil court of cassation for a final decision.

The eight activists sentenced to life include Hassan Mashaima, head of the Shiite opposition Haq movement, Abdulwahab Hussein, who leads the Shiite Wafa Islamic Movement, and Shiite human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen.

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In comments today, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani cautioned that the US was risking fueling anti-American sentiment across Pakistan with its continued allegations that the Haqqani Network is a de facto wing of Pakistan’s military.

He also said the threats for a ground invasion of Pakistan’s tribal areas were “disturbing” and that any such invasion would be a “violation of our soveignty.” He added that such threats were not appropriate to make toward allies and that he warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that an invasion was “not acceptable to Pakistan.”

US officials have repeatedly hinted at unilateral ground action against the Haqqani Network, and over the weekend Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) claimed there was “broad bipartisan support” in Congress for invading Pakistan.

Interesting, the US claim that the Haqqanis are under Pakistani control took a major hit today, as the Afghan Taliban claimed that they are actually in control of the network.

White House spokesman Jay Carney today insisted that the prospect of revoking all aid to Pakistan isn’t a “new warning” but rather a reiteration of the Obama Administration’s position. He added that the US is constantly considering revoking Pakistan’s aid.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Environmentalists are blaming climate change for the unprecedented massive monsoon rains in Pakistan, which so far this year have affected eight million people, claiming 350 lives and damaging 1.3 million homes.

Women from Sultan-Abad Mughal village fetch drinking water from a pump surrounded by flood waters in Dadu district, Sindh province. (Photo by Asad Zaidi © UNICEF Pakistan)

Over the past month, the country’s southern region has received the highest monsoon rains ever recorded, local metrological experts confirm.

In August, the southern parts of the country received 270 percent above-normal monsoon rains. And in September, the monsoons rains were 1,170 percent above normal, says Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, Adviser Climate Affairs.

The Sindh province, where six million acres of land were inundated in current floods, had experienced severe drought conditions before the monsoon season and had not received any rainfall at all during the past 12 months.

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By Paul Craig Roberts, opednews.com, Sept. 27, 2011

Have you ever before heard of the Haqqanis?  I didn’t think so.  Like Al Qaeda, about which no one had ever heard prior to 9/11, the “Haqqani Network” has popped up in time of need to justify America’s next war – Pakistan.

President Obama’s claim that he had Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden exterminated deflated the threat from that long-serving bogyman. A terror organization that left its leader, unarmed and undefended, a sitting duck for assassination no longer seemed formidable. Time for a new, more threatening, bogyman, the pursuit of which will keep the “war on terror” going.

Now America’s “worst enemy” is the Haqqanis. Moreover, unlike Al Qaeda, which was never tied to a country, the Haqqani Network, according to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a “veritable arm” of the Pakistani government’s intelligence service, ISI. Washington claims that the ISI ordered its Haggani Network to attack the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 13 along with the US military base in Wadak province.

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In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Erdogan noted that Israel is the only player in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons and asked, “Why is it that countries banning Iran from having nuclear weapons don’t also ban Israel from having nuclear weapons?”

Turkey downgraded ties with Israel after Tel Aviv refused to apologize for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which left nine Turkish citizens dead on May 31, 2010.

Earlier in September, the Turkish Economy Minister said Ankara would continue its “normal” economic ties with Tel Aviv. From January 2011 to July 2011, trade between Turkey and Israel reached $2.3 billion.

Erdogan also commented on Turkey’s decision to host one component of a missile shield system, calling it a “NATO concept.”

He advised against “different interpretations” of Turkey’s decision and urged everyone to look at “what is actually the reality” in the issue.

But Turkey’s move was still censured in some circles, with Iran describing it as “a cause for concern” and “questionable.” Russia criticized Turkey for collaborating with NATO.

Turkey could earn as much as $4 billion from the missile shield system. It has been reported that a Turkish defense company is holding negotiations on a $2 billion contract in connection with the project.

President Barack Obama struggled to explain his planned veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state just a year after he welcomed the idea. His speech was a painful example of a leader knowing what is right and calculating that he can’t do what is right, notes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson, Consortium News, Sept. 26, 2011

On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama delivered his latest message to the United Nations: “I would like to talk to you about a subject that is at the heart of the United Nations – the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.”

Actually, one thing that makes the world imperfect is the lopsided power distribution at the UN. This allows the permanent members of the Security Council (particularly the U.S.) to decide when peace does or does not get pursued.

But Obama did not call attention to this problem. Instead he pointed to Libya and the alleged achievement of freedom, security and peace in that North African land. Actually, what Libya amounted to, at least in part, was the destruction of a nation with a standard of living approaching that of Spain.

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NEW YORK — When Mark Hatfield, who had served as a U.S. Senator from Oregon for three decades, died in early August, obituaries noted that he was one of the first U.S. soldiers to visit Hiroshima not long after the atomic bombing of the city, and that experience led him to work for nuclear arms control later, after he became a Senator.

As it happened, the day of Hatfield’s death, Aug. 7, fell between the day the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the day it did on Nagasaki, in 1945.

His death occurred, in fact, when an annual round of commentaries on those deeds were appearing. Among them, the historian Gar Alperovitz wrote to point out that “the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services” argued after the war that the U.S. “did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945” (“On the Sixty-Sixth Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima”).

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