Peace and Justice Post

Unlawful, Unwarranted Detention, and Onerous Restrictions Loom

(New York) – The release of the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei on June 22 is a relief for his family, friends and supporters, but leaves troubling unanswered questions about his arrest, detention and conditions of release, Human Rights Watch said today. In particular, Human Rights Watch is concerned about the political nature of his arrest, the conditions under which the police may have extracted a “confession” from him, and possible restrictions on freedoms he faces following his release.

Ai’s release on bail was followed by a statement from Xinhua, the official government news agency, saying he had been released because of his “good attitude in confessing his crimes” and because he suffers from an unspecified chronic disease. The statement added that Ai’s release resulted from consideration of the fact that he had repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes that the government alleges that he has evaded.

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Local Coordination Committees of Syria

uruknet.info, June 26, 2011

We, the people of the city of Kesweh in Damascus, announce our resolve and determination to continue our peaceful revolution against the criminal, corrupt and dictatorial regime. And we stress to the proud Syrian people that we will not betray the blood of our martyrs, who sacrificed their wellbeing for the sake of our freedom and the freedom of our sons and daughters, and that we remain steadfast in covenent we made to them and marching in their path.

In this regard, we like to extend our condolences to the families of the heroic and honorable officers who were shot dead by the treacherous hands of the security forces in the city of Kesweh on a Friday of The Fall Of Legitimacy when they refused to execute orders to fire live bullets at peaceful protesters from the city of Kesweh and ended up dying as martyrs.

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AHRC, June 25, 2011

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, June 26, 2011

Due to the enormous changes in the popular consciousness of people throughout the Asian countries there is an increased demand for the elimination of the practice of torture. In the recent decades due to changes in education as well as communications people have undergone significant changes regarding their attitudes to governance. The rejection of the abusive use of force for social control is one of the marked features of the present times.

However, the states of the Asian countries are still resorting to the use of torture on an extensive scale. The failure to improve the law enforcement agencies in keeping with modern times and the continued use of outdated policing and other law enforcement practices remains one of the major causes of torture. The reliance on such outdated instruments is mostly due to the refusal of the state to allocate adequate funding for the administration of justice in general and on policing and other forms of law enforcement in particular.

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Exclusive: A recurring refrain about the Afghan War is that the United States must stay for the long haul now to avoid repeating the “mistake” made in 1989 when Soviet forces left and Americans supposedly disappeared, too. But this conventional wisdom, spread by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, is a lie, Robert Parry writes.

By Robert Parry, Consortium News,  June 24, 2011

In Official Washington, there’s one “fact” about the Afghan War that nearly everyone “knows”: In February 1989, after the Soviet army left Afghanistan, the United States walked away from the war-torn country, creating a vacuum that led to the rise of the Taliban and its readiness to host al-Qaeda’s anti-American terrorists.

It is a point made by senior administration officials, including incoming Ambassador Ryan Crocker and departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who once summed up the conventional wisdom by saying: “We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country only to see it descend into civil war and into Taliban hands.”

And Gates was there at the time, as President George H.W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser. So, he should know.

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Campaigning against Israeli apartheid has resulted in 23 Palestinian solidarity activists facing US federal grand jury.

The United States government has criminalized the Palestinian people, and now it is increasingly treating US citizens who stand in solidarity with Palestine as criminals as well – including those courageously putting their lives on the line to break the siege on Gaza.

I am a Palestine solidarity activist in the US, and one of 23 US citizens who have been issued with a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury as part of what the government has said is an investigation into violations of the laws banning material support to foreign “terrorist organizations”.

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by Sheldon Richman, fff.org, June 24, 2011

Despite President Obama’s trumpeted force drawdown in Afghanistan, by the end of next summer more than twice as many U.S. troops will be fighting in that country’s civil war as there were when he became president in 2009. His soothing words notwithstanding, a force of about 70,000 will remain there at least until the end of 2014. We can be sure, however, that that won’t stop the president from campaigning for reelection on a peace platform.

Obama’s speech the other night was mostly show, a spectacle to make the war- and deficit-weary public think he’s taking substantial steps toward disengagement. He did something similar in Iraq, though 50,000 troops remain and are still taking casualties.

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By Uri Avnery, MWC News, June 26, 2011

The Palestinians are planning something thoroughly obnoxious: they intend to apply to the UN for statehood.

Why obnoxious? Any Israeli spokesman (not to mention spokeswoman) will tell you readily: because it is a “unilateral” move. How dare they proclaim a state unilaterally? How dare they do so without the consent of the other party to the conflict – us?

A stickler for detail might ask at this point: “But was the State of Israel not proclaimed unilaterally?” Our state, it may be remembered, was declared by David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues on Mai 14, 1948, without asking anyone.

But who would dare to compare?

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By Stephen Lendman, Countercurrents.org,  25 June, 2011

Besides its Knesset, security forces and intelligence services, Israel’s High Court and Civil Administration ravage Palestinian civil society repressively. Two examples illustrate the problem.

On June 22, a B’Tselem press release headlined, “Sharp increase in West Bank home demolitions,” saying:

Through late June, Israel’s Civil Administration, its Judea/Samaria (West Bank) governing body, illegally “demolished more Palestinians homes….than in all of last year.” Most often, soldiers and Border Police accompany them, forcefully evicting longtime residents.

Over the most recent seven day period, 33 residential buildings were demolished in Jordan Valley Fasayil, al-Hadidiyeh, and Yarza communities, as well as southern Hebron Hills Khirbet Bir al-‘Id. As a result, 238 Palestinians, including 129 minors, lost homes.

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by Eric Margolis, CommonDreams.org, June 26, 2011

Far-called our navies melt away— On dune and headland sinks the fire— Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Rudyard Kipling “Recessional” NEW YORK – War is waged to achieve political objectives, not to kill enemies. In this sense, the United States has lost the ten-year Afghan conflict, its longest war. Afghanistan remains the “graveyard of empires.”

The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made foes of the Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan. Claims that US forces were in Afghanistan to hunt the late Osama bin Laden were widely disbelieved.

Last Wednesday, President Barack Obama bowed to public opinion, approaching elections, military reality and financial woes by announcing he would withdraw a third of the 100,000 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.   Pentagon brass growled open opposition.

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Letter from head of Israel’s Government Press Office warns that taking part in convoy of boats sailing to Gaza could result in being barred from Israel for 10 years.

By Haaretz, June  26, 2011

Israel’s Government Press Office issued a letter Sunday to foreign journalists, warning them that participating in the upcoming flotilla sailing to Gaza is illegal under Israeli law, and could result in anyone who joins the convoy being barred from Israel for up to 10 years.

The letter, signed by GPO director Oren Helman, states that the flotilla “is a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas.”

	Israel Navy forces approach one of six ships of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters