NEW YORK (AFP) – An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.
Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York’s JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.
“The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling,” said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.
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January 7th, 2009 | Category: Islamophobia | 
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Alaei bros verdict action - clone
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Sarah Kalloch
Dr. Kamiar Alaei and Dr. Arash Alaei — two prominent Iranian HIV/AIDS physicians imprisoned in Tehran — desperately need your help TODAY.
After being held without charge for 6 months, Arash and Kamiar were subjected to a perfunctory trial last week, and found guilty of communicating with an enemy state, as well as other secret charges the Iranian government refused to reveal. PHR believes these to be politically motivated and illegitimate charges, leveled in a patently unfair court proceeding. We fear for the health, safety and human rights of these well known doctors.
Please take action TODAY to help free Kamiar and Arash.
Contact the Iranian Mission to the UN and urge Iran to release the brothers so they can continue their life-saving AIDS work.
PHR’s goal is to generate more than 500 calls and emails to the Mission — will you be the first?
Arash and Kamiar have developed innovative lifesaving HIV/AIDS programs in Iran and elsewhere. That’s not a crime, that’s good medicine. Act today to call for their release.
Thank you to the thousands of you have taken action to support Kamiar and Arash over the past 6 months; TAKE ACTION NOW and make a difference today!
http://iranfreethedocs.org |
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January 7th, 2009 | Category: Kamiar and Arash Alaei, action | Print This Post
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KARACHI, (IPS) - “I’ve thought a lot about what my first meeting with my father will be like after all these years. I don’t know how I’d react. I don’t even know what to expect,” said Muneeza Paracha, 26, daughter of Saifullah Paracha, incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since September 2004.
She was reacting to the numerous media reports regarding the possible closure of the notorious prison in east Cuba run by the United States, as soon as President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20.
Malka, 27, is already preparing for a rousing welcome for her husband, Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, also detained in Guantanamo. “He wrote two months ago saying he was coming back soon,’’ she told IPS.
Click here to read the rest of RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Awaiting Gitmo’s Closure
January 7th, 2009 | Category: Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbain, Close Guantanamo, Majid Khan, Saifullah Paracha | Print This Post
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By LARA JAKES
Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge has accused the Bush administration of hiding evidence in the case of a Yemen man who has been held as a terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay for six years.
At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan rapped Justice Department lawyers for only recently turning over Defense Department and other government documents first obtained in September.
Attorneys for both the government and the detainee, Aymen Saeed Batarfi, had wanted Sullivan to rule on whether to free the 38-year-old Yemeni.
But Sullivan said the new evidence which is classified must be considered before he decides.
He called it another example of the Bush administration hiding evidence from courts.
http://tinyurl.com/8l2gt4
January 6th, 2009 | Category: Aymen Saeed Batarfi, Yemen | Print This Post
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Moazzam Begg
Soldiers I’ve spoken to are ashamed of being part of Bush’s war machine
I was astonished earlier this year when our Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with former Guantanamo Bay detainees and shook hands with them on a visit to Saudi Arabia. When I travelled to Downing St on 11 January last year to deliver a letter calling for the return of three British residents, he didn’t answer. In fact, he’s never met with any of the British former Guantanamo prisoners.
But I have something a little different planned for this year. My US lawyer in Guantanamo once explained to me the types of prejudices that seemed prevalent in his homeland: “They detested the African-Americans, but never really feared them; they feared the Soviet Union, but didn’t really hate them. But Muslims today are both feared and hated.”
This fear and hatred has produced a plethora of laws and wars that have targeted Muslims in an unprecedented way.
Click here to read the rest of Moazzam Begg: Why Guantanamo detainees deserve asylum in Europe
January 6th, 2009 | Category: Ahmad Belbacha, Binyam Mohammed, Close Guantanamo, Moazzam Begg, Shaker Aamer | Print This Post
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The Defense Department does not have to release the names of Guantanamo Bay detainees who reported abuse by military personnel or who were suspected of abusing others, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan (2nd Cir.) decided Monday, overturning a lower court decision.
The three-judge panel held that The Associated Press’s Freedom of Information Act request for the detainee names and family member names and addresses should not be granted because of the detainees’ privacy interests.
Judge Peter Hall, writing for the unanimous court, said the detainees’ privacy interests were not the same as the rights of prisoners, but were broader. Hall also said the notion that the detainees would want to publicize their situation or voluntarily disclose the information had no basis in previous court decisions and shouldn’t be considered by the court.
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January 6th, 2009 | Category: Detainee Abuse, FOIA, John Walker Lindh | Print This Post
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JOIN Facebook Group for Action-Gaza. DIGG this post.
Tiny Link to this page: www.tinyurl.com/action-gaza-now
Bismillah, before continuing, please check all pessimism and hopelessness at the gate, otherwise do not read any further. Feel free to use this post, in entirety, and circulate as much as possible. Copyright rules are waived for it.
FAMILIARIZE : Familiarize yourself with the Gaza situation if you are not already up to speed. You can read MM’s complete coverage by clicking here.
We have compiled a list of action-items (many from readers’ comments) into one list that, inshaAllah, will empower us all. We have all read enough about Gaza to know the grave situation that our brethren find themselves in. Now, it’s time to do something. This is OUR 60-90 minutes action-guide that WE should go through at least once. Repeat one or more of the actions as often as you are able to. Do as much as you can, whenever you can. NO ACTION IS INSIGNIFICANT.
Once you are done taking ANY or all actions, come back and add a comment to record your small contribution(s), but with great reward towards OUR cause. The purpose of checking back in is to encourage others to do the same. A small logo for this post will be added to front page, on the right side:
OUR 60-Minute Action-Gaza Plan (one-time, not daily):
Click here to read the rest of ACTION-GAZA: Can we Spare 60 Minutes? Can we Walk the Talk?
January 5th, 2009 | Category: action | Print This Post
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By Jeffrey Azarva
On December 31, 2008, the United Nations mandate for Multi-National Force-Iraq, which has authorized the presence of foreign troops in Iraq since 2004, will expire. While troop levels and future U.S.-Iraq cooperation dominate debate, the future of coalition detention operations in Iraq is as important. The reform of detainee operations in Iraq has been one of the most important, and least reported, contributors to the past year’s reduction in violence. Detention facilities, once viewed by military commanders as a strategic backwater,[1] today are viewed as an integral part of the coalition’s successful counterinsurgency strategy. The coalition now uses detention facilities to learn why Iraqis join the insurgency so that the insurgents can be rehabilitated and turned into allies instead of enemies.
But such progress is reversible. During a June 13, 2008 visit to Jordan, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that Iraq “cannot extend the U.S. forces permission to arrest Iraqis or to undertake the responsibility of fighting terrorism in an independent way.”[2] The draft text of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement meant to replace the U.N. mandate has reflected a similar stance.[3] Adopting such an inflexible position is risky. Maliki may be seeking to burnish his image and strengthen Iraqi sovereignty, but the premature transfer of detention authority to Baghdad could unravel many of the gains made.
Click here to read the rest of Is U.S. Detention Policy in Iraq Working?
January 5th, 2009 | Category: Iraqi Detainee | Print This Post
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Islamabad - Pakistan today asked the US for the”immediate repatriation”of one of its nationals, detained by American authorities on the charge that she tried to kill its military officers in Afghanistan. Pakistani Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani took up the issue of release of Pakistani neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui with the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who is in Islamabad primarily to discuss India Pakistan ties.
Gilani asked for the”immediate repatriation”of Aafia Siddiqui, a US-educated scientist who was deported in August from Afghanistan to America and is currently at a US government psychiatric hospital in Texas.
The visiting US official reportedly assured Gilani that he will”take up the case. With the relevant US authorities,”PM&aposs office said in a statement.
Click here to read the rest of Pak for “immediate repatriation” of its citizen held by US
January 5th, 2009 | Category: Detainee, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, Pakistan | Print This Post
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Bruce Fein, Ralph Nader
Before Inauguration Day, the 111th Congress should pass a forward-looking resolution censuring President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for executive aggrandizements or abuses that have reduced Congress to vassalage and shredded the rule of law. The resolution should express a congressional intent to prevent repetitions by the President-elect Barack Obama or his successors. The objective is not Bush-Cheney bashing, but to restore a republican form of government in which “We the People” are sovereign, and the president is checked and publicly scrutinized by Congress and the courts. The Bush-Cheney duumvirate won an undeclared war against the Constitution. Most troublesome, they captured the power to initiate war from a spineless Congress. The Founding Fathers were unanimous in denying the president that constitutional authority. They knew that presidents would chronically deceive Congress and concoct excuses for war to control public information, benefit political friends through government contracts, quell dissent, assert emergency powers and enjoy the intoxicating thrill of, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
By wielding the threat of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney team put the nation on a permanent war footing - the first time in history that war has been undertaken against a tactic. They maintained that the entire post-9/11 world is an active battlefield where United States military force may be used to kill suspected members of al Qaeda irrespective of international boundaries.
Click here to read the rest of Bush-Cheney deserve censure for declaring war against the Constitution
January 5th, 2009 | Category: war crimes | Print This Post
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By Chelsea Gonzalez
BERKELEY, Calif.–Over 70 students at the University of California at Berkeley participated in a teach-in on Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in early December following hate crimes committed by members of the Zionist Freedom Alliance (ZFA) against Palestinian students.
During a ZFA music concert, three Palestinian students responded to some of the hateful lyrics by hanging a Palestinian flag from a building in protest. At this point, three members of ZFA attacked the students, making racist anti-Palestinian remarks. The next evening, unknown attackers assaulted another Palestinian student.
While this hate crime is repugnant in and of itself, the school administration’s lack of action following the attack spoke volumes about anti-Arab racism on campus. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has so far remained completely silent.
Click here to read the rest of Confronting Islamophobia
January 5th, 2009 | Category: Islamophobia | Print This Post
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An Afghan prisoner listens to a speech as a security personnel keeps watch in
Kabul June 8, 2006 Ahmad Masood / Reuter
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The incoming Obama Administration says it wants to shut down the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. But even if Guantánamo closes, it won’t end the controversial U.S. practice of jailing suspected al-Qaeda militants and other terrorists indefinitely. That’s because such detentions continue on an even greater scale at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, 40 miles north of Kabul. Roughly 250 detainees are currently being held at Guantánamo; an estimated 670 are locked up under similar conditions at Bagram.
The Obama transition team has declined comment on whether detention policy for enemy combatants will change with a new Administration. Nevertheless, the U.S. military is building a new prison for what it calls “unlawful enemy combatants” at Bagram that won’t be finished until Obama is well settled in the White House. “The Obama Administration is inheriting not so much a shrinking Guantánamo as an expanding Bagram,” says Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, a New York-based non-profit legal group. (“Trying to Tie Obama’s Hands on Gitmo.”)
Click here to read the rest of Guantánamo May Close, But in Afghanistan Another Gitmo Grows
January 5th, 2009 | Category: Bagram, Close Guantanamo, Obama | Print This Post
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Paul Weichselbaum / September 2008RAE KRAMER leads a
hooded Ed Kinane at the New York State Fair Sept. 1 in a
protest over U.S. prisoner detention policies.
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Torture taints this ‘Christian nation’ By the Rev. Bud Adams
Syndicated columnists and letter-writers declare the United States is a “Christian nation,” as if it’s a well-known fact we need to be reminded of.
As often as religion is forced into the public discussion of politics and national identity, it is claimed that Christianity is our national religion, its values the bedrock of our nation. But of course, saying it’s so does not make it so.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the United States is a Christian nation founded on Christian values. What greater value could there be than to embrace the attitude and conduct Jesus lived and advocated? How could one who claims to be a follower of Jesus — who was cruelly tortured — inflict torture upon any other human being?
Click here to read the rest of Time to Repent
January 5th, 2009 | Category: Close Guantanamo, OPINION | Print This Post
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By Patrick Mercer
Of all the things that were ingrained in me while fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland, two stand out.
First, everything that the forces of law and order do must be unequivocally legal; and, second, your opponents will immediately capitalise upon it if it isn’t.
That’s why Guantanamo is not just a mess, it’s also the best recruiting sergeant our enemies could have.
Shocking: How the Mail on Sunday reported on the cruel regime in Guantanamo in January 2002 which saw ‘illegal combatants’ in orange jumpsuits and in humiliating poses
The first images published of those the U.S. deemed to be ‘illegal combatants’ - in orange jumpsuits and in humiliating poses detained in a military camp in a corner of Cuba where American civil law did not hold sway - rang all sorts of alarm bells, not least in this newspaper.
It was a propaganda coup for Al Qaeda that cost us dear, not just in terms of the £80million a year it takes to run the camp but in the damage it did to America’s prestige and reputation as a just and law-abiding democracy - and, by association, to ours as well.
That Tony Blair’s government - a government populated by leading human rights lawyers - slavishly accepted Guantanamo’s existence is something of which we should all be ashamed.
Click here to read the rest of This is America’s mess. Why should they expect us to sort it out?
January 3rd, 2009 | Category: Close Guantanamo | Print This Post
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by Abdus Sattar Ghazali
New Jersey Press Association President calls Islam ‘internal’ threat to U.S.
Rightist columnist Cal Thomas urges ban on building new mosques in America.
- A Muslim woman in Georgia sent to jail for not removing head scarf (hijab).
These episodes of bigotry, Islamophobia and discrimination of the month of December symbolize the dilemma of American Muslims in 2008 like the previous years since 9/11. Bigotry and Islamophobia reached its climax during the 2008 presidential election campaign when the Republican Party resorted to fear-mongering to prop up Republican presidential candidate, John McCain. Fear mongering has been the hall mark of the Bush domestic and international policies in the name of “war on terror.” With little to fall on nearly eight years of President Bush’s misrule that landed the nation in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the desperate Republican Party ratcheted up its campaign with half-truths and fear mongering to frighten the masses with imaginary and bloated threats.
Click here to read the rest of 2008: Another Difficult Year for American Muslims
January 3rd, 2009 | Category: Islamophobia | Print This Post
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Canada’s controversial prison for terrorism suspects will soon be without a single inmate.
Even so, it might be premature to call the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre a white elephant from the war on terror.
Records show that officials, who opened the prison only three years ago, always expected it might have a “dormant period.”
Even so, they anticipate it still might come in handy – after all, they might have to rejail a prisoner who has been ordered let go.
“If there comes a time when there are no detainees remaining in the KIHC … this agreement will continue,” reads a government memo.
Click here to read the rest of Jail for terror suspects could soon be empty
January 3rd, 2009 | Category: Canada, Detainee | Print This Post
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(CNN) — Australia declined a request from the Bush administration to resettle detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the Australian Associated Press agency (AAP) reported Saturday.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay but hasn’t set a specific timetable.
Australia’s acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said each detainee was considered on a “case-by-case basis” and decided that none met her country’s “stringent national security and immigration criteria,” AAP reported.
Australia turned down a similar request from the Bush administration in early 2008 to resettle a small group of detainees. Washington approached Canberra again in early December.
“We will consider any future requests on a case-by-case basis against these stringent criteria for both national security and immigration,” said Gillard, who is acting prime minister while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on vacation.
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January 3rd, 2009 | Category: Australia, Close Guantanamo | Print This Post
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By Richard Cohen
In what without a doubt is the most astounding op-ed piece of the year, Karl Rove reveals that his friend and former boss, George W. Bush, has read probably hundreds of books over the course of his presidency. One of them was Albert Camus’ “The Stranger,” with its unforgettable opening lines: “Mother died today. Or perhaps it was yesterday, I don’t know.” After reading Rove’s column, it’s clear there’s much we all don’t know.
Bush’s choice of the Camus classic is odd on the face of it. It is a novel about estrangement, about an amoral, irreligious man (Meursault) who never shows emotion. It is a book out of my Gauloises-smoking youth, read in the vain pursuit of women of literary bent, and not something I would think an over-60 president would read. Maybe this is what happens when you have to give up jogging.
Click here to read the rest of Well-read Bush merely seeks vindication
January 3rd, 2009 | Category: OPINION | Print This Post
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Canadians are watching this new year come in with as much trepidation as celebration. We don’t know who will be prime minister; we can’t guess the price of oil. All we know is this: 2009 isn’t going to be easy.
Only the most hyperbolic of pundits and politicians think we’re heading for a 1930s-style depression. But it is going to be a recession year. It’s going to be a deficit year, and probably the first of several.
It will be an anxious year for charities, domestic and international. The recession won’t bring down global food prices enough to prevent hunger and, perhaps, more rioting in some of the world’s most impoverished places.
This will be the year that the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay closes, and not a moment too soon. But that will not likely be enough to save Omar Khadr, the only Canadian and only westerner still at Guantanamo. As Canada’s government seems unwilling to speak out about the legality and ethics of his detention, it might be up to the U.S. military tribunal to set him free or up to Barack Obama to intervene once he becomes president in January.
Click here to read the rest of Off to an anxious start
January 2nd, 2009 | Category: Canada, Omar Khadr | Print This Post
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SIMON HAYTER/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Hassan Almrei was detained in October 2001 on charges by Canada’s spy service that he once belonged to a terrorist forgery ring.
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
The last remaining terrorism suspect who has been held for seven years under a “national security certificate” has been ordered released from detention.
Federal court Justice Richard Mosley ruled Friday that there is no evidence that Syrian Hassan Almrei “poses a threat to the safety of any individual” and should be released under strict conditions.
“I am satisfied that any risk that he might pose to national security or of absconding can be neutralized by conditions,” Mosley wrote in his 100-page ruling.
Conditions for his release will likely include 24-hour monitoring by agents with the Canada Border Services Agency, wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet and a ban on any use of cellphones or computers.
Click here to read the rest of Last security certificate detainee to be freed
