In 2018, SMEX launched a petition in collaboration with the Lebanese band Al-Rahel Al-Kabir to make their songs – which had been censored from iTunes Middle East – available on the platform.
All posts by nedhamson
Violence against women: Three stories
Three real-life incidents, which I was a direct witness to, have contributed to shaping my perception of violence against women. One At the age of twelve, I woke up one morning to the news of the killing of my 14-year-old…
The post Violence against women: Three stories appeared first on sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan..
My Afghan Diary
Arzu Qaderi is an Afghan-born German filmmaker and presenter. In 2017, she travelled to Afghanistan for the first time to film for My Afghan Diary, a documentary film of interviews with inspiring, successful Afghan women with the determination to achieve…
The post My Afghan Diary appeared first on sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan..
The Battle over Huawei – GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com – Backdoor Officials (CIA/NSA-USA) calling kettle (China) Backdoor Problem?
Suspicion Rather than Evidence The growing Huawei boycott is also noteworthy because it is entirely imposed on the basis of unverified suspicions from anonymous intelligence sources. They allege that the Chinese company creates a backdoor access for Chinese intelligence services or even Chinese cyber attacks. “There is no evidence of the company having ties to Chinese state or party structures,” admitted a specialist of one of Germany’s leading dailies.[2] In fact, experts even praise Huawei’s candidness, unusual for the branch. For example in mid-November, Arne Schönbohm, President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) commented in relationship to that company’s newly inaugurated “Security Innovation Lab” in Bonn, that this “enables a broader and deeper technical exchange between Huawei and the BSI,” permitting the “challenges of future cyber security” to be addressed.[3] The fact that important political and a growing number of economic decisions are based, not on evidence but on the suspicions grumbled by intelligence services, has, in the meantime, been promoted to the standard for western powers in key questions of international policies.
Source: The Battle over Huawei – GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com
How long has NSA and CIA had backdoor access to all USA telecommunication?
Highlights: Key quotes from the Reuters interview with Trump
Exclusive: Trump says standing by Saudi crown prince despite pleas from Senate
Trump says would intervene in arrest of Chinese executive
No evidence for Trump claim on ‘terrorists’: government sources
New videos contradict IDF claims about West Bank killing
Footage from four separate cameras appears to show Israeli soldiers were not in any danger when they shot a mentally challenged Palestinian man in the back of the head in Tulkarm last week.
By +972 Magazine Staff
CCTV footage of Israeli soldiers shooting Muhammad Habali in the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Dec. 4, 2018. (Photo: Screenshot of footage released by B’Tselem)
CCTV footage of Israeli soldiers shooting a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Tulkarm last week appears to contradict the army’s claims about the killing.
The footage, taken from four separate cameras, appears to show that, unlike the army’s claims, no clashes were taking place at the time of the shooting, no crowd control measures were used, and that the soldiers were not in any danger when they shot Muhammad Habali in the back of the head.
The army, despite having opened a military police investigation into the deadly shooting, has not changed its story since seeing the footage.
B’Tselem released the following statement on Tuesday:
On Tuesday, 4 December 2018, at around midnight, some 100 Israeli soldiers invaded the city of Tulkarm in the West Bank. Some of them entered four homes in different parts of the city and conducted a brief search. A few young Palestinian men came to the areas where the soldiers were and threw stones at them. The troops responded with rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas.
At some point during the night, about 30 soldiers came to the area of a-Nuzha Street, an east-west street in the western part of Tulkarm. Some of the force spread out along the street in groups of threes and fours. The others entered the alleyway opposite the al-Fadiliyah Boys’ High School and raided a home there. Further down the street, about 150 meters away from the soldiers, several residents were standing at the doorway of the a-Sabah Restaurant and on the adjacent street.
One of them was Muhammad Habali, a mentally challenged 22-year-old from Tulkarm Refugee Camp. Habali walked back and forth, crossing and re-crossing the road.
Video footage from four security cameras installed on three separate buildings along the street allows for construction of a full picture of the scene. It clearly shows that there were no clashes between residents and soldiers in the immediate vicinity of the spot where Habali was shot.
Testimonies collected by B’Tselem, coupled with the video footage, indicate that at 2:25 a.m., an officer and two soldiers advanced towards a-Sabah Restaurant and stopped about 80 meters away. According to eyewitness accounts, a few seconds later the soldiers opened fire at young men standing in front of the restaurant, and the young men then fled the scene.
Habali, who is seen in the footage carrying a long wooden stick – which he had picked up a few minutes before the shooting – was the last to leave. After he took several steps, he was shot in the head from behind, from a distance of about 80 meters. Another shot hit M.H., a resident of Tulkarm, in the leg. About a minute after the shooting, the three soldiers are seen rejoining the other soldiers in the area and leaving, without providing Habali or M.H. with any medical assistance.
Asked about the video footage, an Israeli military spokesperson sent the following statement:
A military police investigation was opened into the incident last week. At this stage it can be said that during the course of operational activities by IDF combat soldiers in Tulkarm, violent disturbances developed, during which dozens of Palestinians threw stones toward the soldiers.
In response, the soldiers used crowd dispersal measures and live gunfire. It was reported that one Palestinian was killed and another was wounded.
When the investigation is completed, its conclusions will be examined by the military prosecution. Additionally, the incident is being investigated at a command level.
The post New videos contradict IDF claims about West Bank killing appeared first on +972 Magazine.
Sent to prison for trespassing on his own land
Israeli authorities have demolished Al-Araqib over 100 times. Before heading to prison for rebuilding and staying on his land, the village’s leader says he knows justice is on his side.
Sheikh Sayeh Abu Madi’am in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, which Israeli authorities have demolished 136 times. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
“I have a good feeling I’ll be in prison alongside Netanyahu,” Sheikh Sayeh Abu Madi’am jokes, sitting in a tent in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, which Israeli authorities have demolished well over 100 times — 136 times, to be exact.
Later this month, Abu Madi’am is supposed to begin serving a 10-month prison sentence for unlawfully entering and trespassing on public land — his village’s land. A court case to resolve whether he owns the land, which his lawyers say should have been concluded before he could be convicted of trespassing on it, is still pending.
“I did not steal, I did not cheat,” Abu Madi’am says. “The law recognizes property purchased by Jews before 1948 but it does not recognize a Bedouin who bought land from another Bedouin in 1905. Our cemetery has been here since 1914. Where was the Israeli government back then?”
Al-Araqib, located just a few miles from Be’er Sheva in the south, has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli efforts to disposes the Bedouin community of their land and homes in the Negev, or al-Naqab in Arabic.
Al-Araqib’s land was expropriated under a 1953 law that allowed the state to easily take land for purposes of “development, settlement, and security.” Israeli authorities have never used the land, however, for any purpose.
In the 1970s, Israel allowed Bedouins to file land ownership claims. At least on paper, it offered them a fair process for adjudicating such claims. In the early 2000s, however, the state froze that process and began filing counter claims on plots of land claimed by Bedouin citizens of Israel, seeking to register the plots as state land. That’s what happened when Al-Araqib filed an ownership claim.
The state has a 100-percent success rate in all of the counter claims it has filed.
I first met the sheikh in 2009 at the village’s first protest demanding that Israel connect their homes to water, electricity, and sewage grids. Israel refuses to connect dozens of Bedouin villages in the Negev — referred to as unrecognized villages — to basic infrastructure.
At that time hundreds of people lived in Al-Araqib, in small cement homes. They had constructed their own roads, a water tower, and used generators for electricity. Almost a decade later, but especially since the first demolition took place in July 2010, everything is different.
Many of Abu Madi’am’s family members have long since fled to the nearby township of Rahat, driven out by difficult living conditions in the village, which Israeli authorities have demolished more than once a month on average. After every demolition, those who remain reconstruct their tents. From the authorities’ perspective, every time the villagers “rebuild,” they are violating the law.
Only a few dozen people remain today. Some of them are living inside the village cemetery because it’s the one place authorities won’t carry out demolitions.
A resident of al-Araqib approaches Israeli police during one of the dozens of times authorities demolished the unrecognized village. (Activestills.org)
The sheikh believes his arrest was part of an attempt to drive the Negev’s Bedouin population off its land.
“They sprayed our crops [with pesticides] for years and did not succeed. They demolished our buildings and did not succeed,” says Abu Madi’am. “They destroyed our future and the future of our children and did not succeed. They are left with only one option: to do away with the people of Al-Araqib and send them to prison. If they think sending me to prison will act as a deterrent, they’re making a big mistake.”
Despite the violence and daily harassment, Abu Madi’am remains optimistic: “I believe justice is on my side.”
“The government is re-opening wounds from 1948. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on it so it can heal, they’re pouring salt on it,” says Abu Madi’am. “Those who remained in what became Israel after the expulsion of 1948 are now being expelled again. This time they are using a different method.”
Israel’s primary tactic, used in other villages and in East Jerusalem, is to express willingness to recognize Bedouin ownership claims to their land and even compensate them for it — but only if they agree to give it up.
Abu Madi’am has refused all such offers.
I press the sheikh, asking him whether there’s room for compromise, perhaps where he only has to give up some of his land. “The authorities have tricked many Bedouins in the Negev,” he responds, claiming that alternative plots of land have not panned out to be what was promised. But then he says that if authorities came to him with a serious offer, one that included one-for-one compensation for the same size plot of land, then there might be a path to some sort of agreement.
SUBSCRIBE TO +972 MAGAZINE’S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
“They turned us into regulars at the Be’er Sheva court. I’m there almost every week,” he says, chuckling, of the numerous cases pending against him. In addition to the criminal cases — there are several — the state is demanding he and others pay compensation to cover the costs of all the times authorities had to demolish their homes. There is also a contempt of court case for staying on their land despite court orders to leave. And then there is the case he and the other villagers filed against the state, demanding that it recognize their ownership of the land.
The sheikh says he’s not afraid of going to prison for the crime of staying in his home: “I want to prove to the world and to the State of Israel that its laws do not [equally] protect Arabs in Israel.”
“I hope that all those Jewish Israelis striving for coexistence do not forget about Al-Araqib and continue supporting us,” he concludes. “It doesn’t matter if I’m in prison or if I die and am buried in the village’s cemetery, I will feel your support.”
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.
The post Sent to prison for trespassing on his own land appeared first on +972 Magazine.

You must be logged in to post a comment.