Category Archives: Gun-violence

CENSORED NEWS: Photos Navajo in Palestine: ‘Ethnic Cleansing: The Apartheid Wall’

By Dineh (Navajo) Farmer in Palestine Roberto NutlouisCensored News”They built a wall to try to keep terrorists out                                   And it becomes symbolic what terrorism’s about” (h. Salam)Spent the day taking with various communities impacted by the apartheid wall. They explained it as ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ by making their lives severely difficult and many communities have becomes ghost towns. The Beduin communities have collective decided to resist relocation. It demonstrates indigenous peoples deep connection to their lands are not easily uprooted.Beduin elders remind us this struggle is not isolated but rather part of the continued colonization.”The British brought settlers to your lands and they also sent them to our lands” — Roberto Nutlouis, Dineh in Palestine

Source: CENSORED NEWS: Photos Navajo in Palestine: ‘Ethnic Cleansing: The Apartheid Wall’

Countries Using Child Soldiers Join UK Arms Fair

Credit: Stop the Arms FairBy a Global Information Network correspondentLONDON, Sep 15 2015 (IPS)Human rights and citizen activist groups are criticizing one of the world’s largest arms bazaars, which opened at London’s Docklands Tuesday.Participants in what is officially known as the Defense and Security International (DSEI) include 61 countries that violate human rights, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Angola and Algeria. According to the website, some 30,000 visitors are expected.More than 1,500 companies will exhibit their military wares, including the U.S. and UK giants Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and BAE Systems. Forty foreign governments will have pavilions. Sponsors and co-sponsors of the event include Turkey, South Africa, Northrup Grumman and Hewlett Packard.The four-day fair has drawn furious debate between human rights activists and those who say the arms industry provides thousands of jobs and valuable exports.Citizen activist groups using Twitter and other social media have jumped into action to condemn the fair. Traders at previous arms fairs, they note, have been able to buy and sell equipment used for torture including electric shock stun guns and batons, leg-irons, and belly-, body- and gang-chains. There has also been a range of illegal cluster-munition weaponry advertised at the fair.Nine, companies which have attended the DSEI fair between 2005 and 2013, have breached UK law, according to human rights campaigner Amnesty International.This year’s DSEI comes as the UK government ramps up its effort to sell weapons to countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, by far its most lucrative single arms market.Ryvka Barnard, senior military and security campaigner for the activist group War on Want, took issue with organizers giving Israel a national pavilion where Israeli arms companies exhibit ‘battle tested’ military technology used on Palestinians.The UK headquarters of Amnesty also spoke up: “In the past, torture equipment has been on offer right on our doorstep. Things like illegal leg irons and electric-shock batons have been shamelessly advertised and it’s blindingly obvious the law needs tightening up.“We need strengthened laws – and crucially we need proper enforcement – to stop Britain being used as a showroom for torturers to advertise their disgusting wares…” the group said.Groups organizing on Twitter against arms sales include Stop the Arms Fair!, Stop DSEI, Pax Christi and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, among others.

Source: Countries Using Child Soldiers Join UK Arms Fair

Gaza sandstorm compounds Palestinian boy’s housing woes

A Palestinian boy lies on a mattress in what is left of his family’s home, which witnesses told Reuters was destroyed by Israeli shelling during the 50-day war in 2014.His housing problems have been compounded by a sandstorm that has swept Gaza and parts of the Middle East, killing two people and hospitalising hundreds.

Source: Gaza sandstorm compounds Palestinian boy’s housing woes

Turkish military crosses into northern Iraq, launches ground assault on PKK | {Deja vu new Turk Genocide – this time Kurds not Armenians}| DW.COM | 08.09.2015

Turkish special soldiers crossed the Iraqi frontier Tuesday as part of a “hot pursuit” of PKK rebels who were involved in a roadside bomb attack that killed 16 soldiers on Sunday, according to an unnamed Turkish government official.”This is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists’ escape,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Source: Turkish military crosses into northern Iraq, launches ground assault on PKK | News | DW.COM | 08.09.2015

A look at Japan′s anti-government protests | Asia | DW.COM | 04.09.2015

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building in Tokyo on Sunday, while as many as 300 other protests took place across the country on the same day, manifestations of the public’s displeasure with the legislation presently being debated in the Diet. A vote on the new laws could take place in the Diet as soon as September 14.And while privately they admit that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s overwhelming majority in the Diet means that it is inevitable that it will ram through security bills that they believe trample across the nation’s pacifist constitution, the demonstrators insist this is just the start of their campaign.

Source: A look at Japan′s anti-government protests | Asia | DW.COM | 04.09.2015

IRIN Middle East | Iraq’s mystery murders | Iraq | Conflict | Early Warning

Abdul Kareem, originally from Diyala, explained the situation: “Tuz Khurmatu is divided in two: al-Jumhuriyah is run by the Kurdish police, and there are no problems; but Hay al-Askary is controlled by Shia militia. Sunnis will find problems there.”

“I cannot understand exactly what’s going on, but people disappear,” he said. “Some days four people, some days six.”

Mohammed Hassan was attending the distribution with four of his brothers. He lowered his voice: “When ISIS came, the city was antagonised and Sunnis started to be targeted.” To protect themselves, they “only move when it’s necessary.”

A large gathering of Sunni Arab IDPs might attract the wrong sort of attention. There were shouts as people tried to leave the distribution fast, piling the blankets and boxes into shared pick-ups.

Many of the displaced back in Sankur are too scared to even enter Tuz Khurmatu to sign up for a government cash grant. Sa’ad pointed out that they “cannot go into Tuz to register because of the killing.”

via IRIN Middle East | Iraq’s mystery murders | Iraq | Conflict | Early Warning.

Opinion: Children of the World – We are Standing Watch for You | Inter Press Service

We must also continue to raise our voices in the face of tremendous opposition from groups that continue to oppose the treaty, arguing that it infringes upon national sovereignty. Quite the opposite is true: no sane definition of national sovereignty includes the right to sell arms for the violation of human rights in other countries. A nation willing to carry out such an act is not defending itself, but rather infringing upon the sovereignty of other nations that only want to live in peace.

We must also avoid using the danger and terrorism in the world today as an excuse for lack of regulation. Cicero’s famous phrase “silent enimleges inter armas” – among arms, laws are silent – has often been used to support the mind-set that the law does not apply during times of war.

But it is at times of war that the law must speak most bravely. When weapons are circulating freely into the worst possible hands, the law must speak. When the lives of the innocent are placed in danger by an absence of regulation, the law must speak.

via Opinion: Children of the World – We are Standing Watch for You | Inter Press Service.

When We Protested and The Lebanese Government Tried To Kill Us

The day after, I’m the most proud I’ve been in years. I’m proud of every single man, woman and child that went down yesterday to protest. I genuinely love every single one of those 10,000 people that gathered around in Beirut yesterday, even the smokers.I’m proud of the people of Tripoli who went down to Beirut late at night to protest even when no one protested for them when their city was being burned again and again. I’m proud they were not deterred at the Madfoun checkpoint which was blocked by the army at 1:40AM to stop them.You people turned Beirut into a city that’s worth being plastered across the world yesterday because you were amazing, courageous and wonderful. You got people all across the country to see the government for what it truly was: a rotten establishment that reeks of decay.The day after, you are all heroes, with your cuts and scars and bruises and teary eyes. The government fears you. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have reacted this way. In a few years, when you have children in a country that’s hopefully become civilized enough for us to bring children into, you will sit down and tell them how you changed things. It’s a beautiful story to tell, believe me.

via When We Protested and The Lebanese Government Tried To Kill Us.

In Mexico, Hunted Down for Speaking Out

At a recent demonstration of journalists and human rights defenders, the sense of dread was palpable. As communicators in Mexico, we’re angry and intensely frustrated at how so many of our ranks have been killed, disappeared, displaced, or censored with no repercussions.

For many, including me, this crime especially hit home. For a long time, whenever I was asked if I was afraid to speak out critically in Mexico, I answered that fortunately Mexico City was relatively safe. Drug cartels and their allies in government only kept close tabs on reporters in more disputed areas.

The quintuple homicide in a quiet corner of the city shattered that myth — and with it what was left of our complacency. Several days before his murder, Espinosa told friends that a man had approached him to ask if he was the photographer who fled Veracruz. When he said yes, the man replied, “You should know that we’re here.”

Once considered a haven, Mexico City has become a hunting ground in a country where, too often, journalists end up reporting on the brutal assassinations of their colleagues — and wondering who will be next.

via In Mexico, Hunted Down for Speaking Out.