Category: politics

This video is from B’Tselem – an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Pls watch.

As citizens of Pakistan and people of conscience, we demand that the state of Pakistan take responsibility for extending the rights and protections of citizenship equally to all Pakistanis – REGARDLESS OF RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION. The state has no right to determine who is a legitimate Muslim and must repeal all anti-Ahmadi laws. Nor can the state cede its responsibility to provide equal protection to its non-Muslim minorities. We call for a Pakistan grounded in principles of justice and fairness which includes respect for the rights of persecuted sects and religious minorities as equal citizens of the state. All legal, administrative and social discrimination on the basis of sect or religion must end, and a separation between religion and state must be instituted immediately. Full petition here, please sign.

There is the double standard. One off-hand “ill-conceived remark,” as NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard stated, in praising Ms. Thomas, ended a groundbreaking career. While enhanced careers and fat lecture fees are the reward for ultra-right wing radio and cable ranters, and others like columnist Ann Coulter, who regularly urge wars, mayhem and dragnets based on bigotry, stereotypes and falsehoods directed wholesale against Muslims, including a blatant anti-semitism against Arabs. Ms. Thomas’ desk at the Hearst office remains unattended a week after her eviction. One day she will return to pack up her materials. She can take with her the satisfaction of joining all those in our history who were cashiered ostensibly for a gaffe, but really for being too right, too early, too often. Her many admirers hope that she continues to write, speak and motivate a generation of young journalists. Full article.

The human rights defenders, journalists, student leaders, women’s rights activists and labor activists suffering in Iran’s prisons desperately need the help of concerned citizens around the world to put pressure on the Iranian government. Full article.

In a cell approximately 20 feet long and 15 feet wide, in a maximum security prison at the Plymouth Correctional facility, Muslim Egyptian-American pharmacist Tarek Mehanna, from Sudbury, Mass., has been in solitary confinement for more than five months for refusing to be an informant for the FBI at his local mosque. A doctoral graduate of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, respected by the Muslim community for his leadership, charisma and dedication, as well as for his outspoken political views against the “war on terror” at home and abroad, Tarek was targeted by the FBI as a potentially valuable tool to corroborate any and all accusations against Muslims in Boston made by federal agents and their ranks of agent provocateurs and co-conspirators in the endless web of entrapment and detention of Arabs and Muslims in this country. A victim of constant surveillance and blackmail, Tarek firmly refused to be, in his words, “a house slave to an agency that made my people the target of it.” Full article.

One Bitch-Slap After Another: Barack Obama has five major problems as president. The first is that he doesn’t understand priorities. The second is that he seems to have little strong conviction on any given issue. The third is that to the extent he stands for anything, it is for maintenance of a status quo that continues to wreck the country in order to service the greed of a few oligarchs. The fourth is that he fundamentally does not understand the powers and the role of the modern presidency. And the fifth is that he maintains the worst communications apparatus in the White House since Jimmy Carter prowled its corridors. In fairness to his communications team, though, he has given them almost nothing to sell. You try singing the praises of bailing out Goldman Sachs one hundred cents on the dollar, or of a health care plan that forces people to buy plans they don’t want from hated insurance vultures. It ain’t easy, pal. Full article.

down with brutal egyptian dictatorship, funded by the u.s. to the tune of $50 billion since 1979.

Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man from Alexandria was beaten up to death by two policemen when he refused to give them money, a human rights group said on 10 June. Full article.

finally a piece on non-violence that makes sense to me, especially in the context of the gandhian struggle for indian independence which has been heedlessly mythologized in the west (courtesy of attenborough’s film probably). a must read. full article.

the always brilliant naomi klein. gives a fresh new reading to what’s going on in the world. worth a listen.

replace the word islam with any other religion and u will see the hateful bigotry in what hirsi ali has to say. she is NOT a scholar of islam. i support free speech but i wish that she would be recognized for what she is: a mouthpiece for the hate-spewing, perpetual-war-supporting neo-con establishment: “Was the prophet Muhammad a pervert and a tyrant? Does Islam promote terrorism and enslave women? Does Islam oblige its followers to wage jihad on Westerners whose roots lie in the secular Enlightenment? Should Muslims consider converting to Christianity? For the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the answer to all these questions is a resounding Yes!” Full article.

I realized there that anybody from a dominating group who tries to dehumanize people from a minority group, can only do so if by education, indoctrination and propaganda he has already been dehumanized himself, independent of the uniform he wears. (Hajo Meyer)

this was back in 2006. “Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony… If you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.” (Khalid Mish’al is head of the political bureau of Hamas) Full article.

“There is no way to justify a “War on Terrorism” that obfuscates America’s imperial role, portrays the leaders of mass movements like the Taliban and Hezbollah as isolated terrorists, corrupts and brutalizes societies subject to U.S. intervention, and inflames the structural situation that is generating anti-Western violence. It is not just a new foreign policy we need but a new way of understanding ourselves and the world we inhabit.” (Richard E. Rubenstein) Full article.

the war in afghanistan – now officially the longest american war in history. kathy kelly reports on the situation in pakistan. watch interview here.

“We disagree with the widespread claims that this was the result of an intelligence rift,” said the officers. “In addition, we do not accept claims that this was a ‘public relations failure’ and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning. First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immediately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla. This demonstrates contempt for the responsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved the mission.” Full article.