HUMAN RIGHTS & EQUALITY FOR ALL,FREEDOM & JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE, ZIMBABWE, BURMA, EVERY COUNTRY SUFFERING FROM WARS, DROUGHTS, STARVATION, MILITARY ADVENTURES, DICTATORSHIPS, POLICE STATES, RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION, HOMOPHOBIA, CENSORSHIP & OTHER OBSCENITIES.INTERNATIONAL ASYLUM SEEKER SUPPORT
A BLOG SITE, "BLOGNOW" COLLAPSED IN 2009, SO USE THE GOOGLE SITE SEARCH ENGINE
Showing posts with label human rights abuses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights abuses. Show all posts
CounterPunch 18 December 2020
Abuse on the Mainland: Australia’s Medevac Hotel Detentions
by Binoy Kampmark
Governments that issue press releases about the abuse of human rights tend to avoid close gazes at the mirror. Doing so would be telling. In the case of Australia, its record on dealing with refugees is both abysmal and cruel. It tends to be easier to point the finger at national security laws in Hong Kong and concentration camps in Xinjiang. Wickedness is always easily found afar.
Australia’s own concentration camp system hums along, inflicting suffering upon asylum seekers and refugees who fled suffering by keeping them in a state of calculated limbo. Its brutality has been so normalised, it barely warrants mention in Australia’s sterile news outlets. In penitence, the country’s literary establishment pays homage to the victims, such as the Kurdish Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Garlands and literary prizes have done nothing to shift the vicious centre in Canberra. Boat arrivals remain political slurry and are treated accordingly.
Recently, there were small signs that prevalent amnesia and indifference was being disturbed. The fate of some 200 refugees and asylum seekers brought to the Australian mainland for emergency medical treatment piqued the interest of certain activists. Prior to its repeal as part of a secret arrangement between the Morrison government and Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie in December last year, the medical evacuation law was a mixed blessing.
While it was championed as a humanitarian instrument, it did not ensure one iota of freedom. As before, limbo followed like a dank smell. The repeal of the legislation offered another prospect of purgatory, only this time on the mainland.
The individuals in question have found themselves detained in Melbourne at the Mantra Bell City Hotel in Preston, and the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel in Brisbane. In the mind of Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul, the conditions at both abodes are more restrictive than those on Nauru. The medical help promised has also been tardily delivered, if at all.
“My life is exactly the size of a room, and a narrow corridor,” reflects Mostafa (Moz) Azimitabar, who has been detained at the Mantra for 13 months. Like his fellow detainees, he has become a spectacle, able to see protesters gather outside the hotel, the signs pleading for their release, drivers honking in solidarity. He sees himself as “a fish inside an aquarium … The whole of my life in this window to see the real life, where people are driving, walking; when they wave to us. And when I wave back at them. This is my life.”
When former Australian soccer player turned human rights activist Craig Foster visited Azimitabar, conversation could only take place between a transparent plastic barrier. “I had to talk with him behind the glass,” tweeted the detainee. “Several times a day Serco officers enter my room and there aren’t any glasses for them.”
After the visit, Foster described the corrosion of liberties, “this constant theme of the most onerous regulations … constantly chipping away – just taking another right, another right, another right, and making them feel less and less and less human, if that’s possible after eight years.”
The more obstreperous refugees have been targeted by the Department of Home Affairs and forcibly relocated. Iranian refugee Farhad Rahmati found himself shifted from Kangaroo Point to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre (BITA), and then to Villawood. BITA also received four more from Kangaroo Point in mid-November.
The advent of COVID-19 compounded the situation. Detainees already vulnerable to other medical conditions faced another danger. The authorities gave a big shrug. Shared bathrooms are the norm and are infrequently cleaned. Hand sanitizer containers are left empty or broken. The inquiry into the failure of Victoria’s quarantine system that led to a second infectious wave in Melbourne avoided considering the conditions of detained refugees. Writing in Eureka Street, Andra Jackson wondered if this had anything to do with the fact “that these men, now detained in some instances for six to seven years, have behaved more responsibly that [sic] some returning travellers.”
The government authorities did release five refugees from the medevac hotels last week, threatened by lawsuits testing the legal status of their detention. On December 14, the 60 men detained at the Mantra were told that they would be moving to another undisclosed location. The conclusion of the contract with the hotel has the Department of Home Affairs considering its options, and all are bound to aggravate the distress of the detainees.
Alison Battinson of Human Rights for All has a suggestion bound to be ignored. “Instead of telling the gentlemen that they are going to be moved to another place of detention – that hasn’t been disclosed to them – the more sensible approach would be to release them as per the law.”
The only ray of compassion in this mess of inhumanity has come in the form of a Canadian resettlement scheme. Nine refugees have already availed themselves of the opportunity; another twenty await their fate. Australian politicians, as they so often do on this subject, are nowhere to be found.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
On November 27 this year, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, delivered an address
to the German Bundestag outlining his approach to understanding the
mental health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. These comprised two
parts, the initial stage covering his diplomatic asylum in the
Ecuadorean embassy, the second dealing with his formal detention in the
United Kingdom at the hands of the UK legal and judicial system. The
conclusion was a recapitulation of previous findings: that Assange has
been subjected to a prolonged, state-sponsored effort in torture,
nothing less than a targeting of his being.
Melzer’s address is an expansive portrait of incremental inter-state
torment that led to Assange’s confinement “in a highly controlled
environment within the Ecuadorean embassy for more than six years.”
There was the eventually justified fear that he would be sought by the
United States in extradition proceedings. The Swedish authorities threw
in their muddled lot between 2010 and 2019, attempting to nab Assange
for rape claims despite “not being able to produce enough evidence for
an indictment, and which now, after almost a decade, has been silently
closed for the third time based on precisely that recognition.”
Then came the British contribution, consisting of encouragement to
the Swedes by the Crown Prosecution Service that the investigation
should not be closed, inspiring them not to get “cold feet”. (The cold
feet eventually came.) The Ecuadorean contribution completed the
four-piece set, with the coming to power of a pro-Washington Lenín
Moreno. Embassy personnel in London were encouraged to make conditions
that less pleasant; surveillance operations were conducted on Assange’s
guests and meetings.
Melzer, along with a medical team, attended to Assange on May 9, 2019
in Belmarsh, finding a man with “all the symptoms that are typical of
persons having been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged
period of time.” There was little doubt, in Melzer’s mind, that symptoms
“already measurable physically, neurologically and cognitively”, had
been shown.
These calls went unheeded. Melzer, in early November, accused
the UK authorities of showing “outright contempt for Mr Assange’s
rights and integrity.” Despite warnings issued by the rapporteur, “the
UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and
redress required under international law.” Melzer’s prognosis was bleak.
“Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane
situation, Mr Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse
may soon end up costing his life.”
This point has been restated
by Dr. Stephen Frost, a chief figure of the dedicated outfit calling
itself Doctors for Assange. “We repeat that it is impossible to assess
adequately let alone treat Mr Assange in Belmarsh prison and that he
must as a matter of urgency be moved to a university teaching hospital.
When will the UK government listen to us?”
The medical degrading of Assange has assumed ever greater importance,
suggesting unwavering state complicity. On November 22, over 65 notable
medical doctors sent the UK Home Secretary a note
based on Melzer’s November 1 findings and Assange’s state at the
October 21 case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court. “It
is our opinion that Mr Assange requires urgent expert medical
assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health. Any
medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly
equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary
care).”
In a second open letter
to the UK Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice dated
December 4, the Doctors for Assange collective warned that the UK’s
“refusal to take the required measures to protect Mr Assange’s rights,
health and dignity appears [to] be reckless at best and deliberate at
worst and, in both cases, unlawfully and unnecessarily exposes Mr
Assange to potentially irreversible risks.”
The same grounds were reiterated
in a December 16 letter to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne,
with a curt reminder that she had “an undeniable legal obligation to
protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental rights,
stemming from US efforts to extradite Mr Assange for journalism and
publishing that exposed US war crimes.” In the event that Payne took no
action on the matter, “people would want to know what you […] did to
prevent his death.”
In the addendum to the open letter,
further to reiterating the precarious state of Assange’s health and
medical status as a torture victim, the doctors elaborate on the
circular cruelty facing the publisher. An individual deemed “a victim of
psychological torture cannot be adequately medically treated while
continuing to be held under the very conditions constituting
psychological torture, as is currently the case for Julian Assange.”
Appropriate medical treatment was hardly possible through a prison
hospital ward.
A lesson in understanding mental torture is also proffered. “Contrary
to popular misconception, the injuries caused by psychological torture
are real and extremely serious. The term psychological torture is not a synonym for mere hardship, suffering or distress.”
At Assange’s case management hearing on December 19, restrictions on
medical opinion were again implemented; psychiatrist Marco Chiesa and
psychologist David Morgan were prevented from attending. Both had been
signatories to the spray of open letters. According to Morgan, he had hoped
to “provide some observations about Julian Assange’s health,
psychologically, and with my colleagues, physically.” Instead, it
transpired that access was denied, according to psychologist Lissa Johnson, “despite members of the public offering to give up seats for them.”
Cold-shouldering expert opinion can be counted as one of the weapons
of the state in punishing whistleblowers and publishers. The State has
always made it a bureaucratic imperative to sift the undesirable
evidence from the apologetic message. Accepting Assange’s condition
would be tantamount to admission on the part of UK authorities, urged on
by the United States, that intolerable, potentially martyring
treatment, has been meted out to a publisher.
This article comes from Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association:
Today,
25 April 2107, Addameer’s attorneys visited Nafha, Hadarim and Asqlan
prisons, where they were not able to visit hunger-striking prisoners and
detainees due to Israeli Prison Service (IPS) refusal. However, they
managed to visit prisoners who were not on hunger strike that informed
the attorneys of the hunger strike's recent developments.
During
a visit to the Hadarim prison, prisoner Thabet al-Mardawi explained to
Addameer’s attorney Mona Naddaf, that the IPS started transferring
prisoners from one section to another on the second day of the strike,
18 April 2017. He added, that Marwan Barghouthi and Karim Younis were
placed in isolation in Al-Jalama prison, and Anas Jaradat and Mahmoud
Abu Sorour were placed in isolation in Ela prison. He added that about
36 prisoners were
transferred to Ramle prison, and the rest of the prisoners were placed
in different prisons across occupied Palestine.
Additionally,
sick prisoners were transferred to the cells of Section 5 in Hadarim,
which is a civilian detention room located in the civil section of the
prison. The prisoners live in a completely isolated situation, where
there is no television, no electrical devices and were only given
sleeping mats.
Prisoner
Thabet explained that the IPS isolated 102 hunger-striking prisoners
before placing them in different prisons. Special unit forces stormed
and raided the hunger-striking sections confiscating personal
belongings. All of the prisoners have been stripped of their
possessions; only one blanket has been kept for each prisoner and one
set of clothing in addition to the “Shabas clothing” or prison uniform.
Prison administration
also seized salt in the first days of the strike, and strikers have had
to drink water from the tap as the administration does not provide them
with drinking water.
The
prison administration has also imposed several punitive sanctions on
the hunger-striking prisoners. The most important of these is the denial
of family visits, as well as the denial of recreation, denial of access
to the “canteen” (prison store).
In
Nafha prison, Addameer’s attorney Samer Samaan visited prisoners Ayman
Odeh and Raed al-Saadi, who told him during the visit that the number of
hunger striking prisoners in Nafha is 250 from all political factions.
The IPS also started isolating hunger strikers from their fellow
prisoners, raided their sections and banned them from having attorney
visits.
In
Ashkelon prison, Farah Beyadsi visited prisoner Sharif Hamid, who is
not on hunger strike. He informed her that the IPS transferred all the
prisoners who are not on hunger strike to Section 12 of the prison. And
transferred hunger striking prisoners to Section 3 and placed them in
isolation. 42 prisoners in Ashkelon prison are on hunger strike.
“In
Ashkelon there are 5 rooms, each room has about ten prisoners, the
prisoners are forbidden from communicating with anyone, and they are
denied family visits and access to the prison canteen. They are not
allowed to see their attorneys as well,” Hamid added. The prison
administration in Ashkelon also stripped hunger striking prisoners of
their possessions, and strikers have had to drink water from the tap as
the administration does not
provide them with drinking water. They also prohibited them from
participating in group prayers on Friday.
Addameer Prisoner Support urges supporters of justice around the world to take action to
support the Palestinian prisoners
whose bodies and lives are on the line for freedom and dignity. Addameer
urges all people to organize events in solidarity with the struggle of
hunger-striking prisoners and detainees. Addameer further calls upon the
international community to demand that the Israeli government to
respect the will of hunger strikers who use their bodies as a legitimate
means of protest, which has been recognized by the World Medical
Association (WMA) Declaration of Malta on Hunger Strikes as “often a form of protest by people who lack other ways of making their demands known.”
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
P. O. Box: 17338, Jerusalem
3 Edward Said Street Sebat Bldg. 1st Floor, Suite 2 Ramallah, Palestine
It really is time that parliamentarians got their acts together.
Their behaviour is becoming more and more appalling as time passes, and instead of the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull putting a stop to the abuse, he just ignores it. In the ultimate, is there any difference between Turnbull and Abbott?
Peter Dutton has made a pronouncement about certain business leaders - I don't hold many briefs for them either - which is disgusting, to say the least, by saying that they should just get on with their knitting and leave pronouncements about gay marriage to others who are involved with the political scene.
What unbelievable arrogance!
Then Barnaby Joyce throws in his penny's worth on the same and similar issues - parliament has more important issues to deal with than dykes and poofters wanting to tie the knot.
Let's face it - homophobia is alive and well and living in Australia, and we in the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS (GLTH) communities will have to continue fighting until we have achieved equality in every aspect of society.
Taking Dutton to other levels, his behaviour and that of his government and opposition colleagues have been guilty of breaching every human rights conditions available and contnue to do so on a daily basis.
We watch with horror the unfolding of the dramas of desperate people in Australia's concentration camps in Nauru and Manus and the ones in Australia's mainland and wonder how long this nightmare will continue.
We watch with horror the ongoing apartheid in our communities with out of proportion incarceration rates of the indigenous population, racism attacks on people of various communities, unquestioning support in overseas policies of apartheid states such as Israel, Palestinians living in the world's biggest concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank occupied territories. and the horrors of ongoing wars in many countires aided and abetted by the military countries USA, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Australia, China, and many others too numerous to mention.
Gillian Triggs has been disgustingly treated by the current federal government and nothing will excuse their current behaviour in relation to "getting rid of her". But certain members of the government have behaved more appallingly than others, if possible.
The latest abuses relate to the Lebanese communities in Australia - the usual smear where the vast majority are blamed for the misdeeds of the few, typically.
In contrast, explore the stories of Jews, zionists, anti-semites and related stories in the media in Australia, the handling by politicians of Jewish interests and Jewish affairs, the differences between young zionists being allowed to fight for Israel against the Palestinians but the selective rage against other young people who go overseas to fight in support of other countries and get slandered perpetually for what they have done.
Then we mustn't forget that although most politicians who are not Jewish support Israel against the Palestinians, there are two reasons for this support. The first is that they would like all Jews to get out of Australia and go and live in Israel, and the second is that their political parties in Australia receive vasts amount of funding by Jewish groups in Australia.
Hypocrisy, oh hypocrisy, it never ends!
Nationalism and racist rear their ugly heads everywhere and it is all encouraged by the politicians around the country who are racist to the core. Just think of the treatment of the Aboriginal communities around the country and how appallingly they are treated everywhere, by the police who are racists, by the governments who are as well, by the incarceration rates, by the employment or non employment and job opportunities - or not - everywhere, by the health neglect and lack of care by governments, the list continues.
Then also there is the ABC and what the governments are doing to it to decimate it and ruin its programmes by starving it of funds and appointing government toadies to run it and disallow legitimate discussion about the politics of the country - we have to be fair and give both sides of every argument - by closing off contrary arguments which are against government policies.
Injuries the men say they have suffered on the island nation. Photo:
Supplied
Two gay refugees who fell in love at the Nauru
detention camp say they are virtually prisoners in their home: holed up in fear
for their lives after being bashed and verbally abused in a nation where
homosexuality is illegal
.
As Sydney prepares for Saturday
night's Mardi Gras parade - an event that showcases Australia
as a global model of acceptance of gay and lesbian people - the
federal government is refusing to rescue the two young Iranian men it sent
to a country where they could be jailed for their sexual
orientation, according to lawyers.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has so far refused to help the
refugees, who say they have been repeatedly beaten, had rocks thrown at them
and been called "human rubbish". His department says refugees at Nauru
can accept resettlement in Cambodia.
A digitally altered photo of two gay Iranian refugees, Nima and Ashkan, who
say they are being persecuted at Nauru,
where homosexuality is illegal. Photo: supplied
The Human Rights Law Centre and international LGBT rights group All Out have
begun a petition calling
on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to urgently intervene and bring the men
to Australia.
The refugees, known by the pseudonyms Nima and Ashkan, live in the Nauruan
community. They say they spend their lives confined in a tiny unit with
the doors locked and window shades drawn - leaving just once a week to buy
food, escorted by a case manager.
"We would love to live in a country where we can love each other
without any barriers … and Australia
is such a country," Nima told Fairfax Media through an interpreter,
speaking on the phone from Nauru.
"Most of the time we just lie on the bed because we can't do anything …
we are mentally suffering. We can't do anything else."
Further injuries the men have endured. Photo: Supplied
The men, both in their 20s, fled Iran
separately after suffering persecution and headed to Australia.
They met after being transferred to the Nauru
detention camp and their relationship began about two years ago.
They claim to have suffered harassment from other detainees while inside the
centre. After being found to be refugees and moved into the Nauruan community,
they say the attacks escalated.
In one alleged assault one evening in July last
year, the men were walking home carrying their shopping when their path
was blocked by three local men.
The refugees allege the men asked if they were partners, which they
confirmed, before the men said "f*ck you" and beat them with sticks,
forcing them to the ground.
The refugees said they sustained bruising and were taken to hospital. Ashkan
allegedly suffered concussion and was kept overnight
In an attack the following month, Nima was allegedly punched in the head by
two men on motorbikes, who yelled "you f***ing gays".
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Border
Protection said it was "aware of an incident involving the
individuals" and law enforcement in Nauru
was the responsibility of the island's government.
The spokesman said concerns about the treatment of gay people are considered
prior to a detainee's transfer to that country.
"It is not Australian government policy for illegal maritime arrivals
to settle in Australia.
Refugees in Nauru
may apply to Cambodia
for permanent settlement," he said.
Very few refugees have taken up the Cambodia
resettlement option. Critics say that nation has been accused of human
rights abuses, has high poverty levels and no refugee resettlement
experience.
The Nauruan government had not provided comment at the time of
writing.
HRLC's director of advocacy and litigation, Anna Brown, said under
Nauruan law Ashkan and Nima risk being jailed for up to 14
years.
"This situation and similar ones on Manus [Island]
are just so wrong ... the Australian government knowingly and deliberately
allows gay men to be warehoused on tiny islands where they face assaults,
prejudice and extremely harsh criminal penalties," she said.
The HRLC says former human rights commissioner Tim Wilson was
notified of the case and raised it with the government. Mr Wilson, who
recently resigned the post to launch a bid for Parliament
with the Liberal Party, would not comment.
A spokesman for Connect Settlement Services, which assists refugees at Nauru,
said it was aware of assault allegations "made by clients in June and
July last year and we have provided assistance to those clients".
There seems to be no bottom to the pit started being dug in 1992 by Paul Keating, prime minister of Australia at that time to incarcerate asylum seekers in Australia's concentration camp hell-holes around the country.
Since 1992 the position by successive politicians has been made worse and worse as they endeavour to outdo each other in their cruel treatment of human beings who are fleeing from their own hell-holes and who have now unfortunately landed in new hell-holes in another country.
Existing hell-holes and equivalent concentration camps have long been features of the indigenous landscape of Australia, so human rights abuses can now be spread out into areas unthinkable some years ago.
There may be terror attacks taking place all over the world, but Australia is guilty of terror attacks relating to torture and worse of human beings being incarcerated in camps even apartheid South Africa hadn't quite achieved in its years of horror.
Mind you, the Israelis are overtaking most of the world's oppressors with their treatment of Palestine and the Palestinians, but one horror does not excuse another horror, and, as used to be the old saying, two wrongs don't make a right!!
The latest appalling situation is taking place in the Manus Island concentration camp where news has managed to leak out of people sewing their lips together and swallowing razor blades -ffs!! What next - operating on themselves and removing their guts from their bodies while they are potentially still alive? Burning themselves to death? The potential horrors are endless and beyond contemplation.
Who is going to put a stop to it all - and when???
I certainly won't be living long enough to see it all come to an end with a just and humane resolution.
Ponder the fact that there is no outcry from the population, no outcry from the media, and most politicians are silent on the issue.
Ponder the fact that where money is involved, discussions are loud and widespread.
Ponder the fact that people in Australia all come from other countries except the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia.
Ponder the fact that all these boat people - read aeroplanes for mid-20th century onwards - are so antagonistic to the latest newcomers and try and explain.
Xenophobia has become a national pastime, and because so many of the asylum seekers are from Muslim countries because of the imperialist wars waged in their countries by the likes of Australia, you have a country whose population is amongst the most racist in the world.
Asylum seekers are sent to concentration camps in other countries where they are out of sight, out of mind, and when there are incidents involving Australian military or naval personnel the asylum seekers tell lies about what has happened to them in the hands of these personnel.
Then you get ministers saying they would sooner believe version given to him by the military/navy than some asylum seekers who wouldn't be truthful in any event, and you return to the "children overboard" lies of the Howard government era.
So what has changed in all the years since Paul Keating introduced the first concentration camps in Australia?
The situation has worsened year by year and governments have become more like South African and Israeli jailers in their apartheid states, and you get democracy having disappeared altogether.
The outcome for these poor people fleeing from the horrors inflicted on their countries by the likes of Australia is tragic in the extreme, and for those of us watching from the sidelines and feeling more and more helpless as time passes, one can only wonder why more and more of the people in these desperate situations are not committing suicide at a greater rate.
There are two organisations in Australia, one a national body and the other a state body, which are supposed to be organisations whose charters enable them to engage in assessing human rights in our communities, and where there seem to be problems of various sorts, to try to come to a resolution and settle the possible disputes involved.
What do we find?
Australian Human Rights Commission - a new appointee to the board is a political appointee by a government already notorious for its record on human rights abuses.
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission - a recent appointee to the board is someone from a community organisation which is notorious for its record on hypocrisy - it is a body fortunately not in a position to be able to be guilty of human rights abuses.
The list of countries with homophobia as a major component of their human rights abuses grows apace, with countries added to the list on an almost daily basis.
The most obvious ones are Uganda, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, most African countries, now India, also Pakistan, Bangladesh - and the list keeps growing.
The police state is not something new. Dictatorships such as Spain, Germany, USSR, Italy, South Africa kept tabs on their citizens and controlled them accordingly, with dire consequences if and when they strayed. This article covers much of the ground. It was on the blog Activist Post on 23 AUGUST 2103.
While many adults would prefer to ignore it, a police state has already risen
amongst the once free nations of the West. The legal framework and technology
for this advanced big brother nightmare has been developing for decades, and as
such, it is unlikely that the trend towards even greater surveillance, control
and injustice will slow much in the coming years, even though the public is
slowly awakening to what is happening.
The next generation of children may very well be the first to never experience
privacy, and will be preyed upon their entire lives by the corporate state,
ostensibly for purposes of security and marketing. As such it is imperative
that today’s youths are given an honest explanation of what is happening along
with hopeful guidance for navigating this brave new world.
What is to happen to the next generation? Are they to grow up knowing only
subservience and submission to an all-seeing technological oligarchy? Or will
they grow up to develop the personal power and intelligence to survive and
thrive in this unfortunate environment?
Children are unlike adults in that they typically have a more intuitive way of reading the world around them. Too young
to understand the logic of our chaotic and backward world, and too
inexperienced to yet give into cynicism, kids also have a keen ability to know
when someone should be trusted and when someone should be feared. The police
state relies on it’s fearful image and tactics to maintain it’s power, and our
young people are quick to see through this and spot the injustice, hypocrisy and
the phoniness of adults.
In the classroom, children are taught the traditional nationalistic history,
which celebrates and glorifies the past achievements of the state, repeating
the idea that the nations of the West are governed by principles, morals, equal
rights, democracy, and such. Being intuitively alert, it is impossible for the
youth to be fooled by a painted picture like this, while all the while there is
wanton violation of all this in the real world. The contradiction between this
repeated lie and the real experience of living in a fearful security state
contributes to inner conflict and reinforces the popular cognitive dissonance that renders so many adults useless in
the effort to maintain personal liberty in these times.
It is imperative that we liberate the youth of today from the crippling fear
that gives the police state its power. For this, here are some key
considerations for discussion with today’s youth about life in a new age
of tyranny:
Keep your moral compass
focused on the principles of liberty, peace and love. The alternative is submission,
conflict and hate, which will absolutely destroy you, as it is destroys
those who would subjugate others.
Be honest with them about
what we are confronting. Let them know that this is not right, this is not
normal, and this is not how life should be.
What you are taught in
school and in the media about how the world works is largely untrue.
You must know and
understand your rights in order to endure injustice. The Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta,
and the volumes written on the subject of human freedom, liberty, the
nature of tyranny offer moral guidance and inspiration. This is essential
knowledge for confronting injustice and mustering courage.
You must exercise the
rights that you still have, as well as continue to exercise those rights
which have been unjustly turned into privileges.
Personal responsibility is
crucial, as the alternative is apathy and indifference, which are crucial
to rise of tyranny. This situation is your responsibility to deal with in
whichever way you are guided to, but ignoring and refusing to acknowledge
this is simply unacceptable.
You are not alone in this,
as there are already literally millions of people worldwide contributing
to efforts to bring light onto what has come to operate in the dark. The
movement towards global freedom is indeed growing in parallel with the
move toward global slavery.
It is not OK to emulate the
leadership that we have nowadays, nor to join them in enforcing unjust
laws. It is also not OK to profit from intruding on someone else’s liberty
and privacy.
What happens to your
neighbor and countrymen also happens to you. A predatory government always
starts on the outskirts of society, first demonizing and persecuting
fringe groups, then naturally evolving to toward more segments of society
until everyone is a terrorist. By ignoring today the targeting of others,
you contribute to your own persecution in time.
Privacy is something very valuable and very critical
for mental health and well-being. It is important to learn how to exercise
privacy and to protect yourself when using technology. Learn how to
opt-out, decline, and skillfully not-comply when possible.
Taking care of your body,
your mind, and spirit, and intentionally living with conscience will
liberate you from the psychic and spiritual trap that is the control-freak
matrix. It is designed to diminish your personal power and make your life
seem insignificant. Turning your attention away from the mindless
distractions and temptations of the media and focus instead on
self-mastery and personal spiritual cultivation will help you to see
through its illusions.
History is full of tyranny,
war and ugliness, yes, but it is also a continuing story of revolution,
triumph, re-construction and love, so do not be fooled by those too afraid
to put hope into action.
Life is too short and too
precious to live in fear of another human being. You deserve to be happy
and enjoy your life, so it is your task to rise above this insanity.
Preparing the future generation for the challenges plaguing
humankind requires brutal honesty with them about the condition of the world,
while offering them hope and direction by exposing them to the creative ideas
that will improve things. We have, sadly, created many problems for the next
generation, the police state being only one of them. Courageous souls are
needed, and it is our responsibility to develop within the youth the personal
power to move through this.
This article was inspired by the following video which offers a short glimpse
into the tragic lives of some of Syria’s
youth as their country descends further into all-out war. The strength and
poise of the children in this video is equally inspiring and heart-breaking and
should give us all pause in considering how we prepare the next generation for
the possibility of a better life than this…
Sigmund Fraud is a survivor of modern psychiatry and a dedicated mental
activist. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com where he pursues the possibility of a
massive shift towards a more psychologically aware future for mankind.
This article comes from Nation of Change on 20 August 2013 and is a further example of the way the United States of America is showing its tendency to become the police state of the western world.
Detention of
Greenwald Partner inLondon Clearly Came on U.S. Orders
It is becoming perfectly clear that the outrageous detention of American
journalist Glenn Greenwald’s Brazilian partner David Miranda by British police
during a flight transfer at London’s
Heathrow Airport
was, behind the scenes, the work of US intelligence authorities.
British police and the British Home Office (the equivalent of America’s
Department of Homeland Security) are claiming that the action was taken by them
on the basis of an anti-terrorist statute, passed in 2000, with the Orwellian
name “Schedule 7.” The give-away that this was not something that the British
dreamed up on their own, however, is their admission that they had “notified Washington”
of their intention to detain Miranda, a Brazilian national, before the
detention actually occurred.
Note that they did not notify Brazilian authorities. It
was the Americans who got the call. Why would British police notify American
authorities about the detention of a Brazilian citizen except to ask what US
authorities wanted done ? Clearly, Miranda was on one of America’s
“watch lists” and the British police called because they needed instructions
from their superiors in the US
regarding whether to detain him and what to do with him once they had him. (The
ironically named new White House press secretary, Josh Ernest, denied any
involvedment by the US
in the detention of Miranda, saying, "This is a decision that was made by
the British government without the involvement - and not at the request - of
the United States
government. It is as simple as that." He was not pressed on the matter by
the assembled members of the White House press corps--a group that is not known
for its aggressiveness even when its own interests are at stake.
Miranda subsequent to the UK police's call to the US, was
detained and held, without access to a lawyer, for nine hours -- the maximum
amount of time allowed under the draconian terms of Schedule 7 -- and was
during that time questioned by at least seven security agents, whom Miranda
says threatened him with jail and asked him about his “entire life.” Never was
there any suggestion that he was a terrorist or that he had any links to
terrorism. Rather, the focus was on journalist Greenwald’s plans in relation to
his writing further articles about the data he had obtained from US National
Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, now living in Russia
under a grant of political and humanitarian asylum.
British police confiscated Miranda’s computer, his computer games and memory
storage devices he was carrying. (In a related action, police also went to the
offices of the UK Guardian newspaper,
which is where Greenwald works, though from his home in Brazil,
and, in an act of wanton destruction reminiscent of Nazi storm troopers or
Chinese public security bureau thugs, destroyed
hard drives of the newspaper’s computers containing leaked documents provided
by Snowden. The paper’s editors said that this particularly ugly police
action against the news media was pointless since the paper has copies of those
documents elsewhere, but then, the “point” was the act of destruction, not
elimination of the leaked information itself.)
It makes no sense that British authorities would have taken
these outrageous police-state actions against Miranda, against Greenwald and
against one of the UK’s
most prestigious newspapers, on their own. The issue after all is Snowden’s
leaks, which are primarily of concern to the US
and the NSA -- the source of the documents.
US intelligence authorities these days maintain enormous files on American
and foreign citizens, and track their movements by air. Many people are
regularly subjected to special searches at US airports, and in some cases have
their computers confiscated and searched by immigration authorities. Some are
also detained for hours and are denied the right to get on a plane, though they
are never charged with any crime. When I investigated the TSA’s watch lists and
its “no-fly” list, I learned that there is no way to find out if you are on
such a list, or to get your name removed if you are on one. There is not even a
right to learn how such lists are compiled, or which agency might be the source
of information that is putting you on a watch list.
No doubt Miranda was placed on such a watch list by the US
because of his relationship with Greenwald. No journalist himself, Miranda had
just met in Germany
with journalist/filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been working in collaboration
with Greenwald on the Snowden documents exposé. According to the Guardian,
which was paying his airfare, he was bringing back to Rio
de Janeiro some materials in her position for
Greenwald’s use in writing further articles. (Knowing that the NSA is
monitoring their every electronic communication, Poitras and Greenwald
understandably preferred to use a trusted courier, rather than sending the
records electronically.)
We have entered a very dark period in terms of freedom of the press, not to
mention the basic freedom of travel, association and privacy, when people like
Miranda are detained in this manner. No one has suggested that Miranda, Poitras
or Greenwald has broken any law. They are doing what good journalists in a free
society are supposed to do. But the US
security state, which has its tentacles now spread through most of the world,
with client state secret services, such as the police in Britain,
doing its bidding, isn’t going after “criminals” or “terrorists.” Like tyrants
everywhere, it is engaging in repression, pure and simple.
“Terrorism” laws are now being overtly used to repress basic freedoms
without the state even bothering to pretend that the police actions taken have
anything to do with combating “terror.” The only terrorism at this point is the
actions of the state. The only terrorists are government authorities.
What started out as malignant universal monitoring by the NSA of all
electronic communications is now metastasizing into arrests of journalists and
their assistants at the airport. This will no doubt in no time metastasize
further to night-time SWAT raids on journalists’ homes and offices. We’ve
already seen such things being visited upon political activists, so the new
development should not come as much of a surprise.
This latest escalation of the US
government’s assault on truth and journalism exposes the puerile sham of
President Obama’s claim to want to “reform” the National Security Agency’s
spying program and to limit the “Justice” Department’s invasive actions against
journalists. The detention of Miranda was an act of war on the whole concept of
press freedom.
Absent a public outcry -- and I see none -- it will only get worse.
Using the Terrorism Act to detain a journalist's partner is a
gross abuse of power.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald walks with his partner David Miranda in Rio
de Janeiro's International
Airport. Photo: Reuters It's been an infuriating few days for anyone who values the freedom of the
press, as authorities in Britain
resorted to the tactics of tyrants and thugs to squelch reporting that they
simply don't like.
In acts clearly calibrated for optimal intimidation, they have detained the
partner of a journalist, threatened to shut down a reporting operation that has
prompted a critical public debate over government spying, and forced the
destruction of a major publication's computer hard drives.
It's breathtaking in its audacity - and if it comes to light that the US
government took any part in these acts, it will warrant immediate congressional
investigation.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Photo: Reuters
As it is, accelerating assaults on investigative journalism demand stronger
protections for journalists and their sources. Otherwise, Western society will
forsake its right to know what happens in the back rooms of a government that
purportedly exists to serve democratic interests.
On Sunday morning, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian
newspaper columnist who broke most of the recent blockbuster stories about US
government surveillance efforts, was detained at Heathrow Airport for nine
hours under Britain's broad terror laws. Authorities interrogated David Miranda
without a lawyer and confiscated his laptop, phone, memory sticks and other
devices.
Miranda was returning from Berlin,
where he met a filmmaker who worked with Greenwald on stories based on leaks
from former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Schedule 7 of the British Terrorism Act grants authorities wide latitude to
search and question travellers to ascertain any link to terrorism. But it's
clear Miranda's detention had nothing to do with terrorism, since Greenwald
reported that those nine hours were spent questioning him about the NSA
reporting.
Using laws designed to ferret out suspected terrorists to detain a person
aiding acts of journalism is a cut-and-dried abuse of government power, an act
of intimidation that may well be illegal - and certainly should be. It gives
the lie to the naive but oft-repeated notion that if you've done no wrong, you
have nothing to fear.
British officials justified their actions by suggesting Miranda was ''in
possession of highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism''.
But many things can be construed as ''helping'' terrorism. Osama bin Laden
recommended a Bob Woodward book for its insights into US
military decision-making, but that doesn't mean anyone with a copy in his or
her carry-on luggage should be dragged off a plane.
The White House acknowledged that it was given a ''heads-up'' about
Miranda's detention, but said it occurred ''without the involvement - and not
at the request - of the United States
government''. An equally shocking set of revelations arrived on Monday, as Guardian
editor Alan Rusbridger published a story disclosing that British officials have
demanded that the newspaper relinquish or destroy all the material leaked by
Snowden. He was warned that if the newspaper refused to do so, the government
would force its hand in court.
Rusbridger told authorities that most of the reporting on the NSA stories
was already happening out of New York.
But his argument was unpersuasive.
''And so one of the more bizarre moments in The Guardian's long
history occurred - with two [government intelligence] security experts
overseeing the destruction of hard drives in The Guardian's basement
just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could
possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents,'' Rusbridger said.
The good news: the publication had digital copies of the material outside
the country. But the mere fact that a Western democracy raided an independent
publication and shattered its property is outrageous, a tilt towards the
totalitarianism imagined by George Orwell.
Such attacks on investigative journalism appear to be escalating. Judges
have threatened reporters at The New York Times and Fox News with jail
time for refusing to disclose their sources. The Obama administration has
prosecuted more people under the Espionage Act for leaking classified
information than all past presidencies combined.
Veteran investigative reporters say the current climate has cast a chill
across the landscape. Once-reliable sources now refuse to step forward for fear
of winding up the next Bradley Manning, the WikiLeaks leaker.
There's a high price to pay for these policies: we'll know less about what
governments, businesses, lobbyists and other institutions are doing behind
closed doors. Unless we demand stronger protections for journalists and their
sources, we forfeit a victory to idiocy, incompetence, abuse and crime. James Temple is a columnist for the San Francisco
Chronicle.
The Australian government and the Opposition are trying to outdo each other in their appalling attitudes to people fleeing desperate situation in their countries, much of it imposed by Australia's military intervention in those countries and its support of regimes in other countries which treat minority groups as criminals and incarcerate and abuse them, denying them accepted human rights, which are purported to be their democratic rights as granted under the UNited Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Australia has
negotiated off-shore solutions to Asylum Seekers attempting to come to
Australia in boats which are not seaworthy, and which have already been
responsible for many drownings offshore. The latest human rights abuses
are the so-called Papua New Guinea and Nauru solutions involving
Australia sending asylum seekers to those countries never permitting
them to enter Australia and become citizens here. Both the
Australian Government and its parliamentary Opposition are demonising
people fleeing desperate situations in their countries of origin, mainly
because of Australian military intervention in those countries.
The
total numbers of asylum seekers trying to enter Australia is a
miniscule number in terms of refugees and asylum seekers around the
world, and most of the people in Australia illegally have arrived by
plane!
Australia is signatory to United Nations conventions on
refugees but is ignoring these UN documents in its political attempts to
stop the demonised "boat people" ever setting foot
in Australia. Help to obtain justice for Asylum Seekers in
desperate situations. Stop sending them to Papua New Guinea and Nauru
and process them in Australia.
The situation has worsened with the federal government reopening the concentration camps on Nauru and Manus Island. Get the government to close these camps now.
Please sign the updated petition and ask others to sign as well.
Bradley Manning needs no introduction. If you read this blog you will have seen various items about Bradley Manning from the time he became known until now when he has been found guilty of various crimes under United States military law.
Bradley Manning is a whistle-blower, but as with most politics around the world, it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting or, if indeed, you are sitting on one side or the other or just somewhere in between as to what you are prepared to call him.
This 25-year-old soldier who has been held imprisoned for the last 3 years, some of that time in the most appalling conditions which have been likened to torture of the most extreme kind and under circumstances not accepted in so-called democratic societies and in violation of most human rights imaginable human rights abuses at best!
The following report is from the Bradley Manning Support Network on 30 July 2013:
NOT GUILTY of 'Aiding the Enemy'
"Do the right thing!" Maj. Gen. Buchanan can reduce any sentence Bradley receives after having been convicted today on 19 charges.
Month-long sentencing phase now determines fate.
"We won the battle, now we need to go win the war," shared defense attorney David Coombs following today's verdict. "Today is a good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire," he said to dozens of emotional supporters outside of the Fort Meade, Maryland military courtroom. Coombs expressed subdued optimism going into the expected month-long sentencing phase of the court martial that will determine how long Bradley Manning will remain in confinement.
Bradley Manning had previously accepted responsibility for providing classified information to WikiLeaks, actions covered by ten of the 21 charges. Military judge Colonel Denise Lind found him guilty of 19 of those 21 charges, so PFC Manning still faces the possibility of over 100 years behind bars.
Five of the more serious charges PFC Manning was convicted of today are ripe for appeal as Judge Lind altered the charges only a week ago in order to match up with Government's evidence presented, long after the defense closed its case.
Following sentencing, supporters will appeal to Major General Jeffery Buchanan to use his ability as Convening Authority of these proceedings to reduce any sentence handed down by Judge Lind. Additionally, a campaign to urge President Barack Obama to pardon Bradley Manning.
Amnesty International criticized the verdict, and the government's refusal to investigate exposed crimes:
The government’s priorities are upside down. The US government has refused to investigate credible allegations of torture and other crimes under international law despite overwhelming evidence.
Yet they decided to prosecute Manning who it seems was trying to do the right thing – reveal credible evidence of unlawful behaviour by the government.
Last week, a full page ad in The New York Times, noted, "Bradley Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. Now would be a good time to start upholding that pledged transparency, beginning with PFC Manning."
Bradley Manning's family released the following reaction this afternoon:
While we are obviously disappointed in today's verdicts, we are happy that Judge Lind agreed with us that Brad never intended to help America's enemies in any way. Brad loves his country and was proud to wear its uniform.
We want to express our deep thanks to David Coombs, who has dedicated three years of his life to serving as lead counsel in Brad's case. We also want to thank Brad's Army defense team, Major Thomas Hurley and Captain Joshua Tooman, for their tireless efforts on Brad's behalf, and Brad's first defense counsel, Captain Paul Bouchard, who was so helpful to all of us in those early confusing days and first suggested David Coombs as Brad's counsel.
Most of all, we would like to thank the thousands of people who rallied to Brad's cause, providing financial and emotional support throughout this long and difficult time, especially Jeff Paterson and Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network. Their support has allowed a young army private to defend himself against the full might of not only the US army but also the US government.
See also: "Julian Assange on Verdict", and the EFF statement "The Bradley Manning Verdict and the Dangerous “Hacker Madness” Prosecution Strategy."
Read more...
European Parliamentarians call on President Obama to free Bradley Manning
As Members of the European Parliament, who were elected to represent our constituents throughout Europe, we are writing to express our concerns about the ongoing persecution of Bradley Manning, the young U.S. soldier who released classified information revealing evidence of human rights abuses and apparent war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. Army has charged Private First Class Manning with 21 different crimes, including ‘Aiding the Enemy’; a capital charge. To convict a person who leaked information to the media of “Aiding the Enemy” would set a terrible precedent. Although we understand the US government is not seeking the death penalty for Bradley Manning, there would be nothing to stop this from happening in future cases. As it is, PFC Manning faces the possibility of life in prison without parole, recently rejected as “inhuman and degrading treatment” by the European Court of Human Rights.
If you only read one book this year, the book - which is a must-read - is "THE PASSION OF BRADLEY MANNING" by CHASE MADAR and the updated edition was published by Verso in 2013.
The subtitle of the book is "THE STORY BEHIND THE WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER.
The author tells the story of Bradley Manning's entrance to the US army and what happened to him when he went to Iraq, saw the indescribable, and had access to an incredible amount of so-called secret US documentation about the wars, the people involved and much more as well.
Jeff Sparrow reviewed the book in the Saturday Age on 11 May 2013 and heads his review "Prisoner of Conscience." (Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both, apparently, refused to endorse Bradley Manning as a Prisoner of Conscience!)
Manning showed an aptitude for computers at an early stage in his life, and his early years were extremely difficult - the separation of his US father and his Welsh mother - and the bullying he was subject to because he is gay and is also very small, making him the butt of school children but also causing problems in the army.
When he returned to the USA from Iraq he started communicating online with Adrian Lamo, a young man who eventually betrayed Manning to the authorities.
The story of the arrest and subsequent ill-treatment by his own government and the military is itself an indictment of the US democracy and the Obama administration of whistle-blowers even after Obama stated in his first term as US president that whistleblowers should be treated with respect and protected. Obama has done exactly the opposite.
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who blew the whistle on the Pentagon Papers relating to the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, stands fairly and squarely behind Bradley Manning and has rallied support for him in any way he has been able to.
Thanks to an international outcry about Manning's treatment by the government and its army when he suffered unbelievably indignities in the Quantico military prison, Manning's conditions of incarceration were changed for the better, and now, after 3 years of intolerable incarceration, his trial is underway - with a great deal of illegal activity by the army - in Fort Meade, Virginia, USA.
Bradley Manning needs all the support he can get and it is necessary for those of us outside the USA to do what we can to assist him to get a fair trial.
Wikileaks, Assange, and other whistle-blowers in the USA and elsewhere, are helping to support this extremely brave young man in his hours of greatest need.
Obama has recently (June, July 2013) completed a short tour of a few African countries. He is quoted as saying to Africans - especially its young people- to build on the progress the continent has made by promising democratic and honest government, "and a thriving middle class".
On Saturday 1 June 2013, just 2 days before Bradley Manning's trial at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA, was due to start, there were support demonstrations in many cities around the world, and one of these was in Melbourne.
Here are some of the photos taken by Ken Lovett at that demonstration:
Celebrities declare "I am Bradley" in new video
Bradley Manning Support Network. June 19, 2013
While PFC Bradley Manning stands trial at Ft. Meade, MD, pop-culture celebrities declare their support for the Army whistleblower, in a five-minute advocacy video released late yesterday. Produced by the Bradley Manning Support Network, more than 20 Hollywood actors, musicians, and other well-known leaders appear in the new video, titled “I am Bradley Manning.”
Filmmaker Oliver Stone; actors Russell Brand, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Wallace Shawn, Peter Sarsgaard; musicians Moby, Tom Morello, and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters; writers Matt Taibbi, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges; and activists Lt. Dan Choi and Angela Davis, and others speak out in the short film, explaining that Manning sought to expose war crimes and inspire debate and reforms. They condemn the “aiding the enemy” charge with which the military wants to imprison him for life, arguing it criminalizes what should be recognized as whistle-blowing.
