…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Bahrain: Free Mahdi Abu Dheeb and Jalila al-Salman
6 January, 2013 – Act Now

In partnership with the Education International, the world’s largest federation of unions, representing thirty million education employees in about four hundred organisations in one hundred and seventy countries and territories, across the globe.

Update: Mrs Jalila al-Salman, acting Chair of the BTA (in lieu of Mahdi Abu Dheeb, detained since April 2011), was transferred to the Women Prison of Isa Town on 7 November after being summoned without explanation to the Investigation Department in Manama. Her lawyer and family were not allowed to accompany or contact her. Neither could she go home before being transferred to the prison.

On 21 October an appeal court upheld the guilty verdict against the Bahraini Teachers’ Association (BTA) leaders, Mahdi Abu Dheeb and Jalila al-Salman, but reduced their prison sentences to five years and six months respectively. Mahdi and Jalila, respectively President and Vice-President of BTA, were arrested in 2011 after supporting calls for reform in Bahrain. Whilst in detention they were subjected to torture and forced to sign “confessions”.

In September 2011, a military court convicted them of attempting to overthrow the ruling system by force and inciting hatred of the regime. The report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry last year found that the authorities had grossly exaggerated, if not manufactured, many claims brought against thousands of ordinary people who had been caught up in the February 2011 Arab Spring protests. Mahdi and Jalila’s only “crime” was to have the temerity to promote respect for the values of solidarity, equality and democracy.

We need you to increase pressure on the Bahraini Government to respect human and trade union rights. EI calls on authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mahdi, to ensure that Jalila does not serve any of her remaining sentence, and to drop all charges against them. …more

Communique from the EZLN
January 2013

Communiqué from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee – General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army
Mexico.
December 30 2012.

To the People of Mexico:
To the People and Governments of the World:
Brothers and Sisters:
Compañeros and Compañeras:

In the early morning hours of December 21, 2012, tens of thousands of indigenous Zapatistas mobilized and took, peacefully and silently, five municipal seats in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas.

In the cities of Palenque, Altamirano, Las Margaritas, Ocosingo, and San Cristóbal de las Casas, we looked at you and at ourselves in silence.

Ours is not a message of resignation.

It is not one of war, death, or destruction.

Our message is one of struggle and resistance.

After the media coup d’etat that catapulted a poorly concealed and even more poorly costumed ignorance into the federal executive branch, we made ourselves present to let them know that if they had never left, neither had we.

Six years ago, a segment of the political and intellectual class went looking for someone to hold responsible for their defeat. At that time we were, in cities and in communities, struggling for justice for an Atenco that was not yet fashionable.

In that yesterday, they slandered us first and wanted to silence us later.

Dishonest and incapable of seeing that it was within themselves that there was and still is the seed of their own destruction, they tried to make us disappear with lies and complicit silence.

Six years later, two things are clear:

– They don’t need us in order to fail.

– We don’t need them in order to survive.

We, who never went away, despite what media across the spectrum have been determined to make you believe, resurge as the indigenous Zapatistas that we are and will be.

In these years, we have significantly strengthened and improved our living conditions. Our standard of living is higher than those of the indigenous communities that support the governments in office, who receive handouts that are squandered on alcohol and useless items.

Our homes have improved without damaging nature by imposing on it roads alien to it.

In our communities, the earth that was used to fatten the cattle of ranchers and landlords is now used to produce the maize, beans, and the vegetables that brighten our tables.

Our work has the double satisfaction of providing us with what we need to live honorably and contributing to the collective growth of our communities.

Our sons and daughters go to a school that teaches them their own history, that of their country and that of the world, as well as the sciences and techniques necessary for them to grow without ceasing to be indigenous.

Indigenous Zapatista women are not sold as commodities.

The indigenous members of the PRI attend our hospitals, clinics, and laboratories because in those of the government, there is no medicine, nor medical devices, nor doctors, nor qualified personnel.

Our culture flourishes, not isolated, but enriched through contact with the cultures of other peoples of Mexico and of the world.

We govern and govern ourselves, always looking first for agreement before confrontation.

We have achieved all of this without the government, the political class, and the media that accompanies them, while simultaneously resisting their attacks of all kinds.

We have shown, once again, that we are who we are.

With our silence, we have made ourselves present.

Now with our word, we announce that:

First – We will reaffirm and consolidate our participation in the National Indigenous Congress, the space of encounter with the original peoples of our country.

Second – We will reinitiate contact with our compañeros and compañeras adherents of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle in Mexico and the world.

Third – We will try to construct the necessary bridges toward the social movements that have arisen and will arise, not to direct or supplant them, but to learn from them, from their history, from their paths and destinies.

For this we have consolidated the support of individuals and groups in different parts of Mexico, formed as support teams for the Sixth and International Commissions of the EZLN, to become avenues of communication between the Zapatista bases of support and the individuals, groups, and collectives that are adherents to the Sixth Declaration, in Mexico and in the World, who still maintain their conviction and commitment to the construction of a non-institutional left alternative.

Fourth – We will continue to maintain our critical distance with respect to the entirety of the Mexican political class which has thrived at the expense of the needs and desires of humble and simple people.

Fifth – With respect to the bad governments – federal, state, and municipal, executive, legislative, and judicial, and the media that accompanies them, we say the following:

The bad governments which belong to the entirety of the political spectrum without a single exception have done everything possible to destroy us, to buy us off, to make us surrender. PRI, PAN, PRD, PVEM, PT, CC and the future political party RN have attacked us militarily, politically, socially, and ideologically.[i] The mainstream media tried to disappear us first with opportunist and servile lies followed by a complicit and deceptive silence. Those they served, those on whose money they nursed are no longer around and those who have succeeded them will not last any longer than their predecessors.

As was made evident on December 21, 2012, all of them failed. So, it’s up to the federal, executive, legislative and judicial governments to decide if they are going to continue the politics of counterinsurgency that have only resulted in a flimsy simulation clumsily built through the media, or if they are going to recognize and fulfill their commitments by elevating Indigenous Rights and Culture to the level of the Constitution as established in the “San Andrés Accords” signed by the Federal Government in 1996, which was at the time led by the very same political party that today occupies the executive office.

It will be up to the state government to decide if it will continue the dishonest and despicable strategy of its predecessor, that in addition to corruption and lies, used the money of the people of Chiapas to enrich itself and its accomplices and dedicated itself to the shameless buying off of the voices and pens of the communications media, sinking the people of Chiapas into poverty while using police and paramilitaries to try to brake the organizational advance of the Zapatista communities; or, if instead, with truth and justice, it will accept and respect our existence and come around to the idea that a new form of social life is blooming in Zapatista territory, Chiapas, Mexico. This is a flowering that attracts the attention of honest people all over the planet.

[Read more →]

Turkey, Qatar, KSA behind increasing violence in Syria: Nasrallah
Shia Post – 4 January, 2013

The Hezbollah Secretary General says Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are responsible for fueling violence in Syria and the increase in casualties.

Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks in a televised speech in the southern Lebanese town of Baalbek on the occasion of Arbaeen, which marks the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH).

He said Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are arming and funding militants fighting the Damascus government.

Nasrallah said the crisis in Syria has a political solution and cautioned that the continuation of the Syrian conflict would have dire consequences.

“If Syria’s battle continues, it will be long, bloody and destructive,” the Hezbollah secretary general pointed out.

Nasrallah said Lebanon in the most affected country in the Middle East by the Syrian crisis, calling on Lebanese political factions to refrain from any moves which would throw the country into turmoil.

He went on to say that the influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon indicates a major humanitarian crisis, which must not be politicized.

The Hezbollah secretary general stressed that division is the most dangerous threat the Muslim nations face, saying Takfiri extremists are the product of the US seeking to sow discord among Muslims.

He said Takfiris are behind countless massacres and bombings in Muslim countries and particularly Syria.

Nasrallah called on the incumbent Lebanese government to devise a strategy to safeguard the country’s oil and gas resources and said the Hezbollah Resistance Movement is ready to undertake the task of protecting such resources.

He concluded that despite US and Israeli efforts to “isolate, blacklist and demonize Hezbollah such efforts against the resistance movement will get nowhere.” …source

The West Bank’s 2012: The Year of the Israeli Settlement
By Karl Vick – 31 December, 2012

At the start of 2012, the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, which seeks a two-state solution, warned that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was building Jewish settlements on the West Bank at a pace that, if allowed to continue, would carve up the land to a point that would doom the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Twelve months later, that pace has nearly quintupled. In one week of December alone, Netanyahu’s government pushed forward plans for 11,000 homes beyond the Green Line that marked Israel’s 1967 border — nearly as many settler homes as were approved in the previous 10 years combined. The explosion in activity has made 2012 the Year of the Settlement, inspiring a new level of war-themed rhetoric from settlement opponents. “Unprecedented Planning Strike on East Jerusalem,” says the Peace Now website, “6,600 units in 4 days,”

Netanyahu makes no apology for the surge in promised building, despite waves of opprobrium from Europe and the U.S. Israelis go to the polls on Jan. 22, and the most serious challenge to Netanyahu’s campaign has come from a new party that champions settlements. The Prime Minister summoned the mayors of West Bank settlements to his Jerusalem office last week to make sure his efforts were getting noticed. “It’s obvious to all of you that this government has done a great deal in the past four years for the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name. “And we’re asking you to help spread the information among the residents of your districts.”

The most controversial move was to push forward plans to build on the last usable patch of Palestinian land east of Jerusalem, a parcel known as E1. (Plans to build on E1 have existed for 14 years but have been kept on hold; now, among other new steps, demolition orders have been issued for Bedouin homes and animal pens there.) Foreign diplomats, Palestinian officials and Israeli peace advocates warned that filling that space with Jewish homes amounted to the “doomsday” scenario, effectively destroying the possibility of ever building a Palestinian state on contiguous territory — the stated goal of the Oslo Peace Accords that since 1994 have defined the blueprint for ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs who have both claimed the same territory for more than a century.
…source

Syria “salvation” party announced in Beirut
3 January, 2013 – The Daily Star

BEIRUT: A group of Syrian activists and figures launched Thursday the “Patriotic Movement for the Salvation of Syria,” a party they say seeks to expose extremist groups at work in their country and combat and expose foreign meddling in the Arab state.

“We seek to fight all means of violence in Syria and fight all sectarian calls in the region as well as in Syria and stand in the way of all plans aimed at dividing the country,” Nabil Fayyad, a political activist, said during a news conference at the Marriott Hotel in Beirut.

He said the party, which he described as a “civil, Arab, and modern movement,” sought to rescue his country from the months-long crisis, which the U.N. said Wednesday had claimed so far the lives of over 60,000 people.

He added that the nascent movement seeks to repair the image of Sunni Muslims in his country that extremists “have distorted” through violence.

Fayyad also urged that Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia and Egypt all work together to combat “the plan by Turkey and Qatar.”

Qatar and Turkey have openly backed Syrian rebels against the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Fears of the rise of extremists in Syria have increased recently, particularly after the U.S. designated the radical Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra, an important element in the opposition struggle, as a foreign terrorist organization in December.

Last year, Washington claimed that the group was trying to hijack the rebellion on behalf of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Fayyad did not direct any accusations against the Syrian government but did oppose a return to the pre-uprising status quo.

“We oppose a return to a pre-March 15 Syria,” he said.

March 15, 2011, is widely regarded as the beginning of the uprising against Assad who has been in power since 2000.

Syrian MP Omar Oussi, another speaker at the news conference, read the party’s manifesto which slammed what it described as the “Doha opposition.”

“We work to expose the link between Doha’s coalition group and armed groups from Al-Qaeda that are devastating the Syrian people,” Oussi, the president of the National Initiative for Syrian Kurds, said.

“We should take note of all the speeches and statements by politicians of the Doha Conference that link them to Jabhat al-Nusra,” he added.

Several opposition groups gathered in the Qatari capital late last year and formed the “National Coalition” in order to secure tangible foreign backing.

Reading the statement, Oussi also warned against attempts to harm the Syrian Army, saying it was “a red line,” and the only body that could safeguard the country’s unity.

Asked about whether the new group would agree on Assad remaining in power, Oussi said: “The Syrian people are the only ones who can decide that.”

He said that the party’s manifesto also seeks to expose violations of human rights in Syria by extremist militant groups and fight foreign intervention that “contradicts Syria’s sovereignty.”

Oussi, a Kurdish delegate at the first national dialogue meeting in Damascus that was held last year in a bid to contain the crisis, also said that National Dialogue and reconciliation were the only means to end the conflict.
…source

Soaring Syria death toll brings intervention no closer
3 January, 2013 – By Yara Bayoumy, Alistair Lyon – Reuters

The death toll in Syria now exceeds 60,000, the United Nations says. Another 100,000 may die this year, warns U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. About 220 were killed on Wednesday alone.

“When numbers get serious, they leave a mark on your door,” goes a song by American musician Paul Simon.

But in Syria those bloody notches show no signs of braking a headlong struggle to the death watched from afar by divided outside powers, most of whose leaders seem convinced that the risks of direct intervention outweigh any possible rewards.

Syrians realise they are essentially on their own, and 21 months after the start of protests against President Bashar al-Assad inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere, some of the civilians caught up in what has become a civil war are near despair.

“It’s all nonsense,” said Adnan Abu Raad, an elderly man wrapped in a scarf against the cold, as he watched fresh graves being dug after 11 people were killed in a weekend air strike in the rebel-held Syrian town of Azaz near the border with Turkey.

“Neither the Free Syrian Army nor Assad’s forces can protect us. The two factions are fighting each other, but no one is dying except for the innocent, the children, women and elderly.”

Abu Raad derided the peace efforts of Brahimi and his predecessor Kofi Annan as hypocrisy and dismissed reports of even limited outside help for the rebellion against Assad as fiction. “No one has sent us a single bullet. It’s all a lie.”

Some Western countries have provided what they call non-lethal aid to rebels, while some Arab states are reported to have sent weapons, mostly channelled through Turkey. Fighters complain of a dearth of ammunition even for the arms they have acquired.

Without a negotiated solution, Brahimi said on Saturday, Syria may soon resemble Somalia as a failed state plagued by warlords and destabilising its neighbours. But the opposition National Coalition rules out talks until Assad goes, while the Syrian leader says he will not give in to his foes.

The insurgents have grabbed swathes of countryside in the north and east, as well as holding parts of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, and some suburbs of Damascus, the capital.

Yet Assad’s power base is more cohesive than that of his fractious opponents. He controls the armed forces, using air power and heavy weaponry to contain rebel advances or to pound any towns or urban districts that slip out of his control.

In Azaz cemetery, Abu Bahri, a 45-year-old in a black coat, accused Assad of seeking to sap rebel support by targeting civilians and depriving them of water, electricity and bread.

“Hurt the people and turn them against the Free Syria Army. It’s a calculated move,” he said, as the grave-diggers’ spades gouged at the soil to lay the next victims to rest.
…more

Global Powers define terrorism, democracy based on interests
3 January, 2013 – Islamic Invittion Turkey

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili says world powers define terrorism and democracy based on their interests.

“For some powers fighting terrorism is not important, but protecting their interests is essential and therefore, in some regions, they create crisis centers,” Jalili said on Wednesday.

He added that the approach taken by these powers to the Afghanistan issue in the past years and to the Syria crisis over the past two years testifies to this claim.

“Why is it that after 10 years of the occupation of Afghanistan by American and NATO forces, terrorism as well as production and smuggling of illicit drugs have not been uprooted?”

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror, removing the Taliban from power. More than a decade later, insecurity is rising across the country despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.

Commenting on the ongoing crises in Syria and Bahrain, the Iranian official described democracy as the “most sustainable solution” to crises in these countries.

“Regional cooperation is necessary to guarantee peace and stability in the region,” Jalili added.

Syria has been scene of deadly unrest since March 2011 which has claimed the lives of thousands of Syrians including a large number of Syrian soldiers and security forces.

Also in Bahrain, people have been holding anti-government demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling on the US-backed Al Khalifa family to leave power. …source

Iran: Democracy Most Enduring Solution to Crises in Bahrain, Syria
3 January, 2013 – FNA

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran underlined that implementing the principles of democracy in Bahrain and Syria is the most sustainable solution to the problems in the two Arab countries.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili made the remarks on Wednesday. He stressed that democracy is the “most sustainable solution” to the crises in Bahrain and Syria.

“Regional cooperation is necessary to guarantee peace and stability in the region,” Jalili added.

In relevant remarks in December, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi renewed Tehran’s call for a negotiated solution to the existing crisis in Syria and Bahrain, and called on all parties to show commitment to talks.

Salehi said “national dialogue” and parties’ commitment to it will be the best way out of crisis both in Syria and Bahrain.

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule.

Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 13, 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors. So far, tens of protesters have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured.

Salehi pointed to the recent developments in Syria, and stressed the necessity for finding a political solution to the present crisis in the Muslim country.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. …source

Communique from the Mexico Anarchist Black Cross
December, 2012 – libcom.org

In recent days, following the events of the demonstrations on December 1st for the presidential inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto, during which the police forces, both of the Federal [national] and Federal District [Mexico City] forces, brutally repressed demonstrators – officials of the Federal District government, amongst whom were the head of government of the FD and the capital’s attorney, have made statements declaring that those responsible for the clashes are anarchist groups.

Faced with this, we want to clarify:

The Mexican Anarchist Black Cross is a libertarian initiative, our work is aimed to extend solidarity with prisoners, both the so-called ordinary ones and those imprisoned for their ideas and political actions and anarchists, supporting them in their legal processes, distributing their letters and doing outreach events to publicise their situation: we organise anti-repression workshops, promote self-organization in our neighborhoods and communities, as well as knowledge of legal defense strategies, based on the idea that repression is a mechanism inherent to Capital and the State, which does not hesitate to use it to maintain the domination and exploitation which sustains this system; we also disseminate anti-prison ideas and thinking, to prompt debate on the social control nature of the prison, and its function in maintaining the capitalist system.

As an initiative, our efforts are aimed at these tasks, which have always been done in the open. All the activities that we organise and participate in are called for via our webpage or by email, and are signed.

In the mass media, it has been mentioned that amongst the detained were persons belonging to anarchist groups. Faced with these assertions it is necessary to declare that none of those detained belonged to the Mexican Anarchist Black Cross. Nonetheless we declare our absolute solidarity with all the people detained and demand they be freed immediately.

We understand that these declarations, along with the allegations of instigating the events that occurred during the demonstrations, are part of a campaign of criminalisation and persecution against anarchist groups and individuals. Marcelo Ebrard has distinguished himself by the targeting and criminalisation of anarchist groups, during his tenure as Secretary of Public Safety of the City, so this campaign is no surprise to us and we see in these statements a revenge against us because of the work we have carried out, principally in solidarity with the young anarchists that the Government of the Federal District has confined in its prisons in recent years.
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Prisons in Mexico on Verge of Collapse
By Daniela Pastrana – 28 December, 2012 – IPS

MEXICO CITY – Edgar Torres Castillo, 21, has spent two years in the prison of Gómez Palacio, in the Lagunera district between the northern Mexican states of Durango and Coahuila – an arid zone known as one of the most dangerous parts of the country.

Amparo Castillo, the mother of Edgar, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing a cell-phone, last saw him during a Dec. 18 visit to the prison. “I thought he was acting strange, he seemed really sad and as if he had been hurt,” she told IPS by phone. “We spent just an hour together before they started to shoo us out – things were really tense,” she said with anguish in her voice.

In the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 17, the police transferred 137 prisoners from the Gómez Palacio prison to federal penitentiaries.

The next day, at the end of the visiting hours, people living in nearby homes heard loud bursts of gunfire and cries inside the prison. The authorities reported that 25 prisoners and six unarmed guards had been killed during an escape attempt.

In a communique, the Durango police said the prisoners had opened fire on the guards when they were thwarted in their attempt to escape.

Later, the federal government emptied out the prison, where 78 people have been killed in the past three years and several major prison escapes have been staged. At the time it was emptied, there were 500 inmates left in the prison.
Related IPS Articles

Like other family members, Castillo went to the prison after the reports of gunfire, to find out what happened. When little information was offered, the prisoners’ relatives held protests and set up roadblocks. “We didn’t even know if they were alive or not,” she said.

The bloody clash between prisoners and guards was one more illustration of the crisis plaguing Mexico’s prison system, which experts say is on the verge of total collapse.

There are 429 prisons in Mexico, according to the latest report by the ministry of federal public security. Of that total, 15 are run by the national government, 10 by the authorities in Mexico City’s Federal District, 91 by municipal governments, and the rest by the states.

Studies indicate that the prison population is 22 percent (around 40,000 prisoners) over capacity. In addition, four out of 10 inmates are still pending sentencing. But prisoners awaiting trial are held in the same cells as convicted inmates.

Those charged with or convicted of federal crimes, generally for involvement in organised crime like drug trafficking, make up just one-fifth of the prison population. …more

National: Reactions by federal and state governments to the Zapatista mobilization of 21 December
SIPAZ blog – 27 December, 2012

On different occasions, both the federal government and the Chiapas state government have expressed comments about the mass-mobilization of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) that took place on 21 December in 5 cities in Chiapas, as well as on the communique released by the rebel group that same day. In the name of the federal government, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, secretary of Governance, declared that “they still do not know us; we hope they do not come out too soon, given that President Enrique Peña Nieto has a great commitment to the indigenous peoples.” In comments published by La Jornada, Osorio Chong added that “President Peña knows of the problems, and for that reason he will support the indigenous peoples and particularly examine the demands of the people of Chiapas.”

For its part, the Chiapas state-government released a press-bulletin affirming that the Zapatista mobilization was carried out peacefully and respectfully. Furthermore, it reported that it was aware of the communique published by the Zapatista leadership, indicating that on that day “all police units in the State were garrisoned so as to allow for the free flow of mobilization.” …source

The FBI and other federal agencies coordinated with banks and local authorities in reacting to the Occupy Movement, which was put in the category of a domestic terrorist threat despite the group’s advocacy of nonviolence, Dennis J. Bernstein reports.

How FBI Monitored Occupy Movement
31 December, 2012 – By Dennis J. Bernstein – Consortiumnnew.com

Newly obtained secret FBI documents show that the Feds treated the Occupy Movement as a criminal terrorist threat even though the movement rejected violence as a tactic, a fact that the FBI acknowledges in the files.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which obtained the documents, discussed the FBI disclosures in an interview with me on Pacifica Radio’s “Flashpoints.”

An Occupy poster, urging protests on behalf of the “99%”

DB: Before we get into some of the specifics talk a little bit about what motivated the request and your initial response to these heavily redacted documents that you did obtain.

MVH: The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a series, or maybe more accurately a barrage of FOI [Freedom of Information] requests in the fall of 2011. At the point at which we could see, and the movement could see, that there was a coordinated crackdown against Occupy happening all over the country.

And we issued FOI demands against federal agencies including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the CIA and others, as well as against municipalities and police departments around the country. When we received these documents, which then have taken more than a year to obtain from the FBI, it was very clear to us and clearer, I think, to anyone reading these documents the very intense role that the FBI played in surveillance, mass surveillance operation against the peaceful Occupy Movement.

DB: Alright, let’s talk a little bit about the documents that you received, despite the fact that they were blacked out, in many instances. Let’s go through some of the information … You got a document that was as early as Aug. 19, 2011, and what was the FBI doing? They were getting ready for this movement?

MVH: Yes. It says a lot about the FBI’s conduct in the role of the American intelligence agencies that the FBI, before a single tent was put up in Zuccotti Park in New York, was meeting with the New York Stock Exchange to discuss the plans and upcoming Occupy protests and that was as early as August, 2011. And of course, the OccupyWallStreet started officially on September 17th.

And while, as you said, the documents are heavily redacted and it’s very clear, too, from the redaction that it’s a limited redaction. There’s obviously a lot more out there that we are working to get. That they were working with private entities, as well, meeting with businesses to alert them that they were the focus of protests.

And the documents, throughout, show the FBI, in cities around the country, different field offices, different joint terrorism task force networks communicating with the private banks, private security entities, really themselves acting as a private security arm of corporations, banks and Wall Street.

DB: That’s pretty extraordinary. It really did have the feel that they were working in concert, in conjunction, with some of the major banks. And it was interesting …. Well, talk a little bit about what happened in terms of Indianapolis and the potential criminal activity alert, whatever that is.

MVH: Right. There’s a potential criminal activity alert put out by the Indianapolis Office of the FBI, even though they are saying that they are aware of the Occupy Movement, they don’t have a date specific for demonstrations or activities in Indiana. But, nonetheless, they are putting out these, you know, warnings, these alerts. Their documents acknowledge that the movement is peaceful.

And it raises these questions, that of course, so many have been asking, you have the FBI granted, you know, mass license since September 11th under the claims of the need for national security, you know, millions, billions of dollars poured into the FBI, Homeland Security and what are they doing?

They are turning their sights on a peaceful social justice movement and doing it at the same time that they are working, hand in hand, with the banks and Wall Street, the very focus of peoples’ demonstrations and organizing because of the economic crisis caused by the corporations, banks and Wall Street. And there you have American intelligence agencies acting as their partners.

DB: And we know that the Occupy Movement had a great deal of students involved, young people involved. What did you learn in terms of spying on campuses?

MVH: There’s a, the Campus Liaison Project of the FBI has been very controversial. Many student groups, campuses, activists have protested against it, saying that it was, you know, going to be an abusive program. And you have plain evidence of it here. You have evidence in New York, and in Albany, that the FBI was communicating outward to many campuses. The documents reference, at one point, that they were communicating information, and this was all just from the New York location, the 16 campuses, I believe it is, and then there’s another six.

And then a representative from SUNI Oswego, from the State University of New York in Oswego communicating information back, reporting to the FBI on the Occupy Movement on campus made up of students and professors. And, you know, in that instance and in many other instances around the country, the documents show this intense collaboration, not just with the banks and Wall Street, but also with state and local law enforcement entities, and the fusion centers.

So here you have this, you know, mass apparatus collecting huge amounts of information, a completely lawful, First Amendment protected — I mean cherished first amendment protected — conduct in the United States and putting it into these completely unregulated, and I think, very dangerous databases and data warehousing centers. …more

US: Defense Bill Signing Backtracks on Guantanamo
3 January, 2013 – Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) – US President Barack Obama’s refusal to veto a defense spending bill restricting detainee transfers from Guantanamo undercuts his pledge to close the prison, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 2, 2013, Obama signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), even though his advisers had said they would recommend a veto if it contained detainee transfer restrictions.

“The administration blames Congress for making it harder to close Guantanamo, yet for a second year President Obama has signed damaging congressional restrictions into law,” said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate at Human Rights Watch. “The burden is on Obama to show he is serious about closing the prison.”

In a statement Obama made along with the authorization act, he criticized Congress for renewing the restrictions he said were intended to “foreclose” his ability to shut down Guantanamo.

“I continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies, and strengthening our enemies,” he wrote. However, he claimed the need to sign the legislation, saying the demand for funding was “too great to ignore.” Obama issued a similar statement when signing the NDAA the previous year.

In fact, the NDAA authorizes funding for most Defense Department operations, but it is not essential for the US armed forces to function, Human Rights Watch said. It does not actually fund the Defense Department, but authorizes the allocation of appropriated funds. If Obama had vetoed the 2013 authorization act, last year’s NDAA authorization would still have been in effect. Four of five presidents preceding Obama vetoed a defense authorization act. …more

In silence, they occupy the central plazas of Ocosingo, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Palenque, Altamirano and Las Margaritas. Later they disappear in an orderly way.

More than 40,000 Zapatistas Mobilize in 5 Chiapas Municipalities
Hermann Bellinghausen – 21 December, 2012 – edinchiapas.org.uk

More than 40,000 Zapatista support bases filed silently this morning in five Chiapas cities, which results in the most numerous mobilization of said organization since the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s (EZLN) armed uprising on January 1, 1994.

Coming from the five Zapatista Caracoles in the Lacandón Jungle, Los Altos and the Northern Zone, the Maya peoples in rebellion (Tzeltales, Tzotziles, Choles, Tojolabales and Mames) and Zoques of Chiapas occupied the central plazas of Ocosingo, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Palenque, Altamirano and Las Margaritas; in each case, in complete silence.

At 6:30 in the morning, about 6,000 indigenous Zapatistas, the majority young, concentrated near the University of the Jungle, near the Toniná archaeological site. From there they marched to the central park of Ocosingo, where they stayed for a space of three hours in front of city hall, which the EZLN’s insurgents and milicianos took over with arms 19 years ago upon declaring war on the Mexican government.

On this occasion the action was civilian and peaceful, and the only ones that spoke were the raised left fists of all the Zapatistas, who filed in order onto a platform that they installed for that purpose. Toward 10:30 AM, the last of the demonstrators abandoned the plaza, on their way back to the Jungle.

In the same fashion, at the other plazas mentioned the Zapatistas placed platforms that all mobilization participants mounted with raised fist, in a parade of impressive brevity.

Some 20,000 Zapatista men and women paraded in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. According to reports, at least 7, 000 indigenous congregated in Las Margaritas, and 8, 000 in Palenque. The number in Altamirano is not known. According to the testimony of a transport worker (driver) from the zone of Ocosingo, double the number of indigenous that arrived in the municipal headquarters of Ocosingo could have left from the Caracol of La Garrucha, but there were not enough vehicles, therefore only 6,000 people were transported.

Intermittently, throughout recent weeks, the Enlace Zapatista electronic portal has been announcing “the word” of the EZLN’s Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command (Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena, Comandancia General del EZLN), as well as of the Sixth Commission and International Sixth Commission. It is foreseen that these communications could be announced soon, but that has still not occurred.

On the date on which many unwary in the world believed that the world would end, according to the opportunist interpretation of the “prophesies” (in reality, mathematical calculations) of the ancient Mayas, the EZLN’s support base communities, belonging to the contemporary Maya peoples, which in their languages are named “true men,” with face covered carried out a powerful demonstration of power and discipline, perfectly formed under a persistent rain (unusual in this time of the year) that accompanied the mobilizations in the different localities all morning long.

Able to “appear” quickly, the indigenous rebels “disappeared” as neatly and silently as they had arrived in the early morning in this city that, two decades after the EZLN’s traumatic irruption here on New Years 1994, received them with bewilderment and curiosity, without any expression of rejection. Under the arches of city hall, which suspended its activities today, dozens of Ocosingoans congregated to photograph with cell phones and cameras the spectacular concentration of covered faces that filled the park like in a game of Tetris, advancing among the gardening with an order that seemed choreographed, to go up to the platform installed rapidly since early on, raising their fist and saying, silently, here we are; one more time. …source

Saudi society most ripe for change: Analyst
2 January, 2013 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

Political commentator Daoud Khairallah says the Saudi society is probably the most ripe for change and the people have the best chance to rise against their ruling regime now.

Khairallah, a professor of law at Georgetown University, told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday that Saudis desperately need institution of democracy and respect for human and civil rights.

“The Saudi society is in a bad need for that (democracy) and the ruling authority in Saudi Arabia is the least susceptible to changes like this.”

Khairallah stated that he would not be surprised to see “more repercussions” given the Saudi government’s incitement of sectarian violence across the kingdom.

As recently as Tuesday, people held demonstrations against the Al Saud regime in the holy city of Mecca and the central city of Buraidah. They called for the downfall of the royal family and demanded the release of political prisoners.

“Among all Arab societies, the Saudi society is the most ripe for change, the most anxious to have some kind of participatory government, some kind of respect of [for] human rights, some kind of respect for citizens’ rights, civil rights, some kind of control on corruption and what is happening with the Saudi wealth,” Khairallah noted.

Since February 2011, protesters have held demonstrations on an almost regular basis in Saudi Arabia, mainly in Qatif and the town of Awamiyah in Eastern Province, primarily calling for the release of all political prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, and an end to widespread discrimination.

However, the demonstrations have turned into protests against the Al Saud regime, especially since November 2011, when security forces killed five protesters and injured many others in the province.

Amnesty International has called on Saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against the protesters.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi regime routinely represses expression critical of the government. …source

FSA can make chemical weapons in Syria: FSA member
3 January, 2013 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

tahmasebi20130102233244483A member of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) says the militant group has the ability to produce chemical weapons.

Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the FSA, made the remarks in an interview with Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency on Wednesday.

Dada stated that the group would use chemical weapons if necessary, and would use them only against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“If we ever use them, we will only hit the regime’s bases and centers,” he was quoted as saying.

He also stated that the know-how comes from defected army officers.

On December 23, 2012, a commander of the Syrian Presidential Guard said that seven Syrian soldiers were killed after they were attacked by chemical weapons, which produced a toxic yellow gas.

Foreign-backed militants have repeatedly threatened to use chemical weapons against the army and pro-government civilians in recent days.

Earlier in the day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the conflict in the Arab country has claimed over 60,000 lives since it began more than 21 months ago.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence.

The Syrian government also says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed militants are foreign nationals. …more

Nicolas Sarkozy ordered the assassination of Hugo Chavez
Voltaire Network – Caracas (Venezuela) – 3 January 2013

The Venezuelan Minister of Correctional Services, Iris Varela, has announced on her Twitter account the expulsion of a French citizen known as Frédéric Laurent Bouquet, December 29, 2012

Mr. Bouquet had been arrested in Caracas on June 18, 2009, with three Dominican nationals in possession of an arsenal. In the apartment he had acquired, forensic police seized 500 grams of C4 explosives, 14 assault rifles including 5 with telescopic lenses, 5 with laser sighting and one with a silencer, special cables, 11 electronic detonators, 19,721 cartridges of different calibers, 3 machine guns, 4 hand guns of different calibers, 11 radios, 3 walkie talkies and a radio base, five 12-gauge shotguns, 2 bulletproof vests, 7 military uniforms, 8 grenades, one gas mask, one combat knife and 9 bottles of gunpowder.

During his trial, Mr. Bouquet admitted he had been trained in Israel and was an agent of French military intelligence service (DGSE). He admitted planning an attack to assassinate Constitutional President Hugo Chavez.

Mr. Bouquet had been sentenced to four years in prison for “illegal possession of weapons.” He served his sentence. He was taken from his cell by Ordinance No. 096-12 of trial judge Yulismar Jaime, then was expelled for “undermining national security” under Article 39 paragraph 4 of the Migration and Foreigners Act. …more