Category Archives: HUMAN RIGHTS

Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

As Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.

The organization spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families. Here the organization presents an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.

“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard. We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”

Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.

In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.

“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Agnès Callamard.

Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes. Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.

Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”

The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters. Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.

Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid. Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.

Gaza’s civilians pay the price

Amnesty International investigated five Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which took place between 7 and 12 October. Between 2012 and 2022, the Israeli authorities have denied, or failed to respond to, all of Amnesty International’s requests to gain access to Gaza. For this reason, the organization worked with a Gaza-based fieldworker who visited attack sites and collected testimony and other evidence. Amnesty International researchers interviewed 17 survivors and other eyewitnesses, as well as six relatives of victims over the phone, for the five cases included in this report. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab analysed satellite imagery and verified photos and videos of attack sites.

In the five cases described below Amnesty International found that Israeli forces carried out attacks that violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.

Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and fighters and military objectives and direct their attacks only at fighters and military objectives. Direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects are prohibited and are war crimes. Indiscriminate attacks – those which fail to distinguish as required – are also prohibited. Where an indiscriminate attack kills or injuries civilians, it amounts to a war crime.

Disproportionate attacks, those where the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects is excessive in comparison with the “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” also are prohibited. Knowingly launching a disproportionate attack is a war crime.

Whole families wiped out

At around 8:20pm on 7 October, Israeli forces struck a three-storey residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, where three generations of the al-Dos family were staying. Fifteen family members were killed in the attack, seven of them children. The victims include Awni and Ibtissam al-Dos, and their grandchildren and namesakes Awni, 12, and Ibtissam, 17; and Adel and Ilham al-Dos and all five of their children. Baby Adam, just 18 months old, was the youngest victim.

Mohammad al-Dos, whose five-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack, told Amnesty International:

“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine-months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.”

Amnesty International interviewed a neighbour whose home had been damaged in the attack. Like Mohammad al-Dos, he said that he had not received warning from Israeli forces, and nor had anyone in his family.

“It was sudden, boom, nobody told us anything,” he said.

The fact that the building was full of civilians at the time of the air strike further supports the testimony of survivors who said Israeli forces did not issue any warnings. It took relatives, neighbours and rescue teams more than six hours to remove the bodies from beneath the rubble.

Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack. If Israeli forces attacked this residential building knowing that there were only civilians present at the time of the attack, this would be a direct attack on a civilian object or on civilians, which are prohibited and constitute war crimes. Israel offered no explanation on the incident. It is incumbent on the attacker to prove the legitimacy of their military conduct. Even if Israeli forces targeted what they considered a military objective, attacking a residential building, at a time when it was full of civilians, in the heart of a densely populated civilian neighbourhood, in a manner that caused this number of civilian casualties and degree of destruction would be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks that kill and injure civilians are war crimes.

On 10 October, an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 12 members of the Hijazi family and four of their neighbours, in Gaza City’s al-Sahaba Street. Three children were among those killed. The Israeli military stated that they struck Hamas targets in the area but gave no further information and did not provide any evidence of the presence of military targets.

Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack.

Amnesty International spoke to Kamal Hijazi, who lost his sister, his two brothers and their wives, five nieces and nephews, and two cousins in the attack. He said:

“Our family home, a three-storey house, was bombed at 5:15 pm. It was sudden, without any warning; that is why everyone was at home.”

Ahmad Khalid Al-Sik, one of the Hijazi family’s neighbours, was also killed. He was 37 years old and had three young children, who were all injured in the attack. Ahmad’s father described what happened:

“I was at home in our apartment and Ahmad was downstairs when the house opposite [belonging to the Hijazi family] was bombed, and he was killed. He was going to have his hair cut at the barber, which is next to the entrance of our building. When Ahmad left to go get a haircut, I could not imagine that I would not see him again. The bombing was sudden, unexpected. There was no warning; people were busy with their daily tasks.”

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Question related to this article:

How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

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The barber who was going to cut Ahmad’s hair was also killed.

According to Amnesty International’s findings there were no military objectives in the house or its immediate vicinity, this indicates that this may be a direct attack on civilians or on a civilian object which is prohibited and a war crime.

Inadequate warnings

In the cases documented by Amnesty International, the organization repeatedly found that the Israeli military had either not warned civilians at all, or issued warnings which were inadequate. In some instances, they informed a single person about a strike which affected whole buildings or streets full of people or issued unclear “evacuation” orders which left residents confused about the timeframe. In no cases did Israeli forces ensure civilians had a safe place to evacuate to. In one attack on Jabalia market attack, people had left their homes in response to an “evacuation” order, only to be killed in the place to which they had fled.

On 8 October, an Israeli air strike struck the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, killing Mohammed and Shuruq al-Naqla, and two of their children, Omar, three, and Yousef, five, and injuring their two-year-old daughter Mariam and their three-year-old nephew Abdel Karim. Around 20 other people were also injured in the strike.

Ismail al-Naqla, Mohammed’s brother and the father of Abdel Karim, told Amnesty International that their next-door neighbour received a call from the Israeli military at around 10:30am, warning that his building was about to be bombed. Ismail and Mohammed and their families left the building immediately, as did their neighbours. By 3:30pm, there had been no attack, so the al-Naqlas and others went home to collect necessities. Ismail explained that they had thought it would be safe to do so as five hours had elapsed since the warning, though they planned to leave again very quickly.

But as they were returning to their apartments, a bomb struck the building next door, destroying the al-Naqlas’ home and damaging others nearby. Mohammed and his family were still in the courtyard of their building when they were killed. Ismail described seeing part of his five-year-old nephew Yousef’s brain “outside of his head” and said that three-year-old Omar’s body could not be recovered from under the rubble until the next day. He told Amnesty International that Mariam and Abdel Karim, the two surviving children, were released from hospital quickly as Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed with the volume of casualties.

Giving a warning does not free armed forces from their other obligations under international humanitarian law. Particularly given the time that had elapsed since the warning was issued, those carrying out the attack should have checked whether civilians were present before proceeding with the attack. Furthermore, if, as appears, this was a direct attack on a civilian object, this would constitute a war crime.

‘Everyone was looking for their children’

At around 10:30am on 9 October, Israeli air strikes hit a market in Jabalia refugee camp, located a few kilometres north of Gaza City, killing at least 69 people. The market street is known to be one of the busiest commercial areas in northern Gaza. That day it was even more crowded than usual, as it was filled with thousands of people from nearby areas who had fled their homes empty-handed earlier that morning after receiving text messages from the Israeli army.

Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab reviewed six videos showing the aftermath of the airstrike on Jabalia camp market. The images show a densely populated area with multi-storey buildings. Videos of the aftermath and satellite imagery show at least three multi-storey buildings completely destroyed and several structures in the surroundings heavily damaged. Numerous deceased bodies are also seen under the rubble in the graphic footage.

According to the Israeli military, they were targeting “a mosque in which Hamas members had been present” when they struck Jabalia market, but they have provided no evidence to substantiate their claim. Regardless, membership in a political group does not in itself make an individual targetable. Satellite imagery analysed by Amnesty International showed no mosque in the immediate vicinity of the market street.

Based on witness testimony, satellite imagery, and verified videos, the attack, which resulted in high civilian casualties was indiscriminate and must be investigated as a war crime.

Imad Hamad, aged 19, was killed in the strike on the Jabalia market while he was on his way to buy bread and mattresses for the family. His father, Ziyad Hamad, described to Amnesty International how a day earlier their family had left their home in Beit Hanoun after receiving a warning message from the Israeli army, and had walked almost five kilometres to a UNRWA-run school, which was operating as a shelter, in Jabalia camp.

On the walk, his son, Imad, had carried his toddler brother on his shoulders. The next day, Ziyad told Amnesty International, he was carrying Imad’s dead body on his own shoulders, taking his son to be buried.

Ziyad described the hellish scenes he encountered at the morgue where he found his son’s body, along with many others.

“The bodies were burned, I was scared of looking. I didn’t want to look, I was scared of looking at Imad’s face. The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out. I carried him.”

When Amnesty International spoke to Ziyad and his displaced family, they were at a UNRWA-run school which was sheltering displaced people. He said there were no basic services or sanitation, and that they had no mattresses.

Ziyad’s despair at the injustices he has suffered is palpable.

“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked.

“To lose my son, to lose my house, to sleep on the floor of a classroom? My children are wetting themselves, of panic, of fear, of cold. We have nothing to do with this. What fault did we commit? I raised my child, my entire life, for what? To see him die while buying bread.”

While Amnesty’s researcher was talking to Ziyad over the phone, another air strike hit
nearby.

Since Amnesty researchers interviewed Ziyad on 10 October, conditions for internally displaced people have deteriorated further, due to the scale of the displacement and the extent of the destruction and the devastating effects of the total blockade imposed since 9 October. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of internally displaced people in Gaza had reached 1 million by 19 October, including over 527,500 people who are staying in UNRWA emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza.

‘We cannot even count our dead’

On 10 October an Israeli air strike hit a six-storey building in Sheikh Radwan, a district of Gaza City, at 4:30pm. The strike completely destroyed the building and killed at least 40 civilians.

Satellite imagery suggests damage to buildings on this street sometime between 12:11UTC on 10 October and 7:30UTC on 11 October. The Crisis Evidence Lab geolocated two videos posted to social media that corroborate the destruction of homes in Sheikh Radwan. One of the videos, which was posted online on 10 October, shows people pulling the body of a dead infant from the rubble.

Amnesty International spoke to Mahmoud Ashour whose daughter, Iman, and her four children, Hamza, six months, Ahmad, two years, Abdelhamid six, and Rihab, eight, were all killed in the attack.

He said:

“My daughter and her children came here to seek safety because this area was relatively safe in previous attacks. But I couldn’t protect them, I have no trace left of my daughter.”
Mahmoud described the extent of the devastation:

“I’m talking to you now as I’m trying to remove the rubble with my hands. We cannot even count our dead.”

Fawzi Naffar, 61, said that 19 of his family members, including his wife, children and grandchildren, were all killed in the air strike. When Amnesty International spoke to Fawzi five days after the air strike, he had only been able to retrieve the remains of his daughter-in-law and his “son’s shoulder.”

Amnesty International’s research found that a Hamas member had been residing on one of the floors of the building, but he was not there at the time of the air strike. Membership in a political group does not itself make an individual a military target.

Even if that individual was a fighter, the presence of a fighter in a civilian building does not transform that building or any of the civilians therein into a military objective. International humanitarian law requires Israeli forces to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian property, including by cancelling or postponing the attack if it becomes apparent that it would be indiscriminate or otherwise unlawful.

These precautions were not taken ahead of the air strike in Sheikh Radwan. The building was known to be full of civilian residents, including many children, and the danger to them could have been anticipated. This is an indiscriminate attack which killed and injured civilians and must be investigated as a war crime.

Amnesty International is calling on;

The Israeli authorities to:

° Immediately end unlawful attacks and abide by international humanitarian law; including by ensuring they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects and refraining from direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.
° Immediately allow unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians.
° Urgently lift its illegal blockade on Gaza, which amounts to collective punishment and is a war crime, in the face of the current devastation and humanitarian imperatives.
° Rescind their appalling “evacuation” order, which has left more than one million people displaced.
° Grant immediate access to the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory to carry out investigations, including collecting time sensitive evidence and testimonies.

The international community and particularly Israel’s allies, including EU member states, the US and the UK, to:

° Take concrete measures to protect Gaza’s civilian population from unlawful attacks.
° Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given _ that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed. States must refrain from supplying Israel with arms and military materiel, including related technologies, parts and components, technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance. They should also call on states supplying arms to Palestinian armed groups to refrain from doing so.
° Refrain from any statement or action that would, even indirectly, legitimize Israel’s crimes and violations in Gaza.
° Pressure Israel to lift its illegal 16-year blockade of the Gaza strip which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s apartheid system.
° Ensure the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into the situation of Palestine receives full support and all necessary resources.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to:

Urgently expedite its ongoing investigation in the situation of Palestine, examining alleged crimes by all parties, and including the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians.

Hamas and other armed groups to:

Immediately end deliberate attacks on civilians, the firing of indiscriminate rockets, and hostage-taking. They must release civilian hostages unconditionally and immediately.

October 22, 2023DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, MideastMideastCPNN Coordinator

Around the world, people take to the streets for Palestine

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

Here are some of the photos of demonstrations in support of Palestine in recent weeks.

Protestors took to the streets in London and other parts of the UK to make clear that the fight must continue until Israel’s brutal occupation comes to an end. Around 180,000 people attended in London, making it the biggest pro-Palestine demonstrations in British history.

This protest in Ramallah is the biggest since the Israel-Hamas war started. [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]

More than 1,000 demonstrators rallied in Harvard Yard on Saturday, condemning the University for a lack of support of Palestinian students and complicity in what they described as “genocide.” Photo by Joey Huang

People protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Sanaa, Yemen October 18. Reuters/Khaled Abdullah

Protesters gather for an anti-Israel demonstration outside the French embassy headquarters along the Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the centre of Tunis on October 18, 2023. AFP

A boy passes under a giant Palestinian flag during a protest to show solidarity with Palestinians in Istanbul, Turkey. Friday Oct. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Members of the Palestinian community participate in a protest to support the Palestinian people amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, in front of the Israeli embassy in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Thousands gathered for a pro-Palestinian protest in Paris on Thursday after authorities lifted a ban imposed after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel.

Malaysia. Photo: Socialist Party of Malaysia

Gadi/Sydney, Australia. Photo: Isaac Nellist

Brazil. Photo: Leo Diniz/União Nacional dos Estudantes

Iraqis hold a mass rally supporting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in Baghdad. (AP)

Palestine supporters with the Palestinian and Jordanian flags during a demonstration in Amman. (AFP)

Palestine supporters holding a rally in Helsinki, Finland. (Reuters)

Members of the Friends of Free Palestine group shout slogans and wave Palestinian flags during an anti-Israel protest in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Oct.13, 2023. Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images

Several hundred Japanese and foreign residents gathered in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on Sunday, calling for peace in the Middle East as Israel prepares to move on Gaza in its war against Hamas. (ANJ)

The demonstration in Madrid brought together 60,000 people on Sunday. Called by different solidarity associations with Palestine, the protest in Madrid occupied the entire center of the capital and exceeded the expectations of even its organisers

Hundreds of people took part in a demonstration in Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, on Friday evening expressing support for Palestine and opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Kathmandu, Oct 20: A large number of people staged protest against the killing of civilians in Gaza region on Friday. The protest was staged in front of the Embassy of Israel

Protesters wave Palestinian and Syrian opposition flags as the rally in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in the rebel-held town of Atme in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on October 18, 2023. AFP

In a demonstration not among those approved by the government, scores of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square, where they were cordoned off by security forces. The downtown Cairo square was the focal point of the 2011 uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak.

Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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Protestors shout slogans as they hold a banner during an anti-Israel demonstration in Quetta, Pakistan. Photo: AFP

A participant in a pro-Palestine rally in front of the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 21, 2023. Reuters

India: protesters, most of them students and teachers from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, took to Jantar Mantar and started raising slogans ‘Justice for Palestine,’ and ‘Gaza we are with you.’ (Photo: @pherozevincent) Photograph:(Twitter)

People of different nationalities gathered after Friday prayers at Imam Muhammad bin AbdulWahhab Mosque in Doha, Qatar to rally in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, and against Israel’s relentless attacks on the besieged enclave. [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera]

People protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 20, 2023. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

People demonstrate in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza in Beirut, Lebanon. [Amr Alfiky/Reuters]

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/20/photos-palestine-solidarity-rallies-around-the-world”>Pro-Palestinian supporters carrying placards shout slogans while taking part in a protest outside the US embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

Hundreds of people marched through the streets of downtown Montreal on Sunday in solidarity with the people of Palestine, one day after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel.

People wave Palestinian and Hezbollah flags as they protest in Tehran, Iran, on October 18, 2023.

People take part in a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on October 14, 2023. Rob Engelaar/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

Pro-Palestinian protesters take part in a rally in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 14, 2023. Rasmus Flindt Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

Protester wave Palestinian flags during a rally in support of Palestinians in Genova, Italy, on October 14, 2023. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Pro-Palestine suppers protest in South Africa

New Zealand: Protesters gather near the Palmerston North City Council building. Warwick Smith/Stuff

Demonstrators march in Rabat, Morocco, to express support for Palestinians, on October 15, 2023. Fadel Senna / AFP / Getty

Demonstrators rally during a ‘Stand with Palestine’ march in solidarity with Gaza, in Dublin, Ireland, on October 15, 2023. [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters]

Thousands of Greeks marched in Athens on Wednesday evening (October 11) in support of Palestine, carrying banners with anti-US and anti-Israel slogans

Koreans, Palestinians living in Korea, and others rally for Palestine and against a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on Oct. 15. (Kim Hye-yun/The Hankyoreh)

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, activists protested against Israel’s actions after Friday prayers at the main mosque. (AP Photo)

Demonstrators gather to show their solidarity with Palestine despite Austrian Police prohibiting the gathering on October 11, 2023 in Vienna, Austria.

Photo of a protest held in Algiers yesterday in support of Palestinians in Gaza, as the Israeli bombardment of the besieged enclave continues.

A woman holds a banner that says ‘Free Gaza’ in a pro-Palestinian demonstration held in front of the embassy of Israel in Mexico City, Mexico. [Daniel Cardenas/Anadolu]

October 21, 2023FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideastglobal, MideastCPNN Coordinator

Statement from the Oldest Peace Group in the U.S. on the Outbreak of Another Gaza War

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article from Common Dreams ( reprinted according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The Fellowship of Reconciliation is horrified at the new war that has just broken out in Israel/Palestine. FOR, a pacifist organization since its conception in 1914 in Europe and 1915 in the United States, condemns the initiation of this latest stage of violent conflict. In condemning Hamas’s attack launched on Shabbat and Simchat Torah, we are also led to condemn Israel for its decades of occupation, siege, and human rights violations and abuses that have led up to this moment.

Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City. Photo from Ashraf Amra/Reuters published by Al Jazeera

At least 100 Israelis have been killed, over 900 wounded. Dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians are missing and Hamas is reporting that they have been taken hostage.. The Health Ministry in Gaza is reporting around 200 Palestinians killed so far by Israeli air strikes and over 1,600 injured and we expect this number to climb exponentially in the coming days. Among the strikes that Israel has already conducted, was the bombing of the tall Palestine Tower in Gaza City, which houses media institutions, offices, as well as apartments. According to Palestinian sources, the Department of Charitable Institutions building in Gaza City has been completely destroyed by airstrikes.

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Question related to this article:

Israel/Palestine, is the situation like South Africa?

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FOR unequivocally condemns actions of violence that avoid the harder battles of justice. The killing and maiming of civilians, whether by Hamas rockets or Israeli airstrikes are unjustifiable, a war crime under international law. Also, unjustifiable are the actions of Israel that led to this current war: decades of military occupation with no end in sight, apartheid policies, recurrent massacres, and a siege so brutal that has turned Gaza into the largest open-air prison on earth.

FOR recognizes and condemns the failure of the Biden administration to pursue a peaceful solution to this entrenched conflict while providing Israel with almost $3.8 billion annually in unconditional military aid. Even while pursuing normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries, the U.S. has not worked to bring an end to the occupation or demanded an improvement in the rights and status of Palestinians. To call Hamas’s actions “unprovoked,” as the White House initially did in a statement today, is to put one’s head in the sand, ignoring decades of settlement building, land confiscation, child arrests, home demolitions, and the like, as well as recent of settler and military violence against Palestinians. Just one day before the initiation of this current conflict the Israeli military protected an extremist Israeli pogrom in the West Bank village of Huwara, resulting in the death of a 16-year-old Palestinian child.

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler offered words from Hosea 8:7 that say, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” “The ignoring of grave injustices against Palestinians, and an Israeli society that begins to resemble the segregation and injustices pre and post-civil war in the US makes for no small wonder that the frustration and pain will result in violence and war,” Rev. Hagler said.

“While horrified by Hamas’s actions and praying for all those, both Israeli and Palestinian, who have been killed, injured, and kidnapped, I am also deeply fearful of the death toll that is yet to come in Gaza,” said FOR Executive Director Ariel Gold. “Past Israeli military actions in Gaza have taken the lives of countless children, women, men, and the elderly and traumatized an entire generation. Whether this current war results in another status quo in Gaza, as past wars have, or a reoccupation of Gaza by Israel, this violence will not aid the aims of safety, equality, freedom, and peace for all people between the river and the sea. In the words of renowned theologian, political analyst, and former FOR executive director, A.J. Muste, ‘There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

(Editor’s note: For the Palestinian point of view, see the video interview with Mustafa Barghouti or the blog of Mazin Qumsiyeh.

October 8, 2023HUMAN RIGHTS, MideastMideastCPNN Coordinator

Indigenous trade unionists from around the world call for more inclusion and solidarity: “We are not just there to sing the songs and do the opening prayer”

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from Equal Times (published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence)

More than 476 million people worldwide (6.2 per cent of humanity) belong to Indigenous peoples, most of whom live alongside the societies that colonised their ancient lands hundreds of years ago. In the 21st century, after a long journey during which they were not always able to survive colonial oppression without losing their identity, language or part of their culture, Indigenous peoples have won significant gains in various regions of the world but they continue to face challenges such as discrimination and limited opportunities, making it very difficult for them to enjoy fair labour market integration. Four out of five Indigenous workers earn a living from informal employment, and the remainder most often work in highly precarious sectors, without any form of social protection, where they are exposed to all kinds of rights abuses.

To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, established by the United Nations in 1982, and to coincide with the call made by the ITUC for governments around the world to sign up to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (C169) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) – which, despite being launched in 1989, has only been ratified by 24 countries – Equal Times interviewed three Indigenous trade union leaders from three continents.

Māori, Sami and Mapuche trade union leaders talk to Equal Times. From left to right: Laures Park (New Zealand), David Acuña (Chile) and Sissel Skoghaug (Norway). (Equal Times/Composition by Fátima Donaire)

David Acuña Millahueique, the president of CUT Chile, the main trade union organisation in his country, speaks to us from the Americas. Acuña, who became the first leader of Mapuche origin to head the union a year ago, is currently involved in the historic process of developing a new constitution for Chile and the CUT is working to ensure that it enshrines freedom of association and decent work as fundamental rights in a country where the current constitution, in force since the military dictatorship (1973-1990), still does not provide for labour rights. Sissel Skoghaug, vice president of Norway’s LO union confederation for the past decade and a representative of the Sami people, the ancient nomadic ethnic group of the Arctic and the only Indigenous people left on the continent, joins us from Europe. And from Oceania, we speak to Laures Park, who holds the position of Matua Takawaenga (Māori for “chief mediator”) with the New Zealand teachers’ union NZEI Te Riu Roa, where she is not only the main focal point for all matters relating to the Indigenous people of the island nation, but is also the acting union leader when the national secretary is absent, which is also seen as a symbolic gain for the Māori.

What is the current situation of the First Nation peoples in your country, in terms of social and labour integration or discrimination?

LAURES PARK (L.P.): In New Zealand there is still discrimination. There are lots of concerns, but there’s lots of integration as well. It depends on socioeconomic and geographical conditions. The Māori, who are about 12 per cent of the national population, tend to fill the lower paid labour-intensive jobs. They tend to be cleaners, rubbish collectors and landscape gardeners – those kinds of jobs. And yes, there are also a lot of Māori that move to the city and get jobs in the public service, but you have to move to get that kind of work. Poverty-wise, that’s probably very high for Indigenous people in New Zealand, and that’s because of poor access to education where they live, as well as lack of employment.

SISSEL SKOGHAUG (S.S.): So much injustice has been done to the Sami people. The authorities almost managed to rob an entire people of their identity and their language. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recently concluded, this also applies to the Kven people and the Forest Finns. [But] especially in Norway and parts of Sweden, the Sami culture has been experiencing a very strong renaissance over the last four decades. Young people, and also quite a few in my generation, are taking back the heritage that was lost two or three generations back.

DAVID ACUÑA MILLAHUEIQUE (D.A.M.): The labour situation of people of Indigenous origin comes from the forced integration of the Indigenous society into the dominant society of the colonisers. Before reaching the situation we have now, there have even been periods of slavery, which initially involved working for a very basic income as day labourers, apprentice carpenters, bricklayers or bakers, for example. Many of those who migrated from rural to urban areas worked in these trades, while the majority of the Indigenous women worked as domestic and care workers. Today, a large percentage of the new generations have achieved access to various levels of formal education, so we have moved on from the worker who formerly did not know how to read or write to the literate workers of today, enabling a minimal level of social mobility in some cases.

What about the acknowledgment and respect for First Nation cultures, languages and rights, and their integration in the work environment?

S.S.: Nowadays, in Norway we have the Sami Parliament (Samediggi), established in 1989. That is the representative body of the Sami people in the country, and it promotes political initiatives and has authority on a number of issues. At the same time, the main Sami language is also an official language in Norway. Much more has been achieved since assimilation and discrimination was the official order of the day.

L.P.: In New Zealand it goes from one extreme to the other. There is a whole sector of the population that doesn’t even know about it or doesn’t care, because Māori don’t have anything to do with their lives. But there is also another part of the population that is learning the language and participating in the customs, and is very much part of all the things that happen in the education system [where there are a number of selected schools where the Māori language is taught to everyone since early childhood].

There is a whole generation of Māori who only speak Māori, and their families only speak Māori when they are out and about, and this can cause a bit of stress with other people, mainly white people. But on the other side, when we’re downtown, other people are delighted to hear Māori being spoken out in the community. So it varies. You get some people that see it as: “Oh, God, you’re trying to hide something from us,” and other people who think that’s just lovely to hear it. And we have a Māori television channel, and the number of non-Māori who watch it is just incredible. So, as I say, [the situation] varies.

D.A.M.: In Chile, the process of Indigenous integration has been strongly marked by social discrimination and also, in many cases, employment and racial discrimination, which have led to irreparable cultural losses, such as the use of our own mother tongue, especially as of the third generation [of Mapuche people who settled in the cities in the mid-twentieth century]. We were migrants in our own land, because we had to go to the more developed cities, and we lost everything from our language to our customs with these migration and integration processes.

The first generations of Indigenous migrants had to adjust to a new way of life, and of course, they had to behave like Chileans, and ended up “half-Chileanised”, often trying to hide or disguise their Mapuche ancestry, and little by little this began to take hold, to the extent that people even avoided using their own language and customs, all in an attempt to adopt the traits of a society that was not our own and steadily adapt to it. It has only been as of the fourth generation, to which I belong, that we began to see a gradual process of self-identification with our origins. Over the last five or six years, there has also been a reclaiming of the Mapuche flag itself, which became visible in 2019 with the social uprising, during which one of the most popular and most visible symbols in the protests was the Mapuche flag. There was almost a commercial boom, the Mapuche flag was suddenly selling so well. That showed that we were recognising an identity that we had lost until then.

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(Click here for the French version of this article, or here for the Spanish version .)

Question(s) related to this article:

The right to form and join trade unions, Is it being respected?

Indigenous peoples, Are they the true guardians of nature?

(Article continued from left column)

Has your country ratified the ILO’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (C169), from 1989? How does that affect the current First Nation peoples’ life in the country? How important is C169 for your people?

S.S.: In 1990, Norway was the first country to ratify the ILO’s Convention 169. I am proud of LO Norway’s role in making ILO 169 happen, and making it happen first in our own country. Alongside the Constitution and the Sami Act, ILO’s Convention 169 is one of the central pillars of the Norwegian Sami policy. ILO 169 is a monument to the collective spirit of cooperation that characterised Norway at the start of the 1990s. This collective spirit also carried the majority population through a rough period of unemployment and financial and political turmoil.

L.P.: In New Zealand the government has not ratified it, and their explanation is that our new laws need to comply with a lot of other previous laws before they ratify it. That doesn’t change things for us. If we want to make a point, we will still use the C169 and it still holds weight. In some ways, [the fact that New Zealand hasn’t ratified C169] probably supports our argument.

D.A.M.: Yes, Chile ratified it in 2008. By doing so, the state of Chile committed to a state policy of recognition for Indigenous peoples and pledged to establish policies of recognition and respect for this section of society. When national policies are developed that may affect the social, cultural, political and environmental conditions in which Indigenous communities live, we always end up with a consultation. That’s as far as we have got for now, but it is an important achievement, because it is a tool that gives Indigenous communities a voice in what directly impacts on them, and that’s something we didn’t have before.

Why did you join a union, what difficulties did you find in your working environment and in the unions themselves, just for being Indigenous?

L.P.: I joined when I was a teacher. Many years ago, we were talking about how to encourage Māori people to become interested in trade unions. That’s when it became a lot more relevant for me. And since then, that’s been the push – to make sure that unions work for Māori.

We have a saying, that was said by a very old tipuna [ancestor]: “There is but one eye of the needle through which all threads must pass: the white, the red, the black.” For our union, that actually is exactly the sentiment that we think people should embrace, because only by joining together and going in the same direction can we make things work. Otherwise, we’re pulling against each other.

D.A.M.: I’ve been working since I was 17; I had to support my family from a very young age and I’ve always been closely linked to work. When I was getting to know the trade union world, one day a union came to look for representatives at the supermarket where I was working, and there were two colleagues who put themselves forward as union reps. Three could be elected, and these guys had no class consciousness, let’s say, they were not very pro-worker, they were more pro-management, they were very close to the company. So, I said, “No, if we want to fight for labour rights, we need to have agreements with the company, but also disagreements and to fight for the rights we believe in.” It was time, a decision, to say: “Either I keep watching everything stay the same, or I make some kind of change,” and I chose to make a change, with all the sacrifices this also entails.

Given the leadership position that you have reached in your organisation, what does that symbolise for you and the continued struggle for Indigenous rights?

D.A.M.: It is a source of pride for me and my family. My first May Day as president was a personal milestone for me. That day, I acknowledged my identity, I said: “I am a retail worker, I am Mapuche and I come from an Indigenous community in Lleulleu, in the Los Ríos region.” More than a trade union leader, I see myself as a worker and, today, I also strongly recognise my historical legacy: that my mother was a migrant from the south of Chile to the capital, and that we lost our language, we lost part of our culture, but we did not lose our attachment to the territory. Recognising this is very important to me, because I feel proud to be representing, in this role, a people as combative as the Mapuche people were and are today in their territorial claim, which is still pending.

S.S: I have in later years discovered that my own family lost most of our Sami and Kven identity, including the language, as a result of the many decades of Norwegianisation policy. But we are taking back our heritage, with my daughter and son leading the way with language studies and much more. In my public appearances, I am very proud to be wearing the gakti (Sami traditional dress), which I recently had made. I feel that this process in itself is a victory over the injustice that was done.

How can the trade unions better help the Indigenous and First Nation peoples reach real integration in the working world?

D.A.M.: With solidarity and respect. Respect for identity, for beliefs, but also solidarity, inclusion within the world of work.

S.S.: We will look into what we in LO Norway can do to help combat racism, like we have done in the workplace. So far, in the working world, LO Norway has been a strong advocate for the legislation against discrimination now in place in Norway. Thanks to that, nowadays employees and job applicants enjoy equal opportunities, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, sex or responsibilities as caretakers. All Norwegian employers are obliged to work actively, in a targeted way and systematically, to promote equality and prevent discrimination in the workplace, according to the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act. This employer activity duty is a preventative work that employers are expected to do before incidents of discrimination occur.

L.P.: Trade unions could change themselves internally and employ more Indigenous people in their organisations. And they shouldn’t be afraid to promote these things amongst the affiliates; at the moment it is seen a little bit as window dressing. But we all belong to this country, so we all should be doing the same thing across the board, not just letting people maybe be inclusive or maybe just say, and this is me being rude: “Go over there and play with your marbles while we get on with the real work over here”. Trade unions need to be more inclusive and more promotional about First Nations, so that we are not just there to sing the songs and do the opening prayer.

How can First Nation peoples contribute, with their particular sensibilities, culture and experiences, to the current global debates about just transition, social justice, labour and human rights and the democratic health of our societies?

D.A.M.: In Chile, the Indigenous peoples come from a culture of struggle that calls for many rights that were taken from them: the right to land is one of their main demands, but there are also the ancestral cultures, especially ancestral medicine, which now forms part of the entry of Mapuche culture into society in a way that was inconceivable before, because there has been, over the last 15 or 20 years, a cultural shift that has allowed the culture of the Indigenous peoples to re-emerge. Today almost every district has a Mapuche ruca, a ceremonial centre for gastronomy, culture and traditional medicine, such that, beyond a flag and a combative tradition, what is also emerging is an ancestral culture that speaks of solidarity, inclusion and participation, respect for elders and for one’s own body.

S.S.: I think we need to go back to that spirit of cooperation that characterised Norway at the start of the 1990s. We live again in a time of crisis and a lot is at risk. The polarisation we see both in the world and in our part of it gives room for forces that do not wish neither minorities, nor majorities or democracies well. Rights that have been won will not automatically be there forever. The fight is never over. We know all about this in the labour movement.

L.P.: When I think about just transition, and particularly climate change as well, I think Indigenous people or First Nations people have a lot to offer. But the powers that be don’t ask. For example, when you think about areas that are now suffering from drought and lack of water and so on, Indigenous people in Australia have lived like that for years. So, how come people don’t talk to them? About how you survive in those situations? And what is it that you bring to the table about those conversations? There are ways of doing things wisely, sustainably, that Indigenous people have always done, that they will continue to do. There’s a whole lot of that knowledge that First Nations hold and probably just use it like the everyday life common sense that it is for them. If anybody bothered to investigate or talk about it, I think First Nations have a lot to offer, but one: do they have a voice? And two: do people listen to what they have to say?

August 26, 2023global, HUMAN RIGHTS, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTglobalCPNN Coordinator

Israel: Democracy in Danger

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An editorial in La Nación, Buenos Aires (translation by Other News )

The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, approved a law days ago that reduced the power of the Supreme Court of Justice to challenge government decisions, starting a dangerous path of weakening the most fundamental institutions of a country.

Israeli citizens protest against the reform proposed by Prime Minister Ohad Zwigenberg – AP

The ruling coalition is the most far-right in Israel’s 75-year history. Among its ranks are members of ultra-Orthodox parties, more interested in accentuating the Jewish identity of the State of Israel than in preserving its democratic component. In addition, members of the cabinet have been accused of supporting terrorist organizations, as well as being confessed homophobes who have called for violence against Palestinian populations.

Reforms to the judicial system have triggered protests never before seen in Israel. For more than 30 weeks, hundreds of thousands of protesters defy rain, cold or heat, opposing a reform that they simply consider a coup d’état.

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(click here for the original article in Spanish.)

Question related to this article:

Israel/Palestine, is the situation like South Africa?

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Western democracies such as France and Germany added their criticism. The US president, Joe Biden, after 50 years of unconditional support for Israel, has personally demanded that Netanyahu stop the initiative and agree with the opposition on a reform that does not alter democracy. The move was also met with disappointment by many Jewish organizations in the United States such as the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League.

Within the Israeli government coalition there are voices and initiatives that would reduce the rights of the country’s minorities, mainly Palestinians with Israeli nationality, but also the rights of women and LGBTQ groups, among others.

Many analysts agree that, in line with what happened in Hungary, Poland or Turkey, where the concentration of power makes it almost impossible to remove the president despite holding elections, Israel would thus seek to progressively abandon its democratic character, essential to maintain strong ties with the West and, particularly, with its greatest ally in the world, the United States.

As Raanan Rein, the prestigious Israeli historian and former vice president of Tel Aviv University, explained, many coups are no longer carried out with tanks in the streets, but through the progressive erosion of individual liberties, through the domination of Justice, the media and the educational system.

If we continue on this path, the social fracture could be very detrimental to the country. Military reservists are threatening not to report to duty, the country’s largest doctors’ association has declared a 24-hour strike in protest of the vote and union groups are threatening force.

The sector that opposes the reform is made up mainly of groups of enormous economic weight, such as technology. Moody’s risk rating agency has already warned about the “negative consequences” of the reform. Following the vote, four Israeli daily newspapers published a large black spot on their front pages with the phrase “A black day for Israeli democracy.”

It is imperative that the Israeli government reconsider its progress on Justice, avoid further damage to its international prestige and the cohesion of its population with the aim of maintaining a plural society, a modern economy and a political system aligned with the democracies of the West, according to with the provisions of its declaration of independence.

(Thank you to Other News for sending this article to CPNN.)

July 28, 2023HUMAN RIGHTS, MideastMideastCPNN Coordinator

American Anthropological Association Endorses Academic Boycott of Israeli ‘Apartheid Regime’

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article by Brett Wilkins from Common Dreams (reprinted according to license of Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The American Anthropological Association on Monday became the largest U.S. academic association to endorse a Palestinian call to boycott Israeli universities and other institutions complicit in what the group called Israel’s “apartheid regime.”

In a major victory for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian human rights, more than 7 in 10 of the 37% of American Anthropological Association (AAA) members who participated in the monthlong referendum voted in favor of a motion to back the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

With 12,000 members, the AAA is the largest U.S. scholarly group to support BDS’ boycott call. The motion applies only to institutions, not individual anthropologists.

“This was indeed a contentious issue, and our differences may have sparked fierce debate, but we have made a collective decision and it is now our duty to forge ahead, united in our commitment to advancing scholarly knowledge, finding solutions to human and social problems, and serving as a guardian of human rights,” AAA president Ramona Pérez said in a statement.

“AAA’s referendum policies and procedures have been followed closely and without exception, and the outcome will carry the full weight of authorization by AAA’s membership,” Pérez added.

The AAA motion, drafted in March, notes that ever since the Nakba, the 1947-49 dispossession and expulsion of more than 700,000 Arabs by Zionist Jews establishing the modern state of Israel, “Palestinians—including activists, artists, intellectuals, human rights organizations, and others—have documented and circulated knowledge of the Israeli state’s apartheid system and ethnic cleansing.”

“The Israeli state operates an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the internationally recognized state of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank,” the motion asserts, adding that “Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the Israeli state’s regime of oppression against Palestinians… including by providing research and development of military and surveillance technologies used against Palestinians.”

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Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

Israel/Palestine, is the situation like South Africa?

(continued from left column)

“Israeli academic institutions do not provide protections for academic freedom, campus speech in support of Palestinian human and political rights, nor for the freedom of association of Palestinian students on their campuses,” the document continues. “Israeli academic institutions have failed to support the right to education and academic freedom at Palestinian universities, obstructing Palestinian academic exchanges with academic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere.”

In a statement, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said, “We thank the many AAA members who worked tirelessly to ensure the association was on record as refusing ties with Israeli universities complicit in Israel’s crimes against us. We thank those who took the time to learn from and listen to indigenous Palestinian voices.”

“The AAA membership vote to boycott complicit Israeli universities is wholly consistent with the association’s stated commitment to anti-racism, equality, human rights, and social justice and furthers the drive to decolonize anthropology and academia in general,” PACBI added.

The motion notes that a United Nations special rapporteur and groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem—an Israeli organization—"have confirmed that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people, and have documented the institutionalization of systematic racial oppression and discrimination."

Others who have condemned Israeli apartheid include former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and South African cleric and activist Desmond Tutu—both of whom were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—and multiple cabinet-level former Israeli government officials.

Focusing on its field of expertise, AAA’s motion claims “anthropological frameworks and methods, ethnographic and archaeological, are actively used by the Israeli state to further its system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” and that the organization’s 1999 Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights states that “anthropology as a profession is committed to the promotion and protection of the right of people and peoples everywhere to the full realization of their humanity.”

Therefore, according to AAA, anthropologists have an “ethical responsibility to protest and oppose” human rights crimes, and “the discipline of anthropology, as the study of humanity, bears a distinct and urgent responsibility to stand against all forms of racism and racist practices.”

AAA also highlights U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic support for Israel, which the group calls “decisive” in “enabling and sustaining” Israeli apartheid, including the 56-year illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the unlawful construction and expansion of Jewish-only settler colonies there, and the “ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.”

Last year, the Middle East Studies Association, the leading learned organization dedicated to study of the region, voted 768-167 to join the BDS movement, which counts more than 350 academic departments, programs, centers, unions, and societies worldwide among its supporters.

July 27, 2023HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, North AmericaMideast, North AmericaCPNN Coordinator

Dismantle Israel’s carceral regime and “open-air” imprisonment of Palestinians: UN expert

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article from the United Nations Human Rights Commission

Israel’s military occupation has morphed the entire occupied Palestinian territory into an open-air prison, where Palestinians are constantly confined, surveilled and disciplined,” a UN expert said today (July 10).

“Over 56 years, Israel has governed the occupied Palestinian territory through stifling criminalisation of basic rights and mass incarcerations,” said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, in a new report to the Human Rights Council.

Frame from UN video of the Albanese press conference

“Under Israeli occupation, generations of Palestinians have endured widespread and systematic arbitrary deprivation of liberty, often for the simplest acts of life and the exercise of fundamental human rights,” Albanese said. Without condoning violent acts that Palestinians may have committed during decades of Israel’s illegal occupation, most of their criminal convictions have resulted from a litany of violations of international law, including due process violations, that taint the legitimacy of the administration of justice by the occupying power.

The report finds that since 1967, over 800,000 Palestinians, including children as young as 12, have been arrested and detained under authoritarian rules enacted, enforced and adjudicated by the Israeli military. Palestinians are subject to long detention for expressing opinions, gathering, pronouncing unauthorised political speeches, or even merely attempting to do so, and ultimately deprived of their status of protected civilians. They are often presumed guilty without evidence, arrested without warrants, detained without charge or trial and brutalised in Israeli custody.

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Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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“Mass incarceration serves the purpose of quelling peaceful opposition against the occupation, protecting the Israeli military and settlers, and ultimately facilitating settler-colonial encroachment,” the Special Rapporteur said.

“Bundling Palestinians as a collective “security threat”, Israel has used draconian military orders to punish the exercise of basic rights. These measures have been used as tools to subjugate an entire population, depriving them of self-determination, enforcing racial domination and advancing territorial acquisition by force,” she said.

Albanese noted that Israel’s “carceral regime” haunts Palestinian life even outside prisons. Blockades, walls, segregated infrastructure, checkpoints, settlements encircling Palestinian towns and villages, hundreds of bureaucratic permits and a web of digital surveillance, further entrap Palestinians in a carceral continuum across strictly controlled enclaves.

“The widespread and systematic arbitrariness of the occupation’s carceral regime is yet another expression of the apartheid imposed on the Palestinians and strengthens the need to end it immediately,” the UN expert said.

“The mass and arbitrary deprivation of liberty that Palestinians have been collectively subjected to for decades aims to protect Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory, a project with unlawful aims pursued by unlawful means,” Albanese said. “This macroscopic violation of fundamental principles of international law cannot be remedied by addressing some of its most brutal consequences. For Israel’s carceral regime to end, and its inherent apartheid with it, its illegal occupation of Palestine must end,” she said.

Albanese called on Member States to uphold their obligations not to aid or recognise Israel’s settler-colonial occupation and incremental annexation, and use all diplomatic, political and economic measures under the UN Charter to bring it to an end and make sure its architects are brought to justice.

Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.

(Editor’s note: Not surprisingly, Albanese is under vicious attacks by Israel and it supporters. This is described in detail in the an article from the Jordan News.

July 27, 2023HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, United NationsMideast, United NationsCPNN Coordinator

Colombia: The Schools Embrace the Truth

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

Special to CPNN from Amada Benevides

On June 9, more than 1,300 educational institutions throughout Colombia commemorated the first anniversary of the delivery of the Final Report of the Truth Commission. In the company of civil society organizations and education secretariats, the schools organized to live a special day with their educational communities, opening a path of dialogue and reflection on the value of truth in coexistence and the history of the Colombian armed conflict.

On June 28, 2022, after more than 3 years of work, the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-repetition delivered its Final Report to society. The Truth Commission (CEV), together with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons in the framework of the Armed Conflict (UBPD), are part of the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-repetition (SVJR). The SVJR arising from the Agreement between the FARC-EP and the Colombian Government to end the armed conflict that lasted more than 60 years.

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(click here for the article in Spanish.).)

Question related to this article:

Truth Commissions, Do they improve human rights?

What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?

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The Commission’s report is made up of 11 chapters that are designed in multiple formats so that they can be addressed by diverse communities and populations. The Commission’s Final Report is a public good. Its recommendations arise from an in-depth analysis of what happened during years of violence from more than 1,000 reports delivered by civil society, nearly 30,000 people interviewed and heard about what is necessary for non-repetition. Not all the recommendations are addressed to the Government or the State; there are several that fall on the rest of civil society and that is why their dissemination with the formal and non-formal education sectors is so important. Girls, boys, adolescents and young people, as well as the entire educational community, have the right to know the truth about what happened in the context of the armed conflict and the commitment to work on actions so that this does not happen again.

To commemorate the date of the launch of the report, the organizations allied with the Commission invite the educational institutions to develop three special days of deliberation and action. The aim of these journeys are to promote spaces for reflection with the educational community on the most important aspects of the report and how these processes contribute to the construction of peace from the clarification of the truth and the recommendations for the construction of coexistence that the CEV developed in its three years of work.

The allied organizations of the Commission, including Fundación Escuelas de Paz – civil society organizations, universities, Secretaries of Education and the Ministry of National Education – are aware that the contribution to Peace must be a continuous process. We unite in order to propose the development of a commemorative agenda with three milestone dates that motivate reflection on the work that is carried out from the Comprehensive System for Peace and keep the Legacy of the Commission alive.

These sessions will be:

June 9: The School Embraces the Truth.

August 30: The School embraces empathy.

October 2: The school embraces justice and restoration.

July 15, 2023EDUCATION FOR PEACE, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, Latin AmericaLatin AmericaCPNN Coordinator

Comment by Mazin Qumsiyeh on Palestine: Hope, Present and Future

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

A blog in the Popular Resistance Blogspot

The past 30 hours, Israeli occupation and apartheid forces invaded the city of Jenin including the Jenin Refugee camp. They bulldozed streets and electricity and water infrastructure. They prevented ambulances and attacked he press. Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. A second etic cleansing for them. Our people are refused international protection and as before, Israeli atrocities are done with western and Arab world complicity. The few “statements” issued by some governments to express “concern” are satisfactory to the Israeli oppressors. While the Western powers hypocritically give billions of aid to Ukraine against Russia for occupying part of its territory, the same powers support the occupiers of Palestine. They support apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

Mazin Qumsiyeh and Jessie Chang founded the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability. Photo from Dec. 19, 2018.

I would like to make a personal reflection here. I am 66 years old and has spent all my adult life working for the cause of freedom, A vision of sustainable human and natural communities. Hope is indispensable because we cannot afford despair. Empowerment is far more challenging because it implies work on conviction. We find it most challenging to get enough people empowered to effect the change needed. Once empowered people engage and use methods they deem most effective to get the desired results. I discussed hundreds of methods people used here, most of them not armed, in my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment”. I also engaged myself in dozens of popular resistance methods. For the past 9 years my wife and I have been volunteering full time (and 7 days a week) building up from scratch a “Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability. It is an oasis of hope and of sanity in the middle of mayhem. It is a candle in the darkness. I do not want you to have the illusion that we are 100% sure of our way.

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Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

(continued from left column)

Doubts and uncertainty abound especially in difficult times which we face a lot and in times of crisis like this one with Jenin. For example, how certain are we (at a personal level) that our way is the right way when the Israeli regime has been bombarding us for 75 years, has caused 8 million refugees or displaced people? Was John F. Kennedy right to say “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”? Is there a survival of the meanest and the most wicked in this crazy world? Are the majority of Palestinians infected with mental colonization that immobilizes them (I wrote a chapter on this in a book on post-colonialism)? How many people have discipline and a work ethic and a commitment to make this a better world? How many people have “enlightened self interest” rather than narrow and foolish self-interest? Are my expectations of myself and those around me higher or lower than it should be? Last night as I pondered these and other questions in a sleepless night, I realized that I do not have many answers and what answers I have, they can only apply to me (afterall, we can only change ourselves in reality).

Twenty years ago in my book “Sharing the Land of Canaan” I articulated what I consider the rational way to stop the onslaught on people and nature in historic Palestine (now under the boot of Israel) I add the quote from Howard Zinn related to hope which I used in that book to remind myself:

“There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment we will continue to see. We forget how often in this century we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

A blog I posted in late 2014 about life and how we live

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Palestine video 1938

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Palestinians are in Israel’s cross hairs because they are not Jews

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July 4, 2023HUMAN RIGHTS, MideastMideastCPNN Coordinator