Human Rights

NOVANEWS Zio-Nazi at work Haaretz A Palestinian man was seriously wounded on Monday as a result of a tear gas grenade fired by Israel Defense Forces soldiers near a West Bank checkpoint north of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, the 19-year-old Palestinian was brought to the hospital with critical head wounds and was rushed to surgery. The man was reportedly part of a group of Palestinian youths that clashed with IDF soldiers near Atara checkpoint early Monday morning. The youths threw stones at the soldiers stationed at the checkpoint, who responded with the firing of tear gas canisters. Palestinian officials say that the group arrived at the IDF checkpoint to mark the second anniversary of the death of five members of the Awwad family, who were killed in an acci...

NOVANEWS by Eileen Fleming In an interview Wednesday with Israeli Channel 2 TV News, Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman rebuffed suggestions that American and Russian warnings against striking Iran would affect Israeli decision making, stating the decision “is not their business. The security of the citizens of Israel, the future of the state of Israel, this is the Israeli government’s responsibility.” Also on Wednesday, Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu wrote on his Facebook Wall and YouTube Channel: Feb. 22. No Freedom of Speech, No Freedom of Movement here, 26 year waiting for my Freedom Now!!!! Richard Falk wrote, “We should begin by refusing to use the phrase administrative detention, rechristening it as ‘administrative torture’ or ‘lawless captivity’.vanunuvmj...

NOVANEWS By Mahmoud El-Yousseph Today, this Palestinian writer, along with his 20 year-old twin sons, Bilal and Hilal, decided to quit smoking as long as Hanaa Shalabi is on a hunger strike. We also plan  to use the money that would have been spent buying cigarettes [$15 a day] to help defray the cost of Hanaa’s legal expenses. Hanaa is the same age as my only daughter, Nadia [28 years old] and incidently, has the same name as my wife. Hanaa Shalabi is a Palestinian female political prisoner from the village of Burgin near Jenin.  She was kidnapped from her home on on Feb. 16, 2012 by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the middle of the night. Her family was ordered outside the house, she was blindfolded and handcuffed. All cell phones and computers in the house were confiscated and a ph...

NOVANEWS by Ali Abunimah As Palestinian “administrative detainee” Hana Al-Shalabi, 29, entered her eleventh day on hunger strike, her parents continued their own hunger strike in solidarity, against their daughter’s imprisonment without charge or trial by Israel. Hana was arrested from her home in Burqin village near Jenin on 16 February in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. She had previously spent two and a half years in administrative detention – with no charge or trial – from 14 September 2009, until she was released last October as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, according to updates posted by Addameer via its Twitter and Facebook pages.

NOVANEWS Members of the Australian Jewish community say suspected child molesters ended up in the United States after community leaders failed to report them to law-enforcement authorities. forward.com A child sex abuse scandal in Australia’s Jewish community has spilled into America, as a pending extradition, arrests in Australia and a slew of cover-up allegations put that community’s response to molestation under scrutiny. Australian police are seeking to extradite convicted child molester David Kramer, currently in jail in Farmington, Mo., on suspicion of having abused children at a Chabad school in Melbourne during the 1990s. Kramer, who was reportedly spirited out of Australia by one of Melbourne’s Chabad leaders following abuse allegations, is halfway through a seven-year prison se...