Human Rights

NOVANEWS       From the Occupied Palestine blog comes this report of another nonviolent activist arrested. Khaled Zawahre’s military hearing has concluded delayed ruling until Sunday they will either release him or keep him in custody for 101 days. We want to ask your support to keep sharing this information widely so the cases of arbitrary arrest by Israel get more media attention.For putting a unarmed civilian on trial for a military court after an arbitrary arrest without any proof is a severe  human rights violation Khaled Zawahre was arrested in Qalandia while stopping in front of the Skunk Car he has been detained in Ofer prison and Military court extended his emprisonement with another 101 days of arrest until end of investigation they accused him of beating u...

NOVANEWS   by Mel Frykberg   SILWAN, Palestine – “Father please help me! Don’t let them take me away,” screamed 12-year-old Ahmed Siyam as approximately 50 heavily armed Israeli soldiers and police dragged the handcuffed and blindfolded boy away. Last month Ahmed was pulled out of his bed at 4am by Israeli security forces led by Shin Bet agents from Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. He was taken to the Russian Compound police station in West Jerusalem where he was accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and police during clashes with Palestinian youth in the volatile neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem. Silwan has become a regular point of friction and violent confrontation between illegal Israeli settlers, the Israeli soldiers and police who protect them, ...

NOVANEWS "The only man to protest on Saudi Arabia's day of rage has suffered in prison, his family say. Khaled al-Johani was arrested minutes after going to the courthouse in Riyadh and giving a BBC interview in which he called for democracy and described the country as a big jail. His family have now told the BBC that they were not allowed to see him for the first 58 days of his incarceration. And when they did see him, says his brother, Abdullah al-Johani, their concerns increased. "He has lost a lot of weight. The situation is sad and he is depressed. He doesn't have any of his own clothes and we can't give him food or money." Khaled al-Johani is one of more than 160 dissidents who have been arrested by the Saudi authorities since February, according to Human Rights Watch. On Tuesday a...

NOVANEWS On 14 June 2011, as part of its 17th Session, the Human Rights Council held discussions on the status of implementation of the conclusions contained in the report of the independent international factfinding mission on the flotilla attack. The Freedom Flotilla II Steering Committee submitted the following statement: STATEMENT OF FREEDOM FLOTILLA II – STAY HUMAN STEERING COMMITTEE TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL In September 2010 the international Fact-Finding Mission to investigate violations of international law resulting from the Israeli attacks on the Freedom Flotilla I concluded that the conduct of the Israeli military towards its passengers, when it was unlawfully intercepted on the way to Gaza on 31 May 2001, “demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredibl...

NOVANEWS   The men, brothers from an Arab village in northern IsraHell, were killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on them from close range using automatic weapons. Two brothers were murdered in a drive-by shooting on Friday, as they made their way home from a family celebration in Jaljulia. Zio-Nazi Police believe the shootings were carried out with criminal intention, over an inter-family dispute. The victims were identified as Sultan Gamal Sbichat, aged 32, and Forsan Gamal Sbichat, aged 31. Also in the car were Sultan’s wife, pregnant in her seventh month, and their two young children, none of whom were wounded. The family members were shot at while driving home to the Arab village of Salaam, near Umm al-Fahm, in northern Israel. Gunmen in a passing car shot at the men ...

NOVANEWS When President Obama took office, Eileen Fleming began phoning, faxing and e-mailing him and Secretary of State Clinton seeking a statement regarding the fact that Israel continues to deny the Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu, the right to leave the state ever since he emerged from a tomb-sized, windowless cell on 21 April 2004; after 18 years in jail for telling the world the truth—providing the photographic proof that Israel had manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads by 1986, in the Dimona’s seven-story underground nuclear facility. By Eillen Fleming in We Are Wide Awake - author of BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker For the last two years, I have been requesting a statement from this Administration vis-à-vis the ...

NOVANEWS Dear All, I'm writing to ask for your help in getting two Palestinians out of jail. Their only crime is organizing unarmed protests against the occupation. They need your help. This past December I took a trip to Israel/Palestine with twenty members of my congregation. Among our many stops was a morning visit to a coffee house in Ramallah where we had arranged to meet with Ayed Morrar, a grassroots nonviolent organizer from the West Bank village of Budrus (whose struggle was recently featured in the documentary film of the same name.) When we arrived to meet Ayed, we found that he had brought along a fellow leader in the Palestinian nonviolence movement, Bassem Tamimi, who comes from the village of Nabi Saleh. With integrity, humor and sense of quiet resolve, Bassem told us the s...

NOVANEWS   by Stephen Lendman For months, courageous Bahrainis protested peacefully against the Al Khalifa monarchy’s repressive brutality, corruption, and discrimination, as well as unemployment, poverty, and other unaddressed social justice issues. The response has been ruthless state terrorism against anyone challenging regime control, no matter how lawless, barbaric, and unresponsive to basic human rights and needs. Since the mid-February uprising began, America’s media largely ignored it, especially extreme repression Washington supports. Complicit in helping a key ally, Bahrain is home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, strategically located in the heart of the Persian Gulf. On June 6, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) highlighted the mistreatment of doctors and nurses, explai...

NOVANEWS   The Inhuman Injustices Being Endured by Palestinians Require Us All to Act in the Name of Humanity by Sonja Karkar With all the calls on Archbishop Tutu’s time and counsel, it seemed just too much to hope that he would bother himself with a small but valiant struggle against Apartheid Israel in Marrickville, Australia. But Archbishop Tutu knows better than most how an apartheid regime can blind others to the suffering it institutes against another people and the  vitrol its apologists mete out to those who support them. His most welcome letter of solidarity with the ethical stance taken by the Marrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne and the Councillors who want to hold Israel to account for the long history of injustices it has visited on the Palestinian people, should have Aust...

NOVANEWS   Mohammed Salem is about 30 years old. He lives in Umm-Al-Kheir, in a home inherited from his late father right next to the fence of the Carmel settlement (sometimes spelled “Karmel”; see picture). In 2005, when Carmel built an expansion neighborhood, Mohammed was beaten by settlers involved in the construction. Since this assault, he has suffered from post-traumatic stress (PTSD). He has stopped functioning, fears and runs away from any stranger, and even from some family members. Mohammed’s home, one of the few still standing in that part of Umm-Al-Kheir – a village suffering continual destruction from the Occupation authorities – does not have a restroom. Therefore, residents must perform their bodily functions outdoors. On Wednesday, May 25 2011, while Mohammed was outs...