Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.
It’s been more than 2 years since Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, a massive surprise air strike against the Gaza Strip. In its aftermath, researchers began to unearth and document evidence of war crimes, human rights violations. Among those investigations was the Goldstone Report officially titled the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza. The report is based on a course of investigations that include 188 interviews, the review of 10 thousand pages of documents and the inspection of 1200 photographs. While most war crimes reports fade into the night, The Goldstone Report is kept alive in a recent book titled The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.
The authors Lizzy Ratner, Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss have reprinted the central findings of the report and include 11 essays chronicling the report’s ongoing impact. The introduction is written by author Naomi Klein with a forward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Goldstone Report:
- LR: Operation Cast Lead: I remember thinking, can this just happen? Is there some kind of law that says this can’t happen? Judge Goldstone is South African, he was a member of the Constitutional Court in South Africa. He is seen as someone who really advanced international law.
- He’s a big Zionist. He’s a committed Zionist. In Israel, they loved him before this report.
- He was fast friends with the head of the Supreme Court in Israel.
- He goes to Gaza in 2009. It’s interesting he remark that thought that he would be kidnapped by Hamas. I think what happened, he went and he saw what life was like in Gaza, and had a bit of a conversion.
- This is not somebody you would expect to come out and issue a report like this.
- Our mission was there’s this report out there, it’s controversial, thunderous, it’s convulsive. Not many people have read it. Once we read it, it became clear, it’s contents were extraordinary.
- It lays out the events of Gaza in minute and devastating detail. We wanted to abridge the report and that really forms the core of the book.
- We have a series of 11 different essays. Each take for the Goldstone Report with a different perspective.
- PW: The first and last essays are from Gazans.
- It’s explained in very vivid terms what it’s like to be under assault, to see white phosphorous raining down on this strip, which is tiny, it’s the size of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket put together. 1.5 million people.
- Rogi’s thesis just itemizing this assault on Palestinian dignity, saying this is a basic human right, to live in dignity.
- Goldstone: Lack of discrimination between civilians and combatants. A deliberate attack on the civilian infrastructure on the means of life. Israel had several recourses before it launched an all out assault on civilian infrastructure.
- The Goldstone Report contradicts what Israel tends to say. One of things the report makes clear is there had been a cease fire for 6 months before the attack.
- United States – We’re not going to stop you Israel when you inflict collective punishment on 1.5 million people.
- This book really helps give a window into the current perception of the Israel, Palestinian conflict as a whole and how that perception is changing.
- AH: The anti-Goldstone report speeches were very uninformed. They treated him like a witch and ex-communicated him from the Jewish community. Goldstonereportbook.com
- The criminality, the complete selfishness, the utter indifference to other peoples lives.
- I realize how much I was made to hate Arab people and Palestinian people and to think that they were lesser.
- Everything you’ve heard was wrong about them.
- At the heart of it, the Goldstone Report tells the story of people who had to live through a horribly traumatic event. You won’t be able to dismiss 1300 people being killed as people that should have died.
- LR: Stop it Jewish people, you’re doing the wrong thing, you’re behaving in an immoral, unethical way and its wrong. Any human should be offended from what happens in Gaza and what still happens there.
Guests – Lizzy Ratner, Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss
Lizzy Ratner a journalist here in New York City, her articles appear in many publications including The Nation and Alternet.
Adam Horowitz is an editor and journalist covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, he co-edits the blog Mondoweiss and is a founding member of Jews Against the Occupation.
Phil Weiss, founder of the blog Mondoweiss, is a longtime journalist and regular contributor to the Nation and a fellow at the Nation Institute He’s the author of two books a political novel, Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, and American Taboo, an investigative account of a 1976 murder in the Peace Corps in the Kingdom of Tonga.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Gaza, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Ohio Supermax: Hunger Strike In Long Term Solitary Confinement
In an Ohio Super Max prison, 4 prisoners facing execution are confined to permanent restrictive solitary confinement. They’re on a hunger strike, bringing attention to their requests to simply be placed on death row. What’s the difference? Death row isn’t as restrictive as permanent solitary confinement. Jules Lobel, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh explains in detail the differences of regular prison, death row and solitary confinement conditions.
Jules is working to defend the prisoners, he says that long term, essentially permanent and very harsh solitary confinement is both cruel and unusual punishment that violates due process requirement of annual review. The state of Ohio has decided to keep these four in solitary confinement permanently. It’s not only in Ohio, permanent solitary confinement is becoming a problem nationally, particularly with people convicted of terrorism related offenses, including material aid to terrorism.
Jules Lobel:
Guest – Jules Lobel, through the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, Jules has litigated important issues regarding the application of international law in the U.S. courts. In the late 1980’s, he advised the Nicaraguan government on the development of its first democratic constitution, and has also advised the Burundi government on constitutional law issues. Professor Lobel is editor of a text on civil rights litigation and of a collection of essays on the U.S. Constitution, A Less Than Perfect Union (Monthly Review Press, 1988). He is author of numerous articles on international law, foreign affairs, and the U.S. Constitution in publications including Yale Law Journal, Harvard International Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. He is a member of the American Society of International Law
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Defending Grand Jury Protesters
As many listeners know, last September in a nationally coordinated raid, the FBI targeted anti-war and Palestinian solidarity activists, raided their homes and subpoenaed them to appear before a grand jury. The 13 people all of whom were critical of US foreign policy, later withdrew and asserted their right to remain silent. But in early December of 2010 subpoenas were reissued against 4 of those targeted in the raids. Three women in Minneapolis, Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sara Martin were sent reactivated subpoenas by Fitzgerald’s office and new Grand Jury dates.
We’re joined by Chicago based journalist and activist Maureen Murphy who also received a new subpoena. Maureen is managing editor at the website Electronic Intifada, though the site is not being targeted in the FBI probe. In a statement, the Electronic Intifada said, quote, “Although The Electronic Intifada itself has not been a target, we consider the grand jury investigation and all of the subpoenas to be part of a broad attack on the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements and a threat to all of our rights.”
We are also joined by regular guest, attorney Michael Deutsch from the People’s Law Office and is working with the defense committee.
Maureen Murphy:
- I don’t know why its happening, we do know that no crime has been identified. There’s nothing written on my subpoena that I need to bring any documents.
- We believe that the government is subpoenaing us so that we come before a grand jury and name names, and tell them how we organize so they can further disrupt their movement. I’m one of 23 activists now who have gotten the knock at the door. My subpoena says nothing but show up, so I think this is really a fishing expedition.
- In one home they took everything with the word Palestine on it.
- The government has expended a lot of resources on an investigation of a group that has always worked pubicly to advocate for a more just US policy. I was visited by the FBI on December 21, 2010.
- A national committee that has formed around the raids and subpoenas is calling for a day of action January 25, in front of federal buildings and FBI headquarters.
- I’ve already stated that I’m not going to testify.
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Michael Deutsch:
- In December the FBI went out with a stack of subpoenas, and wound up subpoenaing 9 additional people in the Chicago area which then makes 23.
- These people who are subpoenaed are all active in Palestinian support work. Arab American Action Network, Palestinian Support Group. This next wave of subpoenas are people who are they’re trying to gather information from.
- I’ve never in all my experience seen so many people subpoenaed to a grand jury.
- A lot of the Palestine support work has gone on in Chicago.
- Originally 14 people were subpoenaed and each one through their lawyer said they weren’t not going to voluntarily come in. Now they haven’t decided to enforce the subpoena, they said well get back to you when we decide what we’re going to do.
- There are 23 people lined up trying to figure out what the next step of the government is.
- These prosecutors don’t seem to know who they’re dealing with. They see the grand jury as a tool of oppression.
- I believe that the Israeli security apparatus is involved in supplying information to the US government.
- There’s no evidence here of any type of violence or weapons. We’re dealing with advocacy and associations.
- Despite Holder v the Humanitarian Law Project, we believe that it’s a total violation of the First Amendment.
- The underlying tenor is going after people because of their political ideology.
Guest – Maureen Murphy is a journalist and Palestine solidarity activist from Chicago. She spent a few years living and traveling throughout the Middle East, interning for the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq in the occupied West Bank in 2004-06 before she was denied entry and deported by the Israeli government. She also lived in Lebanon in 2007, learning about the human rights situation for Palestine refugees and the impact of U.S. foreign policy there.
Guest – Michael Deutsch, attorney with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Gaza, Green Scare, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power, Uncategorized
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Lawyers You’ll Like Series: Mara Verheyden Hilliard Part II
Today we’re joined by attorney Mara Verheyden Hilliard co-founder of The Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense & Education Fund in the second part of our Lawyers You’ll Like series. Mara and her partner Carl Messineo have worked to defend and advance fundamental civil, constitutional and human rights secured by the U.S. Constitution and under law. We talk about her work, and criminalizing dissent, surveillance, data mining, and FBI harassment. A lot of Mara’s work is at the intersection of first and fourth amendment rights, such as the assault on free speech, assembly and misuse of datamining tools. The Partnership for Civil Justice has many victories, and recently a settlement was reached in a class action lawsuit about the illegality of the arrests of approximately 700 protesters and other persons on Saturday, April 15, 2000 in Washington, D.C.
Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
- I co-founded the Partnership for Civil Justice in 1994 with Carl Messenio. We decided we wanted to do this work specifically, Constitutional rights, civic justice, public interest litigation.
- We began this work right after we left law school. We undertook some of the longest running protest cases that we had, in particular, the recently settled class action from the April 2000 mass arrests.
- I grew up in Washington DC and I spent my childhood going to civil rights demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations, having our house filled demonstrators. Both of my parents are deeply political people who care very much about civil rights, liberation struggles and womens’ rights.
- The core of the work we do we recognize as the underlying social justice movement.
- The municipalities, the governments, they want these cases to go on as long as possible, they want to fight a war of attrition, because they want plaintiffs to feel they have to take toothless settlements.
- The fact is the law has changed in DC, we’ve changed the way police operate. They can’t use these tactics, these tactics we took apart piece by piece have been removed from the arsenal of the police department in DC.
- The DC police can’t use the trap and detain tactic, they can’t hold people, they have to release them within 4 hours now. They can’t use the wrist to ankle handcuff mechanism against people anymore.
- Police need to have their badges plainly available and visible, they can’t come out in riot gear to first amendment assemblies. Now we’re seeing this effort (FBI) against solidarity activists with the raids and subpoenas. I think it is outrageous, and baseless for the government to be coming in and targeting people for solidarity work.
- It’s also reflective of the huge security apparatus that was put in place under Bush and is being accelerated under Obama. Those beliefs, that hope, that thought, that you can change the direction of the country that you live in, is absolutely true.
- All you gotta do is look at the past history of the United States, all 150 years.
- Recognize that it’s no fault to hope and to think that an elected official is going to do it, but historically the elected official has never been the one to do it.
Guest – Constitutional Rights Attorney Mara Verheyden Hilliard co-founder of The Partnership for Civil Justice Legal Defense & Education Fund. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is an activist, Constitutional Rights attorney, and the cofounder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. She is also co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee.
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United States Plays Down UN Report on the Gaza Flotilla Attack
A United Nations fact finding mission into the May 31, 2010 Israeli lethal attacks of ships traveling to Gaza, has reported that Israeli forces violated international law, “including international humanitarian and human rights law.” Eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American were killed in the raid on board the ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade. The UN Human Rights Council’s investigation judged Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory to be “unlawful” because there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza at the time. However, the United States criticized what it termed as the report’s “unbalanced language, tone and conclusions.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights, the Free Gaza Movement and the National Lawyers Guild responded to the report and the comments made by the United States at the Council
“Unfortunately, the United States used the opportunity of the Human Right Council’s discussion on the flotilla fact-finding mission’s report to promote its political agenda instead of engaging on the issue of legal accountability for Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and the unlawful attack on the Gaza flotilla,” said CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher. “The U.S. must recognize that there can be no peace without justice, and that until it supports accountability for violations of international law–even when violations committed by Israel – instead of a culture of impunity, it lacks the legitimacy necessary to serve as a broker of peace.”
Attorney Katherine Gallagher:
- There were 6 civilian ships and their goal was to both bring humanitarian aid to Gaza which has been under a Naval blockade by Israel for the last 4 years as well as to challenge the legality.
- The United Nations back in June 2010 set up a fact finding mission. The 3 commissioners traveled to London, to Geneva, Istanbul and Jordan to interview passengers. They met with legal experts and others to analyze the evidence they heard.
- The UN fact finding report was submitted last week, 56 detailed pages of what precisely happened that night on those ships on the night of May 31. It was concluded that the blockade is illegal under international law. It found that the 6 ships traveling to Gaza to break the blockade presented no imminent threat to the Israelis.
- The 3 commissioners have experience in international law matters. One had been a judge on the international criminal court. Their conclusions are grounded in law and not political conclusions. They were peaceful protesters preparing for an attack on the ship.
- It’s hard to see what they find as unbalanced. I think the report is carefully written, it’s cautiously written beginning with an analysis of its own mandate. Turkey very much welcomed the report.
- The bulk of the passengers were detained in Israel, at detention sites that had already been established.
- Confiscated property consists of cameras, computer chips, video equipment. It contains electronic equipment that provides first hand evidence of the flotilla passengers activities and then the attack on the ship.
- In the past 4 months Israel has been in possession of that material.
Guest – Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she focuses on holding individuals, including US and foreign government officials, and corporations, including private military contractors, accountable for serious human rights violations. Among the cases she is working on are Arar v. Ashcroft, Matar v. Dichter, Saleh v. Titan and Estate of Atban v. Blackwater.
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Post Coup Honduran Human Rights Crisis
A human rights crisis continues to get worse in Honduras, more than a year after the June 28, 2009 military coup. People on the front lines that oppose the regime installed after the coup are beaten and illegally detained by the state. Nectali Rodezno, Co-Coordinator of National Front of Lawyers in Resistance Against the Coup in Honduras is among the lawyers dircectly involved in defending those are being abused and whose lives are on the line everyday. To inform people about the ongoing crisis in Honduras, there will be a speaking tour this fall called JUSTICE IN HONDURAS: Witness for Peace Mid-Atlantic Fall Speakers Tour will be November 1 – 22.
Attorney Pam Spees:
- From that moment on you began to see alot of repressive tactics immediately after the coup.
- Immediately, leaders of that resistance were being targeted. There were several key people who were killed in aftermath of the coup. Walter Trochez was a key LGBT activist who was targeted and killed in a very brutal way. You also saw the targeting of labor leaders. The killing continue even in this new de facto administration.
- In March you saw the targeting of journalists. In that month alone, 8 journalists were killed.
- The Honduran judiciary were taking certain steps before the coup to help undermine Zelaya and what he was doing. We’re still learning about how much of this was driven by official US policy.
- Before the coup we had the financial crisis in the US that was effecting food security which was making it difficult everywhere. Zelaya was trying to buffer the Hondurans against this. One of the things he did was raise the minimum wage. He raised it and tied it to the food index.
- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
- On June 28, the Honduran resistance has set up its own truth commission, The Alternative Truth Commission. The International Criminal Court is an actor and could investigate and potentially prosecute some of these acts.
- In the US we have the Alien Tort Statute. It’s a very old law that allows non-citizens to bring suit in US courts for violations of international law.
- The courage show by all sectors of this resistance is just incredible. www.resistenciahonduras.net
Guest – Pam Spees, senior staff attorney in the international human rights program at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She has a background in international criminal and human rights law with a gender focus, as well as criminal trial practice.
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Civil Liberties, Gaza, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Holy Land Foundation Case Update
Hosts talk with Noor Elashi, Noor is the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. Ghassan is currently being held in the Communications Management Unit in Marion, Illinois and has now had his visitations canceled. Noor says visitations have been cruelly obstructed by a Texas prison guard while at the prison in Seagoville Texas in October 2009. Noor’s brother Omar is 9 and has Down’s syndrome, during a visitation, Omar ran up to his father to give him a hug and the guard says “What Mr. Elashi, you think you’re an exception?” After the visit, the guard filed a complaint against Ghassan for not following instructions. The same prison guard during Thanksgiving that year, prevented his sons from entering the room during a visit. Ghassan called the guard evil and compared him to a guard at Abu Ghraib. The guard filed another complaint. After an internal investigation, Ghassan’s visitations were banned for 6 months. The visitation doesn’t usually apply when an inmate transfers to another prison, but when Ghassan was transferred to the CMU in Marion, the visitation ban was upheld. www.Freedomtogive.com
As many listeners may know, Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five people from the charity. During the trial, the prosecution used unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury.
Noor Elashi:
- Book in progress: Eyes Like My Father, A Daughters Narrative of Displacement
- Father was sentenced to 65 years in prison for giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat committees – Palestinian charities in the West Bank and Gaza, that prosecutors were alleging were fronts for Hamas.
- These are the very same Zakat committees that USAID, the Red Cross and UN NGOs were giving money to.
- The Holy Land Foundation, co-founded by Ghassan Elashi, was the largest charity in the US until the Bush Administration with an executive order shut it down 3 months after 9/11.
- The material support law is a very flawed law and singles out Muslim charities and with the recent upholding of the material support law by the Supreme Court, I feel that Americans are at risk.
- There were 2 trials (for Ghassan Elashi) the first in 2007 which looked at the Zakat committees. Jury deadlocked on most counts against the HLF. The prosecution showed the jury scenes of terrorism, buses being blown up expecting the jury to be prejudiced by seeing this and convict Ghassan Elashi, and they didn’t.
- In the second trial, the prosecutors were more aggressive, the defense attorneys, families and civil libertarians around the world were flabbergasted, when the jury delivered all guilty verdicts after 9 days of deliberation.
- Trials took place in Dallas, Texas. Ghassan Elashi, Noor’s father and the CEO of the Holy Land Foundation recieved a 65 year sentence. Other fund raiser reps were sentenced between 15 and 20 years.
- Ghassan Elashi currently in a CMU – Communications Management Unit in Marion, Ilinois – termed “little Guantanamos.”
- As far as visitations go, those in and of themselves are cruel and unusual punishment because you travel all that way and you can’t touch, there is a plexi-glass between you and its monitored live in Washington DC.
- Four of the defendants are being held in CMUs, 2 in Marion, Illinois and 2 in Terra Haute, Indiana.
- My father is hopeful and optimistic, he does yoga and pilates, reads the Quran.
- It was New York Senator Chuck Schumer who co-authored the anti-terrorism law in 1996 that strengthened the material support provision.
- I’m the eldest of 3 boys and 3 girls. It’s a double tragedy, these convictions that were made possible by “fear” in the courtroom and the 65 year sentence. Appeal: they have until August 3 to file briefs.
- Humanitarian Law Project Supreme Court Case upheld the material support provision.
- During both trials, the prosecutors brought in an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a fake name. He said could smell Hamas.
- During the testimony, the court benches were cleared except for the family.
- Michael Ratner: After 9/11 they made it extremely dangerous to give money to Muslims anywhere in the world.
- Everybody is at risk at this point, even Jimmy Carter
Guest – Noor Elashi, the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. She is a writer based in Dallas, Texas. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, she worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In July 2008, she won the 3rd place Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Award for her manuscript titled “Displaced,” which she plans to expand into a memoir about the displacement of three generations of Palestinians: her grandmother, father, and herself. She can be reached at noorelashi@gmail.com.
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Austerity: Why and for Whom? – Rick Wolff
We are very pleased to have with us Professor Rick Wolff to update us on where we’re in this ongoing global capitalist crisis. Austerity has appeared in the titles of many recent articles on the global capitalist crisis. What is it? Rick Wolff writes in his article titled Austerity: Why and for Whom? the efforts to broaden the recovery beyond one year have failed and that failure has cost Washington trillions in borrowed funds from lenders. Those lenders now demand guarantees that those loans will be repaid to them with interest. The guaranteed demanded by lenders is “austerity.” To collect this austerity, the banks (lenders) want governments to raise taxes or cut government spending or both. Economic Recovery for the Very Few by Rick Wolff. An extreme burden imposed on the global economy. Rick asks, Why not collect austerity from tax exempt multinational corporations, churches and private institutions?
Professor Rick Wolff:
- Governments around the world borrowed enormous amounts of money, never seen before surge of borrowing. The urgency of the second impending crisis of capitalism, the second major collapse of capitalism in 75 years was so intense, the terror in the ranks of business was so complete, that nobody stopped to worry, just lend us lots of money, take toxic assets off our books and so on.
- Suddenly, the creditors who are lending to the governments are beginning to get nervous. They’ve been going to the governments and saying we don’t want to be stuck with a debt that your people might not pay back.
- Lenders: You either have to raise taxes on your people, save it and put it into a special account which will only be used to pay us interest on the principle or you cut your programs, your public services and put that into the same account.
- The name of the government’s response to the demand of its creditors is “austerity.” Imposing on society a severe regimen of rising taxes, or cut government spending to please and satisfy creditors.
- Yale, a multi-billion dollar corporation with billions of annual income, pays no taxes. Rather than increase the taxes of individual persons, why don’t we do what should have done long ago.
- Take a look at California, they’re laying thousands and thousands of state employees.
- No Economic Crisis: Annual world wealth report, the income of the top wealthiest people 2009 rose 17 percent.
- Banks are the buyers of government debt. The bankers produce a crisis, the government bails them out. The government borrows from the banks to bail them out. The bankers know there is popular opposition.
- French action against austerity: trade unions organizing general strike which will close everything in September in France. Will the pressure rise within US politicians to re-negotiate this debt?
- The state of Oregon, the democratic party controls both houses of legislature. To pay for the 700 million dollar gap over a 2 year period they raised taxes on business and wealthy people.
Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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Critical: Attorney Peter Erlinder Arrested in Rwanda
Former National Lawyers Guild president, Professor Peter Erlinder was arrested last week by Rwandan Police for allegedly denying the country’s 1994 genocide. He had traveled to Rwanda from Brussels on Sunday May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. He had recently attended a defense conference that they’d organized for the people working with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He arrived in Rwanda with the intention of defending aspiring presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire and joining her legal team. Ingabire is the opposition candidate who was recently arrested and accused of denying the Rwanda genocide. Prosecutors say Erlinder made statements in publication that there was no genocide in Rwanda. Under a 2003 law, persons condemned for denying or grossly minimizing genocide, attempting to justify genocide or destroy evidence related to it are liable to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 in prison. Facebook Group – Free Professor Erlinder Now
Professor Erlinder is 62 a Chicago native and professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law. He is a frequent litigator and consultant, often pro bono, in cases involving the death penalty, civil rights, claims of government and police misconduct, and criminal defense of political activists. He is also a frequent news commentator. Erlinder was president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1993-1997, and is a current board member of the NLG Foundation. He has been a defense attorney at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since 2003. National Lawyers Guild Page Updates
Gena Berglund:
- He’s accused of revisionism, revising history. Peter Erlinder years before found mountains of documentation at the UN about Rwanda’s history. He read them and discovered that the history of Rwanda is the history that’s told in the documents.
- He actually found that there was a civil war going on there for 4 years preceding the last 3 months when the alleged genocide took place.
- The civil war was the causation of the genocide. By doing this work, he encountered the wrath of the Rwandan government.
- He was trying to help the defense of an opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who was arrested for “denying the genocide” and when Peter Erlinder arrived in Rwanda, he was arrested on the same charge.
- Rwanda President Paul Kagame has discredited presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
- We don’t know in the US, what’s really going on in Rwanda. The US is supporting Kagame’s war in the East Congo, the war is being fought over minerals and rights to minerals.
- Those minerals are used in cell phones.
- Help Peter Erlinder: Contact the US State Department and urge them to take an active role.
- Rwanda President Paul Kagame put 7 people on a list of those he would like to see assassinated, Peter Erlinder was on that list.
Sarah Erlinder:
- My Dad is back in the hospital, the Rwandan government is claiming that he attempted suicide.
- Gena Berglund said in the press conference that taking the pills was a “strategy’ for Peter to escape the poor conditions in the cell where he is being held with seven or eight other inmates and handcuffed each time he is taken out of the cell.
- No one has been able to talk with him since he was arrested. Peter is in a private hospital, a shared unit with 8 other patients. Facebook Group – Free Professor Erlinder Now
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Guest – Attorney Gena Berglund with the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and International Humanitarian Law Institute of Minnesota
Guest – Sarah Erlinder, Peter’s daughter, attorney and National Lawyers Guild member.
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Israel Attacks on Aid Ships
International waves of protest continue over the lethal Israeli attack of 6 ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip. The shipd called the Freedom Flotilla, were carrying shipments of wheelchairs, prefabricated homes, crayons, raw construction supplies, dental surgery equipment and reams of paper in a relief effort to end the blockade in Gaza.
The Freedom Flotilla was an effort by a coalition of human rights and humanitarian organizations to nonviolently break through Israel’s illegal blockade, and deliver much needed humanitarian and developmental aid to the Palestinians of Gaza. Almost 700 passengers from 40 different countries joined the flotilla, including: human rights workers, humanitarian aid workers, Members of Parliament, doctors, nurses, teachers, community leaders, and international journalists.
The lead coalition partners included:
- Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), the largest coalition partner, contributing 2 Turkish-flagged cargo ships, the Turkish-flagged passenger ship “Mavi Marmara,” and 380 Turkish nationals to the effort. This was IHH’s first attempt to break the Gaza blockade.
- The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, contributing the Greek-flagged passenger ship “Sfendoni.” This was the European Campaign’s second mission to Gaza.
- The Free Gaza Movement, contributing the U.S.-flagged passenger ship “Challenger I.” This was Free Gaza’s ninth mission to Gaza.
- A Ship to Gaza, Sweden, and A Ship to Gaza, Greece, contributing the Greek-flagged cargo ship “Eleftheri Mesogeios.” This was the first voyage of A Ship to Gaza, Sweden, and the fourth of a Ship to Gaza, Greece.
Israeli Commando To Get Valor Medal / Rep. Sherman: Prosecute US Citizens Involved With Gaza Flotilla
The world watched in horror as Israeli commandos rappelled onto the ships from helicopters and opened fire. According to latest reports 19 people were killed and 60 wounded in the attack 75 miles off the coast of Israel and Gaza. The raid set off the strongest international condemnation of Israel since the 22-day military assault Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip 18 months ago.
Richard Falk:
- Legality of Israel continuing the blockage against Gaza: Israel disengaged from territorial occupation in 2005 but continues to control all the borders, airspace and sea entry.
- Israel completely controls what gets in and out of Gaza, including fuel and medicines so that it’s functionally occupied and legally considered to be occupied.
- Internationally, there are several provisions requiring you to protect the necessities of the civilians
- Hamas still considered terrorist government. A blockade is an act of war
- If Gaza is defined as occupied, it is collective punishement, if it not occupied it means this is an act of war
- The UN charter is clear that any use of force that is not legally justified as self defense against an armed attack is unlawful. The law is when you’re attacked on the high seas, you have a right to act in self defense.
- The Israeli attack was a violation of the freedom of the high seas and a criminal, unlawful use of force. As far as I know, these allegations about these terrorist ties and background are completely invented, completely contrived. The New York Times has given the Israeli disinfo campaign, credibility is doesn’t deserve.
- Under customary international law, you can’t do what Israel has been doing.
- It’s a vindictive treatment of the people, the family members weren’t told if their loved ones were alive.
- The Israelis can’t claim self defense. The Israeli use of force was excessive and disproportionate.
- Israel continues to enjoy US protection and impunity.
Guest – Richard Falk professor of international law emeritus, Princeton University and Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories for the United Nations Human Rights Council. His book, The Great Terror War (2003), considers the American response to September 11, including its relationship to the patriotic duties of American citizens. He published Costs of War in 2008.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Gaza, Human Rights, Iraq War, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander, author of the new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness joins hosts. Michelle book has been called an incisive critique of racial caste system in America. As many celebrate the “triumph over race” with the election Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in the US are locked behind bars or permenantly labeled felons. Michelle Alexander, a former litigator who is a legal scholar, argues that the civil rights community—and all of us— are challenged to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
Michelle Alexander:
- I began in my own research to question the prevailing political media narrative about the reasons of people of color and ghetto communities cycle through the criminal justice system today, it is not as it appears.
- I argue that in a few decades after the collapse of Jim Crow, we as a nation, have managed to re-create as a racial caste in America, in some major American cities, the majority of African American men, are locked behind bars, labeled felons for life.
- Legally discriminated in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. We have not ended racial caste, we redesigned it.
- The Drug War was declared in relation to racial politics, not drug crime. About 30 million were arrested for drug offenses after the launch of the drug war. Most were for marijuana possession, now considered less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
- Drug markets like American society generally are segregated by race and class
- The Supreme Court has made it virtually impossible for these cases to be brought.
- Baldus Study: McKleskey v Kemp
- Finding proof of conscious intentional discrimination is nearly impossible. Severe racial disparities are of no consequence, immunized not just the death penalty.
- I wrote this book, largely because I was deeply troubled by the failure of civil rights organizations and black leadership in this country to place mass incarceration and the war on drugs at the top of our racial justice agenda.
- Ten of millions of people in the United States are now regulated permanently to an under-caste, who are barred by law from seeking jobs or housing, public benefits, food stamps.
- Prisons have been holding many rural towns together as jobs have disappeared. The majority of people put behind bars are non-violent offenders. Every race suffers from this drug war, there are white people doing decades in prison for drug possession charges. The suffering of the drug crosses the color lines, and we got to be able to galvanize a level of public awareness and support.
- Something akin to a racial caste system is alive and well in the United States.
Guest – Professor Michelle Alexander, joined the OSU faculty in 2005. She holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the OSU faculty, she was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, where she served as Director of the Civil Rights Clinic.
Professor Alexander has significant experience in the field of civil rights advocacy and litigation. She has litigated civil rights cases in private practice as well as engaged in innovative litigation and advocacy efforts in the non-profit sector. For several years, Professor Alexander served as the Director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California.
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Ayman Mohyeldin, Al-Jazeera TV correspondent
Ayman joins hosts in the studio. He is an Al Jazeera TV correspondent and former CNN producer based in Baghdad. He was the only news producer allowed to observe and report on the US handover of Saddam Hussein to an Iraqi judge. Ayman has been stationed in the Gaza Strip since May 2008, where he has covered the Gaza siege. Ayman talks with hosts about his experience covering the destruction during Operation Cast Lead. Filmmakers and producers are working on a documentary film about Ayman’s war reporting in Palestine. Facebook link
Ayman Mohyeldin:
- Saturday December 27th, 2008, I had been based in Gaza. It had been quiet in Gaza up to November 4th.
- We started hearing the first wave of Israeli air-strikes that destroyed government buildings, police station within minutes. It kicked of a series of air strikes throughout the day. 200 hundred Palestinians were killed that day.
- We really saw everything, I can’t begin to describe the horrors of what we saw. On the first day we went to the main Gaza hospital.
- People of Gaza were trapped in a territory subjected to a very modern sophisticated, well trained and equipped Army.
- By Israel’s own admission rocket fire into Israel had dropped 98 percent 4 months ago (before Operation CastLead)
- What were the real reasons for the attack, the war was unnecessary given what was achieved in the 4 months prior.
- The siege on Gaza has allowed Hamas to tighten it’s grip on Gaza. The siege has not punished Hamas.
- Palestinians have recycled the rubber and steel from the destruction.
- I was standing on a rooftop and they were dropping hundreds of leaflets from planes, that read “your area is going to be attacked, if have any information about Hamas, please call this number.”
- Goldstone Report: Israel while bombing did not distinguish between military and civilian targets. Not a mistake.
- Targets include – Mosques, schools, ambulance drivers, government buildings, ministries, Palestinian Legislative Council Building.
- Gaza, historically was not an affluent place, it was a merchant trade route from Africa into Asia and Europe.
- Stunted growth is starting to appear among Palestinian children.
- Gaza: Desperate, frustrated, a sense of abandonment by the international community.
Guest- Ayman Mohyeldin, Arab American journalist based in the Middle East and is the Gaza Correspondent for the English language channel Al-Jazeera. Previously a producer with CNN and NBC, Ayman was one of the first western journalists allowed to enter and report on the handing over and trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity
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