More Than Half of ‘Armed’ Suspects Shot by LA Sheriff Were Not Armed

 

by Jorge Rivas

Friday, September 23 2011

A new study has found that in most shootings in which Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies fired at suspects who appeared to be reaching for a weapon, the suspect turned out to be unarmed. And in the last six years, all but two of those people shot were black and Latino, according to the study by the Police Assessment Resource Center for LA County Supervisors.

Over the past six years, approximately 61 percent of all suspects shot because an officer believed they were armed were confirmed to be unarmed at the time of the shooting. A little more than half of those suspects were holding an object such as a cell phone or sunglasses that was believed by deputies to be a possible firearm.

India: Struggle to create new state of Telangana intensifies with complete shutdown

[In India, the gap between rich and poor is huge and continues to grow.  And in Andhra Pradash, the gap can be defined by the way the state's economic, political, and cultural resources have been denied the people of the Telangana region.  In recent times, the long historic Telangana movement has sharpened its struggle for a separate state.  This week, things have intensified with a complete shutdown of rail, bus, autorickshaws, roads, and schools.  Various political forces are involved and have joined this massive people's movement.  -- Frontlines ed.]

Telangana stir hits rail, road services

newsxlive on Sep 23, 2011

The Telangana agitation is once again peaking. This is the 12th successive day that the agitation has been building up and the situation is heading for complete shutdown in all 10 districts including Hyderabad. Several trains passing through the region have either been cancelled or diverted for the 48-hour duration of the rail roko call given by the Telangana agitators. One by one, several services like bus, auto, schools and power have been hit.

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Pro-Telangana activists sleep on railway tracks during the rail roko agitation near Hyderabad on Saturday

2-day rail blockade in Telangana begins

Indo-Asian News Service
Hyderabad, September 24, 2011

Schoolchildren raising slogans in support of separate Telangana State at Moula Ali Station in Hyderabad

Transport services in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh came to a halt as a two-day ‘rail blockade’ and strike by auto-rickshaws began Saturday morning, adding to the woes of people already reeling under the impact of protest by the state-owned Road Transport Corporation (RTC).

In an unprecedented situation, commuters have no access to any mode of public transport.

As over 10,000 RTC buses remained off the roads in Hyderabad and nine other districts of the region for the sixth day, all trains were cancelled for Saturday and Sunday.

500,000 autorickshaw drivers joined the people's strike

Moreover, 500,000 auto-rickshaws also joined the ‘people’s strike’ demanding a separate Telangana state. Over 60,000 three-wheelers in Hyderabad are participating in the strike.

South Central Railway (SCR) cancelled over 72 express and 264 passenger trains originating from or coming to Telangana or passing through the region.

“In view of some incidents that took place during similar protests earlier, we are not operating train services this time,” said SCR chief public relations officer K Sambasiva Rao.

Leaders and activists of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) squatted on railway tracks at hundreds of places across the region.

Leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India-ML New Democracy squatted on the track at Kazipet in Warangal district, the main junction connecting south and north India.

The railways have cancelled all 222 (Multi-Modal Transport System) services or local trains in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and 102 DHMU (Diesel Hydraulic Multiple Unit) trains in other parts of Telangana.

The SCR authorities have also short terminated, diverted and rescheduled many long-distance trains in the north-south and east-west corridors. The rail link between Hyderabad and rest of Telangana and also between the state capital and other regions of Andhra Pradesh has completely snapped.

Telangana supporters have lunch on the rail track as part of their “rail roko” programme, in Nalgonda on Saturday

All the trains between Hyderabad and destinations like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Patna, Rajkot and Balharshah have been cancelled.

Hundreds of policemen, personnel of railway police and central paramilitary forces were deployed at stations to protect railway property.

Secunderabad and Nampally (Hyderabad) railway stations — two of the busiest railway stations in south India — wore a deserted look.

All the trains were cancelled from Friday midnight while some long-distance trains coming to Hyderabad were stopped earlier in the day.

On the 10th Anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa

23 September 2011

MEDIA ADVISORY from US Human Rights Network

Former UN Assistant Secretary General for the Center Against Apartheid, E.S. Reddy, opens the Durban +10 Coalition program on the 10th Anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA).

 New York City – The Durban +10 Coalition, convened by the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) and World Against Racism Network (WARN), ran its grassroots anti-racist program in NYC from September 19-21, 2011. The program opened with the words of E. S. Reddy, former UN Assistant Secretary General for the Center Against Apartheid:

We are not looking to persuade Western governments that ending racism is to their advantage. These governments and the corporations that they support and are supported by profit from global racism. We want to communicate to them that this is a war – a war for our basic human rights and dignity. We want to work with students and communities to raise hell, we want to go to local and state governments and raise hell, and we want to raise hell on national and international levels as well.

Indeed, the execution of Troy Davis on the eve of the anniversary of the DDPA nonetheless, could be read as a blatant exercise of white supremacy by sectors of the US government – an unapologetic willingness to continue its long history of institutionalized racism.

In the words of Mireille Fanon-Mendes, of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and Member of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and daughter of Algerian revolutionary and famed author Frantz Fanon:

Human rights law should be an instrument of transformation. The law is transformed by how it is used and interpreted. How can we move the law? The law is between our hands, it is not in the hands of the State alone.

Srinagar, Kashmir-bound US broadcaster is deported from New Delhi

[In yet another move to stem the growing tide of support and solidarity for the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir, the Indian government has deported (upon arrival) the US writer, journalist, and radio show host David Barsamian.  Such attempts to censor and block the international flow of information and solidarity must be condemned by people everywhere.  This attempt to block the flow of information about the occupation of Kashmir and the struggles of the Kashmiri people, is too late:  the word is out.  This deportation will not protect the Indian government and its occupation--indeed, it only exhibits the repressive and undemocratic character of the Indian State for all to see, and denounce. -- Frontlines ed.]

	by Suanshu Khurana, Bashaarat Masood, expressindia.com, kashmirlive.com
	September 24, 2011

David Barsamian, author and Alternative Radio host

David Barsamian was deported on arrival from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Srinagar, New Delhi –  United States-based broadcaster and author David Barsamian, known for his trenchant criticism of US foreign policy, was deported on arrival from the Indira Gandhi International Airport early this morning.

Officials said he was deported for allegedly violating the terms of his visa during his last visit. He had published reports on his visit — which needs a journalist’s visa — while he was on a “tourist visa,” they said. This time, too, he had a tourist visa.

Barsamian was scheduled to travel to Srinagar next week, said Khurram Parvez, coordinator of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), in connection with the report by a state human rights probe panel on the over 2000 unmarked graves in north Kashmir.

“He had delivered lecturers here in December 2008 and then again came in February earlier this year,’’ said Parvez. “We were planning to take him to visit the unmarked grave sites. He has done several interviews on Kashmir earlier.”

Muslim students in Irvine 11 case found guilty of disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador

‘Irvine 11′: Mother of student taught him to ‘express your mind’

September 23, 2011

The mother of one of the 10 Muslim students found guilty Friday of disrupting an Israeli diplomat’s speech said after the verdict was read that her son, Khahid Bahgat Akari, was innocent.

Lina Akari, 45, of Murrieta, said she trusted the United States’ court system and raised her son to relish the right to free speech.

“I taught him that you can express your mind,” she said. “I don’t understand what happened.

“I said here you can have freedom of speech,” she continued. “And look what happened.”

California Prisoners Hunger Strike resumes

[The historic California prisoners hunger strike continues on September 26, 2011, to press for relief from the oppressive and tortuous life-draining conditions and confinements in the "Security Housing Units."  There has been no positive response by the prison officials, but they have come back with reprisals and threats of cancelling paroles, petty privileges, and job assignments.  (see the threatening letter from the CDCR, below). (note--CDCR has released sobering numbers on prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU:  Of the 1,111 people currently held in the SHU:  Over 513 have served 10 years or more in the SHU; Of those, 78 have been in the SHU for 20 years or more; 544 have been in the SHU more than 5 years, but fewer than 10 years).  -- Frontlines ed.]

Gearing up for Round 2 of Hunger Strike

September 23, 2011

from http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

On Monday, September 26th, prisoners at both Pelican Bay & Calipatria will resume the hunger strike to stop the torturous conditions of Security Housing Units (SHUs).

Prisoners first went on hunger strike on July 1st for nearly four weeks, until the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) agreed to begin implementing some of the prisoners’ five core demands. The strike became one of the largest prison strikes in California history–stretching across a third of the California’s prisons (at least 13 State prisons), including more than 6,600 prisoners at its height. However, the CDCR’s response has been inadequate to say the least, giving prisoners & their families false hope of timely substantial change and an end to torture. For a detailed summary of the CDCR’s response to the strike, and why Pelican Bay prisoners are resuming it, read “Tortured SHU Prisoners Speak Out: The Struggle Continues.”

CDCR officials seem to be preemptively cracking down on prisoners in anticipation of the strike and have publicly said they were preparing to take harsh actions against strikers. Illustrating the CDCR’s hard-line stance, Undersecretary of Operations Scott Kernan said in a recent interview, “If there are other instances of hunger strikes, I don’t think the Department will approach it the same way this time around.”

• Lawyers who have recently visited Pelican Bay have taken testimony from SHU prisoners who have been retaliated against by prison officials for their participation in this summer’s strike. “Prisoners are receiving serious disciplinary write-ups, usually reserved for serious rules violations, for things like talking in the library or not walking fast enough,” says Carol Strickman, a lawyer with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “It’s clear that prison officials are trying to intimidate these men and to make them ineligible for any privileges or changes that may be forced by the strike.”

It’s these sorts of responses from the CDCR & forms of retaliation that show us prisoners are not recognized & treated as human beings, are constantly abused & tortured by the CDCR, and that the CDCR has no intention of stopping this. The prisoners clearly have no other recourse but to risk their lives, again.

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Hunger Strike Resumes in One Week!

September 19, 2011

Prisoners in the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) will resume their hunger strike against torturous conditions of imprisonment next Monday, Sept. 26th 2011. Read Tortured SHU Prisoners Speak Out: The Struggle Continues for more details on why they are resuming the strike.

According to family members, prisoners at Calipatria State Prison will also resume the hunger strike on Sept. 26th in solidarity with the prisoners at Pelican Bay and also to expose the brutal conditions they are in at Calipatria, where hundreds of prisoners are labeled as gang members, validated and held in administrative segregation (AdSeg) units, waiting 3-4 years to be transferred to the Pelican Bay SHU indefinitely.

The Calipatria hunger strikers have a similar, separate list of demands from the strikers at Pelican Bay, including abolish the defriefing policy & modify active/inactive gang criteria and expanding canteen/package items & programs/privileges for validated/SHU status prisoners (such as art supplies, proctored exams for correspondence courses, P.I.A. soft shoes, yearly phone calls & two annual packages).

A Nepali Maoist Speaks on the Lynching of Troy Davis

[On the day the State of Georgia murdered Troy Davis, and the first Black President kept silent and did nothing, protests occurred all over the world. Even in a remote village in Nepal, the word was heard about this outrageous criminal act of state violence.  A young Nepali Maoist, Uday Magar from Thewang in Rolpa, the village where the Nepali people's war began,  is among those who advocate for the continuation of the Nepalese revolution.  He wrote a statement on the lynching of Troy Davis in the United States.  We thank the blog Winter Has Its End for bringing this to our attention. -- Frontlines ed.]

by Uday Magar

We are shocked by this brutal act of America. We can prove that it is America who is guilty of murdering our friend, TROY DAVIS.

The question is: who is going to punish the murderer? The answer is: US.

A part of America is occupied by machines that reject love and justice. Even after it was proven that TROY DAVIS is an innocent man, he was inhumanly murdered. It’s crystal clear that America cruelly kills every hope that is likely to oppose it. It mercilessy murders the minds that show signs of opposition to its plans.

We are one with the big part of America that favours a society free of domination and discrimination in the name of race,color, caste, and class.

We are one Troy Davis who has bee murdered. We are all Troy Davis, and we will not die silently, but instead struggle strongly to establish the only nation in our imagination – A NATION OF WORKERS

YOUTH OF THE WORLD-UNITE!

Hundreds of protesters attack police station in China

September 23, 2011

(AFP) – BEIJING — Hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in southern China and ransacked vehicles, leaving dozens injured in the latest unrest to hit China’s industrial heartland, authorities said on Friday.It was the latest in a series of protests sparked by perceived social injustices in Guangdong, known as the workshop of the world for the tens of millions of migrant workers who toil in the province’s factories.

Rioters angered by a government land deal and rumours that police officers had killed a child wrecked vehicles and attacked police at the station in Guangdong’s Lufeng city, local authorities said in a statement.

Unrest first broke out Wednesday among local people but escalated after rumours of the child’s death spread, the statement said. On Friday, further protests were reported in a village nearby.

“On September 22 at around one in the afternoon, some villagers who had ulterior motives spread rumours about police killing a child, inciting some of the villagers to storm a border police station,” the statement said.

One insider with close knowledge of the incident, who refused to be identified, told AFP by phone that villagers took more than 20 government and public security officials hostage in the police station.

He said they were angry about the detention of four other residents, and only when these were freed did they let the officials go.

Students and police face off in Bogota protest

September 23, 2011

Colombian authorities and students faced off Thursday, with stun guns, tear gas, stones, and potato bombs at a university protest in Bogota, reported Caracol Radio.

The protest, involving at least 100 students of the Universidad Distrital, blocked Avenida Circunvalar, close to Calle 28, a roadway in the north of the capital city. Students were protesting reform measures being passed on Colombia’s higher education systems.

Police officers realized Thursday that protesters had stolen nine .38 caliber revolvers from private security staff working for the university during the riot.

At the protest site, students have been fighting with stones and potato bombs. In response, anti-riot police have been trying to control the protesters using stun guns, tear gas, and water canons.

At the height of the madness, an anti-riot police officer was wounded in the arm by an explosive device thrown at members of the police force.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/19183-students-and-police-face-off-in-bogota-protest.html

Nigeria: Privatisation – Labour’s Rally Paralyses National Assembly

At the National Assembly in Abuja yesterday as armed security men tried in vain to bar hundreds of protesting workers from entering the complex.

by Cosmos Ekpunobi And Adekunle Adesuji

23 September 2011

Business activities were disrupted for several hours at the National Assembly yesterday as the organized labour stormed the complex to protest what it called anti privatization programme of the federal government.

The peaceful demonstration almost turned violent, when the workers rained abuses on the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives Hon. Emeka Ihedioha and other lawmakers who had come to listen to the protesters.

The Deputy speaker who lost his temper in the process exchanged abuses with the workers.The story was not the same when the vice chairman of the senate committee on labour, Oluremi Tinubu arrived the scene to address the protesters. She was cheered by the angry workers.

Movement in and out of the complex was obstructed for hours as anti riot policemen formed a barricade to prevent the protesting workers from gaining entrance into the complex.

The Futile Undertaking of Palestinian Statehood

[This article by Esam Al-Amin traces Mahmoud Abbas' bid for UN-recognized sham "Palestinian statehood" as a maneuver to block and bury popular moves toward a secular, multi-ethnic single democratic state encompassing all the peoples of historic Palestine.  Such a one-state solution would empower the divided peoples of that land, but would dis-empower the Zionists and Mahmoud Abbas' "Palestine Authority" at the same time--which is why Abbas is so determined to prevent the single secular democratic state.

El-Amin argues, at the end of the article, that "Until U.S. politicians, power brokers, military leaders, corporate executives, media conglomerates, and opinion makers are forced to side with what is morally right, a heavy price must be exacted through the ballot box, sanctions, boycott, and shaming them in public."  But a growing number of solidarity activists and anti-imperialists believe that the notion of "U.S. politicians, power brokers, military leaders, corporate executives, media conglomerates, and opinion makers" EVER talking and walking from a "morally right" position is hopelessly illusory--and sights must be set, and long-terms preparations made, for revolutionary challenges to the entire system. -- Frontlines ed.]

Weekend Edition, Counterpunch

September 24-25, 2011

One State, Two States, No State

by ESAM AL-AMIN

Today, September 23, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas submits, to the UN the application for Palestinian statehood for the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

What are the implications of this effort? Does it serve the Palestinian cause? And why do Israel and the U.S. oppose this action? What’s the alternative?

Paradoxically, this month marks the eighteenth anniversary of when Abbas stood alongside Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn in a ceremony celebrating the signing of the Oslo Accords.

As one of its architects, Abbas sold the Oslo agreement to the Palestinian people as the vehicle towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people.

U.N. may delay vote on Palestinian statehood application

[While the Palestine Authority and the US/Israel maneuver to cut a deal or delay on the pending Abbas application to the UN for "Palestinian statehood" (a maneuver so hollow that many Palestinians have dubbed it as nothing more than a marketing strategy for Abbas to hold on to the appearance of credibility and power amid the rising popular challenges and demands, partly fueled by the "Arab Spring"), Palestinian people are not holding their breath for UN action.  -- Frontlines ed.]

“]

An Israeli soldier fires tear gas during clashes with Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank village of Qusra near Nablus [Reuters

“]

A masked Palestinian uses a slingshot in front of a flag during clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli troops at Qalandiya checkpoint [Reuters

See these pictures from the  West Bank, today…..

“]

Palestinian protesters burn an Israeli flag and a poster depicting US President Barack Obama at a weekly protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah [Reuters

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-un-palestinians-20110921,0,4194458.story

The move would let Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas keep his promise of seeking U.N. membership but allow the U.S. to avoid casting a veto in the Security Council.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

September 20, 2011, 8:35 p.m.

Reporting from the United Nations—

Diplomats on Tuesday raced to nail down a plan to deflect the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations, crafting a face-saving formula that could lessen the immediate prospect of a Security Council veto, which the Obama administration desperately sought to avoid.

Under the plan, the council decision on the application for recognition, which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to make Friday, would be put off indefinitely. That would buy time for the U.S. to try to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and would keep $600 million a year in American aid and other international assistance flowing to the Palestinians. Congress had threatened to cut the U.S. aid.

Diplomats said Abbas, who is scheduled to meet Wednesday with President Obama, had signed off on the plan.

The scenario, which Western officials have been trying to engineer behind the scenes for weeks, “is now likely,” a senior European diplomat said.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and ally of Abbas who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session, said Palestinian officials are willing “to accept some delay, of the kind you would have under normal United Nations procedures.”

Naked class warfare in the wake of the UK revolt

[An important debate is taking place among activists in the UK and internationally about the nature of the "rebellion" or "riot" in London last month.  But there is no dispute over the scale of government/police repression which is being carried out against thousands of youth--detailed in this article from A World to Win News Service.-- Frontlines ed.]

By Geoffrey Scott, London

Following the four days of rebellion that shook Great Britain last week in the wake of the police killing of a young Black man, Mark Duggan, the British state has unleashed a wave of repression whose severity has not been seen here in many years.

Almost 2,000 people have been arrested, and the police have announced that they hope to grab up as many as a thousand more from surveying CCTV footage. Most of the charges are the kind that would not result in detention, and still less in jail terms, in ordinary times. But the Magistrate’s courts have been working 24 hours a day after the upheaval and handing out three and four-month terms and worse in the name of restoring “law and order”. About half of those arrested have been sent over to the Crown courts, which alone have the authority to issue sentences of more than six months.

So far 138 youth under age 18 (legally children in England) have been sent to prison. The anonymity usually granted juveniles has been lifted by special order. The average age of those convicted in London is 19, and only one-third are being granted bail, instead of the usual 90 percent in Magistrate’s court. Jails and longer-term prisons are full to bursting, with 723 new inmates in the week before 19 August alone.

US building ring of secret drone bases in Horn of Africa and Arabian peninsula

September 23, 2011

The United States is building a ring of secret military bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula as it steps up the use of unmanned drone aircraft to strike at groups linked to al-Qaeda.

A base has been built on the Indian Ocean island chain of the Seychelles, according to leaked diplomatic cables.

Another is being established in Ethiopia, the Washington Post reported.

The US has been launching assassination missions in Somalia targeting the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab, which publicly supports al-Qaeda, for some time.

Manipur: General Strike protests Army’s capture and disappearance of rebel leader

The normally busy Waheng leikai junction wears a deserted look during the 12 hours general strike called by the KCP (Maoist) Wednesday.

Manipur bandh to protest missing rebel leader

Newmai News Network

Imphal | September 21 : A 12-hour state-wide general strike imposed by proscribed Kangleipak Communist Party (Maoist) against the alleged enforced disappearance of RPF/PLA assistant publicity secretary G.M Changjou passed off peacefully without any strike related incident.
The 12-hour general strike that lasted from 5 am to 5 pm today completely paralyzed the valley districts with inter and intra state public and private transport facilities staying off the road. Business establishment, private and public educational institutions also remained closed for the day.
However, few private vehicles were seen on the roads of Imphal even as government offices show lean attendance. Essential services were exempted from the purview of the general strike.
Assistant publicity secretary of RPF/PLA GM Changjou was reportedly picked up from a rented house in Dimapur on August 18 by suspected army men and has since been missing.
The 12-hour general strike was imposed against the alleged enforced disappearance of the PLA leader. This is the second time that a general strike has been imposed on the alleged disappearance of Changjou.