Turkey: Silent Treatment of Hunger Strike met with Anger by Kurds

by Ruwayda Mustafah Rabar, Global Voices Online

On 21 October 2012

Hundreds of Kurdish political prisoners in Turkey have entered an indefinite hunger strike ^[1]. The non-violent protest has gone unnoticed by international media agencies and human rights organisations. One activist, who has been vocal about this protest, says the hunger strike demands the following:

@hevallo: ^[2] Releasing Kurdish leader of Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) rebels to negotiate a peace settlement

@hevallo ^[3]: Freedom to use Kurdish language in public sphere

@hevallo: ^[4] Political settlement for the Kurdish question in Turkey

Today marks the 40th day of their hunger strike, and since their start there has been very little information about the prisoners on hunger strike, and their demands in media outlets. Al Jazeera’s The Stream ^[5] has showed some interest to highlight the hunger strike, while other media agencies that respond to social networking demands have remained silent.

Palestinian hunger strikers ‘in immiment danger’

May 10, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

At least six of the 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are in imminent danger of dying, according to their lawyers.

Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry reports from Ramallah, West Bank.

New York Police stalking, harassing, and snooping on activists in Louisiana

[Under the umbrella of “Homeland Security”, over the last decade layer upon layer of repressive measures, technologies, and “inter-agency” coordinations have constructed an ever-present police state.  Repressing dissent, actively suppressing and jailing activist protests, intensifying racial profiling, and infiltrating traditional liberal groups before they take to the streets in response to the economic crisis–these have become the marching orders, organized in many ways.  Extraordinary nationwide police spying is often assigned to local agencies, who operate as organs of the FBI and DHS.  Such arrangements seem to underlie NYPD operations in New Orleans. — Frontlines ed.]

—————————————–

NYPD surveillance: ‘It’s ridiculous that they would come down to New Orleans’

As documents reveal the NYPD spied on liberal political groups, Jordan Flaherty tells how he was monitored in Louisiana

Ryan Devereaux in New York

guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 March 2012 16.13 EDT

[NYPD monitoring of liberal groups was revealed in documents obtained by the Associated Press. Photograph: Dima Gavrysh/AP]

Jordan Flaherty wasn’t exactly shocked to hear the NYPD had monitored a gathering of political groups in 2008. He was a little surprised, however, to learn of the significance the department ascribed to his role at the event.

A police report composed by an undercover officer at the time described Flaherty as “a main organizer” of the People’s Summit, a gathering of liberal groups opposed to US economic policies. The summit was held in New Orleans over the course of two days in April, 2008. According to the NYPD, Flaherty “held a discussion calling for the increase of the divestment campaign of Israel and mentioned two events related to Palestine.”

Flaherty – now a journalist with al-Jazeera – contests the NYPD’s “main organizer” claim. Upon learning his name was listed in a secret NYPD file, he says he went through his own records.

“I knew I wasn’t one of the main organizers,” Flaherty told the Guardian. “I had to go back and look at the record – then I find out there was a film festival at the same time as the conference.”

Flaherty says he introduced a film at the festival. He noted that protests related to the Louisiana gathering did not involve arrests, indicating they were little threat to national or New York security.

Unyielding young Egyptian protesters refuse to succumb to military brutality

Citizen Action Monitor, December 17, 2011

“At least nine people have been killed in Egypt and more than 350 injured in the past two days of clashes between protesters and security forces in Cairo. Soldiers have cleared Tahrir Square of protesters. And footage showed troops beating demonstrators and burning their tents. Protesters are calling for the country’s military rulers to step down. But the military blamed the protesters for the violence, and the country’s prime minister denied that excessive force was used.” —Al Jazeera

Here is an Al Jazeera video clip that captures the ferocity of military brutality against courageous young protesters. Also featured is Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal El Ganzouri’s bald-faced lies that the protests are “an attack against the revolution” and that military action is designed to “rescue the revolution.”

Egypt clashes continue for second day, Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo December 17, 2011

Force and fire. That’s how security forces responded minutes after the Egyptian prime minister promised no violence will be used. Protesters didn’t expect much from the man whose very choice of head of cabinet was the main reason behind their sit-in. Still what he had to say disappointed many.

Kamal El Ganzouri, Egyptian Prime Minister – “What we’re having today is not a revolution. It’s an attack against the revolution. I told the youths that I have met, more than 350 of you on 11 days. They are youth from this country. I’ve met them and I told them – This is a government to rescue the revolution of the 25 of January.”

But there was no rescue for these protesters who continued battling the military for the second day in a row. The violence spread from the cabinet and parliament buildings into Tahrir Square where the revolution began. Security forces stepped up their campaign after a government building, including a historic research centre, was set on fire in the melee.

They [state television] televised live footage of the violence. It gave the same line as military officials – that the protesters were simply carrying out acts of vandalism. No reference was made to security forces attacking other media. But whatever Egyptians were being told on state television, those on the ground, the ugliness they’ve witnessed first-hand is indisputable.

Indisputable, too, is the fact that the military council is gradually losing political ground. Already a new civilian advisory council that it had appointed, the new relations between the army and the protesters has suspended its work. The question now is whether the men in uniform will change their ways and if there’s even the will to do so.

“Anti-Defamation League” seems desperate to silence pro-Palestinian voices on US campuses

The ADL has attempted to silence all critics of Israel and all supporters of Palestinian rights, by claiming that opponents of Palestinian displacement are "anti-Semitic"

posted by Citizen Action Monitor, October 17, 2011

“The Anti-Defamation League is at it again. On Wednesday, October 13, the ADL issued its latest report on student activism, trying this time to reframe all work in support of Palestinian human rights as being “anti-Israel”. The ADL report targets pro-Palestinian student groups and warns college presidents they could lose funding for protests.” Kristen Szremski

The above passage is Szremski’s opening to her article, Israel lobby empowers Palestinian solidarity, published by Al Jazeera, October 15, 2011. A slightly edited version of the piece follows with added sub-headings. (To read the full, original report, click on the linked title).

Israel lobby empowers Palestinian solidarity by Kristen Szremski, October 15, 2011

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is at it again.

On Wednesday, October 13, the ADL issued its latest report on student activism, trying this time to reframe all work in support of Palestinian human rights as being “anti-Israel”.

The ADL report targets pro-Palestinian student groups and warns college presidents they could lose funding for protests.

The report, Emerging Anti-Israel Trends and Tactics on Campus, targets Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a national, grassroots nonprofit based near Chicago. Released a few days before the first national SJP conference at Columbia University in New York was set to take place, it accuses SJP chapters of fomenting “anti-Israel” programming on their respective campuses, while charging AMP facilitates the growth and deve­­­­lopment of these students’ groups. All of this combines to create an atmosphere in which Jewish students feel “insecure and unsafe”, the ADL claims.

AlJazeera: What’s behind the shifting politics of this “independent” news channel?

Behind the News / Columbia Journalism Review — September 28, 2011

What Wadah Khanfar Did For Al Jazeera…

And what the sudden departure of the network’s managing director might mean for its future

By William Stebbins

From the very first moment I joined Al Jazeera in 2005 to lead the launch of the English channel’s Washington broadcast center, there was talk of the imminent demise of Wadah Khanfar, the managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic. But until last week, when Khanfar abruptly announced his resignation, it seemed that the stronger the rumors were, the higher he climbed.

Many believe that Wikileaks provided the silver bullet that finally brought him down. Leaked diplomatic cables document a series of meetings between Khanfar and US embassy officials in Qatar, raising questions about the extent of US influence on both him and the channel. One especially damning cable from 2005, which has received extensive play in the Arab press, alleges that Khanfar agreed to a US request to remove certain pictures from the Al Jazeera website. Al Jazeera has claimed Khanfar’s resignation was in the works before the cables’ release; he has said he stepped down as the specific mission he agreed upon with the Qatari owners—“to transform Al Jazerra into an international news network,” as he put it in an exit interview—had been accomplished. Whatever the reasons, Al Jazeera has much to thank Khanfar for. He had built it into a global network, and led it to its greatest triumph.

Khanfar was at graduate school in Johannesburg when the original Arabic channel launched in 1996, and first appeared on air as an analyst on African affairs. This evolved into a job as a correspondent based in South Africa. In 2001 he began his ascent, and his career as a problem solver, when he was brought in to replace the Kabul bureau chief, Tayseer Allouni, and repair the damage caused by his perceived proximity to the Taliban. Then, at the height of the 2003 invasion Khanfar moved on to oversee Al Jazeera’s Baghdad operation during one of its most challenging periods.

In 2003, following a scandal not unlike the one that many believe to be the cause of Khanfar’s sudden resignation, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, the original Qatari managing director of the channel, was forced to step down. The Sunday Times published documents discovered in post-war Iraq that alleged ties between al-Ali and Saddam Hussein’s security services.

US State Dept’s fidgety, persistent efforts to control Al Jazeera

Saturday, October 1, 2011

QATAR TRIBUNE: THE ‘Open Doors’ (Abwab Maftuha) campaign launched by the US Embassy in Qatar last year has paid off in a big way to cater to the personal needs of the Qataris and in enhancing ties between the US and Qatar, according to the outgoing US Ambassador to Qatar, Joseph Evan LeBaron. One motivation:  Qatar sponsors Al Jazeera.

US State Department’s fidgety, persistent need to control Al Jazeera

By ©Brenda Norrell, Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

The US State Department’s obsession with Al Jazeera, as exposed by Wikileaks in the US diplomatic cables, is a good read for most anyone, especially journalists. Al Jazeera’s top director has already resigned. Still, four years of cables, 2005-2009, reveal how the United States demanded that Al Jazeera pander to US officials and the US perspective.

Besides Al Jazeera, the diplomatic cables reveal US Embassies obsessed with news reports around the world, from a Vanity Fair article that created US backlash in Germany, to media reports in Bolivia, of Evo Morales’ statements of CIA involvement in a planned assassination of Morales.

But no where is the US more upset about the news than when it comes to Al Jazeera, with a stream of US reports analyzing its coverage and repeated meetings with Al Jazeera’s top newsmakers and board members. The US cables expose the US Ambassadors and US State Department’s persistent, uncontrollable need to control the media.

United Nations Libya plans ‘revealed in report’

[In the Libyan “transition” from Gaddafi to new power relations, this report on the UN’s transition plan may indicate how the US/EU/NATO forces may direct–(and camoflage, if the history of the US-controlled UN-MINUSTAH force occupation of Haiti is applied to Libya)–their role in the reconstruction.  And while major countries throughout the imperialist system are apparently approving the plan as it takes shape, there are also reports of Libyan opposition to it.  It deserves close attention by all friends of the Libyan people. — Frontlines ed.]

Video: Leaked UN report outlines plan for Libya

AlJazeeraEnglish on Aug 29, 2011

A leaked document apparently detailing United Nations preparations for its role in post-Gaddafi Libya reveals plans for the world body to deploy military observers and police officers to the North African country.

The document was obtained and published by Inner City Press, the UN watchdog website.

Al Jazeera spoke to Matthew Russell Lee, a journalist who runs the Inner City Press.

Libya protest against moves to establish rebel power with superficially retro-fitted Gaddafi-ites

[It is important to note that former Gaddafi-regime officials, now in the NTC, are urging the NATO forces to continue.  These same officials, and others in the Gaddafi regime, had maintained the friendly and collaborative US-Gaddafi relationship in recent years until the emerging revolt six months ago crippled Gaddafi’s dependability as a deal-maker with the US, then the US turned its attention to controlling the rebel forces instead.  Some of the Gaddafi officials who had kept the regime’s relations with the US, jumped off the sinking Gaddafi ship and joined the rebel forces, often in commanding positions. — Frontlines ed.]

Dissent in Libya against NTC nominations

AlJazeeraEnglish on Aug 28, 2011

The NTC has been nominating members for a new government, but there is public resistance to the appointments. Libyans have held protests within the country accusing the NTC of not being transparent enough.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from a protest in Misrata, said: “They [the protesters] say the old guard of the Gaddafi regime are far too prominent in the list of people issued so far.

“They are also insisting there should be new faces for a new Libya.”

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reporting from Misrata.

Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark

Documentary for Al Jazeera English by May Ying WelshBahrain: An island kingdom in the Arabian Gulf where the Shia Muslim majority are ruled by a family from the Sunni minority. Where people fighting for democratic rights broke the barriers of fear, only to find themselves alone and crushed. This is their story and Al Jazeera is their witness – the only TV journalists who remained to follow their journey of hope to the carnage that followed. This is the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world.

The Independent (UK): Only some revolutions will be televised

By Jody McIntyre

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Another ‘million person march’ happened in an Arab state earlier this week.  Headline news, you might think. At least on Al Jazeera?  Whilst the media continue to focus exclusively on events in Libya, the huge march in the south of Yemen was ignored.

The Qatari-based news channel has played an intriguing role throughout the recent wave of revolutions across northern Africa and western Asia.  By “choosing” one uprising at a time to focus on, it has led the gaze of the public, begging the question, would a revolution on the Egyptian model have ever succeeded without the media attention Al Jazeera provides?

On the other side of the coin, these new media sources, and the Internet in particular, have allowed us to follow these uprisings in a way that would never have been possible in the past.  The BBC no longer can no longer monopolise our opinions; the corporate media no longer have complete control over which information we do and do not recieve.  By viewing Twitter feeds which are updated on a minute-by-minute basis, we are seeing events as they happen, not as they are reported.

Al Jazeera Told To Shut Down In Egypt

CAIRO/KUWAIT, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera was ordered by Egypt’s information ministry on Sunday to shut down its operations in the country, and later in the day its signal to some parts of the Middle East was cut.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Egypt demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian 30-year rule, in protests that have sent shockwaves through the Arab world.

The news channel, which says it can reach 220 million households in more than 100 countries, said in a message on its broadcast that Egypt’s satellite Nilesat had cut off its signal.

Al-Jazeera will release ‘Palestine Papers’

washingtonpost.com

By Janine Zacharia, Washington Post Staff Writer

January 24, 2011

JERUSALEM – Palestinian negotiators were willing in 2008 to concede sections of East Jerusalem to Israeli control as part of a final peace deal, according to a newly exposed cache of memos that al-Jazeera TV said came from the talks. 

Minutes detailing the concession came from a meeting in Jerusalem in June 2008 between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators mediated by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The document is one of more than 1,600 that al-Jazeera’s English-language Web site is calling the Palestine Papers, which it plans to post, WikiLeaks-style, over the next several days. 

Palestinian negotiators were quick to deny the reports, telling the Associated Press that parts of them had been fabricated.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said late Sunday, in a tweet, “The U.S. government is reviewing the alleged Palestinian documents released by Al-Jazeera. We cannot vouch for their veracity.”

Honor Wikileaks, not “Black Ops” and the call of duty

al-Jazeera, 9 Dec 2010

Leaks have made it harder for Western governments to dupe their citizens into accepting potential future wars

by Mark LeVine

For professional historians the publication of the vast trove of diplomatic cables is a bittersweet affair.

No one outside of the Washington establishment and the myriad foreign leaders shamed by revelations of their penchant for hatred, hubris and pedestrian peccadillos can seriously argue that the release of these classified documents has done anything but good for the cause of peace and political transparency.

Whether about Iraq, Afghanistan, or the minuate of American diplomacy, they have shed crucial light on some of the most important issues of the day and will make it much harder for Western or Middle Eastern governments to lie to their people about so many aspects of the various wars on/of terror in the future.

If the Nobel Peace Prize was honestly awarded, who would be more deserving than Bradley Manning, US Political Prisoner?

Indeed, if there’s anyone who deserves the next Nobel Peace Prize more than the courageous American soldier, Bradley Manning, who is alleged to have given the documents to Wikileaks in the first place, I’d like to know.

At the very least, given what a mockery President Obama has made of the principles for which the prize is supposed to stand – evidence of which, like pressuring Spain to drop criminal investigations into Bush administration torture have only come to light thanks to the latest WikiLeaks release – the Nobel Committee should demand his medal back and give it to Manning or whoever the leaker is.

A new approach to diplomacy-honesty and transparency

Already, thanks to WikiLeaks, citizens in the West and Middle East know more than they were ever supposed to about how corrupt, misguided, incompetent and mendacious are their leaders and the policies pursued in their name.

Morocco bans Al-Jazeera reporters over ‘irresponsible’ coverage

The Moroccan government must be feeling shaky if it has to ban Al-Jazeera

Earth Times, 29 Oct 2010

Rabat – Morocco has withdrawn accreditation from correspondents of the Arab television channel al-Jazeera because of their “irresponsible” coverage of the North African kingdom, the Communication Ministry announced Friday.  Al-Jazeera had violated the journalistic rules of “honesty, precision and objectivity” several times, the ministry said.

The Qatar-based channel’s coverage had tarnished Morocco’s image, downplaying its achievements in areas such as development, infrastructure projects, democracy and human rights, the ministry complained. It had also damaged Morocco’s interests in areas such as its territorial integrity, the communique said, in an apparent reference to Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara.

Al-Jazeera had not heeded several official warnings, the ministry said, explaining that Rabat had decided to expel the TV broadcaster after carefully evaluating its reports. The channel had also imported technical equipment without the required permits, the ministry added.

Al-Jazeera had reported critically on poverty in Morocco and on its policies in Western Sahara, a territory annexed after 1975, where separatists accuse Rabat of repression, observers said.