Here we have the three Ds – destitution, detention and, finally, deportation

By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

(source: The Independent)

Last week a British ship returned from Brazil after it was found to be carrying 1,400 tons of noxious waste to be dumped there. The Environment Agency says the UK does not allow the transfer of volatile rubbish to pollute poorer nations. That is the official position. The truth is that it still happens unless there is a furore, as there was with the Brazilian authorities. Sending thorny problems abroad is a long and hearty tradition. In the glory days of empire, subject nations were used and misused to sustain the industrial might of the ruling power. Troublesome people too were banished to distant shores.

From the late 18th century prisoners – many innocent or guilty only of trivial offences against the rich – were pushed off to Australia. Today, our declared war on terror has led to suspects – including British citizens – being held and tortured in Middle Eastern prisons, and many Muslims who have been tried in our courts and acquitted are forcibly returned to their countries of origin. Nobody cares. All Muslims are, these days, assumed to have anti-western toxins coursing in their hot blood.

On the day the ship came back from Brazil, two Pakistani men studying in Britain went back home to face an uncertain future. They were among the 12 students arrested in Liverpool and Manchester by the security services who claimed the men were planning an al-Qai'da bombing spree in the UK. It was a spectacular round-up which delivered no convictions. Not one of the men arrested was charged. The evidence presented against them was laughably flimsy, except no one is laughing. Instead of being released, however, they were returned to the cells and told they would be sent packing. Why? "Visa irregularities," apparently. Some tried to appeal against the decision, but most have given up the battle. Held without charge for over 140 days so far, they have to agree to leave or forcibly be put on planes.

Honourable chaps like David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown make stirring speeches on the rule of law and ethical conduct. Unofficially, the policy of D&D – detain and deport– is now used as a matter of course to rid the country of targeted Muslims whether guilty or patently innocent. (You could even say that the return of al-Megrahi to Libya has stopped a public inquiry and the mess that might have spilled out.) I have no problems with the removal of proven villains. The notorious Omar Bakri was packed off to the Lebanon and is thankfully no longer inciting hatred here, and the Law Lords have ruled that Abu Qatada, another firebrand cleric, can be sent back to Jordan which has been seeking his extradition. But when D&D is used as a matter of course by politicians and our security agencies against those they cannot nail, it is both vindictive and immoral.

Soldiers May Face Prosecution

By Deon de Lange

About 75 South Africans serving in the Israeli Defence Force could face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) if South African authorities decline to prosecute them for involvement in the Gaza conflict.

The Media Review Network and the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance - both based in South Africa - yesterday discussed this with ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in The Hague .

Last month the two NGOs asked the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to investigate charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes against South African citizens who participated in Israel 's offensive in Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 17, 2009.About 1 400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the hostilities.
Yesterday the two NGOs asked Ocampo to take up the case if the NPA declined to do so.

South Africa is one of only a handful of countries that have domesticated the Rome Statute - which established the ICC - and whose citizens can therefore be prosecuted at home for war crimes committed elsewhere.

Advocate John Dugard, representing the NGOs, handed the ICC a dossier which he says contains evidence that at least 75 South Africans served in the Israeli Defence Force during the Gaza conflict.

"We discussed proceedings pending before the NPA and the way in which he (Ocampo) could get involved," Dugard said, describing the meeting as "very useful and helpful".According to Anver Suliman, who attended the meeting on behalf of the Media Review Network, the ICC is treating the matter as a "preliminary exploration" and keeping itself up to date in preparation for a possible future prosecution.

Ocampo's spokeswoman, Beatrice le Fraper, played down the significance of yesterday's meeting.
She said the information provided would be taken into consideration as part of his ongoing examination to determine whether the court had jurisdiction over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza .

"Our preliminary examination of the Palestinian situation will include submissions from all concerned parties including the presentation today by the two South African NGOs," she said.

In line with the legal principle of "complementarity" contained in the Rome Statute, the ICC can only prosecute individuals if domestic authorities decline to act.

Dugard suggested the complaint lodged with the NPA was a necessary step to comply with this requirement. It provided the ICC with an "easier route", since Israel is not a signatory to the Statute and its citizens are therefore beyond the ICC's jurisdiction.Another prominent South African, former Constitutional Court Justice Richard Goldstone, chairs another probe by the United Nations' Human Rights Council (HRC), which is due to present its report to the UN Security Council soon.

If the NPA goes ahead with the case, it will become the first country outside the region to take legal action against soldiers involved in the Gaza conflict. It will also become the first country to prosecute its own citizens for war crimes committed elsewhere.

(source:Voluntary Humanitarion Doctors)

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Human rights org: Israelis willfully kill child in Jalazoun Refugee Camp, northern Ramallah

(source: Palestine News Network)

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the willful killing of a 15-year-old Palestinian child by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The attack occurred yesterday, 31 August 2009, near the entrance of al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of Ramallah.  

According to investigations conduced by PCHR, at approximately 21:30 on Monday, 31 August 2009, IOF troops stationed at a military observation tower inside "Beit Eil" settlement, north of Ramallah, opened fire at five Palestinian children who were near al-Jalazon UNRWA School, located near the southeastern entrance of al-Jalazoun refugee camp. One of the children, 15-year-old Mohammed Riad Nayef ‘Elayan, was wounded by three bullets to the chest.  An ambulance from Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Ramallah attempted to reach the area.

However, the ambulance was stopped by at least 30 soldiers who prevented the medical crew from attending to the wounded child.  Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian civilians gathered on the spot and attempted to help the wounded child, but Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters at the crowd. The ambulance driver, Usama Hassan Ibrahim al-Najjar, 37, was hit by a tear gas canister to the left leg.  ‘Ali Ahmed Mohammed Nakhla, 29, also sustained similar injuries.  
 
Mohammed was left bleeding for approximately an hour.  At approximately 22:30, IOF transferred the child to Beit Eil settlement where he was evacuated by a helicopter to Hadasa ‘Ein Karem Hospital in West Jerusalem.  In the early morning, Israeli sources declared that the child had succumbed to his wounds.  IOF have continued to hold the child's body.  IOF arrested the four children who were with ‘Elayan and kept them detained in Beit Eil settlement untill 03:00 on Tuesday, 1 September 2009.

One of the released children informed PCHR that the children were walking normally in the street where the attack took place and that they suddenly found themselves under Israeli gunfire. The boy said that when Israeli soldiers saw the wounded child falling onto the ground, they rushed to the scene and arrested his companions. The soldiers left the boy bleeding without offering him any medical aid.
 
PCHR strongly condemns the murder of a child by IOF, and:
1. Reiterates condemnation of this latest crime, which is part of a series of crimes committed by IOF in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
2. Calls upon the international community to promptly and urgently take action in order to stop such crimes, and renews its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations and provide protection to Palestinian civilians in the OPT.

Children boycott first day of school because Israeli soldier shoot and kill classmate

By Kristen Ess

(source: Palestine News Network)

The new school year began on a tragic note with the killing of Mohammad Riad Nayef. Children in the central West Bank’s Jalazone Refugee Camp boycotted the first day.Israeli soldiers occupying Beit El Settlement in the central West Bank’s Ramallah gunned him down on Monday evening. He was reported dead at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital early Tuesday.

His mother did not get to send her 14 year old to school on the first day of the new academic year. Instead, she sent her son to the cemetery on the first of September.The boy was the second of six children. His family has his photograph mounted in their living room.

Mohammad Nayef is the son of the late Fateh official in northern Ramallah’s Jalazone Refugee Camp, Riad Nayef. He too was killed by Israeli forces, but before his death had served as the leader of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service in Birzeit, the town known for its university.

During yesterday’s funeral for the young boy, Fateh members spoke as people who knew and loved him.
Mohammad was shot by an Israeli soldier occupying the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah. That soldier was in a sniper tower on the outskirts of Jalazone Refugee Camp’s prep school and the encroaching Beit El Settlement.

This boy was not the first to be killed in the area; in fact four have been, along with some 40 wounded. From the same place Israeli forces have arrested approximately 200 boys who they accused of “planning attacks” on the settlement or sniper tower. The prep school area is known as a popular spot to throw stones toward the settlement.

Although it was the first day of the new school year, children in Jalazone Refugee Camp decided to strike in honor of their fallen classmate.

By Ramzy Baroud

(source:Palestine Chronicle)

Peace negotiations can resume while Israeli bulldozers demolish Palestinian homes.

 A senior official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity on August 27. “It was more important that the scope of a settlement freeze was acceptable to the Israelis and the Palestinians than to the United States,” Reuters reported, citing the senior official. This means that peace negotiations can resume while Israeli bulldozers are carving up Palestinian land, demolishing homes and cutting down trees.

It also means that the Israeli rejection of the only US demand, which has thus far defined President Barack Obama’s relations to the Middle East conflict, has prevailed over the supposed American persistence. In other words, the US has officially succumbed to Israeli and pro-Israeli pressures, in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Those not familiar with the connotation of certain terminology in this conflict may not appreciate what it truly means that the US will no longer demand an Israeli halt of the ‘natural growth’ of its settlements, especially in the occupied Jerusalem area where tens of thousands of Palestinians are vulnerable to Israeli ethnic cleansing. Families like the Hanoun and Ghawi family have been evicted from their homes and thrown out on the street before sunrise. “The police came for them at dawn on a Sunday, heavily armed, wearing helmets and riot shields as they broke down the metal doors of the houses and dragged the two Palestinian families out onto the streets,” reported the Guardian on August 24.