Tuesday, January 2, 2018

PAME denounces the persecution of palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi by the state of Israel

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2018/01/pame-denounces-state-of-israel-for.html

Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, 16.

The Youth Secretariat of the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) denounces the murderer-state of Israel, which, once again revealed its barbarous face by arresting and imprisoning young children simply because they are defending their homes.

The arrest and charging with 12 accusations against 16-year-old Palestinian Ahed Tamimi, from an Israeli military court, is one more proof for all those who, together with the USA and Israel, talk about “Democracy and Freedom,” and imposing their “right” with military courts, imprisonment and murder of young children. 

It is a proof against the SYRIZA-ANEL government, which speaks of Peace and stability in the region, and builds relations with murderer states like Israel, which imprisons and murders young children, while the SYRIZA-ANEL Government continues to refrain from recognizing the Palestinian state.

The imprisonment of 16-year-old Palestinian is an attack against any young person struggling for his right to education, to work. It is an attack on the right of every young person to live in his country without imperialist interventions and wars.

The struggle of the Palestinian people for their children to live freely, in their own state with East Jerusalem as capital, is also a struggle for the young workers of Greece.

We express our solidarity with the Palestinian youth struggling against Israeli occupation and demand the immediate release of the 16-year-old and her family. We are strengthening our Solidarity with the Palestinian people

Youth Secretariat of PAME. 

Αναρτήθηκε από In Defense of Communism

https://www.rt.com/usa/412449-texas-prisons-ban-books/

Texas prisons ban ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ but not Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice men’s prison in Rosharon, Texas © Adrees Latif / Reuters

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3163444e78597a6333566d54/share.html

Experts: Impact of ongoing NFL protests unclear

Sports

CGTN

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‍Almost a year after then-49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality, similar protests swept the National Football League (NFL) and are set to continue, with experts describing the past week as one of the most significant displays of athlete activism in decades, but doubts about the long-term impact remain.

More than 150 NFL players – mostly African-American – chose to kneel or sit during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner on Sunday in an unprecedented protest following a tirade by President Donald Trump.

Trump created an uproar in America’s most popular sport by attacking players who symbolically refused to stand during the national anthem in an effort to draw attention to racial injustice.

Members of the Detroit Lions take a knee during the playing of the national anthem on September 24, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan. /AFP Photo

The US leader’s remarks were widely condemned by NFL chiefs and billionaire team owners — several of whom had donated to Trump’s election campaign — before the players staged their day of action.

Yet as a fresh round of NFL games kick off this week, it remains unclear whether last Sunday’s protests will gather momentum or slowly fizzle out. Some players who knelt last weekend have already said they do not plan to repeat the protest. Oakland Raiders tackle Donald Penn said his protest was intended as a riposte to Trump’s remarks.

“I’m not going to do it again next week,” he told reporters. “I didn’t want to do it this week. This all had to do with President Trump’s comments.”

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews meanwhile said he would continue to kneel “until the president apologizes.” The Green Bay Packers have urged fans to link arms in solidarity when they face the Chicago Bears in what is intended to be a “display of unity.”

US President Donald Trump reacts at the White House in Washington DC, US September 27, 2017. /Reuters

The mixed messages have created debate about the long-term effectiveness of the protests.

Losing the meaning?

For some analysts the meaning of the demonstrations has been lost.

Trump has reframed the debate as a question of patriotism, accusing those players who choose to kneel or sit as being disrespectful of the military and the United States.

Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University who has written about sports and society, sees the protests as continuing a tradition of activism started by black athletes in the 1960s.

“There’s a thread connecting Tommy Smith and John Carlos in 1968 to what we saw on Sunday — black athletes using sport to protest racial injustice, to say to America that it doesn’t have its racial house in order,” Starn told AFP.

Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick (R) of the San Francisco 49ers kneel in protest during the national anthem in 2016. /AFP Photo

Starn is uncertain though how effective the NFL protests will be in the long-term, suggesting that the opposing viewpoints in the latest round of America’s culture wars remain too deeply entrenched.

“About such a pivotal matter for American culture like racism and police brutality, people already have their opinions,” Starn said. “I doubt many minds have been changed one way or the other by this weekend or by Kaepernick’s initial, courageous protest.”

“This is a divided country. One part of it thinks that African-Americans have been given too many breaks; the other, a big segment of America, thinks we have real problems with racism and police brutality and wants to do something about it. But it is not clear to me that the status quo is changing.”

Going to ‘next step’

Members of Arizona Cardinals link arms during the National Anthem before the start of the NFL game on September 25, 2017 in Glendale, Arizona. /AFP Photo

Mary-Frances Winters, who heads The Winters Group, a consulting firm which specializes in diversity and inclusion programs, praised the protests as “symbolic.”

“But now it needs to go the next step,” she told AFP. “People need to sit down and have a proper dialogue. When you look at history, people who are protesting are often persecuted. It’s not until 50 years later that they are viewed differently.”

Winters agreed that the point of Kaepernick’s original protest — launched in response to several killings of unarmed black men by law enforcement who subsequently received little or no punishment — has been forgotten.

“There is a misunderstanding what this is about,” she said. “It’s not about the flag, it’s not about the anthem — it’s about racial inequities.

Indianapolis Colts players kneel during the playing of the National Anthem before the game against the Cleveland Browns at Lucas Oil Stadium. /Reuters Photo

“If you look at the history of our country, we’ve always had protesters who love their country but who also see the flaws in their country and simply want the country to be better.”

Starn, meanwhile, was uncertain about the significance of the number of team owners who joined players linking arms, noting that there appeared to be a division on racial lines between players kneeling and those who chose to stand.

“They (the owners) were linking arms with the players — but they were linking arms with the players who were not kneeling,” Starn said. “There seemed to be a pretty clear racial divide. I didn’t see many white players kneeling.”

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In an open letter we ask Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to order his government to release political prisoner David Ravelo. We invite individuals and organizations to endorse the letter. To do so, please send a name, city, state or province, and country to W.T. Whitney at: atwhit@roadrunner.com. The letter and names will be delivered to Colombian officials in mid-January.

1. T. Whitney Jr. prepares this letter which is a project of The North American Committee for the Defense of David Ravelo. In 2012 the Committee sent a solidarity delegation to Colombia on Ravelo’s behalf.

The Honorable Juan Manuel Santos

President, Republic of Colombia

Dear Mr. President,

Sir, those who sign this letter hold that the case against prisoner David Ravelo (cédula de ciudadanía 13.887.558) collapsed long ago under the weight of lies and a quite illegitimate prosecution.   With respect, we ask that you instruct your government to release Mr. Ravelo from prison. We point to a long, unvarying record of injustice against Ravelo.

David Ravelo was arrested September 14, 2010 in Barrancabermeja, Colombia. Charged with plotting to murder municipal official David Núñez Cala in 1991, he is serving an 18 – year term. Appeals have failed. His case is now before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Ravelo, we think, is emblematic of thousands of political prisoners in limbo now as Colombia implements its peace accord. Imprisoned combatants and civilian political prisoners may soon be eligible for amnesty. Ravelo needs to be one of them.

Barrancabermeja, Ravelo’s native city, produces 60 percent of Colombia’s oil products. In the late 1980s the Patriotic Union (UP) electoral coalition entered local politics. Soon David Ravelo was a UP member of Barrancabermeja’s city council and a UP delegate to the Santander Assembly. At the time, however, killers were targeting UP activists in Barrancabermeja, and nationally.

Charged with rebellion in 1993, Ravelo went to prison for 27 months.   By the late 1990s, paramilitaries controlled the city and its surroundings. They massacred 36 Barrancabermeja inhabitants on May 16, 1998 and 17 more on February 28, 1999.

In Barrancabermeja, Ravelo was a labor organizer, community educator, and journalist. He is a longtime member of the Colombian Communist Party’s Central Committee. Barrancabermeja’s Catholic Diocese honored Ravelo in 2008 for his 30 years dedicated to defending human rights. In response to paramilitary violence, he founded and directed the CREDHOS human rights organization. Many CREDHOS leaders subsequently were killed or threatened.

Ravelo in 2007 circulated a video, viewable here, showing President Alvaro Uribe socializing with Barrancabermeja paramilitary leaders in 2001.   The U.S. government, Colombia’s military ally, had complained about Uribe’s ties to paramilitaries. We suspect that the video, embarrassing to President Uribe, provoked his taking action against Ravelo.

Persecution, lies, and vengeance

Colombia’s government in 1999 convicted paramilitary leaders Mario Jaimes Mejía (alias “Panadero’) and Fremio Sánchez Carreño for organizing the two Barrancabermeja massacres. Each received a 20 year sentence. Having accused them, David Ravelo played a role in their downfall.

From Itagüí prison, paramilitary leader Roberto Pérez Álzate “gave the order,” says Ravelo, for Jaimes Mejía “to take revenge and accuse David Ravelo Crespo and José Arístides Andrade” of murdering David Núñez Cala in 1991.

Jaimes confessed to organizing the massacres of 1998 and 1999 in order to qualify for the Justice and Peace Law of 2005. According to that law, paramilitary leaders telling the truth and demobilizing troops would serve eight years in prison. In 2008 Jaimes confessed to the Núñez Cala murder and named Ravelo and ex- congressperson Arístides Andrade as accomplices. He claimed they attended a meeting in Barrancabermeja where the murder was planned. Again, accusations against Ravelo would ease his entry into the Justice and Peace program.

Jaime’s paramilitary associate Fremio Sánchez also confessed to the massacres and to his role in the Núñez Cala murder. He too implicated Ravelo and Arístides Andrade in order to qualify for Justice and Peace.

Jaimes Mejía was a FARC member when he killed Núñez Cala; only later would he join the paramilitaries. Accusing Ravelo of ties to the FARC, he showed investigators a 1985 photo of Ravelo attending a peace meeting with FARC leaders at a forest encampment. Authorities had used the old photo to put Ravelo in prison in 1993. Ravelo went free when the “Ravelo” in the photo was shown to be someone else, a journalist.

In the clutches of the law

The prosecution and trial of Ravelo revealed terrible procedural failings. The court, for example, accepted Jaimes Mejía’s accusation – a lie – that Ravelo and Andrade participated in a murder. Colombia’s Attorney General on August 20, 2014 charged him with lying, and a judicial unit specializing in false witnesses is investigating. Between May 26, 2015 and October 27, 2016, however, six scheduled court sessions were canceled.

Further, the prosecutor in Ravelo’s case, William Pacheco Granados, is a criminal. As a police lieutenant in 1991 he arranged for the “forced disappearance” of a young man. A military court convicted him; he spent a year in prison. Law 270 of 1996 prohibits anyone dismissed from “any public office” or convicted of a crime from joining “the judicial branch.” Now Pacheco Granados faces civil prosecution for murder.

And, the criminality of Ravelo’s accuser, Mario Jaimes Mejía, seems limitless. Jaimes arranged for journalist Yineth Bedoya to be kidnapped before she was to interview him in prison in 2000. She was beaten and raped. Jaimes received a 28 – year sentence.

There’s more: Jaimes Mejía bribed fellow prisoners to testify that Ravelo and Arístides Andrade attended the meeting where the murder was planned. Jaimes used prisoner Fremio Sánchez to recruit them, according to witnesses at Ravelo’s trial. Prison officials facilitated meetings to enable Jaimes and Sánchez to conspire against Ravelo.

And, none of Ravelo’s 30 defense witnesses were allowed to testify during the trial proceedings. Prosecutor Pacheco closed his pre-trial investigation without hearing testimony as to Ravelo’s innocence.

And, four weeks elapsed between Ravelo being convicted and the actual announcement of his conviction on December 11, 2012. This “flagrant violation of due process” delayed preparations for Ravelo’s appeal.

Lastly, the atmosphere surrounding Ravelo’s trial was grim; “family members and members of Ravelo’s CREDHOS organization continually suffered paramilitary death threats and harassment while the trial was in progress.”

Ravalo summarizes: “[T]he paramilitaries had ‘reasons’ for wanting to eliminate me. That’s why … they tried to assassinate me physically, but didn’t succeed. They decided to eliminate me judicially, and for that they implemented ‘the judicial façade,’ using the lie as their favorite weapon. It’s clear, therefore, that the truth is the first victim of war.”