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Tag: human rights

From Mexico To Africa, Israel’s Dark History Of Training War Criminals, Gangs & Oppression
In this Dec. 24, 2006 photograph, police in riot gear march with their truncheons out in Oaxaca, Mexico. (Flickr / Drew Leavy)
March 2, 2016
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From Mexico To Africa, Israel’s Dark History Of Training War Criminals, Gangs & Oppression

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

AUSTIN, Texas — Despite its apartheid policies toward Palestinians and other minorities, Israel is often cited as the Middle East’s only democracy and a preserver of human rights within the region.

Not only does this public image sharply contrast with the reality of Israel’s brutal treatment of Occupied Palestine and the country’s institutional racism, but its government also has a history of supporting repressive regimes and human rights violations worldwide.

South of our border, Israel has used its experience in suppressing indigenous uprisings to aid Mexico with the Zapatistas, an ongoing Mayan uprising based in the Chiapas region. Writing in 2013 for Electronic Intifada, a news and activism site focused on Palestinian liberation, Jimmy Johnson and Linda Quiquivix reported that the freshly appointed security chief for Chiapas region, Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, was working closely with officials of Israel’s defense ministry to train his forces.

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Saudi Arabia Takes Proxy War With Iran To Nigeria As Shias Are Brutalized
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky speaks into a microphone in this 2013 photograph. (Wikimedia Commons / Tajo Malli)
January 15, 2016
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Saudi Arabia Takes Proxy War With Iran To Nigeria As Shias Are Brutalized

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

On Dec. 12, Nigerian government forces carried out a brutal massacre against the country’s minority Muslim Shia population, with some media reporting over 1,000 killed, after the military imprisoned and tortured the group’s important dissident leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.

The news of the slaughter of a minority religious group emerges as Nigeria announced it is considering joining Saudi Arabia in the fight against Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the group commonly known in the West as ISIS), linking two nations known for repression and repeated, disturbing human rights violations. Saudi Arabia, in turn, has a history of promoting the extremist religious ideology of Wahhabism that inspires terrorist groups like Nigeria’s own Boko Haram, the terrorist group that the country is still struggling to control, and even al-Qaida and Daesh.

And Zakzaky isn’t the only activist to face imprisonment in recent months — Nigeria has a reputation for quashing political dissent no matter where it’s source. However, the arrest and crackdown came just months after Muhammadu Buhari, a retired army general, successfully won election on a promise to restore order to the country.

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US Stalling Release Of Thousands Of Torture Photos Worse Than Abu Ghraib
On January 7, 2013, Activists in black hoods and orange jumpsuits march in Washington, D.C. to protest the use of torture by the U.S. government. (Flickr / Justin Norman)
December 16, 2015
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US Stalling Release Of Thousands Of Torture Photos Worse Than Abu Ghraib

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Next month, the U.S. government will return to court again to prevent the release of thousands of photos of military personnel torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been described as more horrific than the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos.

It’s the latest round in a protracted legal battle that began in 2004 when the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit demanding the release of some 2,000 photographs which were withheld by the government after it released the infamous images of Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where U.S. soldiers tortured prisoners.

One photo is said to depict a mock execution, while another reportedly shows the body of a farmer shot who was by an American soldier while he was handcuffed.

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School Of The Americas: Training Torturers & Secret Police For US-Backed Dictators Since 1946
A guest instructor debriefs students from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School after a field training exercise. (U.S. Navy / RJ Stratchko)
December 14, 2015
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School Of The Americas: Training Torturers & Secret Police For US-Backed Dictators Since 1946

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

For the past 69 years, many of the most notorious U.S.-backed South American dictators, along with their secret police and torturers, have learned their dark arts from a secretive American training facility.

Located in Fort Benning, Georgia, the facility changed its name from “School of the Americas” to “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” in 2001. Human rights advocates say the change was purely cosmetic, a result of the increasing pressure the facility faced from activists and other critics. In November, thousands protested outside Fort Benning in what has become an annual occurrence.

Originally founded in 1946 and based in Panama, it was expelled from the nation in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. According to SOA Watch, a nonprofit which seeks the closure of the torture school, hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, murdered or “disappeared” through the work of its 64,000 graduates.

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Native Communities Across North America Lack Access To Clean Water
A Navajo man fills a water tank in a pickup truck at a trading stop in Cameron, Arizona on August 31, 2008. (Flickr / Don Graham)
October 12, 2015
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Native Communities Across North America Lack Access To Clean Water

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

For many in North America, the notion of a community without access to clean water seems like something that would only exist in a far-off, undeveloped country. Yet impoverished indigenous communities throughout the continent don’t have clean water or, in some cases, any running water at all.

For members of the Navajo Nation, and some of Canada’s First Nations tribes, the struggle to get clean water is a part of daily life.

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US And UK Arm Child Soldiers At World’s Largest Arms Fair In London
At a protest against London's Defence and Security Equipment International, a banner hung on a fence reads "Arms Dealers Here Today. This Is Not Ok." September 8, 2013. (Flickr / cs2002)
September 18, 2015
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US And UK Arm Child Soldiers At World’s Largest Arms Fair In London

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Against the objections of the United Nations, this week the United States and the United Kingdom together helped arm the world’s child soldiers.

Tuesday through Friday this week, the British capital played host to the world’s largest arms fair, Defence and Security Equipment International, where global arms vendors — many from the U.S. — sell their wares to world governments seeking to upgrade their arsenals. The event was expected to draw 32,000 visitors from 60 countries, including multiple nations that make use of child soldiers in violation of international law.

According to a report from The Guardian, of the 23 nations known by the United Nations to use child soldiers, the U.K. sold arms to 19 of them during the past five years.

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