Analysis of video at the centre of the original allegations of “chemical weapons attacks” by the Syrian government indicates that the public is being misled about the facts in Syria and the so-called evidence of chemical weapons attacks comes about though a combination of riot control grenades, rebel fakery and Western intelligence duplicity. Continue Reading…
The big news is that, in the words of George Orwell “Big Brother is Watching You” – indeed everyone’s online communications are being constantly monitored and stored by the US Security Services. Continue Reading…
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is a phrase from the Old Testament, not the Holy Koran.
So it is perhaps strange to see it used by “Islamic” extremist Michael Adeboloja after he beheaded a UK soldier on the streets of Woolwich, South East London. Continue Reading…
On March 4, 2013, ‘rebel’ groups overran government forces in al-Raqqa city, the first provincial capital and only urban center to fall to the armed groups since the start of the Western-backed insurgency in Syria.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, “al-Raqqa serves as an important test case for how the opposition will administer territory that they seize from Assad.” Continue Reading…
You have to wonder to what levels of depravity Syrian rebels have to descend to in order to fall out of favour with western leaders, and the CIA and other intelligence agencies which have been supplying them large quantities of weapons. Continue Reading…
The text of the letter from the White House to John McCain and Carl Lewin, reproduced below, makes it clear that the Obama Administration has, despite media reports, not been able to confirm the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Continue Reading…
As FI begins in Bahrain, in an attempt to normalise the al-Khalifa regime, it is worth remembering that Western, and particularly British complicity in torture and repression in Bahrain goes back a long way. Continue Reading…
Better late than never, Human Rights Watch (HRW) have today called for the Libyan government to take “urgent steps to stop serious and ongoing human rights violations against inhabitants of the town of Tawergha,” and stated that the “forced displacement of roughly 40,000 people, arbitrary detentions, torture, and killings are widespread, systematic, and sufficiently organized to be crimes against humanity.” (Our emphasis) Continue Reading…
Bradley Manning – A five-minute film by Freedom of the Press Foundation Board member and award-winning documentarian Laura Poitras
Watch it, share it Continue Reading…
In an astonishing development, Human Rights First (HRF), a New York and Washington-based NGO, has issued a report and launched a new web site called Atrocity Supply Chain aiming to cut Syria off from any supplies that could possibly be used by the government for military purposes, regardless as to whether these supplies are vital to the economy, for the functioning of sewage and water systems, for hospitals or needed for civilian power or heating in the bitter winter. Continue Reading…
Whistleblowers perform a vital public service exposing government complicity in torture, terrorism, corruption, war and other human rights abuses. Continue Reading…
On February 28th, Bradley Manning made a 35-page statement at his trial in which he explained his motivation in releasing documents and video to the public. The extract below, from Manning’s statement, deals with the “collateral damage” video which Manning courageously leaked to Wikileaks, and which shows civilians, including 2 cameramen, being attacked and killed by a US helicopter gunship. The Pentagon repeatedly denied the existence of this video and refused to release it when requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Those responsible for this war crime have faced no justice. Continue Reading…
Abby Martin of RT is doing some good work exposing mainstream media war propaganda. The video below is from her latest programme. Continue Reading…
In a response to a Freedom of Information request, the UK Foreign office has claimed that “ethnic cleansing has not taken place” in Tawergha. Continue Reading…
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine “black sites” using torture techniques. Continue Reading…
A new report from Oxfam provides evidence that the super rich are a major human rights problem, becoming richer at the expense of those who are denied their rights to health care, food and economic security. More evidence from inside the US foreign policy establishment reveals how the super rich (who control the world’s energy, arms and tobacco trades, financial institutions and mainstream media) also dominate the political culture and foreign policy of the United States. Continue Reading…
Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, has tendered her resignation and steps down on January 11th. Amnesty are looking to appoint a new Executive Director. Continue Reading…
Seasons greetings to our readers! Our festivities are on temporary hold as we look at the Halfaya bakery massacre.
The main elements of the Halfaya bakery massacre reported by news agency Reuters, CNN, Al Arabiya and other media channels, are that Syrian MIG jets bombed a bakery in Halfaya killing more than a hundred (CNN) and at least 300 (Al Arabiya) people. Continue Reading…
President Obama said of the children of Newtown, tearfully, that they “had their entire lives ahead of them – birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.” Continue Reading…
On the 11 December the US State Department finally officially recognised that Jabhat al-Nusrah, which constitutes the shock troops of the Syrian rebels, is in fact an alias of Al-Qaeda in Iraq: Continue Reading…
Extensive and horrifying footage of an incident in which two men are executed by beheading in which a child participates now comes from two different sources. Continue Reading…
Since the start of our campaign to stop the use of child soldiers by the Syrian rebels – prompted by the images of the child at the massacre of Saraqeb – we have unearthed further disturbing evidence suggesting the use of child soldiers is widespread amongst rebel groups. It also appears that communications equipment provided by the US and UK governments to help Syrian “activists” is being used by jihadi groups to publicise their abuses and show off how they have brainwashed children. Continue Reading…
Bradley Manning has won the Guardian Person of the Year with a landslide 70% of the vote. Bradley was nominated by readers Michael Meo and M Henri after the Guardian’s editorial staff failed to pick the obvious people’s choice. Continue Reading…
Bradley Manning is a whistleblower, human rights defender and worthy recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize. Yet powerful forces in the US state are working to lock him up and throw away the key. The vindictive nature of his incarceration is exposed in the defense motion to dismiss the charges against him for unlawful pre-trial punishment. Continue Reading…
The following is from Haaretz’s live blog:
7:55 P.M. Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Israel’s operation in Gaza: “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” Continue Reading…
Jihad Misharawi, of BBC Arabic, cradling the body of his 11-month-old baby Omar after his house was struck in Israel’s air strike on Wednesday 14 November 2012: Continue Reading…
This is footage taken by a Reuters camera crew in Harem on the Syrian-Turkish border. The perpetrators of this war crime are members of the Free Syrian Army Idlib Martyrs Brigade. The Turkish government is complicit in this crime as it has been arming and providing bases for the insurgency, an insurgency which is destroying the ordinary Syrian people’s hopes for a peaceful and prosperous future, living in harmony with one another. Continue Reading…
by Daniel Kovalik (reproduced by kind permission of the author)
When I studied law at Columbia in the early 1990s, I had the fortune of studying under Louis Henkin, probably the world’s most famous human rights theoretician. Upon his passing in 2010, Elisa Massimino at Human Rights First stated in Professor Henkin’s New York Times obituary that he “literally and figuratively wrote the book on human rights” and that “[i]t is no exaggeration to say that no American was more instrumental in the development of human rights law than Lou.” Continue Reading…
A look into the published writings of Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib who has emerged as the President of the newly formed ‘Syrian National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition,’ indicates the western powers might not have got quite what they were hoping for in setting up the new body. Continue Reading…
This post examines a particularly horrendous violation of children’s rights: the phenomenon of child soldiers. The footage of the massacre of prisoners in Saraqi is evidence not just of a war crime but also of the use of a child soldier by the Syrian rebels. He was used in the assault on the army checkpoint and was at the massacre scene. There is no doubt that this represents serious child abuse. Continue Reading…
In a major blow to foreign intervention in Syria, the just published results from an independent public opinion survey indicate that the Syrian people overwhelmingly reject the Turkish government’s policies towards their country. 65% of Syrians surveyed regarded the Turkish government as very unfriendly or hostile with only 16% characterising it as friendly. Turkey has, of course, been one of the main backers of the violent, sectarian “Free Syrian Army”.
Asked to assess Turkey’s response to the crisis in Syria 69% of Syrians surveyed characterised the response as ‘negative’ with only 23% characterising it as ‘positive’.
In the two videos below, uploaded to YouTube, we see prisoners, including wounded, being killed in cold blood.
The unit involved is the Dawud Battalion led by Hassan Aboud (and possibly elements of the Al Khamsa and Ansar Al Haq Battalions) of the Sham Falcons Brigade (Suqur al-Sham). The Sham Falcons Brigade is one of the largest formations of rebels in Syria and commanded by Ahmed Abu Issa (real name Al Moujahed Sheykh Ahmed) who is also the head of the Syrian Liberation Front, probably the biggest alliance of rebels, reportedly supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
After being bombarded by Grad rockets, the town of Bani Walid has now been largely occupied by militiamen (including the some of the same Misrata militiamen responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Tawergha, the slaughter of prisoners in Sirte and other war crimes.)
US government documents show Obama and NATO’s intervention in Libya has led to an escalating humanitarian disaster as the Libyan people’s human rights, especially the right to life and security are taken away and the country faces the prospect of failed state status.
Two videos on the theme of humanitarian intervention have come out recently. Professor Maximilian Forte of Montreal has produced a film: LIBYA: Race, Empire, and the Invention of Humanitarian Emergency unveiling the racism lying behind humanitarian interventionism. Well worth watching and disseminating.
In interesting timing, Human Rights Watch have (16th October 2012) published a report by Peter Bouckaert, which provides proof of a rebel massacre of prisoners following the killing of Colonel Gaddafi.
In a scandal of the first order, pro-war Suzanne Nossel was appointed Executive Director of Amnesty International USA in January 2012. This is from her blurb on the Amnesty USA site:
The background to the video and image below is the ongoing bombardment of Sirte by NATO aircraft in support of the rebel brigades who are indiscriminately firing tank, mortar and artillery shells into this urban, civilian-populated area. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has refused to comment on why NATO is not fulfilling its UN mandate to ‘protect the civilian population.’
Human Rights Investigations has been following the situation of the Tawergha closely and here we draw the information together and find, based on the reports of witnesses, journalists and human rights workers, the situation of the Tawergha is not just one of ethnic cleansing but, according to the legal definition, genocide.
Guernica by Picasso
According to NATO’s own figures, Sirte has been bombed with 340 “key hits” from 25th August to 16th September. (we have been tracking the official NATO numbers in War: what is it good for – absolutely nothing.)
It has been described as a moment Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy “will savour for years,” “the ultimate photo opportunity” and “a moment which will shape French and British foreign policy.”
When Cameron and President Sarkozy went to Benghazi yesterday to express their support for Libyan rebels, they went straight to the site at which the rebels publicly beheaded an alleged pro-Gaddafi “mercenary” only weeks before.
As Libyan rebels, who have been lynching black people in the north of Libya, prepare to attack the south and Sabha, inhabited by black libyans, we hope this message from Martin Luther King finds its way through to Barack Obama.
Further specific evidence has emerged that there is a strong racist element within the rebel forces, including at command level, and it is the stated intention of these forces to ethnically cleanse areas they capture of their dark-skinned inhabitants.
Racism amongst the rebels including at command level
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, journalist Sam Dagher pointed out the obvious fact that the Libyan war is aggravating ethnic tensions in that country. The article talks about the fate of Tawergha, a small town 25 miles to the south of Misrata, inhabited mostly by black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade:
Ibrahim al-Halbous, a rebel commander leading the fight near Tawergha, says all remaining residents should leave once if his fighters capture the town. “They should pack up,” Mr. Halbous said. “Tawergha no longer exists, only Misrata.”
NATO Supreme Commander Europe (SACEUR) is Admiral James E Stavridis. His job encompasses the war on the land, air, on the sea and also the ‘information war.’ Admiral Stavridis is the first Navy man to hold this position.
On 21/07/2010 Admiral Stavridis picked this question out of the many sent to him on his social networks:
“What’s the best advice you can give to operational commanders to help with the information war, that is so critical in today’s environment?”
