Oppression // Current

Senate Bill would allow "mentally Incapacitated" vets to buy guns

Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base, has been... more

Vierotchka
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6 days ago
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99 comments

Christian in Somalia Who Refused to Wear Veil is Killed

NAIROBI, Kenya, Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, according to a Christian source in Somalia.

Members of the comparatively “moderate” Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali, 45, on Oct. 19 at 9:30 p.m. in her home in Galkayo, in Somalia’s autonomous Puntland region, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.

The source said Ali had called him on Oct. 4 saying, “My life is in danger. I am warned of dire consequences if I continue to live without putting on the veil. I need prayers from the fellowship.”

“I was shocked beyond words when I received the news that she had been shot dead,” the source in Somalia told Compass by telephone. “I wished I could have recalled her to my location. We have lost a long-serving Christian.”

Ali had come to Galkayo from Jilib, 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Kismayo, in 2007. She arrived in Puntland at the invitation of a close friend, Saynab Warsame of the Darod clan, when the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab invaded Kismayo, the source said. Warsame was born in Kismayo and had lived in Jilib but moved to Puntland when war broke out in 1991.

The source said it is not known if even Warsame knew of Ali’s conversion from Islam to Christianity.

“She might not have known, because Warsame is not a Christian,” he said.

In 1997 Ali, an orphan and unmarried, joined the Somali Christian Brothers’ Organization, a movement commonly known as the Somali Community-Based Organization. As such she had been an active member of the underground church in the Lower Juba region.

Muslim extremists have targeted the movement, killing some of its leaders after finding them in possession of Bibles. The organization was started in 1996 by Bishop Abdi Gure Hayo.NAIROBI, Kenya, Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week... more

hpseaton
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26 days ago
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10 comments

Ahmadinejad Closes Three Newspapers that Were Critical of His Regime

"Iran has shut down three daily newspapers critical of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the... more

Chod77
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1 month ago
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0 comments

Sarah Kruzan: Sentenced to Life Without Parole at Age 16

Life in prison, sentenced at 16, for killing her rapist pimp who forced her onto the... more

animalia_libero
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2 months ago
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46 comments

Why Are People Resisting the G20?

Radical Students Against the G20 Why Do Twenty Voices Matter More than 6.7 Billion?... more

animalia_libero
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3 months ago
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2 comments

G-20: City adopts Iran/China-style free-speech policies

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
-George Washington

Less than two months after president Barack Obama, politicians, and other assorted celebrities declared themselves to be outraged by the repression and violence used against the people of Iran, a similar mindset has lead to a similar scenario being engineered for the streets of Pittsburgh. After years of red scares and wars on (certain) drugs and (certain forms of) terror which have long rendered the founding document of the US, the Constitution a meaningless artifact, the City of Pittsburgh's decision to declare any and all forms of dissent against the G-20 to be unlawful should come as little surprise to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention. Free expression is a human right and has nothing to do with dusty (and inadequate) relics in the Smithsonian (even for crazy right-wingers who want Wall St. to continue to make their health care decisions instead of DC) and requires no permit.

Organizations who applied for various demonstration permits have been summarily denied them by the City. Aside from outlawing dissent and broadcasting a message of intolerance for free expression, the City also hopes to demoralize and waste the time, energy, money, and other resources of the people organizing against the G-20 and its disruptions of our lives in both the short and long term, challenging the City in the courts. This also makes organizing for these events much more difficult when you are unable to finalize plans due to a lack of venue.

Applying for a demonstration permit is usually a pretty good indication that a group does not intend for their action to be any rowdier than a parade (St. Patrick's Day doesn't count) making the participants less likely to be attacked and/or arrested. These kinds of actions are a good choice for many people, who for various reasons, are unable or unwilling to be arrested, such as families with young children, people with health conditions, and people who would lose their jobs if such a thing occurred, to name a few.

Shortly after several other cities declined to host the G-20 and the gullible Boy Mayor accepted, State Senator Jim Ferlo applied for a permit to use Point State Park for what he referred to as:

...a large rally and cultural event involving national and international speakers and cultural figures around issues of the G-20, It would involve a broad spectrum of the community here, labor, faith-based organizations.

This permit was denied. Instead, the park will be used as a staging area for the armored personnel carriers, chemical weapons, riot armor, and of course the people who play with these kinds of toys, whose job is the same everywhere on earth: violently oppress the common people for the sake of the elite. Period. Whether it is Tehran, Beijing, Belfast, or Pittsburgh, the job description does not change.

Why are City employees, using City funds, to oppress and disrupt the lives of City residents, on behalf of a handful of finance ministers from other places?If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep... more

animalia_libero
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3 months ago
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5 comments

21st Century American Militias: Patriots or Nutjobs?

Militias are the on the rise. Is this a sign of a brewing American extremism or a new... more

JaminDime
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3 months ago
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54 comments

crime watch

neighborhood watch just got bigger

hunzedog
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4 months ago
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Israeli Police have evicted nine Palestinian families living in 2 houses in occupied East Jerusalem

Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. The US has urged Israel to... more

medinasoul
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4 months ago
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Zionism, anti-Zionism and the state of Israel

Haim Bresheeth is an activist and film-maker of Israeli origin, living in Britain, where he is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is co-author of “The Gulf War and the New Word Order” (with Nira Yuval-Davis) - an edited anthology on the first Gulf War, and “Introduction to the Holocaust” (with Stuart Hood). His documentary films include A State of Danger (BBC2, March 1989) - a film on the early stages of the first Palestinian Intifada. He is currently researching: Palestinian Cinema, Global Media Markets, Cinematic Narrative Structures, Film and memory.

Understanding the Occupation

"Most of my family was destroyed in the holocaust - in different concentration camps and in the Warsaw ghetto and I was born in a refugee camp in Italy immediately after the war... I'm not saying this in order to elicit some sympathy because this is nonsensical on this audience [mostly Jewish] obviously. I'm saying this in order to explain why its so easy for me to understand the Palestinians in Gaza and in the rest of Palestine. It is very easy for me to understand them because they live in a combination of a concentration camp and Warsaw ghetto for so many years that we have stopped counting...

Israeli Governments

"I don't think there is the slightest difference between the different Israeli governments in one important respect - the Zionist project was, is, and will be about the dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinian population of Palestine. It was this, it is this, and it will be this - every Israeli government has done this - it doesn't matter if it was Barak and now Sharon or Netayahu before him - it was no different..."

Water

"Israelis use 41 times more water than Palestinians - well what does it mean? Think about it. Its not just that they have very large swimming pools in the occupied territories - which of course they do, it also means the Palestinians do not have proper water supply for their agriculture which is the only industry such as it is that they are running here and there - there is no other industry that they were allowed to develop all those years. They weren't even allowed to open a bank during the Israeli occupation. Its interesting - most of the water in Israel comes from the West Bank... Palestinians cant even have their tomatoes growing, I'm not even talking about having a wash, cleanliness - I'm talking about very simple things - you cant even grow anything because the water will be cut off for a week at a time. I was in Gaza and my Gazan hosts were apologising to me an Israeli that they cant give me water to drink when we are having lunch with pitta's because the water was turned off..."

Wanting Peace?

"They [Israel] will do everything to make you believe that they want peace - I even believed it once and most of you have believed it - I know that. They will do everything to make sure that people in the West believe that they want peace - they will go to meetings, they will sign documents - they will do all that and then they will make damn sure that there is no chance of any of this happening..."
Boycott Israel

"If you are making sure in every shop you go everyone knows that because they hold Israeli products you don't buy there - if you bring about the destruction of the Israeli economy which Mr. Sharon is doing such a great job of and you help him in that destruction, more Israelis will come to their bloody senses and will realize that justice is not divisible, peace is not divisible, humanity is not divisible - you cannot divide them. We will have peace - they will have peace, we will have water - they will have water, we will have human existence if they will have it..."Haim Bresheeth is an activist and film-maker of Israeli origin, living in Britain,... more

Nader123
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5 months ago
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This is My Plan to Save the Environment

I help fight to save the world because I am a unity supporter and support... more

USWGO
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7 months ago
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0 comments

Afghan school for girls hit with poisonous gas

This is the third such incident in about two weeks.... more

fountaingoats
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6 months ago
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Campaign to close down School of The Americas - Part 2 of 2

Vera Leone: They may have changed the school's name, but we are still seeing the same... more

Vierotchka
added this
9 months ago
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6 comments

Campaign to close down School of The Americas - Part 1 of 2

Pablo Ruiz: US tax dollars are used to train Latin American soldiers how to oppress... more

Vierotchka
added this
9 months ago
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3 comments

Oscar Grant’s Family Sues BART for $50 Million

Family members of Oscar Grant, the unarmed BART rider shot to death by a transit agency police officer early New Year's Day, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday that seeks $50 million from the agency, its chief of police and three officers.

John Burris, an attorney for the family, had asked for $25 million in a legal claim against BART after Officer Johannes Mehserle shot Grant on the platform of the Fruitvale Station in Oakland.

Grant, 22, of Hayward, and several other young men had been pulled off a Dublin-Pleasanton train by police investigating reports of a fight. He was face-down on the station platform when he was shot, an incident that several passengers recorded on cell-phone cameras.

Mehserle, 27, quit the BART force Jan. 7 and was subsequently charged with murder. His attorney said Mehserle had meant to fire his Taser when he fired a single shot with his pistol.

Burris said Monday that the actions by Mehserle and by BART Officer Tony Pirone, who first detained Grant and five of his friends in the aftermath of the fight, were "more egregious than I initially thought."

The lawsuit Burris filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland on the Grant family's behalf also named Pirone's partner, Marysol Domenici, and Police Chief Gary Gee. The attorney suggested that racism had played a role in Grant's detention and death, an accusation that a lawyer for BART said is not supported by evidence.

Burris wrote that an unidentified officer "directed a racial slur at one of the young men" after they were detained. Grant was African American, and the other detained men were black and Latino, Burris said in the suit.

Dale Allen, an attorney representing BART and the officers in civil court, said Monday that Grant's death was "a tragic accident," citing Mehserle's explanation about trying to fire his Taser.

"BART has been discussing mediation with Mr. Burris in an attempt to bring closure to the Grant family, and will continue to do so," Allen said.

Allen said evidence in the case will show that Grant and his friends "had been identified as having been involved in an altercation on the train" and that officers had properly detained them. He said racism was not a factor in the case and that officers had uttered "absolutely no racial slurs."

Burris said Pirone struck Grant without good reason minutes before Grant was shot, and that Domenici threatened to "tase" the young men in the face. Pirone's attorney, Bill Rapoport, has said Grant provoked Pirone's blow by trying to knee the officer in the groin.

Burris filed the lawsuit on behalf of Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, as well as Sophina Mesa, who was Grant's girlfriend and is raising the couple's 4-year-old daughter.

BART spokesman Linton Johnson said Monday that a criminal investigation into the actions of Pirone and the other officers on the platform will soon be turned over to Alameda County prosecutors for a decision on possible charges.Family members of Oscar Grant, the unarmed BART rider shot to death by a transit... more