|
CAMPAIGN AGAINST CRIMINALISING COMMUNITIES
News Bulletin October-November 2004
The books that Texas banned
In its annual review of state schools and libraries, the American
Civil Liberties Union of Texas this week identifies 62 titles
that were removed from shelves during the 2003-4 school year.
These included George Orwell’s ‘1984’, ‘The
Upstairs Room’, an autobiography by Johanna Reiss who survived
the Nazi holocaust by going into hiding, Richard Wright’s ‘Black
Boy’ and Alice Walker’s ‘the Colour Purple’.
Suzanne Goldburg
Guardian, 1 October 2004
Eta political chief among 21 seized in raids
The Basque terrorist group Eta suffered its biggest setback for
a dozen years yesterday when the French police seized its political
leader and significant amounts of firearms and explosives in
a series of raids. Mikel Albizu, Eta’s suspected leader
and Soledad Iparraguirre, said to be its most senior woman were
among 21 arrested.
Guardian, 4 October 2004
Protesters stage rally outside prison
Human rights campaigners staged a protest rally outside the high
walls of one of Britain’s high security prison yesterday,
demanding an end to detention without trial as sanctioned by
anti-terror laws. The Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
(Campacc) gathered outside Belmarsh jail, London, to urge the
home secretary David Blunkett, to release 14 foreign nationals
being held without charge – or to accuse them of specific
offences.
Guardian, 4 October 2004
Terror laws ‘violate democracy’
Government powers to detain foreigners indefinitely under anti-terror
laws violate international law and threaten the very laws they
were designed to protect, a QC representing seven detainees told
a special panel of nine law lords yesterday. Convened for only the second time since the first world war, the
nine-judge panel is hearing one of the most important human rights
cases to come before Britain’s highest court, the House of
Lords.
Guardian, 5 October 2004
Intelligence from tortured Uzbeks attacked
Craig Murray, ambassador to Uzbekistan, has protested over the
government’s use of intelligence information obtained under
torture.
Financial Times
Psychosis and despair afflict terror detainees
Detainees held at Belmarsh high security prison without charge
or trial have become seriously clinically depressed, and are
suffering from anxiety, with a number becoming psychotic as a
result of their indefinite detention, a report by some of the
countries top psychiatrists concludes. The report has been compiled
by psychiatrists including Professor Ian Robbins at St George’s
Hospital in London and Dr James McKeith of the South London and
Maudsley NHS Trust.
Guardian
Greek leftists get 25 years
Four members of Greece’s oldest left-wing radical group have
been sentenced to 25 years in jail each for their part in a series
of bombings and a murder. They were not convicted of the more serious
charge of actually orchestrating or carrying out of the attacks
in which one policeman died, due to lack of evidence. It was part
of a police crackdown on radical groups in the face of intense
international pressure to improve security ahead of the 2004 Olympic
Games in Athens. All the suspects except Tsigaridas had denied
any involvement with the group. ELA was born out of opposition
to the US backed junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.
BBC News, 11 October 2004
US accused over missing terror suspects
At least 11 Al-Qaeda prisoners have ‘vanished’ in US
custody and may have been tortured, according to pressure group
\Human Rights watch yesterday. The group said the suspects are
probably being held outside the US without access to the Red Cross.
Metro, 13 October 2004
US holding 9/11 planner in Jordan
The US is holding at least 11 al-Qaeda detainees at a secret facility
in Jordan where they are subjected to interrogation methods banned
under US law, Israel’s Ha’aretz daily reported yesterday.
Financial Times, 14 October 2004
Heavy hand of the law
Last week’s seizure of material belonging to anti-globalisation
websites could have serious consequences for citizen publishers.
Last week, Rackspace, a hosting company with headquarters in Texas,
handed two of its London based web servers to the FBI after a subpoena
for their contents was issued by a US district court. The servers
contained material belonging to the Independent Media Centre.
Guardian, 14 October 2004
Terror prosecutions curbed by Lords
Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords, yesterday dealt
a blow to the government’s anti-terror legislation by making
it harder to prosecute under a law which makes membership of a
proscribed terror organisation a criminal offence. By a three to
two majority the law lords in effect rewrote a provision in the
2000 terrorism Act to remove the ‘reverse burden of proof’
Guardian, 15 October 2004
Envoy in human rights row dismissed
Britain’s ambassador to Uzbeckistan, Craig Murray, was dismissed
from his post last night as the Foreign Office claimed its ministers
and his colleagues no longer had confidence in him.
Guardian, 15 October 2004
Muslim attacked by ‘racist thugs’
A student was fighting for his life last night after being assaulted
by five men in what police said might have been a racist attack.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said ‘one of the suspects was
heard to say ”Do you want us to kick you out of our country?”
Metro, 19 October 2004
Racism is ‘the new terrorism’ as attacks rise
in Ulster
Community leaders in Northern Ireland have warned that racism is
threatening to replace terrorism in a rising tide of attacks
and incidents on immigrant families.
Independent, 16 October 2004
Ex Guantanamo bay workers claim prisoner abuse was widespread
The abusive treatment of inmates at Guantanamo Bay was far more
widespread than the Pentagon has admitted, according to a news
report published yesterday.
Guardian, 18 October 2004
UK Gulf war veterans call for action
British veterans of the first Gulf war and their supporters yesterday
demanded that the Ministry of Defence accept that many were ill
because of their service 13 years ago, following further evidence
that the US medical advisors were prepared to do so…Possible
sources include Sarin, a nerve gas released from weapons depots,
tablets taken to protect against nerve gas and pesticides.
Guardian, 18 October 2004
New politics takes a bow
The caravan of the European Social Forum moves on… the event
was remarkable on several levels, it attracted nearly 25,000 mainly
young people from more than 70 countries, it addressed legitimate
issues and causes that are below the radar of mainstream political
parties, and it brought under one roof a myriad of passionate non-government
organisations, social movements, artists, academics and fringe
political parties.
Guardian, 18 October 2004
Abu Hamza charged with inciting murder
The radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza appeared in court yesterday
accused of 16 offences, including 10 of encouraging his followers
to murder Jews or other non Muslims, for which he could face
a life sentence
Guardian, 20 October 04
Insurgents’ al-Qaeda ploy ‘aimed at US vote’
Several Islamist websites broadcast a statement this week saying
that militants led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who have claimed
responsibility for numerous kidnappings and killings, have pledged
allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader.
Financial Times, 20 October 2004
Soldier says Abu Ghraib interrogators told him to stage mock electrocution
A US soldier on trial for abusing Iraqi prisoners told a Baghdad
court martial yesterday that he had hooked up wires around a
hooded detainee in a mock electrocution at the behest of military
and civilian intelligence officials
Guardian, 21 October 2004
Morocans suffer from terror war
A new Human Rights Watch report says that more than 2,000 suspected
Islamic militants have been arrested since last years Casablanca
suicide bombings. HRW urges the US and European Union to integrate
human rights into their growing security co-operation with Morocco.
BBC News, 21 October 2004
Abu Ghraib team bids to run UK prisons
The Utah-based management and training Corporation has set up a
London headquarters and is in advanced negotiations to operate
at least one prison in Britain. It is also planning to bids to
build and manage a number of other jails including the extension
to Belmarsh in SE London, Britain’s maximum security prison,
where terrorist suspects are being held without trial
Observer, 24 October 2004
Blunkett rejects refugee agency’s call to halt forced
return of Iraqis
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary is on a collision course with
the United Nations refugee agency over his determination to restrict
the number of Iraqis seeking asylum in Britain….. The UNHCR
insists Iraq remains too dangerous to justify the forced return
of asylum seekers wanting sanctuary in other countries.
Financial Times, 27 October 2004
78 Thai Muslims suffocate in army trucks
Manit Sutaporn, a justice ministry official said the demonstrators
died during the five hour journey to barracks in Pattani ….
The global rise of Islamic extremism is thought by experts to
have helped rekindle a decades old separatist struggle in southern
Thailand
Financial Times, 27 October 2004
Guantanamo Britons sue Rumsfeld
Four Britons who claim they were repeatedly tortured at Guantanamo
Bay yesterday began suing Donald Rumsfeld and other US military
leaders for 6million UK pounds each in compensation
Guardian, 28 October 2004
Courts can rule on foreign Torture
Torturers in foreign countries can be sued for damages in the English
courts, the court of appeal said yesterday, a judgment hailed
by civil rights lawyers as a historic victory
Guardian, 29 October 2004
Jailed ETA leaders say armed struggle is failing and call for
political campaigns
Six senior ETA leaders serving prison terms have urged the Basque
leadership separatist’s high command to abandon the armed
struggle in favour of political action. The letter reveals a fierce
internal debate taking place in ETA.
Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
3 Nov 2004
European Council to adopt new multiannual programme.
On 5 November 2004 the European Council will adopt a new comprehensive
programme for 2005 – 2009 on strengthening freedom, security
and justice in the EU
BBC, 3 November 2004
Police reach out to Kurds
Police and Kurdish community representatives in Manchester are
to hold further talks after a largely successful bridge building
exercise at the weekend. Participants in a closed meeting, after
the arrest and release of 10 Kurds in a huge anti-terrorist operation,
said that progress had been made.
Guardian, 6 Nov 04
Shame of Hue and Falluja
…
..Perhaps Ayad Allawi is taking a leaf out of our own government’s
book, it too, alone among western European countries, has been
using special powers under a ‘state of emergency’ declared
after 9/11 to send foreigners to prison without charge or trial,
purely on the basis of what the home secretary thinks they might
do .It is a blatant fiction designed to relieve the government
of its human rights obligation under national and international
laws to allow those whom it imprisons to have a fair trial. If
the law lords in their forthcoming decision fail to overturn it,
there will be an urgent need for parliament to do so. What a disgraceful
example for the nation of the Magna Carta to set to the world,
including Iraq and ”many other Arab regimes”
Letter, Guardian, Brian Barder Diplomatic Service 1965-94, 10 November
2004
Terror suspects arrested after Hague guns siege
Dutch special forces yesterday stormed an apartment in the Hague
and arrested two suspected terrorists, ending a violent 14-hour
standoff that came amid mounting tensions in the Netherlands
following the murder of the film maker Theo van Gogh.
Guardian, 11 November 04
Plea for end to attacks on Woolf
The government’s senior law officer made an extraordinary
plea to the media yesterday to drop a ‘campaign of vilification’ against
the lord chief justice Lord Woolf. Newspapers which attacked Lord
Woolf over his proposals that murders who pleaded guilty could
get up to one third off their prison time were damaging public
confidence in the administration of justice.
Guardian, 13 November 2004
----------------------------------
CAMPACC News Bulletin is published by
Campaign Against Criminalising Communities - CAMPACC
estella24@tiscali.co.uk
|
