Winter Patriot Community Blog

February 24, 2012 - Adnan symbolizes decades of merciless Israeli repression. He preferred death over living under its ruthless boot. Now, after Israel's promised April release, he struggles to live. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) examined and him several times during Safed Hospital captivity. He's still there in deteriorated condition. Sixty-six days without food left him perilously close to death. After he agreed to again ingest food, PHR-I said he's "expected to go through a long and complicated recovery process." Its outcome is far from certain. PHR-I will issue regular updates...

February 24, 2012 - ...The Khan Younis Training Centre (KYTC), located near Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, was set up by UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) in 2007 to provide training for Gazan refugees and to inject skilled labour into the local economy. One of the programmes it offers is Autotronics, which includes diagnosis, maintenance & repair of automotive systems, injection & ignition systems and electronics & electrical systems. Ever since Hamas won the 2006 elections in Palestine and enforced their right to govern the Gaza Strip this tiny coastal enclave has been viciously blockaded by Israel, turning it into a prison. Nothing gets in or out without Israel's say-so....

February 24, 2012 - Israel was the focus of discussions by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) earlier this month. Israel is obliged to submit a report to the Geneva-based committee on how it has implemented the rights enshrined in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) every two years. However, Israel waited until this year to submit a series of reports that were formally due in 2006, 2008 and 2010....

February 24, 2012 - The ''friends'' of Syria meeting in Tunis have demonstrated the extent of their impotence in tackling the violence taking place in the country, which has seen more than seventy people killed today, anti-regime activists say. Meanwhile the Red Cross is engaged in a very difficult negotiation in Homs in order to evacuate journalists to Lebanon, who have been wounded in the heavily bombarded Bab Amro area over recent days. The much-awaited meeting in Tunisia, which has seen more than 50 representatives from nations and international organisations, started in the afternoon....On the humanitarian level, the 'friends of Syria' have set a ''48-hour ultimatum'' to Damascus to provide help to civilians who have been injured in the violence. The draft document does not specify the precise nature of the consequences for the Syrian regime should the ultimatum not be kept... The United States went no further than the statement, from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that if Assad refuses humanitarian aid for his people, his hands will be even more ''blood-soaked''....

February 24, 2012 - U.S. intelligence agencies don't believe Iran is actively trying to build an atomic bomb. A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003. The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so. Although Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels, U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence that has caused them to significantly revise that judgment. Senior U.S. officials say Israel does not dispute the basic intelligence or analysis....

February 24, 2012 -- Thousands of Palestinians rallied in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, commemorating the anniversary of a deadly shooting in Hebron's revered mosque. The protesters, marching from the Wasaya Rasul Allah mosque in southern Hebron, demanded the city's main thoroughfare be reopened after Israeli forces shut it off shortly after extremist settler Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians at prayer. Israeli forces deployed throughout the city in advance to prevent the demonstrations, an Israeli army spokesman said. Soldiers detained six Palestinians from the march, including coordinator of Youth Against Settlement....

February 24, 2012 - President Barack Obama condoned America's drone program last month, dismissing allegations that it's caused more harm than good. In Pakistan, the families of civilians killed in these strikes are pleading with the UN to tell America otherwise. Reprieve, a legal action charity based out of London, UK, has delivered a complaint to the United Nations on behalf of the families of slain Pakistani civilians. More than a dozen families in Pakistan have appealed to Reprieve for assistance after their own pleas for the abandonment of drone use in their country have been ignored by the US. Now with the aid of the British-based organization, they hope that the UN will intervene and put an end to American drone attacks....

February 24, 2012 - Israeli soldiers Friday opened fire and killed Talat Ramiyeh, 23, during demonstrations near the Israeli army checkpoint at Qalandia, south of Ramallah, according to medical sources. Some reports said Ramiyeh was killed outside al-Ram, south of Qalandia checkpoint when residents marched to the outskirts of the town to protest Israeli police actions against Palestinians at al-Aqsa Mosque earlier in the day....

February 24, 2012 - Scores of citizens on Friday staged a massive demonstration in al-Tahrir square in central Baghdad, on the eve of the first anniversary of mass protests in which 16 people were killed across the country last year. "The demonstrators' requests include political reforms, improvements in services such as electricity, offering job opportunities and fighting corruption," Aswat al-Iraq news agency correspondent said. They underlined that they will continue their protest on Saturday (Feb. 25) in memory of the first demonstration against corruption....

February 24, 2012 - Palestinians are demonstrating in Gaza City in solidarity with Syrian anti-government protesters. The group mostly students hoisted Palestinian and Syrian flags and burned images of President Bashar Assad .They shouted "Bashar go to hell" ..."leave us Palestinians alone we have enough killers "...we don't need you... Hamas police reportedly authorized the protest.

February 24, 2012 - On Thursday 23rd February, al-Aqsa Mosque was attacked for the second time by Israeli settlers at dawn. Seventy-one settlers broke into al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli policemen who arrested six Palestinians who were praying at the Mosque and closed its main entrances, according to the Defense Committee member Silwan Fakhry Abu Diab, during his statement to PNN....

February 23, 2012 - For 30 years, Stewart worked tirelessly defending America's poor, underprivileged, and unwanted. They're never afforded due process and judicial fairness without an advocate like her. Where others wouldn't go, she did courageously, defending controversial figures like Weather Underground's David Gilbert, United Freedom Front's Richard Williams, Black Liberation Army members Sekou Odinga and Nasser Ahmed, and many more like them. She knew the risks, but took them fearlessly and courageously until wrongfully indicted for doing her job. Her case sent a chilling message to other lawyers that it's dangerous defending unpopular clients ruthless prosecutors want to convict...

February 23, 2012 - For 30 years, Stewart worked tirelessly defending America's poor, underprivileged, and unwanted. They're never afforded due process and judicial fairness without an advocate like her. Where others wouldn't go, she did courageously, defending controversial figures like Weather Underground's David Gilbert, United Freedom Front's Richard Williams, Black Liberation Army members Sekou Odinga and Nasser Ahmed, and many more like them. She knew the risks, but took them fearlessly and courageously until wrongfully indicted for doing her job. Her case sent a chilling message to other lawyers that it's dangerous defending unpopular clients ruthless prosecutors want to convict...

February 24, 2012 - ...Between Americans that support Asad under the table and claim the opposite after more than 7500 martyrs, Russians, Chinese, and Iranians that support Assad and declare it openly, and members of the SNC that have built an action program based on the sweet claims of US rhetoric while the former's conduct does nothing but prolong the life of the regime and sabotage the revolution, it is clear today that the Syrian revolutionaries are facing a criminal regime that confronts them with murder on a daily basis, and a revolutionary leadership that operates completely outside any real understanding of politics-irrespective of whether this is a result of good or bad intentions. It remains to be stated that the first step in revolutionary political action is acknowledgement of reality, no matter how harsh it is: today, the entire planet is against the Syrian revolution. Only after this admission can revolutionary political action begin.

February 24, 2012 - Palestinian Researcher, specialized in Detainees Affairs, Riyadh Al-Ashqar, stated that female detainee Hana' Yahia Ash-Shalaby, 28, declared hunger strike after Israel transferred her into Administrative Detention without charges for six months. Hana' was kidnapped by the army one week ago when the soldiers rearrested five of the detainees, including Hana', who were released under the Shalit Prisoner-Swap deal. Troops violently broke into her home and searched it terrifying the family and causing excessive damage to the property, and kidnapped her; they also confiscated cell phones and a computer from the home....

February 24, 2012 - Efforts to keep the Gaza Strip in the dark, including its many hospitals, homes and street lights, is immoral and inhumane and constitutes collective punishment against the Palestinians. It also shows complete casual disregard by the Israelis for the Arabs who can see this crime against their brothers taking place but can do nothing about it. This raises questions about the usefulness of the Arab League, which has been unable to bring about the changes necessary to lift the siege on Gaza, and adopted a project two years ago to connect electricity supplies in the Arab world to the exclusion of the Gaza Strip....

February 24, 2012 - Several Afghans were killed and wounded during protests in different parts of the country on Friday over the burning of the holy Quran at a US military base in central Parwan province, officials and witnesses said. Hundreds of furious residents, mostly youths carrying white and green flags, staged a demonstration in the Pul-i-Charkhi area of Kabul, torching police booths. Trying to enter the city, the men were dispersed by police, who fired into the air. "We are here to defend our religion, but policemen are firing at us," said one of the protestors, Siddiqullah, who claimed that four people were killed and eight others injured. The protest continued till 5pm....

February 24, 2012 -- Israeli warplanes fired on a Gaza City neighborhood early Friday, lightly injuring two Palestinian fighters. The airstrike on the Zeitoun neighborhood injured two militants who were evacuated to hospital, emergency services' spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said. Their identities and affiliations were not immediately identified. An Israeli army statement said the warplanes hit "two terror activity sites in the northern Gaza Strip...in response to the rockets fired at Israel"...