Winter Patriot Community Blog

February 20, 2012 - Khader Adnan is on hunger strike for the 65th day to protest against detention and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians held captive in inhumane conditions. Since 1967: over 750,000 Palestinians were held captive in Israeli dungeons. During the First Intifada: over 116000 Palestinians were held captive in Israeli dungeons. During Al-Aqsa Intifada: over 70000 Palestinians were held captive in Israeli dungeons. Currently, over 4500 Palestinians are held captive in Israeli dungeons. Khader Adnan is on hunger strike for the 65th day to protest against administrative detention, which is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.... Currently, there are 309 administrative detainees in Israeli dungeons.

February 20, 2012 - Lawyer of detainee, Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike since 65 days, stated that the Israeli Supreme Court decided to hold a session to look into Adnan's case on Tuesday. The court also decided that Adnan does have to attend the session due to his bad health condition. The court will be deliberating an appeal filed by his lawyer, on Tuesday at 2 in the afternoon. It will be deciding whether to keep him under administrative detention, without any charges, or to make a decision into his case, including the option of releasing him....

February 20, 2012 - A year ago, Islam Dar Ayyoub was a sociable ninth grader and a good student, according to his father, Saleh, a Palestinian laborer in this small village near Ramallah. Then, one night in January 2011, about 20 Israeli soldiers surrounded the dilapidated Dar Ayyoub home and pounded vigorously on the door. Islam, who was 14 at the time, said he thought they had come for his older brother. Instead, they had come for him. He was blindfolded, handcuffed and whisked away in a jeep....

February 20, 2012 - Each year, the U.S. State Department, as required by law, issues a "Human Rights Report" which details abuses by other countries. To call it an exercise in hypocrisy is to understate the case: it is almost impossible to find any tyrannical power denounced by the State Department which the U.S. Government (and its closest allies) do not regularly exercise itself. Indeed, it's often impossible to imagine how the authors of these reports can refrain from cackling mischievously over the glaring ironies of what they are denouncing (my all-time favorite example is discussed in the update here)...

February 20, 2012 - An Israeli official has described 63-day Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan as an "Islamic Jihad terrorist" without producing any evidence to prove his claim. Adnan, a 33-year-old baker, has been on hunger strike since shortly after he was detained in a late-night raid on December 17.nHe is being held under what Israeli law calls administrative detention, meaning he can be held without trial or charges indefinitely. The case has drawn widespread condemnation of the Israeli policy, with rights groups urging the Jewish state to release Adnan or charge him with an offense....

February 20, 2012 - An Israeli official has described 63-day Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan as an "Islamic Jihad terrorist" without producing any evidence to prove his claim. Adnan, a 33-year-old baker, has been on hunger strike since shortly after he was detained in a late-night raid on December 17.nHe is being held under what Israeli law calls administrative detention, meaning he can be held without trial or charges indefinitely. The case has drawn widespread condemnation of the Israeli policy, with rights groups urging the Jewish state to release Adnan or charge him with an offense....

February 18, 2012 The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) reported Friday that Palestinian political detainees held at the Ramon Israeli prison, are being punished for protesting abuse against their families, who are being ordered to undergo humiliation and strip search before they visit their detained family members. The PPS stated that these punishments include depriving them from their visitation rights for a month, removing all electric equipment they have, and preventing them from buying food from the prison canteen...

February 18, 2012 The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) reported Friday that Palestinian political detainees held at the Ramon Israeli prison, are being punished for protesting abuse against their families, who are being ordered to undergo humiliation and strip search before they visit their detained family members. The PPS stated that these punishments include depriving them from their visitation rights for a month, removing all electric equipment they have, and preventing them from buying food from the prison canteen...

February 19, 2012 - The High Court of Justice decides to postpone to Thursday the urgent appeal in the case of hunger striker Khader Adnan - and may not reach a decision even then. Khader Adnan is on his 64th day of a hunger strike, and today the High Court of Justice (HCJ) decided to postpone to Thursday dealing with the urgent appeal in his case. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, which supports the appeal, noted that would be Adnan's 68th day of his hunger strike, and there is no guarantee that the justices will bother to make their decision then. It's a Thursday, you know, and the weekend is so close, and this is just a Palestinian in administrative detention, and he must be held for a reason. Irrecoverable dying begins on the 70th day of a hunger strike. That would be Friday....

February 19, 2012 -- Israeli forces on Sunday detained a man from Gaza who was seeking medical treatment in Israel. Witnesses told Ma'an that Kamal Hikmat al-Taramsi, 23, was detained at Beit Hanoun checkpoint while reportedly on route to an Israeli hospital for treatment. Al-Taramsi, from Jabalia refugee camp, suffers from thyroid cancer....

February 18, 2012 - The number of martyrs has risen to 21 among them 3 women and 2 children: 8 in Homs, 4 in Idlib, 3 in Hama , 3 in Daraa, 2 in Mazzah (the heart of Damascus city) and one martyr in Aleppo...Damascus: Mazzeh: Two sfell as security forces shot them during the funeral procession of the martyrs...Damascus: Mazzeh: A large number of mourners were arrested on Mazzeh highway and they are detained in the Iranian Embassy.Hama: Two children were martyred: Mohammad Ahmad Bakeer and Ahmad Zafer Assaye in addition to one who was injured in a shooting from a tank's machine-gun that is stationed at Al-Mazareb Bridge. The shooting targeted a car they were riding. Security forces arrested the one who was injured and another one who was also with them in the car... Homs: Sahar Abdulkader Atasi was martyred when she died from her injuries. Security forces had shot her in the neighborhood of Inshaat when she was trying to flee from the neighborhood with her husband and his sister, who were martyred right away...

February 18 , 2012 - Mu'min Najar drags open the massive door to the goods depot of his father's furniture factory, the Modern Industrial Group (MIG), in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. "Everything you see here is waiting to be sold abroad," he says On the left side of the depot, writing desks are piled up several metres high. Further towards the back, hundreds of chairs have been waiting to be sold for more than a year now, and are covered in dust. Encouraged by Israeli announcements in 2010 of an ease in restrictions on exports, the factory owner, Mohamed Najar, produced furniture worth about US$150,000 for orders from abroad. But he has little hope he will be allowed to export these items any time soon. "I am ready to export tomorrow," he told IRIN, adding: "The Israelis made us prepare with positive announcements. But in the end, nothing has happened." ....

February 18, 2012 - Obama recently defended his controversial "drone campaign" in Pakistan as a "targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists," adding that it "has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties." Now, a shocking new report not only disputes that claim, but also reveals that the CIA has been using drones to deliberately target civilians, including rescuers and mourners at funerals. Since Obama took office in 2009, "between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed, including more than 60 children," writes Chris Woods of the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism...

February 18, 2012 - As Americans were gearing up for last week's Super Bowl championship, Haiti's president Michel Martelly was on a plane to the World Economic Forum to recruit players interested in what one businessman dubbed "the Super Bowl of Disasters" - Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake. The Irish-owned cell phone company Digicel footed his trip there, and hosted a regional business tour complete with a gala ball before his return to a country still reeling from crisis conditions in housing, jobs, and basic rights....

February 18, 2012 - As I write this, Khader Adnan is near death, on the 63rd day of a hunger strike to protest his detention without charges by Israeli occupation authorities.... Unfortunately for Adnan, he was not a Jewish terror suspect. In July 2010, Jerusalem police arrested a Jewish extremist named Chaim Pearlman. Pearlman was the prime suspect in a cold-blooded settler stabbing spree that left four Palestinians dead. Pearlman had previously engaged in acts of random violence against Palestinians, while maintaining an active role in the Kach terrorist organization. For ten days, the Shin Bet intelligence service subjected him to harsh interrogations while denying him access to legal counsel...

February 18, 2012 - On 7 January 2012, DCI-Palestine interviewed the mother of two children who were victims of an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on 9 December 2012. Nine-year old Ramadan was instantly killed along with his father, and his brother, eight-year old Yousif was severely injured. One month later, Yousif is still in a critical condition and so far has only been able to move one leg. Since the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, DCI - Palestine has documented the cases of 53 children killed and 112 injured as a result of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip....

February 18, 2012 - Two recent police attacks on young Black men in the Bronx--one the brutal beating of an unarmed man by a crowd of officers, and the other the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in front of his family in his own home--have intensified and focused the community's anger and outrage against the NYPD. These incidents are part of a pattern of routine harassment and abuse, punctuated by regular episodes of brutality. Police violence in New York City is by no means confined to the Bronx. But it is bound to be more commonplace in the borough with the lowest per capita income of the five and with a population that is 90 percent people of color. To Bronx residents, the police resemble an occupying army...

February 18, 2012 - A report published by Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday documents widespread human rights violations by the very militia groups that fought to topple the Gaddafi government. The report, Militias threaten hopes for new Libya, describes the militias as being "largely out of control." Amnesty's representatives expressed grave concern over the near-universal impunity for crimes committed by the anti-Gaddafi militias... The report comes at the heel of a slew of abuses that human rights organizations have exposed over the last several months. In January, aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) halted its work in detention centers in the Libyan city of Misrata. According to MSF general director Christopher Stokes detainees were brought to the doctors in the middle of torture sessions "in order to make them fit for further interrogation." At least 8,500 individuals remain in detention centers around the country. Earlier this month Human Rights Watch documented the story of Libya's former ambassador to France, Omar Brebesh, who was tortured to death after he voluntarily submitted to questioning in Tripoli over his work for the former regime...

February 18, 2012 - For years prominent corporate media pundits have told us that the world -- and the media -- would embrace a dramatic, non-violent Palestinian resistance movement. If only such a movement -- perhaps led by a Gandhi-like figure -- were to finally emerge, we are told, the media coverage will come, and sympathy from across the world will strengthen support for the Palestinian cause. This is nonsense -- there has been non-violent Palestinian resistance for years...