Winter Patriot Community Blog

February 17, 2012 - As Libya marks the first anniversary of its revolution on Friday, the dozens of well-armed militia groups operating across the vast country have slipped well out of the control of the nascent government in Tripoli, making the country ever more fractured as well as dangerous to ordinary Libyans attempting to adjust to the end of Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year dictatorship. That assessment came on Thursday from Amnesty International, whose latest research on the country documents at least 12 Libyans who have died in militia custody since September, allegedly after being beaten, suspended upside down and given electric shocks. In a chilling 38-page report published on the eve of the anniversary, Amnesty describes a wave of terror and widespread abuse by militia groups, whose members in recent months have dragged hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Libyans from their homes or from roadside checkpoints into makeshift jails on suspicion of being Gaddafi sympathizers or having fought alongside the regime's forces during the civil war...

February 17, 2012 - A BDS motion passes at a Canadian university; the Olympia Food Co-op, heading to court, rallies supporters; Vancouver activists show no love for Israeli products on Valentine's Day; an appeal to the Irish president to reject a state invitation to Israel; and Palestinian youth urge France to stop selling weaponry to the Israeli military....

February 17, 2012 - Today Khader Adnan began the 62nd day of his hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention by Israel. He is chained to a bed in Ziv Hospital in Safed even though he has been too weak to walk for several days. In an interview today with The Independent, Randa Adnan - his wife - said "I know my husband. He will not change his mind. I expect him to die." Khader Adnan's struggle has caught the attention of people around the world thanks to the efforts of bloggers and activists....

February 17, 2012 - Over the past year, I've filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and other government agencies in hopes of prying loose documents I need to support my investigative reporting efforts on a wide-range of issues and policies. One of the frustrating realities about the FOIA process is the enormous backlog of requests government agencies have to contend with, which means many months or years could pass before my request is finally processed and I receive a response....

February 17, 2012 - Money power rules. Across Europe and America, governments follow banker diktats. They demand economies and people suffer to assure they're paid. Money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. It buys what it wants at the expense of government of, by and for the people. It never was and isn't now. Wall Street and major European banks usurped unprecedented money making power. With complicit politicians, they make it the old fashioned way. They steal it...

February 17, 2012 - One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant. As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption...

February 17, 2012 - ... Today, Insha'at is targeted along with Baba Amr, al-Khalediyyeh and al-Tawzii al-Ijbari. Unlike the still-silent elite of Damascus and Aleppo who, for the most part, have abandoned the cries of the protesting masses, in Homs, everyone stood together. And now they suffer together.... Exodus, nuzooh, has become the latest word Assad has added to our Syrian vocabulary. Refugee was also a word we did not know until recently, and now we have thousands. Murder, torture, rape, looting, oppression, fear-all these words belong to Syria now. Not because of outside forces, not because of "armed gangs," not because of a conspiracy, but because of the brutality of the relentless Syrian regime. In the last eleven months, other words that were not part of our vocabulary have emerged as well, like determination, courage, and sacrifice. And resilience. An activist asked me, "How else do you explain how an army can attack Baba Amr with tanks and planes for over ten days and Baba Amr is still standing?"...

February 17, 2012 - Yazan spent 15 months in Israeli prisons, accused of being a member of a student union affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel claims is a terrorist organization. Israel can arrest any member of an illegal political group in the West Bank, based on a British law enacted during the time of the mandate. His is the story of many Palestinians arrested for what Israel calls security concerns, but actually for political activity, in Area A, which is officially under full Palestinian civil and security control. Sharing his experience in prison, he says, remains a "duty as long as there is a Palestinian prisoner still in the occupation's prisons." His point of view as an insider helps reveal details of interrogation methods and living conditions in Israeli prisons....

February 17, 2012 - In the past few days five Gazan fishermen have been arrested by the Israeli Navy off the north coast of Gaza. Adham Mahmoud Abu Ryada, 22, and his brother Mohammed Mahmoud Abu Ryada, 13, were both arrested on Sunday evening. Jamal Ramadan Al Sultan, 58 and his son Fadel Jamal Al-Sultan, 21, were arrested on Monday morning. Ahmed Mohammed Zayed, 27, was arrested on Tuesday morning.Last night we visited the family of Adham and Mohammed Abu Ryada in Beach Camp, Gaza City. Gaza is without power, they welcomed us in a room lit only by candlelight. Their father started telling us their story...

February 17, 2012 - The United States and European Union expressed cautious optimism on Friday over prospects that Iran may be willing to engage major powers in new talks, but underscored any new negotiations must be sustained and focus on the nuclear issue. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, told reporters that Iran's recent letter to Ashton might mark a step forward, reports Reuters. "We think this is an important step and we welcome the letter," Clinton said in a joint meeting with Ashton...

February 15, 2012 - The worst fears of the ruling classes of Greece and Europe are becoming true: an uncontrollable social explosion is under way in Greece. When these lines are written, late in the night on February 12-13, 2012, the violent clashes and street fights between demonstrators and the riot police, in the center of Athens and in other cities all over the country, still continue. The phony "majority" that just voted in Parliament the new package of measures of social cannibalism imposed by the troika of the EU, the European Central Bank, and the IMF cannot and will not stop the Greek social wild fire to expand in the country and spread beyond Greece, all over Europe and internationally.

February 15, 2012 - As Palestinian organizations dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), we reiterate our most grave concern about the critical health condition of Khader Adnan. Khader is now entering his 60th day of hunger strike in protest at his continuing administrative detention and ill-treatment at the hands of the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). According to a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel who was able to visit Khader last night, 14 February, for his fifth medical examination since his arrest, Khader is under a very direct threat of death. All of his muscles, including his heart and his stomach, are under threat of disintegrating and his immune system could cease to function at any moment. Khader's body is at high risk of sudden heart attack or total organ failure, which would cause imminent death...

February 15, 2012 - Greece's plight proves the Lords of Capital have no more use for democratic facades. The Greeks will be forced to surrender to "the free movement of capital" and take no actions that would "influence the management or control of companies." For the people's purposes, the Greek state has ceased to exist. "The sad truth is that citizens of supposedly democratic countries live in dictatorships of, for, and by the rich."...

February 15, 2012 - NATO is to buy five U.S.-made unmanned drone aircraft capable of countering Afghan insurgents, hunting pirates off Somalia or monitoring arms embargoes, an alliance official said on Wednesday. The drones are part of the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) project, scheduled to begin operating between 2015 and 2017. The project reflects NATO efforts to cooperate more closely with its member states on defense costs and capabilities at a time of financial constraints...

February 15, 2012 - Dear brother, dear comrade, As you continue to defy oppression and as you continue to struggle for freedom, in your name and in the name of every Palestinian and in the name of every conscientious human, listen to the voices around you. Listen to the voices of the walls of the dungeon that hold you captive, listen to their silent whisper, shameful of imprisoning your dignified spirit, shameful of burying you alive, shameful of you and your steadfastness. Listen to your body break the limits of hunger, break the limits of pain. Listen to your willpower break the walls of the dungeons, listen to your courage defeat oppression, listen to your voice break the silence. And listen to the voices beyond your dark cold cell; listen to the voices rising high and growing strong with every day and every hour, listen to them chant your name, listen to them demand your freedom, listen to them repeat your words: my dignity is more precious than food....

February 15, 2012 - February 15, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talks Camp Ashraf, another prep meet-up for a national conference takes place, Iraq continues to struggle to pass a 2012 budget, the US House Veterans Affairs Committee hears from the VA about their budget requests and more... Violence continued in Iraq today. Reuters notes a police officer's Jurf al-Sakhar home was attacked with gunfire and grenades leaving his wife and their two daughters dead and him injured and a Baquba roadside bombing left two people injured. Aswat al-Iraq adds that a Mosul bombing left 1 person dead and one police officer injured....

February 15, 2012 - representative of Islamic Emirate has held meetings with American delegates in Qatar regarding confidence building measures. As for when we will send or not send delegations to Qatar, then it all depends on when we reach the negotiation stage. Up until now, this has not officially occurred and naturally, as we reach the negotiation stage, a delegation or a team of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be chosen and sent to Qatar... Now the question is, when will negotiations begin? I must say that before any negotiations can take place, confidence building measures must first succeed so an atmosphere can be created for negotiations and this confidence building measure rests entirely with the Americans and they must take steps for it which are; exchange of Guantanamo prisoners, the opening of a political office and the termination of the black list of the United Nations as well as the bounty lists of America and her allies...

February 15, 2012 - Defense for Children International has documented the arrest by Israeli soldiers of 16 year-old Mahmoud Omar Faqeh from Qattana village northwest of Jerusalem. Defense for Children International revealed that the Israelis were in direct violation of many international standards for the treatment of children during arrests. As the teen explained to Defense for Children International, Mahmoud was going with his friends to a place near the Apartheid Wall in Beit Sourek village when they were attacked by Israeli soldiers...