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The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Back to the wall on human rights

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By Navi Pillay

(source: Star Newspaper, 15-02-2011, pg11)

It is a great pleasure to be here, on my first visit to the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel since I took up office as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I was received with courtesy by the Government of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, meeting with both President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and a number of Ministers, state officials and other interlocutors in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). I would like to express my deep appreciation for the good cooperation which has characterized this visit.

I met Palestinian victims of human rights violations in a variety of locations in the oPt, including East Jerusalem and several towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza.  I and my team also met with victims in Sderot, West Jerusalem and the Negev desert. They explained their extreme hardships to us with great patience and dignity, and left me with a profound impression of the difficult human rights situation of so many civilians, because of the conflict, occupation and discriminatory laws and practices. I also had very informative meetings with four different groups of exceptionally dedicated human rights defenders in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza City.

Collectively, my many interlocutors raised a wide range of complex multi-layered human rights issues and situations, intertwined with the ever-present, and ever complicating, security concerns and political considerations.

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Egypts revolution Isarael bad for the jews

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“Not one Israeli general or politician has or is going to spend one day in gaol for ordering the troops to shoot at unarmed demonstrators, innocent civilians, women, old men and children.”

By Ilan Pappe

(source: Electronic Intifada)

The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are bad, very bad. Educated Arabs – not all of them dressed as “Islamists,” quite a few of them speaking perfect English whose wish for democracy is articulated without resorting to “anti-Western” rhetoric – are bad for Israel.

Arab armies that do not shoot at these demonstrators are as bad as are many other40that moved and enthused so many people around the world, even in the West. This world reaction is also bad, very bad. It makes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its apartheid policies inside the state look like the acts of a typical “Arab” regime.

For a while you could not tell what official Israel thought. In his first ever commonsensical message to his colleagues, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers, generals and politicians not to comment in public on the36in Egypt. For a brief moment one thought that Israel turned from the neighbourhood’s thug to what it always was: a visitor or permanent resident. It seems Netanyahu was particularly embarrassed by the unfortunate remarks on the situation uttered publicly by General Aviv Kochavi, the head of Israeli Military Intelligence. This top Israeli expert on Arab affairs stated confidently two weeks ago in the Knesset that the Mubarak regime is as solid and resilient as ever. But Netanyahu could not keep his mouth shut for that long. And when the boss talked all the others followed. And when they all responded, their commentary made Fox News’ commentators look like a bunch of peaceniks and free-loving hippies from the 1960s.

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Ronnie Kasrils in western sahara the frontline report

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(source: communist party.org)

You have seen Michael Palin in the Sahara series, now find out what Ronnie Kasrils discovered when he visited the Western Sahara, scene of decades of struggle for freedom of the Saharan people led by Polisario. Ronnie, who was a commander in the armed wing of the African National Congress [MK] and a minister in the South African government, sent this frontline report to the CP website. You can view a photographic record of his tour.

Ronnie writes:

 

“Just before the Arab Tsunami broke out I was at a conference in Algiers and following up an invite from the Polisario Liberation  Front flew nearly 2,000 kms to distant Tindouf in the far north-west of Algeria where the Saharawi (West Sahara) refugee camps are situated on the border of their occupied country.

There are six settlements (camps) housing some 160,000 refugees from the Moroccan occupation. These are run by democratically elected committees which contrast with the Unwra-Palestinian model. The UN and other agencies provide relief and are kept at a distance for supplies are handled through Polisario by those committees which I believe provides for real empowerment.

This can be seen in amongst other aspects the involvement of the women and their structures: the medical; educational. cultural, training and other formations. One of the women joked that their headscarves were not veils – but to protect them, as with the men, from the desert sun and wind – and indeed come dusk they remove them – on the streets and at home.

Polisario are secularist which does not imply that the people do not  observe the Islamic faith which indeed is the basis of their culture –  whether of Arab, Berber, Bedouin or African origin.

Read More »Ronnie Kasrils in western sahara the frontline report