Palestine – Breaking News

Crackdown Threatens Uighurs Oasis 

IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
  
 
People in Kashgar are living in a climate of fear created by the authorities. (NY Times)
 
CAIRO — China’s clampdown on its Uighur Muslim minority after the recent ethnic riots has spread to reach Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road oasis known as the heart of the Uighur culture, where a climate of fear has taken hold.
"The situation may look calm now, but it could change at any second," a local government official told the New York Times on Thursday, July 23, while taking a group of foreign journalists ordered to leave Kashgar to the airport.

The ancient city of Kashgar has come under a massive security blanket that grips Urumqi, the capital of the Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.

At least 190 people were killed and over 1,700 other injured in Urumqi riots and the ensuing security crackdown.

Thousands of Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi on July 5 to protest repression and discrimination.

Hundreds of Uighur Muslims have since been rounded up in Urumqi on claims of being involved in the unrest.

Though being some 700 miles away, the authorities are mounting a similar crackdown on in Kashgar, a city of 3.4 million people more than 90 percent of them Uighur.

Read More »Crackdown threatens uighurs oasis

18 September 2008

Press Release

Nigerian Abductions

Media Review Network (MRN) is extremely concerned about the safety of South African oil-worker, Dan Laarman, another unidentified South African, as well as the British, Ukrainian and Nigerian citizens who were kidnapped almost two weeks ago by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). It is hoped that the South African Consulate in Nigeria is doing everything in their power to free these men, so that they may be returned safely to their families.

MRN insists that the South African government, together with the African Union (AU), demand greater transparency and accountability from transnational oil companies and African government about the income generated by the oil industry. Further, the AU must force oil companies operating in Africa to be more equitable and just in their dealings with indigenous communities. Unless these basic requirements are fulfilled, more foreign workers are likely to be held hostage again.

We pray that the families of these oil-workers are endowed with patience, strength and courage during this difficult time, and that their loved ones will be returned to them safely. 

Issued by:
Iqbal Jassat
Chairman
Media Review Network

(Media Review Network is an advocacy group based in Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa)

Read More »Pr Nigerian abductions

(source: Ma’an News Agency)

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa expressed concern Saturday over the conviction of a Palestinian anti-wall campaign leader by an Israeli military court for his involvement in non-violent protests.

"I am deeply concerned about the conviction earlier this week of Abdallah Abu Rahmah by an Israeli military court. When I met him with my fellow Elders last year, we were very impressed by his commitment to non-violence and the wise leadership he showed," Tutu said in a statement.

"He and his fellow activists have had some success in challenging the wall that divides the people of Bil’in from their land. Israel’s attempt to crack down on this effective resistance movement by criminalizing peaceful protest is unacceptable and unjust," he added.

Tutu called on Israeli authorities to release Abu Rahmah "immediately and unconditionally."

Abu Rahmah, well regarded for organizing the weekly rallies against the wall in his native village Bil’in, near Ramallah, was convicted by an Israeli military court on 24 August. According to his supporters, Abu Rahmah’s conviction was based solely on the testimony of minors who were arrested in the middle of the night and denied legal counsel despite significant ills in their questioning.

The General Delegation of the PLO to the US condemned the conviction "in the strongest possible terms."

"We call on the Israeli government to release Abdallah Abu Rahmah and all other Palestinian political prisoners from its jails immediately in accordance with international law and as a gesture of goodwill towards the peace talks that are about to begin in Washington," the PLO office said in a statement.

On Tuesday, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton expressed her concern over the conviction.

Read More »Tutu calls on Isarael to release anti wall leader

By Frank Barat and Michael Mansfield QC

(source: middleeastmonitor.org.uk)

Countless United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions have been passed and violated; The Goldstone Report has been attacked and dismissed and the recent UNHRC fact finding Mission on the Freedom Flotilla incident, condemning Israel’s actions in the strongest possible terms, has been rejected as biased by Israel and was hardly mentioned in the higher spheres of the UN. The reason most often given to explain this lack of political action being that ‘it will harm the peace process.’

We are made to believe that the Israel/Palestine conflict is a never ending one and that, when it comes to this issue, International Law is irrelevant.

But civil society knows better. This conflict is about International Law and nothing else. Not harming the peace process means not harming more than 17 years (from the Oslo agreement in 1993 until now) of settlement building, bombing, murder and assassination, Israeli army aggression, land grab, US vetoes, dispossessions and humiliation of the Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Civil society also knows that under a facade of bland statements ‘condemning’ Israel’s actions, the EU, the USA and the whole international community are in fact actively complicit in those crimes.

That’s where the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) comes in.

Read More »No peace without justice the london session of the russell tribunal on Palestine