Human Rights Glance
There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or where dry piles of it were found in corners. In many cases, the smells indicated that soldiers had urinated on piles of clothing or inside a washing machine. In all the houses the toilets were overflowing and clogged, and there was filth all around. When the Abu Eidas returned to house No. 5 in Jabalya, they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator.
Head of Palestinian rights group banned from travelling to accept award
Israel is preventing the director general of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, from travelling to the Netherlands to accept a prize. The Supreme Court has been asked to review Jabarin's petition to reverse the Shin Bet's decision.
The Geuzenpenning Prize for Human Rights Defenders will be given at a ceremony next week. The country's royal family is scheduled to attend, and Israel's refusal to allow Jabarin to travel to the Netherlands is straining relations with the European country.
U.S. government condemns "waterboarding" as torture
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ruled out the use of "waterboarding" as an interrogation technique for terrorism suspects on Monday, calling it a form of torture that the Obama administration could never condone.
"Waterboarding is torture ... My Justice Department will not justify it, will not rationalize it and will not condone it," Holder, who his heading a review of the treatment of terrorism suspects, said in a speech to the Jewish Council of Public Affairs in Washington.
"Too often over the past decade the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our tradition of civil liberties. Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it has done us more harm than good," Holder said.
TVNL Comment: Waterboarding is a red herring. Much harsher interrogation methods were used. Actually, the word is "torture."
Breaking: CIA destroyed 92 interrogation tapes
New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations.
The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs. "The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed," said the letter by Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin wrote, according to AP. "Ninety two videotapes were destroyed."
Interpol issues arrest warrants for 15 Israelis
The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO) has issued a circular calling for the arrest of 15 top Israeli officials over war crimes.
"ICPO has notified governments of 180 countries to arrest the suspects," who were involved in the 23-day Israeli offensive on Gaza in December and January he said.
In December, Iran's judiciary announced its decision to set up a court to look into complaints made by the Palestinian envoy in Iran and wounded Palestinians delivered to Iran, against Israeli atrocities in Gaza, saying it was ready to try the Israelis in absentia.
Mortazavi said the charges included war crimes, invasion, occupation, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Israel's death squads: A soldier's story
The Israeli military's policy of targeted killings has been described from the inside for the first time. In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, and in his testimony to an ex-soldiers' organisation, Breaking the Silence, a former member of an assassination squad has told of his role in a botched ambush that killed two Palestinian bystanders, as well as the two militants targeted.
The 'right' to discriminate
TVNL REMINDER: July 2007 - A new bill in the Knesset seeks to perpetuate discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens.
Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed, on first reading, the Jewish National Fund bill which allows the JNF to refuse to lease land to Arab citizens. The JNF is a quasi-public charity established to raise funds to purchase land for Jewish settlement within Israel. In 1961, the Israeli government transferred 13% of Israeli land to the JNF. Included in this were one million dunams expropriated from Arab residents who fled Israel in 1948.
The government had sold the land to the JNF at bargain-basement prices in order to remain at arm's length from the tainted process. Historically, the JNF has maintained a ban against Arab use of its land. But the Israeli supreme court, in a landmark ruling, said that the JNF can no longer discriminate against the Arab population. The Court maintained that such a ban defies the norms of a democratic state and must be ended.
The Knesset bill, co-sponsored by a ruling party Kadima Knesset member, is an attempt to get around the court ruling.
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