Eideard

Sign made from 3 tons of crushed guns

Mexico’s president called on U.S. officials to stop gun trafficking across the border Thursday, saying the move would be the best thing Americans could do to stop brutal drug violence.

“The criminals have become more and more vicious in their eagerness to spark fear and anxiety in society,” President Felipe Calderon said. “One of the main factors that allows criminals to strengthen themselves is the unlimited access to high-powered weapons, which are sold freely, and also indiscriminately, in the United States of America.

Speaking in Ciudad Juarez, the border city across from El Paso, Texas, that has become Mexico’s murder capital, Calderon said a dramatic increase in violence in Mexico was directly connected with the 2004 expiration of the U.S. assault weapons ban…

…Calderon stood in front of a massive new sign, constructed with tons of decommissioned arms. “NO MORE WEAPONS,” the sign said — in English. Americans on the other side of the border are the intended audience, Calderon said…

Out of 140,000 weapons Mexican authorities have seized since Calderon declared a crackdown on cartels at the beginning of his presidency, 84,000 were high-powered assault weapons, Calderon said.

More than 47,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, according to government statistics.

Calderon’s plea for Americans to reduce drug consumption is laughable, of course. We have been a society based on mood-altering chemical dependency for decades. It starts with cigarettes and coffee, marches on through beer and hard liquor into prescription goodies all too easily accessible through your friendly family doctor. Symptomatic treatment is the watchword of America’s pharmaceutical industry.

Meanwhile, there’s nothing wrong with symptomatic solutions to drug gangsters across the border, drug gangsters who leak their wars and profiteering across that border every hour of the day. Who stands in the way? Right-wing plutocrats in the arms industry and their flunkies in the NRA and both wings of political hacks – for a start. Even the mildest attempts to police guns trafficked across the border are shut down by sophistry and campaign dollars, lobbying and coercion.

Jaipur Festival Poster
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Salman Rushdie says he is “sad for India” after threats of violence prevented him from addressing an Indian literary festival.

He said religious extremist groups had prevented freedom of ideas and blamed politicians for failing to oppose the groups for “narrow political reasons”. The planned video-link was cancelled after Muslim activists prepared to march on the venue in Jaipur.

Many Muslims regard Sir Salman’s book, The Satanic Verses, as blasphemous.

The video-link had been organised after Sir Salman withdrew from attending the festival, saying that sources had told him of an assassination threat.

What century owns the minds of people prepared to kill for blasphemy?

Speaking to India’s NDTV television channel, Sir Salman said: “I have a lot of personal disappointment but the overwhelming feeling is disappointment on behalf of India – a country I have loved all my life and whose long-term commitment to liberty and secularism I have praised all my life.”

He said the decline in liberty in India was “the saddest thing”…

Sir Salman said it was ludicrous he was cast as the enemy of Islam when the real enemies were extremist leaders who were strengthening the image of the faith as a violent and repressive ideology…

Tuesday was the final day of the five-day festival.

It may have been the beginning of the end of the sort of democracy practiced in India. That, uh, is not meant to imply improvement, BTW.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The French government has rushed to the defence of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after an arson attack on its headquarters as it published an edition featuring a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad on the cover as “guest editor”.

The Paris offices of the magazine were gutted after a fire broke out at 1am following reports of a petrol bomb being thrown through a window.

The blaze happened just before the special “Sharia Hebdo” edition hit newsstands on Wednesday morning in what the paper mockingly called a “celebration” of the victory of the moderate Islamist party An-Nahda in the Tunisian elections and the Libyan transitional executive’s comments on Islamic sharia law as a main source of the country’s law. On the front page a cartoon prophet Muhammad said: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter..!”

However, French politicians defended the magazine. The prime minister, François Fillon, said: “Freedom of expression is an inalienable value of democracy and any incursion against press freedom must be condemned with the utmost force. No cause justified violent action.”

The interior minister, Claude Guéant, said: “You like or you don’t like Charlie Hebdo, but it’s a newspaper. Press freedom is sacrosanct for the French.” He added that all French people should feel solidarity towards the magazine.

François Hollande, the Socialist presidential candidate, told Le Monde newspaper the incident demonstrated that the struggle for press freedom and “respect of opinions” was a permanent battle, adding that “fundamentalism must be eradicated in all its forms“…

The main representative body of the Muslim faith in France, the French Muslim Council (CFCM), condemned the fire, while its president pointed out that caricaturing the prophet was considered offensive to Muslims. “The CFCM deplores the deeply mocking tone of the newspaper towards Islam and its prophet, but reaffirms with force its total opposition to any act or form of violence,” it said.

I’ll probably never have an opportunity to live in a world where my repugnance for fundamentalist hatred and violence will come to rest. There doesn’t appear to a shortage in sight of bigots of any religious stripe who would gladly kill for their God or prophet.

I hope the French police are successful in catching these thugs. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.

A conservative US news magazine has come under fire after one of its journalists boasted of being an agent provocateur at a clash between protesters and security guards in Washington.

The incident, in which guards used pepper spray on protesters trying to enter the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, was widely reported to be linked to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Patrick Howley, an assistant editor at the American Spectator, wrote over the weekend that he had infiltrated the protest group in order to discredit it. He said: “As far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of the American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story.”

However, Howley’s breathless account of his role as provocateur – which goes on to condemn the protesters’ “lack of nerve to confront authority”, and his own determination to escalate the protest further as he rushed past security guards into the museum – has since been altered. The magazine appears to have taken down the story, although it has been reported in the Washington Post and on the Firedoglake and Daily Kos blogs.

Removed from the new story is any mention of Howley’s motive to “mock and undermine” the protesters, or his disdain for their “lack of nerve”. That segment has been replaced. Instead, he says his involvement was intended for journalistic purposes, and that he rushed inside the museum “to find a place to observe.”

Charlie Grapski, a citizen journalist and activist, accused the American Spectator and Howley of breaching journalistic integrity, and of criminal acts – and called for them to be investigated and charged.

Grapski said: “It is not journalism. This goes against every tenet of ethical journalism. Howley was doing it in order to ‘mock and undermine’. His actions shows that the protesters were not out to disrupt, but that chaos and disruption followed his actions. Not only has he distorted the story to discredit others, he has engaged in criminal acts.”

“They should be charged with criminal acts and inciting a riot.”

Grapski added: “The changes to the story are designed to eliminate the admission of guilt and to eliminate his role as provocateur.”

Nothing new; but, a right-wing tactic that Livingroom Liberals and TV talking heads joke about – as if it never happens. One of the oldies long-used by creeps ranging from the John Birch Society and corporate goons to the FBI.

Dimwit rightwingers – especially the young and ambitious – have sufficient ego problems that they often post articles and photos of their disruption of peaceful protests. They bring racist and bigoted slogans into events so mainstream reporters can comment on how “misled that peace demonstration was”. Howley is better funded than that. He can rely on the American Spectator to publish his crap.

Graves marked by numbers in Kupwara district

More than 2,000 corpses, believed to be victims of Kashmir’s long-running insurgency, have been found buried in dozens of unmarked graves in the divided region, an Indian government human rights commission report has said.

The graves were found in dozens of villages on the Indian side of the line of control, the de facto border that has split the former kingdom between India and Pakistan for nearly 40 years. “At 38 places visited in north Kashmir, there were 2,156 unidentified dead bodies buried in unmarked graves,” the inquiry found.

Though campaigners and community leaders in Kashmir have long said such graves exist – and often provided extensive documentary evidence to back up their claims – the report is the first official statement confirming their existence…

Up to 70,000 people died in the 22-year insurgency in Kashmir, which pitted armed separatist groups, many backed by Pakistan, against New Delhi’s rule.

The worst of the violence occurred during the mid-1990s when a vicious struggle pitted thousands of militants against Indian security forces supplemented by locally-hired irregulars. Human rights abuses were routine with militants intimidating local communities and killing so-called spies while Indian authorities resorted to abductions, torture and extra-judicial executions on a wide scale. The graves appear to date from this period.

Kashmir is India’s only Muslim-majority state and the struggle rapidly took on a religious dimension. The victims in the mass graves had been buried by local communities.

Police originally described the bodies to villagers as “unidentified militants”. This claim is disputed by the report, local media said , which also calls for a forensic investigation involving DNA identification of remains…

A US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks and published by the Guardian last December revealed a briefing to the US embassy in Delhi by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross which described continuing torture and arbitrary detention by security forces.

Sigh. No government can mask anti-human practices for long. Time either proves accusations right or wrong – and governments which intend democratic practices, past, present or future had better learn to open the door to investigation.

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw

Two men have been jailed for four years each in northwest England for inciting disorder via social networking sites, as rioting and looting erupted in London and other cities last week…

The pair, who were arrested last week, were named by Cheshire Police as Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22. Neither of their Facebook posts resulted in any rioting, a Cheshire Police spokeswoman said.

Sutcliffe-Keenan had set up a Facebook page called “Warrington Riots” that urged rioters to gather in the northwestern town on August 10, while Blackshaw had created a page encouraging people to cause trouble in his home town of Northwich on August 9, the spokeswoman said.

Residents and businesses reported the posts to police, and the men were arrested before any disorder occurred, she added…

More than 1,300 people have been charged across England in connection with last week’s unrest, which led to widespread looting and damage. Five deaths have been linked to the violence…

England’s cities have remained calm for the past week after a massive police deployment on the streets, but officers continue to make arrests based on security camera images and intelligence.

Police in London said they had arrested a 31-year-old man Tuesday on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with an incident in which two officers were bowled over by a vehicle, as they chased looters last week. Both were injured.

How stupid can you be? Let me count the ways:

Throw away the key.

A white man has been convicted of setting fire to a mostly black church in November 2008 to protest Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president.

The arson fire on November 5, 2008, just hours after election results were announced, destroyed the almost-completed Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield, Massachusetts, about 90 miles west of Boston. Several firefighters were slightly injured battling the flames.

Prosecutors argued that Michael Jacques, 26, and two white friends were motivated by racial resentment when they doused the building with gasoline and torched it. The church’s congregation was about 90 percent African American and authorities said the white men wanted to denounce Obama’s victory.

After a three-week trial, the jury in U.S. District Court in Springfield deliberated for nearly three days before finding Jacques, of Springfield, guilty of conspiracy to violate civil rights, religious property damage because of race and damage to religious property by use of fire…

Jacques faces up to 60 years in prison when he is sentenced on September 15, said assistant attorney Paul Smyth, the lead prosecutor in the case.

Two other men charged in the hate crime, Benjamin Haskell and Thomas Gleason, both 24, already have pleaded guilty to similar charges. Haskell was sentenced in November to nine years in federal prison, and Gleason, who testified for the prosecution in the trial, will be sentenced in October…

The church is being rebuilt and is now expected to open later this year, its pastor, Bishop Bryant Robinson, said last month.

Throw away the key.

Abboud al-Zumar went to jail 30 years ago for his role in killing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Now a free man, he believes democracy will prevent Islamists from ever again taking up the gun against the state.

Zumar was a prisoner for as long as Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, was president.

His release with other leading Islamists jailed for militancy is a sign of dramatic change in Egypt in the five weeks since Mubarak was swept from power by mass protests.

Zumar, 64, was a founding member of the Islamic Jihad group which gunned down Sadat during a military parade in 1981. He was released along with his cousin, Tarek al-Zumar, who had also spent three decades in jail on similar charges.

“The revolution created a new mechanism: the mechanism of strong, peaceful protests,” said Zumar, released on March 12 and one of the political prisoners who owes his freedom to the peaceful revolt against Mubarak.

“Public squares around the Arab world are ready to receive millions who can stop any ruler and expose him,” added Zumar in an interview in his home village of Nahia on the rural outskirts of Cairo.

I hope, I wonder if western governments will have learned the same lesson. Will they continue to support despots in the name of profit and industry – or will they finally admit that a nation with mechanisms in place for all sides of discourse to meet the public, a nation, with an honest chance at success offers a better, safer future for all?

To many Egyptians, Zumar’s name evokes a violent chapter in the history of a country that has been an incubator for Islamist militancy.

His release has alarmed those concerned by the Islamists’ move to the heart of public life in the new Egypt, where groups including the Muslim Brotherhood are making the most of new freedoms to organize and speak out…

“The climate for armed action is finished and the main reason is the atmosphere of freedom we are now establishing,” said Tarek al-Zumar, this week – still a leading figure in the Gama’a al-Islamiya…

“Our concern in this period is to anchor the basis of a just political system which guarantees freedoms and the state of law,” said Tarek al-Zumar, who studied for a law doctorate while in prison.

“The project of establishing the Islamic state as a political model will be determined by the ballot box … and the thing that will determine its continuation in power is the choice of the people,” he said.

RTFA. A piece of history ignored by the West. A product of the time when nothing was more important than protecting the safe flow of oil to American and European industry.

That’s changed. Uh, hasn’t it?

Anonymous defectors

The Church of Scientology…the controversial and secretive group – whose celebrity backers include the actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta – has effectively been accused of enslaving members.

FBI agents are said to have interviewed defectors across the US about the techniques used by church leaders to control members’ lives and track down those who attempt to leave.

The leader of the church, David Miscavige – who was best man at Cruise’s wedding in 2006 – is accused of repeated violence towards staff and members, which he has denied…

The claims were made in an extensive investigation into the church by Lawrence Wright, a highly-respected and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, in the New Yorker magazine…

Wright reports that Valerie Venegas and Tricia Whitehill, agents from the FBI’s office in Los Angeles devoted to fighting human trafficking, have been investigating the group.

RTFA – these allegations have been around for a spell. I don’t know if the Scientology crowd is more or less repressive than any other American weirdo religion. The target demographic ain’t anyone who lives in my neighborhood.

Philosophical idealism was taken to absurd ends when he tried to prove the drawing of a radio could be made to work as well as the real deal!

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

For more than a week, opponents of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak had the upper hand in Cairo, protesting with near impunity in the face of police and an army that did little to stop them.

That all changed on Wednesday.

The morning after Mubarak dramatically announced he would not run for re-election in September, his supporters waded into Tahrir Square by the thousands, and suddenly serious, prolonged violence reigned in central Cairo.

There were immediate suspicions that the pro-Mubarak demonstrators were not simply average citizens standing up for the man who has led Egypt for three decades — suspicions that proved at least partly founded.

As battles raged between the two sides, some pro-Mubarak protesters were captured by his opponents. Some were terrified to be caught and begged for their lives, screaming that the government had paid them to come out and protest. Others turned out to be carrying what seemed to be police identification, though they were dressed in plain clothes.

Shadi Hamid, a Brookings Institution analyst based in Qatar, told CNN that the use of hired muscle to break up demonstrations “is a longtime regime strategy.”

“There are usually a line of thugs outside a protest who are waiting there,” he said. “They’re dressed in plain clothes, and then they’ll usually go and attack the protesters. Egyptians have seen this for quite some time, and that’s why they were able to recognize what was going on fairly quickly…”

Several CNN journalists heard from pro-Mubarak demonstrators that they worked for the government. Staff from the national petrochemical company said they had been ordered to come and protest…

RTFA. Read lots of articles. Excepting the truly ideological flunkeys, most of the world press identifies the violence now focused on pro-democracy demonstrators as coming exclusively from Mubarak supports, paid or otherwise.