From the Majority Report, live M-F 11:30am EST and via daily podcast at http://Majority.FM:
A rundown of today’s Bradley Manning hearing. NOTE: Since the end of our show today, the judge has said he will NOT be stepping down from the case.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0g8Ok9XaOM&feature=share?]
see also at Democracy Now (As Syria Toll Tops 5,000, Activist in Hiding Urges Global Action to Stop Assad Regime Crackdown)
It happened on December 17 2010
RANIA ABOUZEID Jan. 21, 2011
Burned wreckage in the main square of the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, where Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire and sparked a revolution
He is now famous throughout Tunisia and the Arab world — a legend, in fact. But Mohammed Bouazizi never set out to be a byword. His aunt Radia Bouazizi says his dream was to save enough money to be able to rent or buy a pickup truck. “Not to cruise around in,” she says, “but for his work.” Her nephew was a vegetable seller. “He would come home tired after pushing the cart around all day. All he wanted was a pickup.” Instead, he started a revolution.
Bouazizi was like the hundreds of desperate, downtrodden young men in hardscrabble Sidi Bouzid. Many of them have university degrees but spend their days loitering in the cafés lining the dusty streets of this impoverished town, 190 miles (300 km) south of the capital Tunis. Bouazizi, 26, didn’t have a college degree, having only reached what his mother says was the baccalaureate level, which is roughly equivalent to high school. He was, however, luckier than most in that he at least earned an income from selling vegetables, work that he’d had for seven years. (See pictures of the ransacked mansions of Tunisia.)
But on Dec. 17 his livelihood was threatened when a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed vegetable cart and its goods. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it would be the last. Not satisfied with accepting the 10-dinar fine that Bouazizi tried to pay ($7, the equivalent of a good day’s earnings), the policewoman allegedly slapped the scrawny young man, spat in his face and insulted his dead father.
Humiliated and dejected, Bouazizi, the breadwinner for his family of eight, went to the provincial headquarters, hoping to complain to local municipality officials, but they refused to see him. At 11:30 a.m., less than an hour after the confrontation with the policewoman and without telling his family, Bouazizi returned to the elegant double-storey white building with arched azure shutters, poured fuel over himself and set himself on fire. He did not die right away but lingered in the hospital till Jan. 4. There was so much outrage over his ordeal that even President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, the dictator, visited Bouazizi on Dec. 28 to try to blunt the anger. But the outcry could not be suppressed and, on Jan. 14, just 10 days after Bouazizi died, Ben Ali’s 23-year rule of Tunisia was over. (See a brief history of self-immolation.)
Though proud of the consequences of Bouazizi’s self-immolation, his family is still indescribably sad. “Mohammed did what he did for the sake of his dignity,” says his mother, Mannoubia, standing in the room he shared with his brother Karim, 14. It’s one of four in her small but well-kept home. She points to the two thin olive-green foam mattresses on the floor where her two sons slept. The only other piece of furniture in the room is a large cabinet. Weeping, his mother pulls out a black-and-grey jacket, lovingly clutching it before burying her face in it. “It smells of him,” she says.
Her teenage daughter Basma rushes to comfort her. A few moments later, Mannoubia stops crying, dabbing her blue eyes with the edge of her multicolored hijab, a rare sight in secular Tunis but common in conservative, rural parts of the country. “I am proud of my son, although I am in mourning, and I am sad, but thanks to God, Mohammed lives, he didn’t die,” she says resolutely. “He lives on, his name lives on. I am proud of what happened in Tunis, I am proud that he is known throughout the Arab world.”
The residents of Sidi Bouzid are all immensely proud of how Bouazizi’s actions spurred what many refer to as the “people’s revolution” and how it has shaken despotic Arab governments elsewhere. “The son of Hay al-Noor [Bouazizi’s neighborhood] in Sidi Bouzid, this is the location of the revolution,” reads Arabic graffiti a street away from the martyr’s modest home.
Just as the young woman Neda Agha-Soltan became a symbol of Iran’s green movement after she was shot while watching a demonstration two years ago, Bouazizi has become a popular symbol among Arabs. He is being emulated as well. There have been almost a dozen copycat self-immolations in several Arab capitals including Cairo and Algiers. However, they have not provoked the same popular reaction as Bouazizi’s martyrdom did in Tunisia, despite the seething frustrations of Egyptians and Algerians over high unemployment, corruption and autocratic rule. (Tunisia pushes out its strongman: Could other Arab nations follow?)
Those frustrations remain in Sidi Bouzid — though the upheaval in Tunis has given the unemployed a dose of hope. On Thursday, Jaber Hajlawi, an unemployed 22-year-old lawyer and one of Bouazizi’s neighbors, leaned against the graffitied wall as he lit a cigarette. “We were silent before but Mohammed showed us that we must react,” he says. Clad in a short black leather jacket and blue jeans with gelled black hair, he looks the part of a rebel, with a cause. “My brother has a Ph.D.; he works in a supermarket. The problem is that qualifications mean nothing. It’s all about who you know,” he says. “Now, we expect things to change. I want my freedom and my rights. I want to work. I want a job.”
The demand echoes across town. About 300 feet away from the spot where Bouazizi set himself alight, young men in the hundreds gather every day, eager to express their views to anyone who pulls out a notebook. They have erected handwritten banners near portraits of Bouazizi. “We are all prepared to sacrifice our blood for the people,” reads one.
They are already impatient with the new regime. “Not one official has talked to us,” says Mohammad Boukhari, 40, an unemployed teacher. “Where are they? Why won’t they listen to what we need?” He is interrupted by Issawi Mohammad Naja, 32, an unemployed agriculturalist. “We are here because we want our dignity. We don’t want to have to rely on political favors or bribes to get jobs; we need to clean out the system.” Another young man pushes through the burgeoning crowd. “I’m an IT graduate and I have been unemployed for four years because I don’t know anyone in the municipality. What is my future? We are all Bouazizis if our hopes are dashed.” The anger that set Bouazizi aflame still flickers in Sidi Bouzid — and may grow to set the country on fire again.
Dec 14 2011 by Jadaliyya Reports
![[Image from unknown archive.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.jadaliyya.com/content_images/3/syria_razan_ghazzawi_532.jpg "[Image from unknown archive.]")
[Image from unknown archive.][The following statement was issued on 14 December 2011 by various Palestinian bloggers and activists in support of Razan Ghazzawi, a Syrian activist that was recently detained by the Syrian security forces and sentenced to fifteen years.]
We, a group of Palestinian bloggers and activists raise our voices loud and clear in solidarity with all the prisoners of the Great Syrian Revolution. We stand with all the prisoners, activists, artists, bloggers and others, all who are shouting in the streets or on various platforms demanding freedom and justice, while decrying the huge amount on injustice and oppression practiced by the Syrian regime for more than four decades.
We issue this statement in solidarity with all those Syrian activists, and with the blogger Razan Ghazzawi who was arrested on December 4th, on the Jordanian-Syrian crossing border. Razan was adamant in her support for the Palestinian cause. She was the first to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian bloggers who were not granted a visa to enter Tunisia in order to participate in the Arab Bloggers Conference. Razan posted a blog in 2008 during the massacre on Gaza titled, “The Idea of Solidarity with Gaza.” She wrote, “I understand when Cubans, Brazilians, and Pakistanis stand in solidarity with Gaza. But what I do not understand is when Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and also Palestinians in exile stand in solidarity. What is the meaning of solidarity in this context?”
Not only do we stand in solidarity with Razan and the other prisoners, but we also affirm that our destiny is one, our concerns are one, and our struggle is one. Palestine can never be free while the Arab people live under repressive and reactionary regimes. The road to a free Palestine comes with a free Syria, in which Syrians live in dignity. Freedom to all of the prisoners in the Syrian regime’s cells. Long live the Syrian Revolution, free from dictatorship, sectarianism, and foreign intervention.
Assad continues to refute claims that his government is waging a brutal crackdown. Yet through exclusive interviews, this report exposes the routine and sadistic torture the Syrian military has used on prisoners.
Despite the UN accusing the Syrian government forces of crimes against humanity, Assad defiantly refuses to acknowledge the torture and killings taking place under his command. The testimonies of those involved tell a different story. One man who served for a decade in Syria’s much-feared Military Intelligence gives a terrifying account of the torture that he and Assad’s other enforcers would use on children as well as adults. A 13-year-old speaks boy speaks about how he was electrocuted and the “ultimate pain” of having his big toe nail ripped out with pliers by Assad’s thugs. In another account, an illiterate farmer speaks eloquently about how he endured a month of torture and Kafka-esque interrogation,leaving him with permanent damage.
Watch more: http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?feature=mhee
Russia submits UN resolution condemning Syrian violence
Russia vetoed an October UN resolution denouncing the violence.
By News Wires (text)
AFP – Russia on Thursday surprised the Western powers by proposing a Security Council resolution on the Syria crisis as international fears over the crisis grew, diplomats said.
As a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has tried to head off Security Council intervention in the Syria crisis. With China, it vetoed a council resolution proposed by European nations in October condemning Assad’s crackdown on protests which the UN says has left 5,000 dead.
Russia called emergency talks of the 15 nation body on Syria however to propose the new resolution which western diplomats said they did not find acceptable but could be negotiated on.
The Russian resolution strongly condemns the violence by “all parties, including disproportionate use of force by Syrian authorities,” according to a copy obtained by AFP.
The draft also raises concern over “the illegal supply of weapons to the armed groups in Syria.”
“At the moment, from our point of view, it is unbalanced. We have no firm evidence of any arms trafficking,” one Western diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“We would be opposed to anything which puts the opposition violence on the same level as that of the government,” another council diplomat said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because talks on the resolution are confidential.
Russian diplomats did not immediately comment on the resolution or its contents.
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Naomi KleinNaomi Klein, the author of a string of provocative and popular books including “The Shock Doctrine,” recently took on global warming policy and campaigns in “Capitalism vs. the Climate,” a much-discussed cover story for The Nation that has been mentioned by readers here more than once in the last few weeks.
The piece begins with Klein’s conclusion, reached after she spent time at a conclave on climate sponsored by the libertarian Heartland Institute, that passionate corporate and conservative foes of curbs on greenhouse gases are right in asserting that a meaningful response to global warming would be a fatal blow to free markets and capitalism.
She challenges the environmental left to embrace this reality instead of implying that modest changes in lifestyle and shopping habits and the like can decarbonize human endeavors on a crowding planet.
Please dive in. The piece is particularly relevant this week given the continued standoffs and disconnect between stated goals and behavior at the climate treaty talks in Durban, South Africa. Whether you embrace or dispute her conclusions, the article is a worthy and substantive provocation. I disagree with her in pretty profound ways, yet some of her points echo my assertion awhile back that greenhouse-driven climate change is “not the story of our time” but a symptom of much deeper issues. I contacted Klein, who kindly spent quite a bit of time engaging in an e-conversation about her argument. Here’s our chat:
Q.First, I was happy to see you dive into the belly of the many-headed beast challenging the need for greenhouse-gas cuts (as was clear from your piece, you recognize that there’s no single species called “deniers”). There are lots of slings and arrows awaiting anyone exploring this terrain, as was the case with the Heartland meeting in 2008. What prompted you to do an in-depth look at global warming stances and the issues underlying this “crisis”?
Click here to read the post in its entirety at the Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 41, no. 1 (Autumn 2011), p. 67 Essays
Activists in Syria’s capital are using covert methods to show their opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s continuing rule.
New methods of creative civil disobedience are flourishing in Syria’s capital [Calendar of Freedom]These days, it is not extraordinary in Damascus for flyers calling for freedom to be blown on the breeze, or for garbage bins to bear banners calling for the collapse of the ruling administration.
This is the work of youths in the city in the belief that, with creativity, they could cause the government of President Bashar al-Assad to falter – along with its security apparatus. Apparently inspired by MK Gandhi, scholar Gene Sharp and other progenitors of non-violent civil disobedience, they formed a movement named “The Calendar of Freedom” and planned and executed pioneering forms of civil disobedience.
“We do the regime a big favour when we move in a direction they expect, when we protest in a typical way and we show up from a predictable location”
– Mouhannad, Calendar of Freedom Movement
These Damascus dissidents began their work as mass protests broke out in March, but only recently has the movement become more organised, with membership swelling from the tens to the hundreds.
“The media always asks: ‘Where is Damascus in the uprising?’” Mouhannad, a member of the movement, told Al Jazeera. ”This is an unfair question. Just because there are no large-scale street protests in Damascus, that does not mean that the city is dead. Our methods are different from the rest of the cities because this is the capital. It’s tightly controlled by security forces and shabiha [pro-government militia].”
Small protests have taken place in the heart of Damascus, but have failed to take hold – as they have in the suburbs and in other restive cities. Hundreds of plainclothes police roam the capital’s districts, ready to disperse and arrest gathering crowds. Meanwhile, the army has effectively locked down the peripheries to prevent the daily anti-government protests in the suburbs spilling into the centre of town.
Anti-government youth have had to find other ways to express their dissent. To avoid the crackdown, they have attempted to be one step ahead of government’s forces – and to constantly surprise them.
“We do the regime a big favour when we move in a direction they expect, when we protest in a typical way and we show up from a predictable location,” said 26-year-old Mouhannad. “The security forces will be able to catch us easily and still boast [of their] strength, intelligence and brutality. Therefore, the surprise factor is important for us.”
Fountains of ‘blood’
One of the movement’s first schemes was adding red dye to the waters of the city’s seven major fountains, making them flow scarlet, symbolising the blood of the estimated 4,000 people killed by security forces across the country.
One fountain sat directly in front of one of the headquarters of one of the most feared intelligence services.
“Imagine that: With all their perceived might, all their heavy weapons they use to kill protesters, the government forces stood helpless and confused in front of merely coloured water,” said Salma, a 24-year-old activist.
Activists dyed seven fountains red [Calendar of Freedom]“The main aim of this action was to raise the morale of the freedom seekers, to crush the morale of the government forces and distort the prestige of the security apparatus.”
Another time, activists aimed a strong laser light, bought from a party supplies store, at the presidential palace. They posted a video showing what appears to be a laser light beaming from one hill to another, where the palace is located. Activists claimed that armed guards frantically fired into the air, confused about the source or the nature of the laser.
“The message we wanted to deliver here is that neither Bashar nor his forces scare us. We wanted to show him that the Syrian people do not respect him,” Salma said.
The youth of the movement surprised Damascus residents once again when they stuffed cassette players and speakers in black garbage bags and threw them into trash bins in crowded streets and universities. Minutes later, a well-known anti-Assad song would blare from the bin. Its singer, Ibrahim al-Qashoush, was killed and his throat cut – allegedly by security forces – after he chanted the song in a protest in the central city of Hama.
Syrian state television broadcast pictures of the speakers – alongside grenades and ammunition – claiming the materials were seized from “terrorists”.
“This shows you that our simple, peaceful methods are as dangerous for this insecure regime as weapons. This gives us more motivation to carry on,” Mouhannad said.
Small acts of sabotage
Activists have also gone street to street, changing signs by affixing stickers bearing the names of people killed by security forces in the city. They have covered neighbourhoods including Barzeh, Mashrou’ Dummar, al-Midan, Rukn el-Deen, al-Salhiyeh, Daraya, al-Qadam, al-Qaboun and Zamalka.
The sign on a street in Barzeh area, for example, was changed to: “Eid Abdel Kayem Allou Street. Died at the age of 40. Married with four children, the youngest of whom was born 40 days after his death.”
“Creative ideas could only be fought back with ideas, something that this decaying unimaginative regime lack”
– Salma, Calendar of Freedom Movement
The Damascus dissidents’ campaign has extended to other ideas and small acts of sabotage, including glueing the door locks at a government building, releasing “freedom balloons” into the sky, spraying walls with anti-government graffiti, and calling on residents to collectively switch off their lights at a certain hour.
Salma said that the movement’s power lies in its simplicity, encouraging those who are still hesitant to join the ranks of the Syrian uprising.
“Our campaign was particularly effective in universities,” Salma said. “We had called on students to wear black clothing on certain days as a gesture of support for the Syrian revolution against Assad. The response was amazing. Students loved the fact that they could express dissent for this ruthless regime with the least risk of getting arrested.”
The youths also focused on awareness campaigns. Using home printers, they printed and distributed newsletters discussing the uprising. They created educational videos on non-violence and interviewed Erica Chenoweth, a professor and a co-author of a book on non-violent civil disobedience.
To avoid being arrested, the youth group said that they carefully study the security risks of each activity before embarking on it. Many of the members do not even know each other. They communicate and make logistical arrangements anonymously through Facebook.
Salma said the movement was planning more projects that aim at “driving the government crazy”.
“Creative ideas could only be fought back with ideas, something that this decaying unimaginative regime lack,” she concluded. “This is why we know that we will eventually win this battle.”
Follow Basma Atassi on Twitter: @Basma_
