Intelligence agencies have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for past five years, government admits
The admission comes ahead of a legal challenge brought on behalf of two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, over allegations that security services unlawfully intercepted their communications with lawyers. Photograph: PA & AFP
The regime under which UK intelligence agencies, including MI5 and MI6, have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful, the British government has admitted.
The admission that the activities of the security services have failed to comply fully with human rights laws in a second major area – this time highly sensitive legally privileged communications – is a severe embarrassment for the government.
It follows hard on the heels of the British court ruling on 6 February declaring that the regime surrounding the sharing of mass personal intelligence data between America’s national security agency and Britain’s GCHQ was unlawful for seven years.
The admission that the regime surrounding state snooping on legally privileged communications has also failed to comply with the European convention on human rights comes in advance of a legal challenge, to be heard early next month, in which the security servicesare alleged to have unlawfully intercepted conversations between lawyers and their clients to provide the government with an advantage in court.
The case is due to be heard before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). It is being brought by lawyers on behalf of two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, who, along with their families, were abducted in a joint MI6-CIA operation and sent back to Tripoli to be tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2004.
A government spokesman said: “The concession the government has made today relates to the agencies’ policies and procedures governing the handling of legally privileged communications and whether they are compatible with the European convention on human rights.
“In view of recent IPT judgments, we acknowledge that the policies adopted since [January] 2010 have not fully met the requirements of the ECHR, specifically article 8 (right to privacy). This includes a requirement that safeguards are made sufficiently public.
“It does not mean that there was any deliberate wrongdoing on their part of the security and intelligence agencies, which have always taken their obligations to protect legally privileged material extremely seriously. Nor does it mean that any of the agencies’ activities have prejudiced or in any way resulted in an abuse of process in any civil or criminal proceedings.”
He said that the intelligence agencies would now work with the interception of communications commissioner to ensure their policies satisfy all of the UK’s human rights obligations.
Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve and one of the Belhaj family’s lawyers said: “By allowing the intelligence agencies free reign to spy on communications between lawyers and their clients, the government has endangered the fundamental British right to a fair trial.
“Reprieve has been warning for months that the security services’ policies on lawyer-client snooping have been shot through with loopholes big enough to drive a bus through.
“For too long, the security services have been allowed to snoop on those bringing cases against them when they speak to their lawyers. In doing so, they have violated a right that is centuries old in British common law. Today they have finally admitted they have been acting unlawfully for years.
“Worryingly, it looks very much like they have collected the private lawyer-client communications of two victims of rendition and torture, and possibly misused them. While the government says there was no ‘deliberate’ collection of material, it’s abundantly clear that private material was collected and may well have been passed on to lawyers or ministers involved in the civil case brought by Abdel hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar, who were ‘rendered’ to Libya in 2004 by British intelligence.
“Only time will tell how badly their case was tainted. But right now, the government needs urgently to investigate how things went wrong and come clean about what it is doing to repair the damage.”
Government sources, in line with all such cases, refuse to confirm or deny whether the two Libyans were the subject of an interception operation. They insist the concession does not concern the allegation that actual interception took place and say it will be for the investigatory powers tribunal hearing to determine the issue.
An updated draft interception code of practicespelling out the the rules for the first time was quietly published at the same time as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruling against GCHQ earlier this month in the case brought by Privacy International and Liberty.
The government spokesman said the draft code set out enhanced safeguards and provided more detail than previously on the protections that had to be applied in the security agencies handling of legally privileged communications.
The draft code makes clear that warrants for snooping on legally privileged conversations, emails and other communications between suspects and their lawyers can be granted if there are exceptional and compelling circumstances. They have to however ensure that they are not available to lawyers or policy officials who are conducting legal cases against those suspects.
To demonstrate that its policies satisfy legal safeguards, MI6 were required in advance of Wednesday’s concession to disclose internal guidance on how intelligence staff should deal with material protected by legal professional privilege.
The MI6 papers noted: “Undertaking interception in such circumstances would be extremely rare and would require strong justification and robust safeguards. It is essential that such intercepted material is not acquired or used for the purpose of conferring an unfair or improper advantage on SIS or HMG [Her Majesty’s government] in any such litigation, legal proceedings or criminal investigation.”
The internal documents also refer to a visit by the interception commissioner, Sir Anthony May, last summer to examine interception warrants, where it was discovered that regulations were not being observed. “In relation to one of the warrants,” the document explained, “the commissioner identified a number of concerns with regard to the handling of [legal professional privilege] material”.
Amnesty UK’s legal programme director, Rachel Logan, said: “We are talking about nothing less than the violation of a fundamental principle of the rule of law – that communications between a lawyer and their client must be confidential.
“The government has been caught red-handed. The security agencies have been illegally intercepting privileged material and are continuing to do so – this could mean they’ve been spying on the very people challenging them in court.
“This is the second time in as many weeks that government spies have been rumbled breaking the law.”
Like many children, 13-year-old Mohammed Tuaiman suffered from nightmares. In his dreams, he would see flying “death machines” that turned family and friends into burning charcoal. No one could stop them, and they struck any place, at any time.
Unlike most children, Mohammed’s nightmares killed him.
Three weeks ago, a CIA drone operating over Yemen fired a missile at a car carrying the teenager, and two others. They were all incinerated. Nor was Mohammed the first in his family to be targeted: drones had already killed his father and brother.
Since president Barack Obama took office in 2009, the US has killed at least 2,464 people through drone strikes outside the country’s declared war zones. The figure is courtesy of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which says that at least 314 of the dead, one in seven, were civilians.
Recall that for Obama, as The New York Times reported in May 2012, “all military-age males in a strike zone” are counted “as combatants” – unless “there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent”.
It sounds like the stuff of nightmares.
The week after Mohammed’s death, on February 5, Mr Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, and discussed the violence of ISIL.
“Lest we get on our high horses”, said the commander-in-chief, “remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
These comments prompted a (brief) media storm, with Mr Obama accused of insulting Christians, pandering to the terrorist enemy, or just bad history.
In fact, the president was simply repeating a point often made by liberals since September 11, namely, that all religions have blots on their copy book through the deeds of their followers.
One of the consequences, however, of this invocation of the Crusades – unintended, and all the more significant for it – is to seal away the West’s “sins”, particularly vis-à-vis its relationship to the Middle East, in events that took place a thousand years ago.
The Crusades were, in one sense, a demonstration of raw military power, and a collective trauma for the peoples of the regions they marched through and invaded.
In the siege of Jerusalem in 1099, a witness described how the Europeans ordered “all the Saracen dead to be cast outside because of the great stench, since the whole city was filled with their corpses”.
He added: “No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, for funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids.”
Or take the Third Crusade, when, on August 20, 1191, England’s King Richard I oversaw the beheading of 3,000 Muslim prisoners at Acre in full view of Saladin’s army.
Just “ancient history”? In 1920, when the French had besieged and captured Damascus, their commander Henri Gourard reportedly went to the grave of Saladin, kicked it, and uttered: “Awake Saladin, we have returned! My presence here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent.”
But the US president need not cite the Crusades or even the colonial rule of the early 20th century: more relevant reference points would be Bagram and Fallujah.
Bagram base in Afghanistan is where US soldiers tortured prisoners to death – like 22-year-old taxi driver and farmer Dilawar. Before he was killed in custody, Dilawar was beaten by soldiers just to make him scream “Allah!”
Five months after September 11, The Guardian reported that US missiles had killed anywhere between 1,300 and 8,000 in Afghanistan. Months later, the paper suggested that “as many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the US intervention”.
When it was Iraq’s turn, the people of Fallujah discovered that US forces gave them funerals, not democracy. On April 28, 2003, US soldiers massacred civilian protesters, shooting to death 17 during a demonstration.
When that city revolted against the occupation, the residents paid a price. As Marines tried to quell resistance in the city, wrote The New York Times on April 14, 2004, they had “orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not”.Months later, as the Marines launched their November assault on the city, CNN reported that “the sky…seems to explode”.
In their bombardment and invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US and UK armed forces rained fiery death down on men, women and children. Prisoners were tortured and sexually abused. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. No one was held to account.
It is one thing to apologise for the brutality of western Crusaders a thousand years ago. It is quite another to look at the corpses of the victims of the imperialist present, or hear the screams of the bereaved.
In his excellent book The Muslims Are Coming, Arun Kundnani analysed the “politics of anti-extremism”, and describes the two approaches developed by policymakers and analysts during the “war on terror”.
The first approach, which he refers to as “culturalism”, emphasises “what adherents regard as inherent features of Islamic culture”. The second approach, “reformism”, is when “extremism is viewed as a perversion of Islam’s message”, rather than “a clash of civilisations between the West’s modern values and Islam’s fanaticism”.
Thus the American Right was angry with Mr Obama, because for them, it is about religion – or specifically, Islam. Liberals, meanwhile, want to locate the problem in terms of culture.
Both want to avoid a discussion about imperialism, massacres, coups, brutalities, disappearances, dictatorships – in other words, politics.
As Kundnani writes: when “the concept of ideology” is made central, whether understood as “Islam itself or as Islamist extremism”, then “the role of western states in co-producing the terror war is obscured”.
The problem with Mr Obama’s comments on the Crusades was not, as hysterical conservatives claimed, that he was making offensive and inaccurate analogies with ISIL; rather, that in the comfort of condemning the past, he could mask the violence of his own government in the present.
The echoes of collective trauma remain for a long time, and especially when new wounds are still being inflicted. Think it is farfetched that Muslims would still care about a 1,000-year-old European invasion? Then try asking them about Guantanamo and Camp Bucca instead.
Ben White is a journalist and author of Israeli Apartheid
Youtube Videos on Palestine, looking back at life before turmoil
Deir Yassin in the 1930s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A fascinating look back at Palestine before it’s diversity was destroyed by Israel. These Youtube Videos show Palestinian life as it was before Israel began imposing laws that discriminated against Christians and Muslims, a land where everyone was equal.
One video shows life in Palestine in 1896 before Zionists began their campaign to push for the immigration of Jews to Palestine and the displacement of the population.
Another video shows the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Deir Yassin by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, two terrorists who later became Prime Ministers of the State of Israel.
In a final video, a spokesman for Palestine express concerns over the displacement of the population by the dramatic rise and increase of Jewish immigrants from Europe who were being rejected by the West and pushed to the Middle East.
Here are the three videos. The author of the videos are not identified, but they are available for viewing on Youtube.
Palestine 1896
Palestine after the Deir Yassin Massacre
The displacement of Palestinians by Jewish Immigrants is protested by the population leaders.
George Galloway is asked ‘Are you a racist?’ by an Oxford student.
In a passionate reply George Galloway describes his experiences as an undercover agent working with Jews for the ANC against apartheid in South Africa and, in a no-nonsense reference to the illegal Israeli occupation, forcefully responds:
“Jews don’t have to be on the side of Apartheid – They can stand up against it!”
He continues that he will never debate with a supporter of any form of apartheid because apartheid is the very worst form of racism and fascism there is.
ABOUT GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Few contemporary politicians have courted as much controversy as George Galloway. A Labour MP from 1987 to 2003, he was an outspoken critic of the policies of Tony Blair and New Labour, in particular the decision to invade Iraq. Fiery comments such as “the best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders” saw Galloway expelled from the Labour Party. But Galloway returned to the political fray by founding the Respect Party and winning Bethnal Green and Bow in the 2005 General Election. Mr Galloway re-entered Parliament this March [2013] as MP for Bradford West and has provoked controversy and criticism with his comments on the rape charges against Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. More recently, he has ventured into film-making: “Some people make a living, others make a killing” – with an exclusive new documentary on Tony Blair which he claims will break new ground.
| George Galloway to target Tony Blair in upcoming documentary! http://wp.me/p1xXtb-36t via @truthrazor
ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY:
The Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 190 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.
“War violates every right of a child — the right to life, the right to be with family and community, the right to health, the right to the development of the personality and the right to be nurtured and protected.”
“….modern wars are exploiting, maiming and killing children more callously and more systematically than ever” Graca Machel 1996 and 2000.
Verse 1
I watched the sun go down
On this hallowed ground
An angels choir sang higher and higher
They were singing for freedom
As people lay bleeding
They were singing for peace
But the guns didn’t cease
Chorus
Something tells me, something tells me, something is wrong
Cos no one was hearing this angel song
Verse 2
I saw a child fall down
On this hallowed ground
An angels choir sang higher and higher
They were singing for mercy
As he lay thirsty
They were singing with tears
As he called out in vain
Chorus
Something tells, something tells me, something is wrong
Cos no one was hearing this angel song
Verse 3
I watched the sun go down
On this hallowed ground
An angels choir sang higher and higher
They were singing for justice
In this world of plenty
They were singing for new dawn
And peace for everyone
Chorus
Something tells me, something tells me, something is wrong
Cos no one was hearing this angel song
Chorus repeat
Something tells me, something tells me, something is wrong
Cos no one was hearing this angel song….
(Reuters) – The man behind a film that stoked anti-U.S. protests across the Muslim world was due for release from federal custody in California on Thursday after serving time for probation violations stemming from his role in making the video.
The 56-year-old Egyptian-born Coptic Christian, Mark Basseley Youssef, gained public notice for the crudely made 13-minute anti-Islam video he produced in Southern California that portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and sexual deviant.
The film, circulated online under several titles including “The Innocence of Muslims,” touched off a torrent of anti-American demonstrations in Arab and Muslim countries, where many consider any depiction of the Prophet as blasphemous.
The start of the unrest on September 11, 2012, coincided with an attack on U.S. diplomatic posts in the Libyan city of Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Links between the Benghazi assault and Youssef’s film have since been debunked.
Youssef, a former gasoline station owner who previously served time for a 2010 bank fraud conviction, was sent back to prison last year after admitting that he breached the terms of his probation in connection with the making of the film.
Federal prosecutors insisted his arrest last September had nothing to do with the film’s content but with conduct that violated the terms of his probation, such as his use of aliases and the Internet, in the course of making the video.
Youssef, identified in some public records by his birth name, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, received a 12-month term in November, but earned credit for the six weeks he already had spent in jail since his arrest, Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said.
After a two-month stint at the federal detention center in Los Angeles, Youssef served the bulk of his sentence, about four months, in a federal prison in La Tuna, Texas. He was transferred to an undisclosed Los Angeles-area halfway house in late May to complete his term, Burke said.
He was due to be freed from federal custody altogether on Thursday, but will remain under the supervision of probation officials for the next four years, Burke said.
American cast members said after the video came to light that they had been duped into appearing in a film they believed was supposed to be an adventure drama called “Desert Warrior.”
At least one actress sued Youssef for fraud and brought a copyright claim against YouTube, seeking a court order to force removal of the clip from the online video site, but a judge refused her request.
Youssef said in a New York Times interview last November that he made the film to reveal what he called “the actual truth” about the Prophet Mohammad and to raise awareness of violence committed “under the sign of Allah.”
But in a CNN interview last month, Youssef said he “never thought my movie can cause anyone trouble or anyone can get killed from my movie.”
(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (L) is escorted out of his home by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officers in Cerritos, California September 15, 2012.
(New York) – Egyptian security forces’ rapid and massive use of lethal force to disperse sit-ins on August 14, 2013 led to the most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history.
The ongoing Human Rights Watch investigation indicates that the decision to use live ammunition on a large scale from the outset reflected a failure to observe basic international policing standards on use of lethal force and was not justified by the disruptions caused by the demonstrations or the limited possession of arms by some protesters. The failure of the authorities to provide safe exit from the sit-in, including for people wounded by live fire and needing urgent medical attention, was a serious violation of international standards.
Based on first-hand documentation and interviews with health workers by Human Rights Watch, and lists of the dead obtained by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, the death toll during the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in appears to be at least 377, significantly higher than the latest Rab’a death toll of 288 announced by the Health Ministry.
With the death toll rising day by day,Egypt’s military rulers should urgently reverse recent police instructions to use live ammunition to protect state buildings and use it only when strictly necessary to protect life.
“This excessive and unjustified use of lethal force is the worst possible response to the very tense situation in Egypt today,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt’s military rulers should rein in police forces to prevent the country from spiraling into further violence. The military should not be encouraging police to use even more lethal force.”
According to the Ministry of Interior, the nationwide August 14 death toll of 638 includes 43 police officers. The dispersal sparked gunfights in the Cairo neighborhood of Mohandessin and an attack on a police station in Kerdassa, in greater Cairo, which left four policemen dead. Human Rights Watch spoke to witnesses, priests, and residents who confirmed that over the course of August 14, immediately following the dispersals, Islamists in at least nine cities attacked and burned at least 32 churches.
Over the following three days, clashes between security forces and Muslim Brotherhood protesters, and anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters led to at least 173 additional deaths by August 18, according to the Ministry of Health.
Human Rights Watch is investigating the government’s dispersal of Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins at Rab’a al-Adawiya in Nasr City and at Nahda in Giza, in greater Cairo. Human Rights Watch staff interviewed 41 protesters, doctors, and residents from both areas, visited the Rab’a al-Adawiya Medical Center during the dispersal and later visited hospitals and morgues in Nasr City and Giza.
The most significant violence took place during the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in. Human Rights Watch’s preliminary findings indicate that the security forces used excessive force in breaking up the sit-ins and unlawfully killed a number of unarmed protesters. Security forces failed to plan the operation to minimize the risk to life, including by ensuring safe exits and giving public orders not to kill except in a targeted manner when absolutely necessary.
Four residents told Human Rights Watch that at around 6:30 a.m. security services used loudspeakers to call on protesters to leave the sit-in via the Nasr Street exit. Around 10 to 15 minutes later, at around 6:45 a.m., riot police moved in on the Rab’a protest simultaneously from several sides shooting tear gas, rubber pellets and, very soon after, live bullets. It was not possible to establish whether the first use of live ammunition came from the side of security forces or protesters, but Human Rights Watch found no evidence to suggest that firing by protesters justified the quick resort by police to massive lethal force against largely unarmed protesters.
Two journalists who were present from the start and protesters told Human Rights Watch that they could not reach any of the exits after the security forces had started firing tear gas because of heavy gunfire coming from the direction of security forces. Dozens of women and children hid in the mosque.
Witnesses and video of the protests, as well as observations by Human Rights Watch staff, indicate that the vast majority of the protesters were unarmed, but some carried clubs and a few fired guns at the security forces. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch and video footage posted on YouTube indicate that the police unlawfully killed protesters who were clearly not engaged in any form of violence.
Video footage posted online that Human Rights Watch believes to be authentic shows a man being shot as he carries a blood-stained lifeless body. One protester, Ahmad Gamal, told Human Rights Watch that at one point he saw three men carrying a blood-stained, injured man and rushing toward a stage set up at the sit-in, when he heard the sound of gunfire and saw the three fall to the ground. He said he then helped carry away two of the bodies.
Otherfootage clearly shows unarmed men crouching near the remains of the main stage in Rab’a to hide from incessant gunfire. The footage shows two of them being shot and apparently killed, and a third shot in the leg. Some of the killings appeared to be deliberate, targeting people who posed no imminent threat to life at the time they were shot. One resident told Human Rights Watch she saw a policeman summarily execute a man walking in front of the officer. The man’s hands were on his head.
Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mansour, declared a curfew on the afternoon of August 14 and a one-month state of emergency. While some curfews may be legitimate and proportionate measures to reduce severe violence on the streets, the declaration of a state of emergency sends precisely the wrong signal, Human Rights Watch said. Security forces will read it as license for additional reckless and unlawful use of force, particularly given the long history of abuses carried out under states of emergency in Egypt.
“Given the riot police’s track record of routinely misusing lethal force, it’s crucial that Egypt’s military rulers publicly order security forces to use lethal force only when strictly necessary,” Stork said. “That means police should only shoot when faced with armed individuals threatening lives, and only to the extent necessary to address an immediate threat.”
The attacks on the sit-ins sparked serious sectarian violence. Since the ouster of Morsy sectarian tension has been on the rise, with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood scapegoating Egyptian Christians as responsible for Morsy’s removal. Human Rights Watch has confirmed through interviews with witnesses that mobs chanting Islamist slogans attacked at least 32 churches. This violence left one Christian dead and at least 20 churches torched.
Security forces did little or nothing to protect churches, despite the high likelihood of such attacks. Human Rights Watch documented a rise in sectarian violence since Morsy’s ouster on July 3, with at least six major attacks on Christians in governorates across Egypt, including Luxor, Marsa Matrouh, Minya, North Sinai, Port Said, and Qena.
“Egyptian security officials bear responsibility not only for what they did in breaking up the protests but for their failure to protect churches and Christian communities against predictable reprisal attacks,” Stork said. “An impartial, credible and independent investigation is required to establish a full picture of events in Cairo and elsewhere on August 14 and to start the process of accountability.”
Break-up of the Rab’a al-Adawiya Sit-In
Since the end of June, Muslim Brotherhood supporters had been holding a sit-in near the Rab’a al-Adawiya mosque in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City. Using aerial photos, Human Rights Watch calculated that on August 2 there were at least 85,000 protesters present.
Security officials had for weeks been promising that the dispersal of the sit-in would be gradual, starting with a cordon around the sit-in and warnings and a safe exit, in particular for women and children. The Ministry of Interior issued statements on August 1 and 4 calling on protesters to leave the squares, but giving no timeframe for the dispersal.
At around 6:15 a.m. on August 14, approximately 15 minutes before the assault started, security officials used loudspeakers to urge residents to stay away from windows. Egyptian freelance journalist Maged Atef told Human Rights Watch he heard loudspeakers say that protesters should leave by the Nasr Street exit. One resident told Human Rights Watch that from around 8 a.m. onwards she heard loudspeaker announcements giving instructions for safe exit from Tayaran Street. But protesters and journalists told Human Rights Watch that once the dispersal had started, intense gunfire from security forces and tear gas made moving around impossible. The mother of one 15-year-old boy, for example, told Human Rights Watch that her son had called her from the sit-in when the dispersal started saying that he wanted to leave, but that he could not because there was shooting where the army had announced safe exits. The boy ended up sustaining a head-wound, apparently from rubber bullets according to doctors.
At 6:45 a.m. on August 14, riot police moved in on the sit-in from the entrance next to Tiba Mall on Nasr Street, and from the eastern entrances, firing tear gas canisters and shooting in the air. Security forces stationed on the roof of the nearby military intelligence building appear to have started shooting live ammunition almost from the start, although it is unclear who fired the first live bullet. A journalist said he first witnessed shooting at 6:45 a.m. at the eastern entrance to the sit-in on Youssef Abbas Street. A doctor at the sit-in clinic told Human Rights Watch that he received a first patient injured by live ammunition at 7 a.m.
Shooting continued over the next 10 hours, until around 5 p.m., according to numerous witnesses. Firing came from security forces stationed on rooftops as well as in police armored personnel carriers, and with some gunfire from the side of protesters. Women were among those killed, including 17-year-old Asmaa el Beltagy, daughter of Mohamed el Beltagy, a prominent figure in the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an Egyptian freedom of expression organization, confirmed four journalists were shot dead: Mike Deane from Sky News, Habiba Abdelaziz from Gulf News, Mosaab al-Shamy from Rassd New, and Ahmad Abdelgawad from al-Akhbar.
Protester Violence
At a news conference on August 14, the minister of interior said his forces had exercised “extreme restraint” and that 43 police officers had died, many of them at Rab’a al-Adawiya. A resident who had gone outside when he first heard the sound of shooting told Human Rights Watch that at around 7:30 a.m. he saw three dead police officers being carried out of the Tiba Mall shopping center near one of the entrances to the sit-in.
Accounts from witnesses and a review of video footage confirm that some gunfire was fired from the side of the protesters, in particular from around the Rab’a al-Adawiya mosque. For example, one resident said she saw at least three people with automatic rifles and hand guns at around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. shooting towards police at Youssef Abbas Street. Statements by witnesses interviewed by Human Rights, including international journalists, and personal observations by a Human Rights Watch researcher who was in the area during the break-up, indicate that the vast majority of protesters were not in possession of, let alone displaying or using firearms. Witnesses said protesters lit fires using car tires and wood to mitigate against the effect of tear gas and threw broken pieces of the pavement at police.
International legal standards allow the use of force in limited circumstances, and the intentional use of lethal force is only permitted where strictly necessary to protect life, which would include individuals using firearms targeted at the police. However, while security services may be justified in using a degree of force to stop protesters from throwing stones or Molotov cocktails, protesters’ violence cannot justify use of lethal force, let alone on the scale witnessed on August 14. Those planning the dispersal operations were under a strict duty to take all feasible measures to ensure the operations posed a minimal risk to life, which the organizers comprehensively failed to do.
Higher Death Toll
Injured and killed protesters were brought to two main “field hospitals” at the sit-in: three rooms attached to the mosque where protesters had stocked basic medical supplies, and the Rab’a al-Adawiya medical clinic, a four-story building with basic medical equipment.
On the morning of August 15, Human Rights Watch staff at the Iman mosque on Makram Ebeid street counted 235 bodies which had been brought from the field hospital and the Rab’a Medical Center at the sit-in. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that another seven bodies arrived at the mosque later. Since the bodies had not been taken to a government facility, it is unlikely they were included in the ministry of health death toll, which at that time was 102 for Rab’a. In addition,a senior official at the nearby Demerdash hospital said that 20 people from Rab’a died in that hospital from their injuries. Later on August 14, the cabinet announced that the ministry of health would no longer issue death tolls and that going forward only the cabinet would be authorized to publish numbers.
On August 14 protesters had to leave the bodies in Rab’a when the police evicted them from the clinics at 5 p.m. Two men told Human Rights Watch on August 15 that police had allowed them to return to collect bodies from 8 p.m. onwards, and they helped bring them to the Iman mosque.
A local resident told Human Rights Watch that at 8:25 p.m. on August 14 she saw from her apartment a stream of men carrying bodies walk past, that and her cousins had gone to help carry the bodies. A resident on Makram Ebeid Street told Human Rights Watch that at around 9:30 p.m. he had seen a car with two bodies on the roof drive down the street towards the Iman mosque.
Human Rights Watch visited the Rab’a Medical Center, at 3:30 p.m. on August 14, and viewed 64 bodies there. Dr Mohamed Abdelaziz, working at the center, told Human Rights Watch that all but one had been killed by live ammunition, with shots to the head and chest, and that one man had been burnt to death in his tent. One building guard told Human Rights Watch that he had helped carry out two men who had been in their tent when it was set on fire and that one of them had died in a building entrance where they were treating people.
Video footage of nine of those carried into the clinic show that two appeared to have been shot in the chest, five in the back of the head, and two in the face.
Unlawful Killings
A resident whose flat overlooks one of the side-entrances told Human Rights Watch that at around 6 p.m. there were only two policemen on Mohandessin Askariyeen Street with a group of half a dozen prisoners:
I heard one policeman yelling, “Yalla, walk from here to there,” and you could hear his voice trembling. There was a queue of [around 6] men, they were walking with their hands on heads. The policeman suddenly fired and then I saw a man on the ground. He killed this man for nothing.
Injured protester Mohamed Ali told Human Rights Watch on August 14, as he lay with his right leg bloodied and bandaged in the Rab’a Medical Center, that he had been standing next to his tent, towards the front of Nasr Street when police moved in and he was shot in his right leg above the knee.
Protester Mostafa El Sayed from Daqahliya said that he hid behind a car when the police first moved in at around 6:45 a.m. near the Rab’a al-Adawiya medical center. He said shooting was coming from all directions and that a man next to him was shot in the side. He said he also saw a policeman who was shot.
Journalist Mohamed Hamdy said he was filming on Youssef Abbas Street at 7 a.m. when a man standing next to him was shot in the chest and fell to the ground. Another protester, 26-year-old Abdelmonim, said that just before 7 a.m. he was on Anwar Mofty Street when the police started moving in with tear gas:
We heard the sound of gunshots straight away with the tear gas. I tried to hide because the shooting was everywhere. While I was there I saw three people being shot and fall to the ground, one shot in the eye and one in the side.
Frequent sniper fire in the side streets coming from the direction of where security forces were stationed also killed and injured bystanders. Ain Shams University professor Mostafa Sharif said he had been hiding from sniper fire in Sebawiya al- Masry Street near Rab’a al-Adawiya school at around 8:30 a.m., and saw five people shot and fall to the ground.
No safe exit for wounded
When Human Rights Watch visited the Rab’a al-Adawiya medical clinic at 3:30 p.m. on August 14, new cases of people shot with live ammunition were constantly entering the clinic, mostly men but also one woman. Doctors were operating on men in the passageways and the clinic was overflowing with injured lying on the ground. There was constant gunfire outside. One volunteer told Human Rights Watch staff to stay away from the passageway next to the stairwell because bullets were being shot through the building by security forces; a journalist in the building confirmed seeing that happen.
For at least 10 hours, the only way for anyone on the outside to enter the clinic inside the main protest area was to run across a street braving sniper fire directed almost constantly into the protest area. During that period gunmen apparently from the sit-in fired some shots back at the security forces. Ambulance workers could go only as far as Anwar al-Mofty street but not cross the 20 meters of sniper fire to access those critically wounded in the clinic. One doctor inside the clinic told Human Rights Watch that the clinic did not have proper equipment for surgical operations but “there’s not much we can do, ambulances can’t reach us.”
At times, four men would brave the gunfire and run across the road carrying a wounded person on a stretcher to ambulances waiting outside. Human Rights Watch spoke to two people outside the medical center who said they had seen an ambulance worker shot dead at around 2 p.m. A Human Rights Watch researcher witnessed the shooting of a man not displaying any weapons or using or threatening any violence as he left the clinic and headed across the road. The fire came from the direction of security forces, towards the sit-in. He fell to the ground, blood seeping out of his head, but was able to crawl to safety.
The live fire at the entrance to the medical center meant that the wounded had no safe way of getting medical help. Constant fire from rooftop security forces towards the mosque and buildings adjacent to the clinic prevented medical staff from saving lives over that ten-hour period, Human Rights Watch said.
Thierry Meyssan analyses the contradictions and incoherences made by the US, British and French secret services about the so-called chemical massacre of Ghouta.
Introduction
Thierry Meyssan : The Western secret services are 100% sure of things that aren’t logical :
1. They think that combat gases can make the difference between men and women.
2. They observed while the concoction of combat gas was being made, but did not intervene to avoid it’s usage. On the other hand, they stepped forward to suggest punishing the ones who used it.
3. They explain that the children were killed on the 21st of August, while the video is dated from before that, and these children come from families that support the Syrian regime and Bashar el-Assad’s government.
4. They assure they possess telephone call recordings. But they are not the ones who made those telephone interceptions.
5. And, finally, the ’’red line’’ affair. According to the joint committee of the British Intelligence service, Jon Day, Syria would have supposedly used combat gas 14 times in the past. But this was never confirmed. Why 14 times before ? Because it is the number of times the US government had use of chemical weapons in Iraq, in 2003-2004. And, of course, it would only be the 15th time of use that would lead the punishment exerted by the great powers.
The Ghouta massacre
The contradictions of the Western secret services
TM : The US and French government assure that the Syrian Arab Army, the legitimate army of the Syria state, carried-out a chemical massacre in the Damascus suburbs, in the agricultural belt of Ghouta, which surrounds Damascus, on August 21st .
I I am going to show you that this affirmation is utterly fabricated and that is conforms in no way to reality. Therefore, I will first take support on official documents, published by the american government, as well as the british and French.
1- The number of victims varies from 1 to 5
TM : In the information note that was published by the american government, we can read that this attack caused the death of at least 1 429 people.
However, when we look at the French equivalent document, only 281 deaths are mentioned, that would have supposedly been counted by watching the internet videos. The same document states that a ’’non government related’’ organization – this has to be said with quotations marks -, Doctors without boarders, would have counted – for the French government – 355 deaths in the hospitals surrounding Damascus.
So, the difference of evaluation of the problem varies from 1 to 5, from source to source.
Then, the West leans solely on the videos to prove the veracity of the facts.
In conclusion, about these videos, almost no one agrees on the number of victims. From what the US document says, their are more that 100, whereas the French one only claims 47.
2- Paris and Washington have validated the videos dated from before August 21st
TM : When we look at these videos, we can notice that some of them are previous to the massacre.
Indeed, if you look on YouTube , you will see that they were posted on august 20th, which could be on the eve of the massacre, but not necessarily when you take into account the time change of 9 hours between Syria and California, where the Youtube server is. However, you can clearly see that the outside scenes are filmed during the time where the sun is at it’s highest.
So, it was filmed around noon and can’t possibly have been recorded before that date.
And yet, these are the unproven facts that the US and French government are relying on.
3- A gas that spares women
TM : In these documents is explained that most of the victims are children.
Indeed, you can see in the videos that many children are in agony. They are all about the same age. There are also adults. But all the adults are men. And generally, are at the age where they can fight.
There are no woman. Aside from two exceptions, there were no women in the officially announced victims. On the 1 429 official victims, only 2 are women.
It would be the first time that a gas would discriminate individuals according to their gender.
4- The victims are prisoners of the jihadists
TM : When these images had been broadcasted, the first thing that jumps to eye is that none of these children are accompanied.
This is very shocking, because in Near-Eastern culture, you never leave a body unaccompanied, even more so when they are children.
But these children are without parents.
Then, we can see them in the hands of people that are presented as medical staff, trying to save them. But it is hard to deduce what exactly the staff is doing.
In fact, their is a simple reason : these children are not victims of a chemical attack.
These are children that were kidnapped two weeks previous, in the beginning of August, in the Latakia region, 200 km away from the Ghouta.
They were taken while a jihadist attack on pro-Assas alaouit villagers. Most of the families were killed. Some survived. In the improvised cemeteries around Latakia were found over a thousand dead.
These children, of whom no one has heard about for two weeks, actually resurfaced on these videos.
Those of which the families were still alive recognized them, and these families pressed charges for assassination. If we don’t understand what kind of care is given to these children on these videos, it’s simply because they are not being treated.
They are being injected poison by intravenous, and being killed in front of the cameras.
5- The secret services would supposedly have a secret way to analyze human samples
TM : The US, Britain and France explain that the victims were gassed, or by sarin gas, or by a mix of gas including sarin gas. They rely on analysis produced by their own laboratories, from their own samples collected in the field.
This is completely impossible, because the United-Nations have also gone the scene and swabbed samples, but need about another ten days in order to analyze them.
So, in fact, what has been explained by the US, the UK and France, is that they have at their disposition secret investigation methods completely unknown to the scientific world, that permits to instantly cultivate human tissue and to have immediate results.
6- The US would have supposedly watched while the preparation of the crime during 4 days without any intervention
TM : Even stranger, in James Clapper’s note, the US’ intelligence boss, we read that – as final proof – the US had observed, during 4 days, the Syrian army mixing the components of sarin gas, and thus preparing it for immediate attack.
However, what we do not understand is, if they did indeed see it happening, why didn’t they say anything ? Why didn’t they intervene ?
7- A telephone call interception delivered by Israel
TM : In the same way, the US, the UK and France declared having intercepted a phone call between a high official of the Syrian minister of Defence of the Unit Chief of combat gas. The Syrian minister would have panicked by the usage of these gases. This would be another proof of the Syrian’s guilt.
However, this piece of information was not collected by the Western services. It was handed to them by the 8200 Unit of the Israeli Mossad, as broadcasted – before these services – by Israeli televison.
Israeli television (Voice over)
The Israeli Defence Forces announce having intercepted the Syrian government’s communications that demonstrate that Bashar el-Assad’s regime is behind the recent chemical attack that made hundreds of dead civilians in a country devastated by war.
8- Not Sarin gas symptoms
TM : On the videos, the victims are trembling and drooling. This is very characteristic of chemical intoxication with combat gas.
Except that sarin gas does not provoke white drool, but a yellow one, that we do not see on this video. So, It cannot be sarin gas that was used to intoxicate the people who were killed.
The US, UK and french leaders and liable to the International Penal Court
TM : In conclusion, this case in completely fabricated. It is the consequence of war propaganda, which is, according to international law, the worst crime, since it is a crime against peace, the one which enable to perpetrate other crimes, including crimes against humanity.
As Kerry’s planned remarks concluded at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, anti-war protester and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin confronted him from the gallery:
“We don’t want another war!” Benjamin shouted . “Nobody wants this war — cruise missiles, launching cruise missiles means another war! The American people do not want this!”
She was immediately escorted away by security.
“Can I just say before — you know, the first time I testified before this committee when I was 27 years old, I had feelings very similar to that protester,” Kerry continued. “And I would just say that is exactly why it is so important that we are all here having this debate, talking about these things before the country and that the congress itself will act representing the American people. I think we all can respect those who have a different point of view, and we do.”
Remember the next 10-days are crucial in raising our voices to help stop an attack on Syria! Congress must hear that we the people, do not want the use of military force in Syria.
Instead we plead with President Obama and Congress to seek a political solution for an immediate ceasefire, to facilitate regional peace talks and provide humanitarian aid to the over 2 million refugees fleeing the violence for humanity’s sake.
After witnessing the devastation of Iraq, the on-going destruction of Afghanistan, the blowback of Libya, the drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, who would possibly countenance engaging in a new war – in whatever capacity – without prior UNSC approval – who, but the genuinely deluded?
America is now a war-fatigued country which sorely needs to balance its budget for it’s own citizens instead of for yet more war and more foreign misadventures without proper proof to boot!
Contact Congress or your elected representative today and make your concerns known! Mr. Kerry! Syrians don’t want your so-called ‘evidence’ as much as they need your humanity. You can’t save Syrians by bombing Syrians. AID NOT BOMBS!
It started with thousands of people on the streets. It has resulted in millions of people on the move. Syria‘s civil conflict, two years old and counting, has generated the world’s gravest refugee crisis for 20 years, but the numbers only tell part of the story. In this animated film we examine the magnitude of this humanitarian disaster.
| truthaholics 