MARCH 2007

UPDATE
march27thHistoric N Ireland deal reached

Northern Ireland's arch-rival leaders Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams have agreed a power-sharing deal at historic talks.

The two men agreed to form a joint executive on 8 May to run the province. Their first ever direct talks were held at Stormont, the province's parliament.

march 23rd

A Call to Free Dr. Sami Al-Arian

By the Palestinian American Congress 

Al-Jazeerah, March 23, 2007

The Palestinian American Congress (PAC) calls on all people of conscience to demand that Dr. Sami Al-Arian is immediately freed from his political imprisonment. Dr. Al-Arian is a Palestinian former University of Florida professor who is currently on his 58th day of a water-only Hunger strike. He is protesting his maltreatment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) which violated an earlier plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further cooperation with the government. According to his lawyer, the DOJ wanted Dr. Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury in Virginia. When he refused, citing his plea agreement, he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail.

Dr. Al-Arian is currently being held at a medical facility in North Carolina. Family members who recently visited him reported that he had lost 53 pounds, equivalent to more than 25 percent of his body weight. He is no longer able to walk or stand on his own. "We were stunned when we saw him. His deterioration is shocking," said Al-Arian's son, Abdullah, 26. "We are extremely worried for his life," said his wife Nahla. More information on Dr. Al-Arian's ordeal can be found in the transcript of a recent interview with his wife, Nahla Al-Arian. See:

 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255 

ACTION:

We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.

Call, Email, and Write:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Department of Justice U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001

Fax Number: (202) 307-6777 Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr

2426 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515

(202) 225-5126 (202) 225-0072 Fax John.Conyers@mail.house.gov 

Senator Patrick Leahy

433 Russell Senate Office Building United States Senate Washington, DC 20510

(202) 224-4242 senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov 

Honorable Judge Gerald Lee

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia 401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314

march 15th
Simon Wiesenthal Center convicted of defamation by Paris court
By Joseph Byron 13/Mar/2007

PARIS (EJP)--- The Paris-based Simon Wiesenthal Center was last Thursday convicted of defamation by a Paris court for accusing a French-based group of financing Palestinian militants.
The Committee for Charity and Support for the Palestinians (CBSP) filed suit against the centre’s head of international relations, Shimon Samuels, after he claimed it finances terrorism and sent funds in support of the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

The CBSP has dismissed the charges as "ridiculous", saying it worked to support 3,000 Palestinian orphans.

Samuel was handed a suspended fine of 1,000 euros and ordered to pay one euro in symbolic damages to the Palestinian support group over what the court described as "seriously defamatory" allegations. The court ruled that documents produced by the center established no "direct or indirect participation in financing terrorism". The Wiesenthal centre announced later that it had appealed the court ruling.

"I have no intention of criticising my judges. I have, however, appealed this decision which I deem unjustified," Samuels told EJP. "The Court, after having studied the 150 exhibits that I had submitted, stated that these ‘indeed constituted an impressive body of evidence’ but then proceeded to use some of the documentation against me". "My intention was to report the thorough investigation which I had undertaken over the last two years. I am certain that the rigorous findings that I provided cannot be seriously contradicted by any elements of my defence or the arguments of the CBSP," he added. Israel in the past has also accused the CBSP of supporting the Palestinian radical group Hamas by transferring funds to the families of people killed by the Israeli military or during anti-Israeli attacks.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is a human rights group dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance and understanding. The organisation is named after Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Jew who lost many family members in the Holocaust, and later dedicated most of his life to tracking down fugitive Nazis to bring them to justice.

March 4th
Statement by Hana Al Bayaty, Ian Douglas, Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iman Saadoon, Dirk Adriaensens and Ayse Berktay
(3 March 2007)



CALL FOR WORLDWIDE
INTENSIFYING MOBILIZATION

Second update on efforts to stop the
summary execution of three Iraqi women


Twenty-four hours ago we issued an urgent alert, stating that the defence of human rights in Iraq, as a result of US occupation and its sectarian puppet forces, is practically impossible. But the awareness by thousands of this fact explains the overwhelming mobilization we are witnessing in defence of three Iraqi women facing the gallows.

Individuals, intellectuals, women's organizations, lawyers' associations, human rights groups, trade unions and political movements effectively networked and took initiative worldwide. The popular pressure that has been built from everywhere, via numerous routes, impelled, among others:

· Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Friday 2 March, to place a direct call to Nouri El-Maliki, expressing Turkey's alarm at the proposed execution of Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad
· Ann Clwyd MP, special envoy to war criminal Tony Blair on human rights in Iraq, to write to Iraqi authorities outlining her opposition to the death penalty in all cases and calling for investigations into the circumstances of the trials of the three Iraqi women
· Abdullah Gul, foreign minister of Turkey, to announce that he would raise the issue of executions in Iraq in his 3 March meetings with foreign ministers of the Arab League
· Luisa Morgantini, vice-president of the European Parliament, to remind the Iraqi government that no state has the right to kill and that Wassan, Zainab and Liqa are prisoners of war with protected status under the Geneva Conventions
· Martin Shultz, president of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, to remind Jalal Talabani that the European Union opposes the death penalty

Today we received information via the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that the three Iraqi women will not be executed until an appeals court has ruled on their cases. This assurance came from Iraqi authorities. It is not enough. We demand to know the charges on which these three Iraqi women stand convicted. We demand to know the date of their appeal hearings. We demand that a public statement is made. We demand that they be afforded all due protections under international human rights and humanitarian law. If charged with resisting foreign occupation and aggression, we declare this charge illegal.

While Wassan, Zainab and Liqa are no longer anonymous, 20 million other Iraqis face imminent threats in towns and cities where occupation-sponsored death squads continue to operate with impunity and where rape and torture by US and Iraqi puppet forces is endemic. Over one million have been arbitrarily deprived of the right to life and tens of thousands more arbitrarily detained. Backward and sectarian forces have been installed in power and the achievements of the Iraqi people over the past 100 years have been reduced to ashes.

The end of oppression, of summary executions and assassinations, of arbitrary detentions, rape and torture, of mass murder, civil strife and genocide, and the destruction of civilization, culture and history, comes with the end of the occupation.

The occupation of Iraq is no less than the concrete implementation of the ideology driving the so-called war on terror; permanent war, the denial of civil liberties and the exclusion of international law from international relations that prevents the peaceful coexistence and reciprocal advancement of peoples and cultures. The depth of solidarity and defence of human dignity, justice and most basic human rights expressed in the case of these three Iraqi women is proof that humanity refuses this regression.

From Berlin to Baghdad, we salute all those that through public demonstrations, personal moral conviction, or resistance in their given situation, have linked the lives of three Iraqi women -- indeed, all Iraqi women -- to the dignity and resilience of the nation of Iraq under the hammer of a defeated occupation.

As 20 March 2007 -- the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq -- approaches, we hope all stay mobilized to secure the wellbeing of Wassan, Zeinab and Liqa. We demand the liberation of all political prisoners in Iraq.

We also call for worldwide, intensifying mobilization to stop this illegal blood-soaked occupation, struggle to uphold international law by retrieving recognition from the criminal sectarian puppet Iraqi government, recognizing the Iraqi Resistance as the sole representative of the will of the Iraqi people, and demanding the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces.
.
The only solution in Iraq is the sovereignty of the Iraqi people.

We stand with millions in defence of justice. We stand with millions in defence of Iraq. Our hearts are Iraqi.


Hana Al Bayaty
Ian Douglas
Abdul Ilah Albayaty
Iman Saadoon
Dirk Adriaensens
Ayse Berktay

March 2nd . Time 17.15hrs.
This is a last minute news we have seen on a Turkish news site. The URL is below.

http://www.internethaber.com/news_detail.php?id=71635

In general, it says Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Nuri El Maliki in the morning about this crime and wanted a more fair judgement process for these 3 women. And as a result, Maliki promised he would pay attention to this case.

PLEASE KEEP UP YOUR PROTEST COMMUNICATIONS - IT MAY SAVE THESE LIVES

END THIS CRIME NOW!

 Statement by Hana Albayaty, Ian Douglas, Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iman Saadoon, Dirk Adriaensens and Ayse Berktay (1 March 2007)

Update on actions to stop the execution of three Iraqi women

On 14 February we launched an appeal to halt the summary execution of three Iraqi women. Hundreds signed our statement, including numerous organizations, and demonstrations have taken place in Istanbul, Ankara, Rabat, Berlin and Stockholm, among other cities.

Wassan Talib (31), Zainab Fadhil (25) and Liqa Omar Muhammad (26) were reportedly sentenced to death on charges that amount to supporting the legitimate and legal popular resistance to occupation in Iraq.

We issue this statement now to highlight that the situation in Iraq inaugurated and sustained by a defeated occupation and its local sectarian puppet forces makes the defence of human rights practically impossible.

In Baghdad in particular, some individuals that we are regularly in contact with, and others that were contacted for this specific case, report facing the same situation, one so volatile that they cannot even verify the whereabouts or wellbeing of their own families. Unable to move, or else fleeing for their lives en masse amidst the murderous Bush-Maliki “surge”, Iraqis are enduring waves of military repression and violence.

We tried to reach the families of the three women and their lawyer. We tried to verify their convictions, the charges on which they were convicted, and their wellbeing or status. We tried to verify the date of their prospective executions, and ascertain if an appeals process is underway. Until now, despite efforts along numerous channels (including contacting legal organizations in Iraq directly, along with human rights practitioners), no information has been forthcoming from within or outside Iraq.

We continue to work on the assumption that our information is credible: that the women may be executed as early as Saturday, 3 March 2007. We ask people of conscience everywhere to continue their mobilization and bring pressure on detaining authorities - both the Iraqi government and the occupation- to release information on the three women and free them. We call for similar pressure to be placed on human rights actors to intervene.

Summary executions and arbitrary detention are high crimes under international law for which the occupation must be held accountable. We should intensify our protests and support all actions against this occupation in order to be millions in the street by 20 March 2007. It is our moral duty to end this crime now!

Hana Albayaty Ian Douglas Abdul Ilah Albayaty Iman Saadoon Dirk Adriaensens Ayse Berktay

* Selected statements and actions against the imminent execution of 3 Iraqi women can be found on: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/HangingActions.htm * List of endorsers: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/hangingSignatories.htm * Original statement “Hanging the Womb of Iraq” can be found on:  http://www.brusselstribunal.org/hanging.htm  

A tornado caused severe damage in the town of Enterprise, Alabama.The local high school was hit, burying students under debris.