Wednesday 14 March 2012

Support Khulud Badawi - AIC Alternative News


Support Palestinian UN employee Khulood Badawi, currently under attack for expressing a personal opinion on her own Facebook page.
Khulood Badawi is a field worker with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), documenting  human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. No one has ever questioned the professionalism of Badawi’s work in OCHA.

Khulood Badawi was also a political activist, dedicated to the defense of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, as well as a feminist. Due to her work in OCHA, she has carefully refrained from any public political activity, a choice that definitely was not easy for her.

For several days now, Khulood is the target of an organized campaign aimed at pushing her out of OCHA, as well as delegitimizing all Palestinian employees in the UN agencies. The pretext for this campaign against Khulood Badawi is a blog on Israel’s recent aggression against the Gaza Strip that she published on her private Facebook page.

Needless to say, working within these UN institutions are many Israeli Jews who advocate pro-Israeli political opinions, and no one challenges their right to work there, as long as these opinions are expressed outside the framework of their UN work and in their personal capacity.

Every person for whom freedom of opinion is important must stand by Khulood Badawi and her right to express herself on her personal Facebook page. Every person who cares for human rights must denounce the racist campaign against Khulood Badawi.

Please sent emails in support of Khulood Badawi to the following Jerusalem-based UN officials:
-          Richard Miron
Chief Public Information Officer
mironr@un.org
-          M. Ramesh Rajasingham, Head,OCHA - occupied Palestinian territory
-          E-mail: rajasingham@un.org
-      Amanda Pitt, OCHA NY:
Email: pitta@un.org
-            Hayat Abu Saleh
Email : abusaleh@un.org

APIC(APICONG)URGES ALL ASSOCIATES, FOLLOWERS AND READERS OF THIS BLOG TO SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN  IN SUPPORT OF KHULUD BADAWI.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Statement on Syria and Speech, March 2012

Bismillahi-rahmani-r-rahim,
Bismi'l Ummah wa-sh-sha'b,
Bismi'l haqq qa'l adhala,

Let me state frankly that no one has anything to gain from a long-term destabilisation of Syria.
This both government and opposition need to understand and make the primary consideration in all their actions.

The protracted bloodshed that has been going on for one year and remains unabated is weakening not only the Syrian nation but the Middle East. It is bringing the Imperialist world system craving for the earth and the gas and oil of Syria closer to its aim of staging an invasion, the meticulously planned, systematic invasion of yet another Middle Eastern country, Iraq style, Libya style, Afghanistan style.

The video I am going to present to you now, a release of the US military intelligence for internal purposes, demonstrates concepts and techniques of infiltration that remain at the heart of US foreign policy, which impressively shows how little has changed in the decades since. Note well that government and opposition, technically, are interchangeable, as are some of the circumstances on which the film proceeds. The 'New Age' is a myth. The 'New Policy' is a myth. So is the legend of globalisation. It is the same brute, ageold system of oppression within, aiming to silence the voice of those violated by the most massively injust and inhumane social order the world has known, and of ruthless aggression without, with the aim of colonising new markets, that has formed the core of capitalist economy and politics ever since capitalism entered the stage of history.



The full force of infiltration and systematic destabilisation is applied to those states and political forces that form an obstacle to the endeavours of western capitalism at its neo-liberal, neo-Imperial stage. Attesting to this is the continued economic and political sabotage of states like Cuba and Iran, the continued pressure to revaluate the national currency applied to China, the attempt at NATO expansion in the Caucasus, the conversion of the Arab uprisings into "the Arab Spring", institutionalised by the Imperialist powers to reach their goal of overthrowing the Syrian and Iranian government, while easing their access to the resources of countries like Lybia and appropriating the disgruntled intelligentsia in countries like Egypt so as to advance, through their corruption, to a de-facto control of their governments.

A revolution is not made by the intelligentsia. A revolution is made by the peasantry, the proletariat, the working masses. If these have no voice, the revolution is voiceless. It is a grey matter; a vacuum. And wherever there exists such a vacuum, the agents of US and global Imperialism slip in.

This is the complication with the Arab uprisings, and this is the source op their corruption. To those who dream of a white collar revolution, I say: there is no such thing. The revolution is cotton, not silk, and silk it will never be.

But what revolution are we talking about? There is no revolution.
Will there ever be one? If you want it, there will. And if the world is to survive this century, there must.

As it is, the West stands at the doorsteps of Syria, and Syria is desending into chaos. Whose interests does that serve? A simple question. And so is the answer. Let us call, therefore, for an immediate cessation of hostilities on all sides. In the interest of national unity. In the interest of national souvereignty. In the interest and the wider Middle East. In the interest of all those who stand united against the Imperialist threat to global peace and stability. The ultimate aim of the White House and its vassals and allies, is not Syria but Iran. In this, they seek to unleash a nuclear war. This is a concern that goes beyond all parties and poltical affiliations. Do we want the world to be turned into Hiroshima? Do we finally want to allow the human species to wipe out itself?
No threat to world peace emanates from Iran. It is the capitalist and Imperialist powers whose desparation over the lethal crisis of their system, whose ruthless greed and utter indifference to what happens tomorrow, to what comes after them, that is confronting the world with the bestial threat of a nuclear holocaust. It is the Imperialist governments that are the worst enemies of their people.

Syria is a gateway to this aggression. It must be closed.

Let us call upon the Syrian goverment to reform not only policies and articles of the constitution but to reform the Baath Party as a whole. Let us call upon the Syrian government for an immediate end to the repression of the Communist Party and for its inclusion in a government of national unity. Let us call upon the Syrian government for the immediate release of all political prisoners. Let us call upon the Syrian government and the government of national unity to be formed to take firm steps toward the effective exclusion of all Taliban and Al Qaeeda-like forces from every position of political influence and decision-making, for these are the most powerful agents of US Imperialism, as are the Gulf monarchies and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Let us call upon the Syrian opposition not to tolerate such forces in their ranks. Let us call upon the Syrian opposition to put the greater interest of the Middle East before their own immediate interests. To allow the powers of neo-liberal colonialism and Imperialist darkness to advance unresisted means to sacrifice mankind. It means to sacrifice human culture and civilisation to barbarism. It means to sacrifce the most precious treasures of the human mind, the human intellect, the human heart, to the barbarity of the darkest age this world has ever seen.

Let us call upon the people of Syria and the peoples and nations of the East to raise the sacred torch of Al Andalus to illuminate the night!
Let us call upon all conscientious powers and upon all men and women to whom the peace of the world, the welfare of their children and the highest endeavours of the human soul have a meaning, to form an axis of resistance, an axis of humanity, against Imperialist dehumanisation and slaughter for profit.

The agents of Imperialism take on different disguises. If they appear in a religious disguise, let this not confuse you. Their "religion" is nothing but a colonial game; a conjurer's trick. They commit abominations no religion would ever allow. God has spewed them out of HIS mouth and disowned them. Those who follow them, follow them into the Fire of Hell. And hell can be very earthly.

Do not be confused by those who appear in the disguise of demockracy (and this is not a spelling mistake). No regime is more absolutist and more totalitarian than the capitalist regimes: the dictatorships of the multi-national combines, the dictatorship of "the market" over the human soul and over human livelihood. Every TV commercial, every advertisement, every news and enterainment programme is a propaganda tool of this dictatorship, in whose name the most unspeakable atrocities are committed on a daily basis, until they have become trivial, until they have become part of our thoughts and dreams, until they have become "values" that have perverted every human value, until we no longer notice our complicity in the crime.

Humanity in its entirety lives, rises and falls, in the veins of every single one of us. Let it rise in our hearts and let us raise it, with the tenderness, the care, the caution and the passion with which one raises a child. It is our survival and the survival of the human species. It is our path and our light. It is our Badr and our Uhud. It is our Karbala in whose garden sings, flower-like, the blood and the wisdom Ali, Hassan and Hussain. It is our question and our answer on the day when judgement shall be passed.

Muhammad A. Al Mahdi, March 2012





Saturday 10 March 2012

Israel strikes Gaza, killing 11, injuring 16 - Omar Ghraieb, Gaza Times

What mainstream media wouldn’t tell you or give you details about:
Gaza, March 10, Gaza witnessed a sleepless night after a continuous series of air-raids performed by Israel’s different warplanes (Apache, Drones, and F16s). It started on March 9, 5:00 pm, when Israeli warplanes targeted a blue car in a populated area. The blue Opel became a little box of steel, completely burned and blown into little shrapnel. It happened in Tal Al Hawa, Western Gaza, and caused the death of Zuheir Qaisy, Secretary-General of the Popular Resistance Committees and Mahmoud Hanini, freed prisoner in Shalit swap deal, originally from Nablus. A third passer-by was critically injured.
(To see pictures from this post, click here.)
Later that night, 8:30 pm, March 9, medics announced the death of Khaled Harara, 22, and Obaid Al Gharabli, 23, both belong to Saraya Al Quds, armed wing of Islamic Jihad after being targeted by Israeli warplanes. Medics announced the discovery of a third body in the same place, Hazem Qureqe’.
Israeli warplanes continued bombarding Gaza heavily till 2:30 am, March 10. No place in Gaza was safe, Israeli warplanes raided Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern Gaza, civilian houses, highly populated areas and highly trafficked crossroads.
Another 6 Gazans were killed by Israeli warplanes in different areas across Gaza:
Shady Sieqali, Fayeq Sa’d, Mo’tasem Hajjaj, Ahmed Hajjaj, Mohamed Al Mughari and Mahmoud Nejem. Most martyrs were members of Saraya Al Quds, Islamic Jihad. Local resistance in Gaza retaliated and showered nearby Israeli settlements with homemade rockets.
Some of the areas that were targeted by Israeli warplanes: Beit Lahyah, Shuja’yah, Sudaneyah, Maqousi Towers, Palestinian Legislative Council, Rimal Area, Tal Al Hawa, Yarmouk Street, Rafah, Khan Younis and other different areas.
Israel and armed Palestinian factions in Gaza, all denied the news about a cease fire so escalation is in the air.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

No to Discrimination, No to cultural Chauvinism, No to Western cultural Dominance: Overturn the Headscarf Ban at the Olympic Games


في حين يتنافس منتخبات كرة القدم للتأهيل للأولمبياد هذا الصيف تم منع فريق النساء المسلمات من الفرصه لعرض مهاراتهن لمجرد اِرتدائهن الحجاب ( أو غطاء الرأس) في الملعب.
رفضت هيئة الاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم و هي الهيئة التي تضع القواعد لللاِختبارات المؤدية للأولمبياد تأهيل كل نساء الفريق الدولي الإيراني بعدما حاولن ارتداء الحجاب في مباراتهن التأهيلية. و تواجه اللاعبات اللاتي يخترن لبس الحجاب في فرق كل من الأردن و فلسطين والبحرين نفس المصير.
و تجادل هيئة اللاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم أن موقفها من منع غطاء الرأس هو لسلامة اللاعبات. ولكن اللاعبات الإيرانيات اللاتي منعن من التأهيل كن يرتدن غطاء مثبتا بقفل من الفالكرو والذي صمم خصيصا لمنع أي فرصة لإصابة الرقبة. فبالنسبة لللاعبات اللاتي اخترن لبس الحجاب لسبب ديني، منع لبس غطاء الرأس الجديد بالقفل الآمن ما هوا إلا تمييز واضح و صريح.
في أوائل هذا الأسبوع دعا رئيس الاِتحاد الكونفدرالي الاسيوى زانج جيلونج هيئة اللاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم أن تعيد النظر في منع غطاء الرأس في اجتماعه القادم في 3 مارس. و الآن الاتحاد الفيدرالي الذي يدير كأس العالم وله صوت في هيئة الاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم تجمع و يلح على هيئة اللاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم لتغيير هذه القاعده.
لزانج وقيادة الاتحاد الفيدرالي تأثير كبير في عالم كرة القدم ولذلك نعلم أن هيئة الاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم مهتمة بهذه المسألة. ولو تكلم عدد كاف من الناس بتوقيعهم لمبادرة رهاف فسوف تقتنع هيئة الاِتحاد العالمي لكرة القدم بأن الجماهير تريدهم أن يرفعوا الحظر على الحجاب وإزالة حاجز التمييز الذي يبعد بعض النساء من المنافسة في الأولمبياد.
و شكرا لانك صانع للتغيير.
شلبي و فريق