Via : Media Lens

On the afternoon of Thursday 28 February, 2008, a group of Palestinian boys were playing football on some open ground near their homes in the Gaza Strip. At around 3.20pm, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at the boys, killing four of them instantly and seriously injuring another three. The four dead boys were Omar Hussein Dardouna, aged 14, Dardouna Deib Dardouna, aged 12, Mohammed Na'im Hammouda, aged 9, and Ali Munir Dardouna who was just 8.

Palestinian human rights fieldworkers investigated the circumstances of this attack by Israeli forces. They concluded there was no Palestinian resistance in the area at the time and that the boys "must have been clearly visible to the [Israeli] aircraft that fired the missile."

Similar cases abound. A new study by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports that 68 children died in Gaza between June 2007 - June 2008 (PCHR press release, October 21, 2008; http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/ PressR/English/2008/2008/43-2008.html). Over the same period, 12 children were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank. The report highlights the "deliberate targeting of civilians, including children". (Palestinian Council for Human Rights, 'Blood on their hands. Child killings by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip. June 2007 - June 2008', October 22, 2008, p. 4; http://www.electronicintifada.net/ downloads/pdf/081021-pchr-childkillings.pdf) 

Since the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000, Israeli forces have killed 859 children in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The child death toll rose dramatically during the first six months of 2008, mostly as the result of a large-scale Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The massive assault, code-named 'Operation Winter Heat', was launched on February 27. The Israeli military killed more children (47) in the Gaza Strip during the first four months of 2008 than during the whole of 2007 (32 children). A total of 110 civilians were killed during 'Operation Winter Heat' in February-March 2008. (See our earlier Media Alerts: 'Israel's Illegal Assault On The Gaza "Prison"', March 3, 2008, http://www.medialens.org/alerts/ 08/080303_israels_illegal_assault.php; and 'Israeli Deaths Matter More', March 11, 2008, http://www.medialens.org/alerts/ 08/080311_israeli_deaths_matter.php)

The website Remember These Children reports that 123 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,050 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000. (http://rememberthesechildren.org/about.html)

Most children killed in recent years in the Gaza Strip have died as a result of bombardment, surface-to-surface missiles, or missiles fired from aircraft. The Palestinian human rights investigation notes that Israel has "consistently bombed either inside or extremely close to densely populated residential areas, including schools and areas in close proximity to schools." It uses "disproportionate and excessive force across the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories], without regard for civilian life, including the lives of children."

But the report is even more damning than that. It concludes that Israeli forces "deliberately target unarmed civilians, including children, as part of their policy of collective punishment of the entire Palestinian civilian population."

The human rights investigation also concludes that:

"There is also strong and consistent evidence to suggest that [Israeli forces] deliberately kill Palestinian children in reprisal for the deaths of Israeli civilians or members of the [Israeli forces], which amounts to a war crime." (PCHR, op. cit., p. 46)

According to international humanitarian law, children are to be afforded special protection during international armed conflicts. This includes military occupation such as exists in the Palestinian territories under Israel. Legal protection is provided by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as by the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Israel signed the CRC in 1991.

Protection was strengthened by the (CRC) Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The Protocol reaffirms "that the rights of children require special protection" and condemns "the targeting of children in situations of armed conflict and direct attacks on objects protected under international law, including places that generally have a significant presence of children, such as schools and hospitals." Israel signed the Optional Protocol on 14 November 2001 (PCHR, op. cit., p. 14), but it endlessly tramples the legal agreements to which it is a signatory.

Finally, the PCHR report notes that Israel has consistently failed to investigate Israeli killings of unarmed civilians, including children. On the rare occasions that official investigations are launched, these have been conducted by the Israeli forces themselves. The persistent result is a whitewash, and a travesty of justice.

And while Israel continues to kill unarmed civilians with impunity, the international community has failed to intervene effectively to exert pressure on Israel to stop killing Palestinian civilians, including children. These killings ought to be publicly condemned by the international community who, as High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, are obliged to act immediately in order to protect all unarmed civilians from Israeli attacks.

As the PCHR observes:

"The lives of Palestinian children are as sacred as the lives of children from Israel, Europe or anywhere else in the world."

Minimal Response From A Protective Media

The report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights was shocking. Guy Gabriel, an adviser to the London-based Arab Media Watch, told us that the group "is a credible organisation with a lot to commend it, and is better placed than many - in terms of location, resources and support - to inform the wider world about the situation in Gaza." (Email, October 31, 2008). Journalist John Pilger commented: "The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is, in my experience, a highly credible statistics gathering body." (Email, October 27, 2008)

This credible human rights group, then, had produced compelling evidence of a persistent pattern of deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, +including children+, by the Israeli military. Surely this would have been headline news everywhere.

Sadly no. In the entire British press there was a giant, gaping hole in coverage.

The only exception we could find was a short, 400-word piece in the Guardian on the day of the report's publication: Rory McCarthy, 'Palestinian group says Israel killed 68 children in Gaza in year', The Guardian, October 21, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/21/israel- palestinian-children

As McCarthy pointed out:

"A prominent Palestinian human rights group says it has found evidence that 68 children were killed in the Gaza Strip in the 12 months to June this year as a result of 'disproportionate and excessive lethal force' by the Israeli military."

This was welcome coverage. But, crucially, there was no mention of the military policy of deliberately targeting civilians, including children. In his report, McCarthy said he was unable to obtain any response to the study from an Israeli official (it was a Jewish religious holiday). He then inserted the standard Israeli disclaimer

"[Israel] has in the past repeatedly defended its military actions in Gaza, saying it does not intentionally target civilians, and noting that Palestinian militants frequently fire from civilian areas."

On October 27, 2008, we emailed McCarthy and praised him for reporting the publication of the study. We then pointed to the study's central, repeated message - backed by multiple eye-witness testimony - that Israel deliberately targets civilians, including children. We asked why his Guardian article had omitted this core conclusion. McCarthy did not respond to our email, nor to a second sent on October 29.

As for the "balanced" and "impartial" BBC, the corporation appears to have performed its usual role of protecting the powerful. Judging by the PCHR report's apparent absence from headline BBC news coverage and the BBC's website, the corporation has buried the report's findings. As far as we could determine, the same shameful silence characterised ITN and Channel 4 News.

By contrast, Al Jazeera aired a three-minute segment on the report that included a moving interview with a bereaved mother. There was also disturbing footage of injured and traumatised children, one of whom had seen his father killed by an Israeli missile (Al-Jazeera, October 22, 2008; http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PTzQOsO32ro). In the Al Jazeera news piece, Hamdi Shokri of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights emphasised:

"We have clear evidence to suggest and to say that there were patterns of deliberate killing and deliberate targeting of children."

We emailed Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East editor, on October 26, 2008. We asked him why the BBC had done so little, if anything, to bring this damning human rights report to the public's attention. Why had the BBC failed to expose a deliberate Israeli practice of targeting children? In short, why can't the BBC do better in its coverage of the occupied territories? Bowen did not respond.

Greg Philo, of the world-renowned Glasgow Media Group, recently commissioned YouGov to ask a sample of 2,086 UK adults whether they thought that more news coverage should be given to the Israeli point of view, or more to the Palestinians, or equal for both. Nearly twice as many people thought that the Palestinians should have the most as compared with the Israelis, but the bulk of the replies (72%) were that both should have the same. A staggering 95% of the population were unhappy with the main news output of the broadcasters. (Philo, 'More News, Less Views', September 30, 2008; http://www.gla.ac.uk/centres/mediagroup/MoreNews.html)

Routine silences and omissions in coverage of the Middle East are symptoms of a deep-rooted bias that suppresses public awareness of the true gravity of Israel's human rights abuses. Rarely, if ever, do we hear of the "indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing, and shooting of children", as documented in a thousand-page study from Save the Children. The average age of the victims was ten years old; the majority of those shot were not even participating in stone throwing. In 80 per cent of cases where children were shot, the Israeli army prevented the victims from receiving medical attention. The report concluded that more than 50,000 children required medical attention for injuries including gunshot wounds, tear gas inhalation and multiple fractures.

In 1989, a bulletin from the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, titled 'Deliberate Murder', reported the targeting of Palestinian children in leadership roles. Israeli army and snipers from "special units" had "carefully chosen" the children who were shot in the head or heart and died instantaneously. Other evidence, from Israeli human rights groups and the Israeli press, point to extensive use of torture, such as severe beating and electric shocks, against detainees including children. (Mike Berry and Greg Philo, 'Israel and Palestine - Competing Histories', Pluto Press, London, 2006, pp. 86-87)

Amnesty International has also reported that groups of Palestinian civilians, including children, appear, "on many occasions, to have been deliberately targeted". Israeli soldiers themselves have admitted that they have deliberately shot and killed unarmed civilians including children (Ibid., p. 116). Indeed, for many years, Amnesty has documented and condemned Israeli violations of human rights against Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. Most of these violations are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are therefore war crimes. (Ibid., pp. 60-61).

Israeli Terror: Not Terror, By Definition

In his 2002 documentary, 'Palestine Is Still The Issue', John Pilger interviewed Dori Gold, then Senior Adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister. Pilger asked why Israel fails to condemn its own leaders for their terrorist acts in the same way that they condemn terrorist acts against Israel:

John Pilger (JP): When those Israelis, who are now famous names [Menachem Begin, Yitzak Shamir and Ariel Sharon], committed acts of terrorism just before the birth of Israel, you could have said to them, nothing justifies what you've done, ripping apart all those lives. And they would say it did justify it. What's the difference?

Dori Gold (DG): I think we have now, as an international community, come to a new understanding. I think after September 11th the world got a wake-up call. Because terrorism today is no longer the mad bomber, the anarchist who throws in an explosive device into a crowd to make a point. Terrorism is going to move from the present situation to non-conventional terrorism, to nuclear terrorism. And before we reach that point, we have to remove this scourge from the Earth. And therefore, whether you're talking about the struggle here between Israelis and Palestinians, the struggle in Northern Ireland, the struggle in Sri Lanka, or any of the places where terrorism has been used, we must make a global commitment of all free democracies to eliminate this threat from the world. Period.

JP: Does that include state terrorism?

DG: No country has the right to deliberately target civilians, as no organisation has a right to deliberately target civilians.

JP: What about Israeli terrorism now?

DG: The language of terrorism, you have to be very careful with. Terrorism means deliberately targeting civilians, in a kind of warfare. That's what the terrorism against Israeli schools, coffee shops, malls, has been all about. Israel specifically targets, to the best of its ability, Palestinian terrorist organisations.

JP: All right, when an Israeli sniper shoots an old lady with a cane, trying to get into a hospital for her chemotherapy treatment, in front of a lot of the world's press for one, and frankly we'd be here all day with other examples, isn't that terrorism?

DG: I don't know the case you're speaking about, but I can be convinced of one thing. An Israeli who takes aim - even an Israeli sniper - is taking aim at those engaged in terrorism. Unfortunately, in every kind of warfare, there are cases of civilians who are accidentally killed. Terrorism means putting the crosshairs of the sniper's rifle on a civilian deliberately.

JP: Well that's - that's what I've just described.

DG: That is what - no. I can tell you that did not happen.

JP: It did happen. And - and I think that's where some people have a problem with the argument that terrorism exists on - on one side. Your definition is absolutely correct, about civilians. And those suicide bombers are terrorists.

DG: If you mix terrorism and counter-terrorism, if you create some kind of moral obfuscation, you will bring about not just a problem for Israel, but you will bring ab - bring about a problem for the entire western alliance. Because we are all facing this threat.

As John Pilger concluded:

"It's hard to see the difference between what the Israelis call 'counter-terrorism' and terrorism. Whatever the target, both involve the killing of innocent people." (John Pilger, 'Israeli Terror', http://www.johnpilger.com/ page.asp?partid=143; 'Palestine Is Still The Issue' documentary can be viewed here: http://video.google.co.uk/ videoplay?docid=1259454859593416473; Dori Gold interview starts at around 34 mins:32 secs)

Today, Dori Gold "spends his time traveling around the world raising awareness about the situation going [sic] in Israel and the fight over Jerusalem [and] is available for speaking engagements, fundraisers and corporate events." (http://www.bookthebest.com/profile/dori_gold)

We asked John Pilger for his response to the new study from the Palestinian human rights group and the report's effective burial by the corporate media. He told us:

"That this shocking report has been virtually ignored across the mainstream media, with the exception of the Guardian, is a striking example of the media's two classes of humanity in Palestine. There is first class humanity, worthy of meticulous, often emotive coverage; these are the Israelis, including those guilty of great crimes, such as Ariel Sharon. And there is second class humanity, unworthy of even acknowledgement of their brutalising let alone the epic injustice done to them; these are the Palestinians. No, 'second class' is too high. They are third and fourth class victims, for not even the suffering and murder of their children is considered human enough to warrant reporting." (Email, October 27, 2008)

We are reminded of British historian Mark Curtis's term, "Unpeople", to describe those on the receiving end of the West's policies, actions and massive firepower. For those unfortunate individuals in the crosshairs of Western violence, their human aspirations, hopes, dreams, loves and lives are simply of no value.

SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Rory McCarthy, Guardian reporter 
Email:  rory.mccarthy@guardian.co.uk

Siobhain Butterworth, readers' editor of the Guardian
Email: reader@guardian.co.uk

Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor
Email: jeremy.bowen@bbc.co.uk

Helen Boaden, director of BBC News
Email: helenboaden.complaints@bbc.co.uk

David Mannion, ITV News editor in chief
Email: david.mannion@itn.co.uk

Jim Gray, editor of Channel 4 News
Email: jim.gray@itn.co.uk

Please send a copy of your emails to us
Email: editor@medialens.org

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This letter is a new example of Israel terrorism:

From: Fareed T [fareedt99 @yahoo.com]
Date: Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Subject: child abduction by IOF

Dear Friends,

My cousin Asef Jameel Awwad is 15 years old boy kidnapped 2 days ago by the Occupation Army and released after more than 30 hours of abduction.

The story started on monday after noon when 2 jeeps entered our village, and were stoned, then soldiers found Asef in the street and arrested him immediatly. they beated him on the spot infront of the other boys. then they threw him in the Jeep and left immediatly. we tried to find out where did they took him but failed.

during 30 hours of detention, they took him to Army camp and he was beaten and tortured by 4 soldiers. during the night he spent in detention, they left him all the night outdoors despite the low tempreture.

Asef was released last night Tuesday/wednesday, the soldiers dropped him in a very desolate and dangerous place near Ariel settlement at 12:30 after midnight. The boy came home at 1:00 AM and he was panicked,ashy, very cold, hungry and exhausted.

on behalf of my family, i call upon all human rights organizations to put pressure over the IOF to halt detention of children and to show committment of the international human right laws on this regard.

Fareed Taamllah
Qira
Occupied Palestine
2/4/2007

Do you expect Asef to grow and "love" Israel and Zionists?

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By: Philippe Khan

Appalling photographs of abuse and torture by American guards at U.S. military bases and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan shocked the international community, but the Palestinians have been suffering harsher treatment inside Israeli prisons since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians' suffering at the hands of the Israelis is worse than in any other part of the world. Many of the Palestinian detainees are children, who are subjected to physical and psychological torture by Israeli interrogators and prison guards.

Mohammed Mahsiri, a 17-year-old resident of Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces almost a year and a half ago. "I was taken to a detention centre and interrogated...The interrogation would begin at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and would finish after eleven p.m. I was beaten all the time, especially if the soldiers did not get the answers they wanted," he told IPS.

"I was sent to be beaten by other soldiers and forced to stand in the rain with only thin clothes on. They would try to convince me that I did something that I did not do in order to get the confession they wanted. After being tortured at the detention centre for one month, I was in prison for 13 months."

Recent reports by human rights groups and legal experts document widespread, systematic violation of international laws at Israeli detention centers, where several prisoners are children under the age of 18, most of whom are subjected to torture, harsh interrogation tactics, physical beatings, deplorable living conditions and no access to fair trial.

Although the International Convention of the Rights of the Child as well as Israeli law defines "a child" as someone under the age of 18, Israeli military order system in force inside the occupied West Bank and Gaza classifies Palestinian children over the age of 16 as adults. The lack of protection afforded to Palestinian child prisoners contrasts sharply with the generous rights and treatment granted to arrested Israeli children.

Conditions in Israeli prisons violate a range of international human rights standards. Palestinian children are isolated from adult Palestinians. Accommodation is overcrowded and unhygienic. There is often not enough bedding or even space for the basic mattresses. Food is very poor and often insufficient. Washing and use of toilets is restricted and children lack access to medical provision and formal education.

Moreover, Palestinian children over 14 years old are tried as adults in Israeli military courts, and are often detained with adult inmates - another direct violation of international law.

Latest figures released by Defense for Children International (DCI), an independent group that defends children's rights, show that there are 398 Palestinian children currently held inside Israeli detention centers and prisons, the youngest of whom is just 14 years old.

"Usually, the Israeli troops invade the child's house in the middle of the night, in order to frighten the child and his family," Ayed Abuqtaish, research coordinator with DCI's Ramallah offices. "Many Israeli soldiers and vehicles surround the house, and other soldiers invade or force their way into the house...

"They intimidate the child to prepare him for interrogation. When the child arrives at the interrogation centre, they employ different methods of torture."

There are widespread accusations of physical abuse, Abuqtaish says, "but currently, they concentrate mainly on psychological torture like sleep deprivation, or depriving him of food or water, or putting him in solitary confinement, or threatening him with the demolition of his home or the arrest of other family members."

"Children have also reported that the Israeli interrogators have threatened to sexually abuse them," Abuqtaish added.

Like the United States, Israel defends its interrogation techniques, saying that they are a necessary tool against the "war on terror". In 1987, according to Israel's Landau Commission of Inquiry into interrogation policies, the Israeli government ruled that "a moderate degree of pressure, including physical pressure, in order to obtain crucial information, is unavoidable under certain circumstances."

"Israel is a state party to the International Convention Against Torture," Abuqtaish said. "In its reports to the committee, Israel always says that their use of 'moderate physical pressure' is consistent with the obligation of the treaty, but, needless to say, 'moderate physical pressure' is obviously torture in itself."

Legal experts, meanwhile, say that the military courts that try Palestinian children are presided over by military personnel, most of whom lack legal qualifications. Moreover, Palestinian child prisoners have no guaranteed right to legal representation and it is extremely difficult for any lawyer to represent Palestinians before these courts.

"The Israeli court system does not look like any other court system in the world," says Arne Malmgren, a Swedish lawyer who has worked as legal observer inside Israeli military courts during trials of Palestinian children. "Israeli military staff, the judge, the prosecutor, the interpreter -- they are all in military uniform. There are plenty of soldiers with weapons inside the courtroom.

"The small children come into the courtroom in handcuffs and full chains; there can be up to seven children at the same time in the courtroom. One lawyer described it as a cattle market. The trial is more like a plea bargain -- before the proceedings, the prosecutor and the lawyer have already agreed on the child's sentence, and then they just ask the judge if he agrees, and he almost always does."

"There are no witnesses, nothing. And the worst thing is what happened before the child arrives at the courtroom -- when they interrogate these young boys and girls to get them to sign confessions to things they may or may not have done, Malmgren added.

Although the vast majority of arrested Palestinian children are charged with throwing stones at Israeli occupation forces, it's extremely rare for them to avoid prison sentence, raising concerns that the punishment is based on political conditions rather than on objective legal standards.

Hopefully, when negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli officials continue this week over a possible prisoner exchange deal that may involve the release of all Palestinian woman and children in return for an Israeli occupation soldier captured by Palestinian resistance groups last summer, Palestinians will be able to see their relatives, friends and loved ones again.

"When I was released from prison, it was the best day of my life," said Mohammed Mahsiri, who was recently released from Israeli prisons. "We were beaten every day. The food was very bad. It was the hardest thing we had to face. No child should ever have to experience that."

[Source: aljazeera.com]

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[Cross posted at Daily Kos]

Fresh one!

The following is a "new" (April 11th, 2007) video evidence that document another human rights violation by using Palestinian youths as human shields.

The video show Israeli occupation solider forcing two Palestinian youngsters to serve as human shields and protect the Israeli armor from stone throwers. The scene was taken in Balata Refugee Camp (Nablus, Occupied Palestine) by a filmmaker from RJI (blog) who caught the scene and other shots of the military operation and home demolition on tape.

The video talks for itself. Unfortunately not all war crimes and human rights violations such as this one can be documented, however, so many documentaries were seen yet, Israeli occupation forces still escape the justice.

Note: a copy of the video can be downloaded from here!

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• New Israeli War Crimes in Nablus and Balata Refugee Camp
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[Cross posted at Daily Kos]

[Image by Carlos Latuff]

In a not-so-surprising newsreport, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights (PICCR) reported that Israeli occupation soldiers forced 68 pregnant women to give birth on road blocks after barring them from crossing as they were being transferred to hospitals and medical centers.

Quoting Saed Bannoura's report on IMEMC:
http://imemc.org/article/47767

Also, the PICCR said that the Israeli procedures complicated the lives of the Palestinian civilians including pregnant women by enforcing harsh conditions and carrying illegal practices at these checkpoints.

Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada on September 28 2000 until July 2006, 68 pregnant women had to give birth at checkpoints, and that 34 infants and 4 pregnant women died on these checkpoints.

Nothing can justify this but brutality. It is nothing less than a war crime. Imagine the mother and here newborn infant dying due to deliberate, designed, intentional, intended, purposed, and calculated violation on one of the basic human rights.

One would ask: Do Pregnant Women and Infants Have Rights?

- According to Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

The special care here are road blocks and denial of medical service.

- The Right to Reproductive and Sexual Health:
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womrepro.htm

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing defines reproductive health as:

[...] Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant (para 72).

The Israeli occupation forces should feel ever so proud of itself for this record!

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Another "must see" documentary today.

This documentary Investigation video by If Americans Knew reveals one of the 'sick' methods Israelis use to humiliate Palestinians (and others when they like) and Child abuse at Israel airports and Occupied Palestine Borders. Strip-Searching Children, Women and everyone they 'like'.

Strip-searching is nothing new. It is a "normal" practice by the Israeli army that is going on for ages. In fact I myself was subjected to this type of searching during my very few visits to Palestine when I was a child. Last one was on 1986, the last time Israel allowed me to visit my homeland, Palestine.

13-minute video: Five women - Palestinian, American, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish - tell stories of humiliation and harassment by Israeli border guards and airport security officials.

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This is one of the most bizarre video clips I’ve ever seen.

Warning (PG): Parents, keep your kids away, trust me.

I have no clue where was this video clip taken. It is a classroom in one of our schools around the Arab world. The teacher’s accent sounds Syrian; however that doesn’t necessary mean that this toke place in a Syrian school. Teachers from all around the Arab world spread over many countries specially in the Gulf region.

Anyway, if anyone has any idea where this video clip was taken, please let me know. It would be great if someone knows the real ID of this teacher. I will be more than happy to file a court case against him and see him serving in prison (I would be happier to see him hanged from his balls, excuse my French!).

It’s a nightmare for parent to see such ill acts in classrooms. Of course child abuse and ‘torture’ is everywhere around the world, but it makes me feel worried about my own kids when I see such things. It could have been my kids or your kids anywhere around the world.

I highly respect teachers and value their mention, but let’s face the truth, child abuse is not something rare in our schools, and I’m now talking about schools around the Middle East. Personally I was lucky enough not to pass through any kind of abuse during my school time, however, I witnessed many case which I can’t describe now as less than ‘torture.’ Therefore, if we are unlucky enough to see this video clip today, I wonder how many case like this or worse takes place everyday around our children schools!

Video code can be downloaded from here or here!

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The US is holding a nine year old Canadian citizen without charges in a ‘Detention Center’ in a legal limbo.

Call it international limbo. Detained by U.S. Customs officials after their flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop on American soil nearly four weeks ago, Kevin and his Iranian parents, Majid and Masomeh, feel they are being held hostage not only by the physical parameters of Hutto, but by the politics of nationality.

“We can’t go home because I am Canadian but my parents are not,” Kevin said in a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail.

Here is a DemocracyNow interview and here is a CBC interview with Kevin and his dad (MP3 File).

[Hat tip: Kimmy]

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See this brief clip on Gaza...

Listen carefully to the young girl...

Millions of Palestinian children are living under the same conditions if not worse in Gaza. If they escape the Israeli crimes and not get killed, they will lose an arm or a leg, or at best, they lose their right to live like YOUR kids. They are left with nothing in life that relates to childhood, thanks to the occupation.

Can we blame them if they hate the occupation? How long can YOU live in the conditions that these Palestinian children are living under? A day? A week? A year? Imagine that you have to live ALL YOUR LIFE like that!

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The attached is from our local Al-Quds newspaper on Nov 1, 2006. A story about a 2-yr old girl who was released from an Israeli prison near Ramallah. Her name is Aiysha, which in Arabic means "life."

Aiysha's mother gave birth to her while detained in an Israeli prison. Aiysha was released two days ago, her mother is still being detained under "Administrative Detention," in other words, no charge, no trial, nothing...just a unilateral Israeli decision to detain her for 6 months at a time, already renewed 4 times!

This poor baby. She knows nothing in life but the walls of her mother's prison cell. She only knows her father from visits, when they were possible. She has never seen a road, a city, grass, trees, a real bed, her own bedroom, a park, a real meal, friends, real toys, etc, etc.

I weep for this girl and pity the father as he is bound to be faced with her first question, "Where's mom?," and her mom, who sleeps tonight, alone.

(click on picture to read the story in Arabic)

May all the strength of those in solidarity with us around the world allow Aiysha to grow up without hate in her heart, and may all the Israeli soldiers that stood guard over Aiysha for the past 2-years and remained silent wake up. [Hat tip: Sam]

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Many Palestinian children in Israeli Telmond Prison are being exploited by "forced labor in which they must work eight hours for a few shekels," as reported by the Prisoners Information Center.

One of the children made a statement after his release. "The prison administration has forced all prisoners in Telmond Prison to work eight hours for very low wages." He went on to say, "The Israeli soldiers come to the chambers at seven and force us to go with our legs tied with chains." The child added that his job was to stand under guard and pack plastic spoons in boxes.

Even injured political prisoners are forced to work, according to Friday's Nablus-based report. A former prisoner stated, "I had a broken bone but the soldiers forced me out of my cell to work anyway, without any consideration for the pain."

There are approximately 375 Palestinians in Telmond Prison, with most of them being children. The oldest Palestinian in Telmond is 22 years old. The child laborers are given two meals per 24 hours, one at 11:00 pm and another at 6:00 am.

Israeli prison officials also attempt to extract information from children regarding members of the armed resistance and engage in frequent psychological abuse.

According to the Information Center there are 200 children less than 16 years old in Israeli prisons begin subjected to some of the worst forms of exploitation and humiliation. A total of 376 Palestinian children are currently imprisoned in Israeli prisons and detention camps.
[Source: imemc]

This is the oasis of democracy in the Middle East. a.k.a. Israel!

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A 14-year-old Egyptian boy faces execution in Saudi Arabia after a flawed trial in which he was convicted for the murder of another child, Human Rights Watch said today.

Following a seriously flawed trial, Ahmad al-D. was sentenced to death in July for the murder of three-year old Wala� `Adil `Abd al-Badi` in Dammam in April 2004. The families of both children are Egyptian nationals living in Saudi Arabia. Wala�s parents have refused to accept blood money (diya) from Ahmad�s family, and Ahmad remains on death row in a juvenile detention facility in Dammam.

Saudi Arabia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits capital punishment for offenses committed by individuals under 18 at the time of the crime and protects the rights of all children accused or convicted of crimes.

Saudi Arabia stated in its 2004 report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child that the �Islamic Shariah in force in the Kingdom never imposes capital punishment on persons who have not attained their majority� and that �a juvenile is defined under the Detention Regulation and the Juvenile Homes� Regulation of A.H. 1395 (1975) as every human being below the age of 18�.

At every stage of the investigation, detention, trial and sentencing, the Saudi authorities violated Ahmad�s due process rights and well as international legal protections for children. He had no legal assistance or representation during interrogation, detention and trial. Press and police accounts also throw into question his psychological stability during this period and his ability to participate in his own defense. He told the Saudi online newspaper al-Yaum al-Elektroni that he confessed only after police questioned him for the third time because �my strength dwindled and I lacked the capacity to refuse.� He said that while in pre-trial solitary confinement for three months he �cried from fear and loneliness.�

Although he was only 13 at the time of the murder, the court tried and sentenced Ahmad as an adult, based on its assessment of the coarseness of his voice and the appearance of pubic hair. Children can benefit from adult provisions, such as the right to work where it is not hazardous or does not interfere with their right to education, but they may not be used to deny individuals under 18 rights guaranteed to them in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The court also reportedly refused his family�s request for a psychological exam that could have helped to establish diminished legal culpability, despite press accounts and statements by Saudi officials that point to a deeply troubled child in need of care and rehabilitation rather than an adult who is fully responsible for his actions.

Neither the Saudi nor Egyptian government has responded to letters on the case that Human Rights Watch sent several weeks ago and made public today before the Eid holiday.

On September 22, Human Rights Watch wrote to King Abdullah urging him to commute Ahmad�s sentence to a punishment consistent with his age and culpability and to state publicly that Saudi Arabia does not impose the death penalty for offenses committed by persons under 18 at the time of the crime.

The Egyptian consulate reportedly has made little effort to protect Ahmad�s due process rights or to intercede with Wala�s family in Saudi Arabia, although both families are Egyptian. In a letter to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights Watch on September 22 urged the foreign minister to make a formal request that King Abdullah commute the death sentence. The letter also urged Egyptian consular officials to visit Ahmad regularly during his detention to monitor his well-being and ensure that his rights are protected. Consular officials should also assist settlement talks between the families and, should facilitate a diya or other settlement.

Background:

At least four other persons are known to be facing death for crimes committed when they were children: a Mrs. S. from Khamis Mushayyit, Sadiq A. in Qatif, Mr. A. in Jazan, and an unnamed person in Jeddah reportedly convicted of murdering his rapists. The last confirmed execution of a child in Saudi Arabia occurred in 1992.

Saudi Arabia ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1996. The treaty prohibits capital punishment and sentences of life imprisonment without possibility of release for persons under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. It also guarantees children accused of a crime the right to legal or other assistance in the preparation and presentation of their defense, and the right not to be compelled to give testimony or to confess guilt. In addition, U.N. guidelines on juvenile justice (known as the �Beijing Rules�) prohibit the use of solitary confinement, and call on states to make determinations of adult competence based on �emotional, mental and intellectual maturity,� not the physical maturity, of the child.

The Saudi Law on Criminal Procedure in article 4 guarantees every defendant the right to a lawyer.

More from Human Rights Watch...

Related Material:

• Human Rights Watch statment in Arabic.
• Letter to King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud to commute the death sentence of Egyptian boy. (Letter, September 22, 2005)
• Letter to His Excellency Ahmed Aboul Gheit on the death sentence of Egyptian boy. (Letter, September 29, 2005)

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