Amnesty bezorgd om moslims Nederland

Moslims in Nederland worden gediscrimineerd, vooral in het onderwijs en op de arbeidsmarkt. De regering zou meer moeten doen om de vooroordelen tegen moslims weg te nemen. Dat stelt Amnesty International in het dinsdag verschenen rapport ‘Keuzes en vooroordelen: discriminatie van moslims in Europa’.

De mensenrechtenorganisatie maakt zich onder meer zorgen over een katholieke school in Volendam, die een islamitisch meisje verbood een hoofddoek te dragen. De school stelde dat het verbod noodzakelijk was om de katholieke identiteit te bewaren, maar volgens Amnesty is een hoofddoekverbod niet passend voor deze doelstelling.

Ook het boerkaverbod valt in slechte aarde. Een wetsvoorstel hierover werd in februari door de regering bij de Tweede Kamer ingediend. Hoewel Amnesty stelt dat gezichtsbedekkende kleding in sommige situaties niet gewenst is, gaat een algeheel verbod een brug te ver. De organisatie roept de overheid en de Europese Commissie daarom op discriminatie tegen te gaan.

Het onderzoek richt zich naast Nederland op België, Frankrijk, Spanje en Zwitserland. Dit zijn landen waar Amnesty al eerder problemen constateerde. Zo is in Zwitserland de bouw van minaretten verboden. In de andere landen verboden scholen leerlingen een hoofddoek of andere religieuze of culturele symbolen te dragen, terwijl dat valt onder het recht op vrijheid van meningsuiting en godsdienstvrijheid.

Verder voeren België, Nederland en Frankrijk wetgeving die discriminatie op de arbeidsmarkt verbiedt niet altijd goed uit. Werkgevers mogen bijvoorbeeld discrimineren omdat religieuze of culturele symbolen zouden botsen met de mening of gevoelens van cliënten of werknemers, terwijl Europese antidiscriminatiewetgeving dit verbiedt.

In de Spaanse regio Catalonië zijn moslims genoodzaakt op grote schaal in de buitenlucht te bidden, aldus Amnesty. Bestaande moskeeën zijn te klein en verzoeken om nieuwe te bouwen worden afgewezen. De bouw van nieuwe islamitische gebedshuizen zou ingaan tegen de Catalaanse cultuur.

(www.nd.nl / 24.04.2012)

UN chief ‘deeply troubled’ by new West Bank outposts

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that he was “deeply troubled” by Israel’s decision to grant legal status to three settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, describing the activity as illegal under international law.

The three outposts — Bruchin, Sansana and Rechelim — were built on land Israel declared “state-owned” in the West Bank, an area it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.

“The Secretary-General is deeply troubled by the decision of the Government of Israel to formally approve three outposts in the West Bank,” Ban’s office said in a statement.

“The Secretary-General reiterates that all settlement activity is illegal under international law. It runs contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Road Map and repeated Quartet calls for the parties to refrain from provocations,” it said.

Israeli officials played down the decision taken by a ministerial committee late Monday and rejected accusations that the government had effectively created the first new settlements for more than 20 years.

The United Nations views all settlements in the West Bank as illegal. However, Israel distinguishes between settlements it has approved and the outposts that were never granted official authorization.

Some 350 settlers live in Bruchin and 240 in Rechelim, both in the northern part of the West Bank, while Sansana, with a population of 240, lies further to the south.

Earlier this month, the so-called Quartet — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — criticized Israeli settlement building and called on donors to meet aid pledges to the Palestinians as they sought to revive moribund peace talks.

(www.maannews.net / 24.04.2012)

De dag na … Geert W.

Vandaag zou dan de belangrijke dag zijn, het debat over het klappen van de Catshuisonderhandelingen en de val van het kabinet-wie-hoort-er-nu-wel-bij. Maar wat viel het weer eens tegen, lief en begrip voor elkaar, niet terugkijken maar toch zorgen voor bezuinigingen voor 2013. En allemaal wel of geen 3%, zonder dat we het heilig mogen noemen volgens de ChristenUnie. De minister-president probeerde het nog op zijn eigen manier (luchtig, lachje hier, knipoogje daar), en woorden als “stilstand is niet goed voor Nederland, de werkgelegenheid staat onder druk, de staatsschuld loopt op” en aangeven dat de overheid kleiner is geworden (“ minder ministers, minder ministeries”), maar het kwam er niet echt uit.

Ook de VVD probeerde het op dezelfde manier (“de staatsschuld is € 25.000 per persoon en dat moeten ze gaan betalen”), maar kwam ook niet verder dan de opmerking de opgelopen financiële schade te moeten beperken en daarom snelle verkiezingen voor te stellen. De ChristenUnie reageerde hierop dat de verkiezingsbelofte van de VVD was om de problemen op te lossen, echter ze zijn ondertussen alleen maar groter geworden.

De voorman van de PvdA vond het geheel een wanprestatie en gaf aan dat er teveel tijd (lees 18 maanden) is vermorst. Van de partij kwamen dan nog een beetje de problemen onder de aandacht en dat de oplossingen meer bij “sterke schouders meer dragen”, “solidariteit” en ‘inkomensafhankelijke bijdrage voor de zorg” zou moeten liggen.

De PVV kwam niet verder dan dat het overleg mislukt was, want het Catshuispakket zou slecht zijn geweest voor Nederland, daar de overheid teveel geld uitgeeft, wat de burger moet betalen, maar dat er niet gesneden zou worden in de overheidsuitgaven. De partij wist nog voor te rekenen dat de vermindering van 4.6% naar 3% 14 miljard zou kosten.

De andere regeringspartij, het CDA, was van mening dat de voorman van de PVV geen rechte rug had gehad, maar slappe knieën. Ook het CDA rekende ons wat voor: niet voldoen aan de norm van 3% zou een jaarlijkse boete van 1.2 miljard euro opleveren.

Volgens de SP komt de haperende economie niet op gang door gebrek in vertrouwen, vooral in de politiek. In de laatste 25 jaar is er vooral bezuinigd op sociale zekerheid en samenhang, wat tot een tweedeling heeft geleid. Er moet geïnvesteerd worden, met een blik van solidariteit op de toekomst.

Voor de D66 was het imago van het kabinet van de laatste 18 maanden: “Wat de PVV niet wilde, gebeurde niet” wat geresulteerd heeft dat Nederland overgeleverd was aan een populist. Het vertrouwen is extreem laag, de economie moet hervormd worden en er zijn drastische maatregelen nodig, maar wel houden aan de EU-regels.

GroenLinks sterkte het geheel nog een beetje aan door aan te geven dat de “puinhopen van het experiment van extreem rechts, het leven van mensen heeft verknald, zoals gehandicapten en chronisch zieken.”
Opvallend was het niet, maar Brinkman wilde zich nog even profileren t.o.v. PVV: “Een stem op PVV is een verloren stem”.

In het antwoord van de minister-president kon men horen dat Nederland een sterke economie heeft en dat men vertrouwen heeft in Nederland. Maar er moet wel wat gedaan worden, Paars+ zou niet verder dan 11 a 12 miljard bezuinigingen komen. Hierop reageerde de ChristenUnie dat er toegezegd was dat er 400.000 banen erbij zouden komen, echter er zijn  500.000 werkelozen gekomen en de zorg kost nu al € 5600 per persoon per jaar.

Tijdens het antwoord van de minister-president viel wel een ding op en dat was Fleur Agema constant nee zat te schudden. Kan twee dingen betekenen: Mark Rutte spreekt onzin of waarom wordt door de PVV niet ingegrepen?

Het debat zou een terugblik moeten zijn geweest over de val van het kabinet, maar inderdaad is er weinig verantwoording afgelegd, maar vooral is er te weinig gesproken over de mensen die het moeilijk hebben in onze maatschappij en hoe men deze gaat helpen. Nee, belangrijk is dat we vasthouden aan regels, het imago van Nederland in de wereld, de financiële status en hoe de financiële markten hier naar kijken en hoe er bezuinigd moet worden.

Niets over ombuigen naar sterke schouders moeten meer dragen om de mensen met een kleine portemonnee te ontzien, niets over moslims in benarde positie door anti-islam partij, niets over te dure zorg en dat moet beter, niets over zorg voor de zwakkeren in de maatschappij, niets over asielzoekers, niets over de band met Palestina.
Donderdag gaat het debat verder, over de bezuinigingen die gehaald moeten worden.

Jordan Valley village invites Israelis to visit following demolitions

Residents of the northern Jordan Valley Palestinian village of Al Aqaba wrote this open letter to Israelis following last week’s demolition of the village access roads by Israel’s Civil Administration. Israelis invited to visit and witness the difficult living conditions, asked to “spread these words and help us to live in peace”.

We, the 300 residents of Al Aqaba, owners of this village land for decades from even before the Israeli army entered the area, turn to you as a last resort. For tens of years Israeli soldiers have used our village as a military training base, a playground with live fire which has thus far resulted in training accidents and the lives of eight people whilst injuring 38, including head of the municipality, Hajj Sami Sadaq, who was paralysed in his lower body. With this we have never demonstrated violence, no terror ever came from here, no stone was ever thrown and we still call for co-existence and peace.

In 2003 the military training base was evacuated following a High Court petition, but in 2004 the Civil Administration distributed demolition orders for a majority of the village buildings, including a mosque, kindergarten and health clinic, with the claim these were built without permission.  For those of you thinking “well, we also did not receive permission to close our balcony”, please continue reading. Area C represents some 60% of the territory of the West Bank. From the year 2000, Israel has rejected 94% of all requests submitted by Palestinians for construction in this area, in contrast with the simultaneous meteoric increase in settlements.

In 2007 we petitioned the High Court demanding an annulment of the demolition orders and creation of a development plan for the village. In response, the Civil Administration offered to prepare a limited building site in the village centre, where all public buildings are located but less than half of the residential units. This offer further removes from the village area the remaining built-up area, in which a majority of residents reside, together with all of the village’s agricultural lands. This is, of course, in contravention of Israel’s duty as the occupying power to ensure public order and safety in accordance with Article 43 of the Hague Convention for occupied territory.

On 18 April 2012 at 11.00 a.m., Israeli soldiers and private contractors arrived with no previous notice to demolish the village’s two access roads, the “peace road” and the “uprooted road” which we built with our own hands to fulfil our right to freedom of movement and for transport of our means of livelihood, our agricultural produce. This is the third time that the peace road has been destroyed.

This time the demolitions were accompanied by threats. A vulgar first lieutenant in jeep number 655397 became angry as  we documented this event, and he shouted at the head of the village that he would “return and this time for massive demolitions”.  All of this occurred while the head of our village, from his wheelchair, defused a small group of angry people.

To our sorrow, the village children could easily see what was happening and we fear the results of this trauma for the future of all of us. We, the residents of the village and the international and Israeli guests in the area, call on you to come and visit and to see with your own eyes the difficult conditions in which we live each and every day. Please spread these words and help us to live in peace.

Sincerely

Residents of the Al Aqaba village

aqaba2006@yahoo.com
mobach18@gmail.com

Translated to English by the Alternative Information Center (AIC).

(www.alternativenews.org / 24.04.2012)

Afghanistan: War Without an End

FIVE REASONS FOR THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

The United States is now known to have been building at least 14 secret military bases throughout Afghanistan. Why are they secret? I believe it is to hide the government’s real intention to remain there much longer that it “needs” to be.

Now we must ask what is the “need” if the mastermind and much of the group named for conceiving and funding 9/11 have already been murdered? This of course includes Osama bin Laden and many of his Al-Qaeda soldiers and Taliban resistance. Of course I do not believe that bin Laden or Al-Qaeda had anything to do with 9/11. Also recall that he and many of those who supposedly hijacked those planes were Saudi.

The United States true intentions of occupying Afghanistan are likely to be the following:

1. Secure a natural gas pipeline and other resources within or local to Afghanistan. This is now well documented.

2. Build a local staging area from where to launch wars of aggression in the middle east especially Iran. This secures control over petroleum exporting nations and of course their oil. It also leans on oil exporting nations to continue to only use Federal Reserve Notes (U.S. dollars) for trade. It also shelters Israel from attacks by its hostile Muslim neighbors.

3. A possible local staging area to pressure or provoke an attack on Russia which may not wish to be part of the New World Order (NWO). Or simply to initiate another cold war with Russia. This would reign in support for perpetuating the growth of the military industrial complex. This is big business and such corporations do much lobbying to secure contracts and growth.

4. Build a local staging area to pressure or launch an attack on China which may not wish to be part of the NWO. Or of course to keep China “in check” with a second cold war because they are quickly growing into a superpower and the United States might have to default on many of the loans given by China. Similarly to prior point this would also grow profits for defense and finance corporations.

5. Keep Americans under the illusion that the United States is still fighting the war on terror. This breeds obedience and helps to generate more domestic authoritarian control (the state ignores our constitution and limits our civil rights). This is essential if the NWO is to be successful.

All of these possible reasons reduce down to profits and control — a one world government that manages all of the world’s resources including our labor. This is opposite to free market capitalism and equal individual human rights. Such a government would result in world wide enslavement.

Your thoughts on this are most welcome. Thank you.

(Facebook / 24.04.2012)

Clampdown on Palestinian media spreads to the Web

Palestinian Authority communications minister Mashour Abu Daka attends the opening of a technology company in Nablus.

By George Hale

 

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is critical of President Mahmoud Abbas, according to senior government officials and data analyzed by network security experts.

As many as eight news outlets have been rendered unavailable to many Internet users in the West Bank, after technicians at the Palestinian Telecommunications Company, or PalTel, tweaked an open source software called Squid to return error pages, a detailed technical analysis indicates. Several small companies are using a similar setup.

The decision this year to begin blocking websites marks a major expansion of the government’s online powers. Experts say it is the biggest shift toward routine Internet censorship in the Palestinian Authority’s history. Aside from one incident in 2008, Palestinians have generally been free to read whatever they wanted.

“This is unprecedented for them,” says Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at theElectronic Frontier Foundation, a US digital rights group. “It is troubling because they had done a relatively good job at keeping the Internet open until now.”

The affected websites are Amad, Fatah Voice, Firas Press, In Light Press, Karama Press, Kofia Press, Milad News and Palestine Beituna. With their focus on internal Fatah issues, none are among the most popular outlets in Palestine. But they all report on daily news.

Many of the sites have been described as loyal to Muhammad Dahlan, a former Fatah leader and critic of Abbas. A feud between them took on new urgency last summer, when Fatah sought to expel the former strongman and security forces raided his home. As far back as June 2011, the Palestinian Authority was complaining about its inability to shut down alleged Dahlan media based abroad, the al-Hayat newspaper reported at the time. Four of those sites are now being blocked.

Several Palestinian officials have expressed reservations about the decision, calling it embarrassing and counterproductive. One of them, a member of Salam Fayyad’s cabinet, agreed to speak on the record for this story. Other officials who spoke to Ma’an in recent weeks were not authorized by the Palestinian Authority or PalTel to discuss either the blocking decision or the technology being used to enforce it.

Officials familiar with the order say it came from Ahmad al-Mughni, the Palestinian attorney general. They say he delivered it in person to the CEO of at least one of the service providers being forced to prevent access. Al-Mughni dismissed these claims and refused to take questions from Ma’an.

“I am not the court,” he said Tuesday without elaborating.

According to a Palestinian official with first-hand knowledge of the decision, the attorney general was acting on instructions from higher up in the government — either from the president’s office or an intelligence director. Still, there is no indication a judge approved any element of the censorship program, suggesting al-Mughni issued the decree under his own perceived authority, the official said.

Other Palestinian officials more readily pointed a finger at al-Mughni.

“The attorney general is responsible,” communications minister Mashour Abu Daka told Ma’an. He said al-Mughni submitted the order to PalTel over his objections and despite concerns it could be illegal. There is no Palestinian law that permits Web censorship and the attorney general knows it, Abu Daka charged.

“He made up his own laws to justify what was solely his decision,” the minister said. “Blocking websites is against the public interest. I oppose it without exception.”

‘Not going to jail’

The attorney general is already facing criticism from journalists and human rights groups for ordering the arrest in March of a newspaper reporter accused of defaming the foreign minister. He also signed off on the recent arrests of two bloggers after they criticized Abbas on Facebook. Palestinian journalists have held a number of demonstrations protesting the clampdown.

By contrast, the blocking has gone largely unnoticed. Mada, a press freedom group, raised the issue of Milad and Amad, while US blogger “Challah Hu Akbar” reported extensively about In Light Press, but many Palestinians remain unaware the Internet is censored. This is partly because providers have not acknowledged their cooperation nor have subscribers been told any websites are off limits.

Even at private Internet companies, employees fear losing their jobs or worse if they discuss the program. “Sorry, but I’m not going to jail,” said one PalTel technician when asked for a list of the websites.

PalTel representatives refused to answer basic questions such as when they received the order or who signed it, but extensive testing shows its Internet provider Hadara has blocked as many as eight websites at a time. A PalTel spokeswoman said in an email that “we only implement government decisions and we do not get involved in the decisions they make as long as they are backed by the existing laws.”

The testing was conducted over four weeks by Ma’an and the Open Observatory of Network Interference, a new project by Web security experts Arturo Filasto and Jacob Appelbaum to track censorship around the world. Using a tool called an OONI probe, they scanned 1.1 million websites for a specific type of blocking.

“The technique being used to restrict access is a transparent HTTP proxy,” Filasto said, meaning a company intercepts attempts to reach blocked websites and returns a different page. Testing a connection in Bethlehem demonstrated that Hadara was blocking access to eight websites, while others blocked between four and six. A few of the sites are also blocked in Gaza, Internet users there said.

The method being employed by Hadara is relatively basic, Filasto said. Experts who have analyzed the data say the company configured an open-source software called Squid to detect the blocked sites and redirect users. Squid was originally developed with funding from two US government agencies, but neither one has any control over its distribution today. Syria and Lebanon also use it for Web blocking, according to experts.

Squid’s West Bank debut indicates that while the Palestinian Authority may be more determined than before to censor the Internet, it is less willing to spend much time or money doing it, experts said. The software is free and easy to alter for censorship.

“It’s a pretty common approach,” says Danny O’Brien, Internet advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US press freedom group. “Instructing ISPs to block a few websites can be so tempting, and it’s usually how a government’s Web censorship program begins,” O’Brien says.

“The big problem is no one willingly hands over the list. It would provide a map of places the government doesn’t want to you to see. When you can’t see the list, there’s no accountability from the public.”

The new program’s timing may also embarrass the Palestinian Authority’s financial backers in the United States and European Union, both of which are considering legislation to curb the export of Western technologies used to censor political speech in the Middle East.

In Washington, a spokeswoman said the State Department was “concerned about any reports regarding the use of technologies to restrict access to information. The United States advocates Internet freedom.”

She pointed to a December 2011 speech in which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed for stronger efforts on behalf of those “who are blocked from accessing entire categories of Internet content.”

Jared Malsin, Jenny Baboun and Nour Jubran contributed reporting.

–

On the Net:

http://www.amad.ps
http://www.fateh-voice.ps
http://www.fpnp.net
http://www.inlightpress.com
http://www.karamapress.com
http://www.kofiapress.com
http://www.milad.ps
http://www.pal-home.net

(www.maannews.net / 24.04.2012)

Het Kamerdebat: wie zei wat?

DEMISSIONAIR PREMIER RUTTE SPREEKT MET DE TWEEDE KAMER

Verkiezingen voor of na de zomer? Dat was de eerste vraag van de dag in Den Haag. Inmiddels is die horde genomen (na de zomer), maar er viel nog genoeg te bespreken in de Tweede Kamer.

Demissionair premier Rutte ging vandaag in debat met de Kamer over de val van zijn kabinet. Hier vind je het liveblog.

De miljardenbezuinigingen die moeten worden doorgevoerd lijken het volgende agendapunt. Het is mogelijk dat de VVD en CDA hierover akkoorden sluiten met andere partijen. De tijd dringt namelijk: Nederland moet over zes dagen aan Brussel laten weten hoe het aan de Europese begrotingseisen gaat voldoen.

Gevleugelde uitspraken

Het was een nogal lauw debat. “Fractievoorzitters komen nauwelijks uit hun stoel om het debat aan te gaan”, twitterde onze verslaggever Dominque van der Hayde. Toch deden de politici hun best om iedereens aandacht erbij te houden, zoals we dat van ze gewend zijn: met gevleugelde uitspraken. De leukste op een rijtje:

Pechtold tegen Blok:
“De samenwerking met de PVV heeft niets opgeleverd. U staat met lege handen.”
En:
“Een onzalig avontuur omdat de gedoger Wilders voluit op het orgel mocht blijven gaan. Omdat het kabinet dwarsliggen tot handelsmerk maakte.”
“Wie zich overlevert aan de grillen een populist, kan het zich niet permitteren om in een spijkerbroek en gympies naar de onderhandelingstafel te komen. Je staat zomaar in je pak genaaid.”

Samsom: “Hoe haal je het in je hoofd, zou m’n moeder zeggen. Een kabinetscrisis veroorzaken op het slechtst denkbare moment. En de eerste verantwoordelijke is, hoe je het ook wendt of keert, de premier. Maar ik wil het kabinet-Rutte geen harde verwijten maken om dat we door moeten”.

Wilders vooraf:
“Ik heb geen zin in zwartepieten.”

En tijdens het debat:
“We hebben de afgelopen dagen vaak de Zwarte Piet gekregen.”
“Door níet aan het pluche te plakken tonen we juist moed.”
“We hebben met bloedend hart afscheid genomen.”

Slob: “Ik weet zo langzamerhand niet meer wat wél heilig is. Nou ja, dat weet ik wel.”

Roemer: “Sta ik ervan te kijken? Nee. Ben ik er blij mee? Ja.”

Sap: “De puinhopen van een mislukt rechts experiment.”

Van der Staaij: “Het is een ramp voor Henk en Ingrid en voor Bas en Willy.”

Ouwehand: “Met stoffer en blik de rotzooi van Rutte opruimen.”

Brinkman: “De schuld doorschuiven naar Henk junior.“

(www.nos.nl / 24.04.2012)