organization:national committee

  • Health Ministry : “Army Killed 266 Palestinians In One Year”
    March 31, 2019 7:22 AM
    https://imemc.org/article/health-ministry-army-killed-266-palestinians-in-one-year

    The Palestinian Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has reported, Saturday, that Israeli soldiers killed 266 Palestinians, and injured 30398 others, since the Great Return March processions started on March 30, 2018, which also marks Palestinian Land Day. Four Palestinians were killed, Saturday, and 316, including 86 children and 29 women, were injured.

    The Health Ministry stated that the soldiers killed 266 Palestinians, including 50 children, six women and one elderly man, and injured 30398 others, including 16027 who were moved to various hospitals and medical centers.

    It said that among the wounded are 3175 children and 1008 women, and added that 136 Palestinians suffered amputations; 122 in the lower limbs, and 14 in the upper limbs.

    The Ministry also stated that the soldiers killed three medics, identified as Razan Najjar, 22, Mousa Jaber Abu Hassanein, 36, and Abdullah al-Qutati, 20, and injured 665 others, in addition to causing damage to 112 ambulances.

    Among the slain Palestinians are two journalists, identified as Yasser Mortaja, and journalist Ahmad Abu Hussein, in the Gaza Strip, while the soldiers injured dozens of journalists.

    The latest information does not include dozens of Palestinians who were killed and injured by the Israeli army after crossing the perimeter fence and were never returned to the Gaza Strip. (...)

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     » Updated : Land Day ; Israeli Soldiers Kill Four Palestinians, Injure 316, In Gaza
    March 30, 2019 11:56 PM
    https://imemc.org/article/land-day-israeli-soldiers-kill-three-palestinians-injure-316-in-gaza

    Israeli soldiers killed, Saturday, four Palestinians, and injured 316 others, including 14 who suffered life-threatening wounds, during protests across the perimeter fence, in the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip.

    On Saturday at night, a Palestinian teen, identified as Bilal Mahmoud Najjar (Abu Jamous), 17, from Bani Soheila near Khan Younis, in southern Gaza Strip, died from serious wounds suffered earlier after the soldiers shot him with live fire.


    The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that, among the wounded are 86 children and 29 women.

    Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians gathered on lands near the perimeter fence, marking Palestinian Land Day, and the first anniversary since the beginning of the Great Return March.

    Media sources in Gaza said that National Committee for Breaking the Siege has called for a million-person march, marking Land Day, and the first anniversary of the Great Return March, demanding lifting the siege on Gaza, the internationally-guaranteed Right of Return, the liberation of Palestine and independence.


    On Saturday evening, the Health Ministry in Gaza said the soldiers killed Tamer Hashem Abu al-Kheir , 17, after shooting him with a live round in the chest, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the coastal region.

    His death came just hours after the soldiers killed Adham Nidal ‘Amara , 17, who was fatally shot during the processions east of Gaza city.


    On Friday morning, the soldiers killed Mohammad Jihad Sa’ad , 20, east of Gaza city, before the Great Return March processions started.

    #Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour
    https://seenthis.net/messages/771083

  • The Kaiser goes : the generals remain - Theodor Plivier
    https://libcom.org/history/kaiser-goes-generals-remain-theodor-plivier-1932

    Text entier en anglais : https://libcom.org/files/TheKaiserGoesTheGeneralsRemain.pdf https://libcom.org/files/TheKaiserGoesTheGeneralsRemain.mobi

    Du même auteur : Stalingrad (1945), Moskau (1952), Berlin (1954), une trilogie sur la guerre contre les nazis. Je n’ai pas encore trouvé de version en ligne.

    This is an amazing novel about the German Revolution, written by a participant. Republished here in PDF and Kindle formats.

    I’m republishing a novel about the German Revolution called The Kaiser Goes: the Generals Remain, written by a participant in the naval mutinies which kicked the whole thing off. But the novel doesn’t just concern rebellion in the armed forces, there’s all kinds of other exciting events covered too!

    I first became aware of the novel when I noticed some quotations from it in Working Class Politics in the German Revolution1, Ralf Hoffrogge’s wonderful book about the revolutionary shop stewards’ movement in Germany during and just after World War I.

    I set about finding a copy of The Kaiser goes..., read it, and immediately wanted to make it more widely available by scanning it. The results are here.

    Below I’ve gathered together all the most readily accessible information about the novel’s author, Theodor Plivier, that I can find. Hopefully, the sources referenced will provide a useful basis for anybody who wants to do further research.

    Dan Radnika

    October 2015

    THEODOR Otto Richard PLIVIER – Some biographical details

    Theodor Plivier (called Plievier after 1933) was born on 12 February 1892 in Berlin and died on 12 March 1955 in Tessin, Switzerland.

    Since his death Plivier/Plievier has been mostly known in his native Germany as a novelist, particularly for his trilogy of novels about the fighting on the Eastern Front in WWII, made up of the works Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin.

    He was the son of an artisan file-maker (Feilenhauer in German) and spent his childhood in the Gesundbrunnen district in Berlin. There is still a plaque dedicated to him on the house where he was born at 29 Wiesenstraße. He was interested in literature from an early age. He began an apprenticeship at 17 with a plasterer and left his family home shortly after. For his apprenticeship he traveled across the German Empire, in Austria-Hungary and in the Netherlands. After briefly returning to his parents, he joined up as a sailor in the merchant navy. He first visited South America in 1910, and worked in the sodium nitrate (saltpetre) mines in 1913 in Chile. This period of his life seems to have provided much of the material for the novel The World’s Last Corner (see below).

    He returned to Germany, Hamburg, in 1914, when he was still only 22. He was arrested by the police for a brawl in a sailors’ pub, and was thus “recruited” into the imperial navy just as the First World War broke out. He spent his time in service on the auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf, commanded by the famous Commander Karl August Nerger. It was he who led a victorious war of patriotic piracy in the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, seizing enemy ships and their cargo, taking their crews prisoner, and returning in glory to Kiel in February 1918. The activities of SMS Wolf are described in fictional form in the final chapter of Plivier’s The Kaiser’s Coolies (see below). The young Plivier didn’t set foot on land for 451 days, but while at sea he became converted to revolutionary ideas, like thousands of other German sailors. Nevertheless, he never joined a political party. In November 1918, he was in Wilhelmshaven and participated in the strikes, uprisings and revolts accompanying the fall of the German Empire, including the Kiel Mutiny. He also played a small role in the November Revolution in Berlin.

    He left the navy after the armistice (11 November 1918) and, with Karl Raichle and Gregor Gog (both sailor veterans of the Wilmhelmshaven revolt), founded the “Green Way Commune”, near Bad Urach. It was a sort of commune of revolutionaries, artists, poets, proto-hippies, and whoever turned up. Two early participants were the anarchist Erich Mühsam and Johannes Becher (see below), who was a member of the German Communist Party (KPD). At this time several communes were set up around Germany, with Urach being one of three vegetarian communes set up in the Swabia region2.

    It was the beginning of the anarchist-oriented “Edition of the 12” publishing house. Plivier was certainly influenced by the ideas of Bakunin, but also Nietzsche. Later he took on some kind of “individualist anarchism”, ensuring that he didn’t join any party or formal political organisation.

    In Berlin in 1920 he married the actress Maria Stoz3. He belonged to the circle of friends of Käthe Kollwitz4, the radical painter and sculptor, who painted his portrait. On Christmas Day 1920 he showed a delegation from the American IWW to the grave of Karl Liebknecht5. In the early ‘20s he seems to have associated with the anarcho-syndicalist union, the FAUD (Free Workers’ Union of Germany), and addressed its public meetings6.

    Plivier underwent a “personal crisis” and began to follow the example of the “back to nature” poet Gusto Gräser7, another regular resident of “Green Way” and a man seen as the leading figure in the subculture of poets and wandering mystics known (disparagingly at the time) as the “Inflation Saints” (Inflationsheilige)8. In the words of the historian Ulrich Linse, “When the revolutionaries were killed, were in prison or had given up, the hour of the wandering prophets came. As the outer revolution had fizzled out, they found its continuation in the consciousness-being-revolution, in a spiritual change”9. Plivier began wearing sandals and robes…10 According to the Mountain of Truth book (see footnote), in 1922, in Weimar, Plivier was preaching a neo-Tolstoyan gospel of peace and anarchism, much influenced by Gräser. That year he published Anarchy, advocating a “masterless order, built up out of the moral power of free individuals”. Supposedly, “he was a religious anarchist, frequently quoting from the Bible”11. This was not unusual amongst the Inflationsheilige.

    His son Peter and his daughter Thora died from malnutrition during the terrible times of crisis and hyper-inflation in 1923. A year later he began to find work as a journalist and translator. He then worked for some time in South America as a cattle trader and as secretary to the German consul in Pisagua, Chile. On his return to Germany he wrote Des Kaisers Kulis (“The Kaiser’s Coolies”) in 1929, which was published the following year. It was a story based on his days in the Imperial Navy, denouncing the imperialist war in no uncertain terms. At the front of the book is a dedication to two sailors who were executed for participation in a strike and demonstration by hundreds of sailors from the Prinzregent Luitpold12. Erwin Piscator put on a play of his novel at the Lessingtheater in Berlin, with the first showing on 30 August 1930. Der Kaiser ging, die Generälen blieben (“The Kaiser Goes: The Generals Remain”) was published in 1932. In both novels Plivier did an enormous amount of research, as well as drawing on his own memories of important historical events. In the original edition of Der Kaiser ging… there is a citations section at the end with fifty book titles and a list of newspapers and magazines consulted. This attention to historical fact was to become a hallmark of Plivier’s method as a novelist. The postscript to Der Kaiser ging… clearly states what he was trying to do:

    “I have cast this history in the form of a novel, because it is my belief that events which are brought about not by any exchange of diplomatic notes, but by the sudden collision of opposed forces, do not lend themselves to a purely scientific treatment. By that method one can merely assemble a selection of facts belonging to any particular period – only artistic re-fashioning can yield a living picture of the whole. As in my former book, The Kaiser’s Coolies, so I have tried here to preserve strict historic truth, and in so far as exact material was available I have used it as the basis of my work. All the events described, all the persons introduced, are drawn to the life and their words reproduced verbatim. Occasional statements which the sources preserve only in indirect speech are here given direct form. But in no instance has the sense been altered.”

    His second marriage (which didn’t produce any children) was to the Jewish actress Hildegard Piscator in 1931. When Hitler came to power as Chancellor in 1933, his books were banned and publically burnt. He changed his name to Plievier. That year he decided to emigrate, and at the end of a long journey which led him to Prague, Zurich, Paris and Oslo, he ended up in the Soviet Union.

    He was initially not subject to much censorship in Moscow and published accounts of his adventures and political commentaries. When Operation Barbarossa was launched he was evacuated to Tashkent along with other foreigners. Here, for example, he met up (again?) with Johannes Robert Becher, the future Culture Minister of the DDR! In September 1943 he became a member of the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD), which gathered anti-Nazi German exiles living in the USSR – not just Communist Party members, although there were a fair number of them involved. In 1945 he wrote Stalingrad, based on testimonies which he collected, with official permission, from German prisoners of war in camps around Moscow. This novel was initially published in occupied Berlin and Mexico, but ended up being translated into 14 languages and being adapted for the theatre and TV13. It describes in unflinching and pitiless detail the German military defeat and its roots in the megalomania of Hitler and the incompetence of the High Command. It is the only novel by Plievier that was written specifically as a work of state propaganda. It is certainly “defeatist”, but only on the German side – it is certainly not “revolutionary defeatist” like Plievier’s writings about WWI. The French writer Pierre Vaydat (in the French-language magazine of German culture, Germanica14) even suggests that it was clearly aimed at “the new military class which was the officer corps of the Wehrmacht” in an effort to encourage them to rise up against Hitler and save the honour of the German military. The novel nevertheless only appeared in a censored form in the USSR.

    He returned to Weimar at the end of 1945, as an official of the Red Army! For two years he worked as a delegate of the regional assembly, as director of publications and had a leading position in the “Cultural Association [Kulturbund] for German Democratic Renewal” which was a Soviet organisation devoted to changing attitudes in Germany and preparing its inclusion into the USSR’s economic and political empire. As with so much else in Plievier’s life, this episode was partly fictionalised in a novel, in this case his last ever novel, Berlin.

    Plievier ended up breaking with the Soviet system in 1948, and made an announcement to this effect to a gathering of German writers in Frankfurt in May of that year15. However, Plievier had taken a long and tortuous political path since his days as a revolutionary sailor in 1918… He clearly ended up supporting the Cold War – seeing the struggle against “Communist” totalitarianism as a continuation of the struggle against fascism (logically enough). What’s more, his views had taken on a somewhat religious tinge, talking of a “spiritual rebirth” whose foundations “begin with the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai and end with the theses of the Atlantic Charter”! Although it can be read as a denunciation of the horrors of war in general, it’s clear that Berlin, his description of the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, is far more of a denunciation of Soviet Russia than anything else. The character Colonel Zecke, obviously a mouthpiece for Plievier’s views, even claims that Churchill and Roosevelt only bombed Dresden because they wanted to please Stalin. If you say so, Theo…! One virtue of Plievier’s single-minded attack on the Russian side is that he draws attention to the mass rape of German women by Russian soldiers. This was a war crime which it was not at all fashionable to mention at the time he was writing, despite the existence of perhaps as many as two million victims16.

    Berlin ends with one of the recurring characters in Plievier’s war novels being killed while participating in the East German worker’s revolt in 195317. Despite his conservative turn, Plievier obviously still has some of the spirit of Wilhelmshaven and can’t restrain himself from giving the rebellious workers some advice about how to organise a proletarian insurrection – seize the means of production! Another character says:

    “What use was it raising one’s fists against tanks, fighting with the Vopos [Volkspolizei – People’s Police], trampling down propaganda posters – one has to get into the vital works, to get busy at the waterworks, the power stations, the metropolitan railway! But the workers are without organisation, without leadership or a plan –the revolt has broken out like a steppes fire and is flickering away uncoordinated, in all directions at once.”

    He went to live in the British Zone of Occupation. He got married for a third time, in 1950, to Margarete Grote, and went to live next to Lake Constance. He published Moscow (Moskau) in 1952 and Berlin in 1954. He moved to Tessin in Switzerland in 1953, and died from a heart attack there in 1955, at the age of 63.

    His works – particularly the pro-revolutionary ones – are almost unknown in the English-speaking world (or anywhere else) today. The republication of The Kaiser Goes: The Generals Remain in electronic form is a modest attempt to remedy this!

    Finally, please read Plivier’s novels! Even the reactionary ones…

    #Allemagne #histoire #révolution #littérature

  • 10 Palestinians injured as Gaza’s naval march continues
    Nov. 6, 2018 11:34 A.M. (Updated: Nov. 6, 2018 12:27 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=781702

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian crowds gathered at the northern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip to take part in the 15th naval march setting off from the Gaza seaport in an attempt to break the nearly 12-year Israeli siege, on Monday.

    Local sources reported that Israeli forces injured 10 Palestinians, including four injuries with Israeli live ammunition, while several others suffered from tear-gas inhalation.

    Those injured were transferred to the Indonesian and al-Shifa hospitals to receive the necessary medical treatment; their conditions were reported as moderate.

    Sources added that a number of boats set off from Gaza’s seaport towards the Israeli Zikim beach, Israeli forces fired live ammunition and tear-gas bombs to suppress protesters participating in the naval march.

    The National Committee for Breaking the Siege, which organized the naval march, said “We will not stop the return marches and the naval marches until our goals are achieved,” referring to breaking the Israeli siege and allowing Palestinians the right of return as refugees to their original homelands, now in present-day Israel.

    #marchecôtière

  • » Israel Confiscates Thousands Of Dunams To Expand Colonialist Road
    IMEMC News - October 24, 2018 12:51 PM
    http://imemc.org/article/israel-confiscates-thousands-of-dunams-to-expand-colonialist-road

    The Israeli government has approved, Wednesday, the expansion of Road #60, used by illegal colonialist settlers, between Hebron and Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank.

    Hasan Breijiyya, the head of the National Committee against the Wall and Colonies in Bethlehem, has reported that Israeli Transportation Minister, Yisrael Katz, has authorized the illegal annexation of thousand of Dunams of Palestinian lands, to expand the colonialist road.

    He added that the road would be expanded to include four lanes, with a width of approximately 100 meters, and would lead to the annexation of thousands of Dunams from the towns of al-Khader, Beit Jala and al-Ma’sara, in Bethlehem governorate, in addition to Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.

    Breijiyya stated that the decision is part of Israel’s illegal policies to confiscate lands in large areas of lands in Bethlehem, to be part of “Greater Jerusalem.”

    #colonialisme_de_peuplement

  • Injuries reported as Israel suppresses 13th naval march in Gaza
    Oct. 22, 2018 5:52 P.M. (Updated: Oct. 22, 2018 5:52 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=781558

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — At least ten Palestinians were injured by Israeli ammunition, while others suffered tear-gas inhalation, as Israeli forces suppressed hundreds of Palestinian protesters in the naval march in Beit Lahiya in the besieged Gaza Strip, on Monday afternoon.

    Medical sources confirmed to Ma’an that one Palestinian was injured with a live bullet in the leg in the Zikim area.

    A Ma’an reporter said that Israeli forces opened fire at protesters approaching the border fence.

    Israeli forces also fired tear-gas bombs causing many to suffer tear-gas inhalation.

    The National Committee for Breaking the Siege had called upon Palestinians to take part in the 13th naval protest.

    Dozens of ships has also sailed off the coast in an attempt to break the 12-year-long siege on Gaza.

    Many attempts have been made throughout the years to draw the public’s attention to and break the on-going siege of the Gaza Strip whether via ships attempting to sail into Gaza or ships attempting to sail from Gaza.

    #marchecôtière

  • » PCHR: “Within less than 24 hours, Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinian civilians, including a child”
    IMEMC News - September 19, 2018 3:18 AM
    http://imemc.org/article/pchr-within-less-than-24-hours-israeli-forces-killed-4-palestinian-civilians-

    (...) On Tuesday Afternoon, 18 September 2018, families of the 2 persons killed identified them after their photos were published on social media. They were namely as Naji Jamil Hasan Abu ‘Aasi (17) and ‘Alaa Ziad Jamil Abu ‘Aasi (20); who are both from Bani Suhaila.

    Though the circumstances have not clarified the reason behind their presence in the scene, they posed no threat to the life of Israeli soldiers as they were both civilians and unarmed, noting that the area was calm and did not witness any protests. Moreover, many infiltrations into Israel for work there were reported in that area.

    At approximately 17:00 on Tuesday, 18 September 2018, Israeli forces stationed at the Beit hanoun “Erez” Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip fired live bullets and tear gas canisters to disperse hundreds of civilians who were protesting near the crossing upon calls from the National Committee of March for Return and Breaking the Siege to participate in the “Together for the Rights of Refugees and Breaking the Siege” activity.

    The Israeli Forces’ shooting resulted in the killing of 2 civilians who were identified as Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Abu Naji (32) from Beit Lahia Housing Project who was hit with a bullet to the chest; and Ahmed Mohammed Muhsen ‘Omer (24) from al-Shati’ refugee camp who was hit with a bullet to the chest. Both of them were taken to the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia.

    Moreover, 44 civilians, including 7 children, 2 women, 3 journalists and 2 paramedics, were wounded. Seven of the wounded were hit with bullets while the rest were directly hit with tear gas canisters in addition to dozens who suffered tear gas inhalation. Further, a tear gas canister hit and broke the window of a PRCS ambulance.(...)

    #Palestine_assassinée

  • Israel deports Freedom Flotilla activists
    Aug. 1, 2018 11:55 A.M.
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=780567

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Gaza’s National Committee for Breaking the Siege announced on Wednesday that the Israeli authorities began deporting several of the international solidarity activists, who were aboard the Al Awda ship of the Freedom Flotilla.

    Gaza’s National Committee confirmed that the activists deportation back to their countries, comes two days after being detained following an attack by Israeli naval forces on the ship in international waters.

    Zaher Birawi, head of the committee, said in a statement that a number of international activists have already been deported on Tuesday, including a Malaysian professor, Dr. Mohd Afandi Salleh, and on Wednesday the rest would also be deported.

    Birawi stressed that many of the activists rejected to be voluntarily deported, preferring to delay it for more than 72 hours, the legal deadline for accepting voluntary deportation from the country.

    Birawi continued that the activists are attempting to delay their deportation, in order to appear before an Israeli court to expose the unjust practices of Israeli naval forces who attacked the humanitarian ship in international waters, and to later prosecute Israel for its actions.

    The committee quoted the testimonies of some of the activists as being exposed to “beatings and violence” including the ship’s captain, his assistant, and other solidarity activists.

    Swedish human rights activist, Divina Levrini, who was among international detainees, said in a statement that she declares a hunger strike, as a form of protest against the treatment she received by Israeli forces and against the harsh conditions she is going through while being detained in the Israeli Givon prison.

    Levrini had conducted an interview with Ma’an in July, while aboard the Freedom Flotilla ship, in which she discussed the Flotilla’s intention on raising awareness about the Israel-Gaza conflict and on breaking the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade of Gaza.

    #Flottille #Gaza

  •  » Israeli Soldiers Surround, Isolate Al-Khan Al-Ahmar
    IMEMC News - July 11, 2018 1:57 PM
    http://imemc.org/article/israeli-soldiers-surround-isolate-al-khan-al-ahmar

    Dozens of Israeli soldiers completely sealed and isolated, Wednesday, al-Khan al-Ahmar Palestinian Bedouin community, which is slated for demolition and displacement, and placed concrete blocks at its entrances.

    The head of the National Committee against the Annexation Wall and Colonies, Walid Assaf, said the soldiers prevented dozens of Palestinians and international peace activists, from entering the area, to continue the protests against the demolitions and displacement.

    He added that the soldiers isolated al-Khan al-Ahmar, and prevented many foreign dignitaries and consuls from reaching the area, while a few others managed to enter.

    Assaf also stated that many physicians tried to enter al-Khan al-Ahmar, but were denied entry.

    He said that the Palestinian Medical Relief Society brought a mobile clinic, to provide services for the villages, but the army prevented its entry.

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    Des pays de l’UE déposent une protestation contre la démolition prochaine d’un village bédouin par Israël
    http://www.aurdip.fr/des-pays-de-l-ue-deposent-une.html
    6 juillet | Noa Landau et Yotam Berger pour Haaretz | Traduction J.Ch. pour l’AURDIP

    Le Royaume Uni, la France, l’Allemagne, l’Italie et l’Espagne ont présenté une protestation officielle d’urgence contre le projet des autorités israéliennes de démolir le village bédouin de Khan al-Ahmar.
    Des diplomates de France, du Royaume Uni, d’Italie, de Suède, de Belgique, de Norvège, de Finlande, du Danemark, de Suisse, d’Allemagne, d’Espagne et d’Irlande faisaient partie de la visite du village jeudi.
    Les autorités israéliennes leur ont interdit de voir l’école symbolique, vieille de dix ans, construite avec des pneus, qui est dans une zone militaire fermée. (…)

  • Police clash with protesters marching against power plant in Bangladesh
    https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/police-clash-with-protesters-marching-against-power-plant-in-banglade

    A protest of a planned coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh turned sour on Thursday, when police reportedly confronted marchers with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons in the capital city of Dhaka. Injuries have been reported, varying from five to more than 50.

    According to police estimates reported by Reuters, around 200 protesters had gathered to show their opposition to the Rampal power plant, which critics say will disrupt the nearby Sundarbans mangrove and endanger the health of thousands of local residents. Organized by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, the protest was reportedly intended to be an eight-hour event.

    But as the rally approached an intersection near Dhaka University Central Mosque, according to local news outlets, protesters were met by police.


    #contestation #répression #développement #mangrove #Bangladesh

  • Otherwise Occupied / Palestinians start food fight as boycott intensifies
    Although Palestinian boycotts of Israeli products only have a marginal impact on the Israeli economy, they do serve a greater social purpose.
    By Amira Hass | Mar. 9, 2015 Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.645863

    Tnuva and Osem products are disappearing from the shelves of Palestinian grocery stores and supermarkets. However, the shop owners are boycotting these and other Israeli companies, more because several high-ranking Palestinians have publicly embarrassed them than out of patriotic fervor. It began about three and a half weeks ago, when the National Committee against Israeli Punitive Measures announced a campaign to boycott the products of five Israeli companies for as long as Israel held on to Palestinian tax revenues it had collected at the international borders.

    The committee, which is headed by high-ranking Fatah member Mahmoud al-Aloul, gave the stores two weeks to clear their shelves. In the meantime, after some people ridiculed linking the end of the boycott to the return of the tax funds, a statement was made that the boycott would be indefinite.

    The committee is not a governmental one and the boycott is not legally binding – unlike the boycott of products from the settlements, which is enshrined in an official government decision (supervision of this boycott was stopped, however, due to lack of desire or funds, and it is only partially observed).

    At the end of the two-week period, the committee members went to several grocery stores and supermarkets, accompanied by the media (including Israeli journalists), and publicly humiliated vendors who had failed to comply. And last Monday, Fatah youth members confiscated a truck carrying Tnuva milk, worth several tens of thousands of shekels, and spilled the milk in the middle of al-Manara Square, Ramallah. It took three water tanks from the municipality (using at least 30 cubic meters of that precious fluid) to clean up the public space. Several passersby hurried to save a few of the bags and cartons of milk. When people asked why the milk had been spilled instead of being given to a refugee camp, for example, the Fatah youth answered that doing so would have made it possible to claim they had stolen the milk for themselves.

    In principle, there is support for the boycott of Israeli products. This is both to encourage Palestinian local products and manufacturing, and to broadcast to Israel and Israelis that, no, it is not business as usual. But the forceful manner in which the National Committee and the Fatah youth enforcing the boycott are acting has drawn criticism and complaints.

    “This is the first time high-ranking Fatah members have been hurt by Israeli punitive measures [which forced salaries to be cut because of the delay in transferring the tax monies], so they decided to act,” was the unflattering assessment of some former Fatah activists. They also said that “Fatah and its high-ranking personnel are politically marginalized, so they are looking for any way to stand out.” And, of course, there were those who raised the inevitable question, “And have they given up their VIP cards?” This question refers to documents provided by Israel that grant the high-ranking members some leniencies in movement.

    I heard a further explanation of the committee’s actions from several young people (who have no need to be scared into boycotting the products of the “Zionist entity”). They said the hidden motive is to throw out the marketing companies and replace them with different ones that are owned by close associates. Even if this explanation for the National Committee’s action is groundless, it shows how deeply the current of suspicion runs of the class that it represents. Maybe it would be better if the high-ranking members engaged in the boycott invoked health considerations as well: to explain that milk, particularly that which is full of hormones, is unhealthy; and that Bamba snacks, which are full of fat and salt, are unnecessary, too.

    Vegetarians overnight?

    The PLO Central Council met last week in Ramallah, but one of its resolutions – to boycott all Israeli products – is an empty one, as economists from the Palestinian Authority are well aware. It is true that one can do without many of these products (who on earth needs Israeli chocolate and chewing gum, or mineral water from the Golan Heights or Ein Gedi?). It is also possible – even within the framework of the restrictive Paris Protocol on economic relations – to import them directly from abroad, rather than through Israeli importers.

    But there are many products that have no replacement, and importing them from abroad will make them more expensive. What about meat, for example: A Palestinian economist told me that 97 percent of the meat and chicken that Palestinians consume is purchased from Israel. Can anyone envisage the Palestinians giving up meat and becoming vegetarians immediately? He told me that, so far, every boycott of Israeli products (including those from the settlements) has not reduced the amount of Palestinian imports from Israel by more than about five percent.

    But even if abstaining from most of the products has not harmed Israel’s economy, the activity on behalf of the boycott is important. A boycott allows large-scale participation by people in the act of rebellion, without lifting a stone or firing a shot.

    The roughshod military-colonialist occupation sticks its hands into every facet of human life and disrupts it: from cradle to grave, and beyond. There is no way to respond individually to every such violent act of disruption. A boycott redirects the feelings of anger and hatred, and the desire for revenge – which are justified, natural and understandable – into channels of mass action (what is surprising is the small number of individual violent expressions of those justified, natural and understandable feelings).

    Whatever their motivations may be, the high-ranking members’ boycott initiative (an echo of popular, not official, initiatives) is evidence of the changes in the internal Palestinian political climate. And it is definitely not the last word.

  • Palestinian toddler dies at #Gaza's closed Rafat border crossing
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/palestinian-toddler-dies-gazas-closed-rafat-crossing

    A three-year-old Palestinian child died on Thursday after he was blocked from leaving the Gaza Strip to receive medical care, an activist group said. National Committee to Break the Siege spokesman Adham Abu Salmieh told Ma’an news agency that Ahmad Ammar Abu Nahl was suffering from an enlarged heart and liver and was supposed to head to Turkey via #Egypt for treatment. However, the young child died Thursday while waiting for the Rafah crossing to Egypt to open. read more

    #Israel #Palestine #Top_News

  • Tunisian Media: Al-Nahda Tightens its Control
    http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7232/tunisian-media_al-nahda-tightens-its-control-

    Despite such words of assurance, the freedom and independence of Tunisian media remain under threat. Attacks on journalists are often treated with impunity while heavy punishments are handed out to those deemed to have “disturbed public order or public morals.” To some extent, the faltering process of media reform can be attributed to the failure to adopt the new Press Code as elaborated in November 2011 by the National Committee of Information and Communication Reform (INRIC). One must, however, ask why, despite commitments to the contrary, the government and justice system have so consistently failed to implement this new law or pay heed to the recommendations of the INRIC.