organization:supreme court

Trump’s Jerusalem declaration gives Abbas a chance to shake things up
Unfortunately, however, change is something that the Palestinian leadership has forgotten how to accomplish
Amira Hass Dec 09, 2017 10:08 AM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-1.827682

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.827683.1512695965!/image/3825698457.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3825698457.jpg

The American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is an opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to cast off old and fossilized modes of thinking and action that have rendered these leaders incapable of change.

Will this opportunity be used to undertake an internal process of democratization, first of all to restore relations between an unelected Palestinian elite that has been in power for several decades and the public (not only in the West Bank and in Gaza but in the Palestinian diaspora as well)? The hope is that it will be used to effect change. The concern is that it won’t happen.

When the Palestinian leadership recovers from the shock delivered by the symbolic change in American policy — symbolic, but with explosive potential — it will say that this is a pan-Muslim, a pan-Arab or perhaps a European problem. The leadership would be correct in saying so, of course. The leaders will say that Palestinians are the weakest link in the chain and that they can’t deal with the pyromaniac in the White House on their own.

It might also put another way. The change in the American position enables Palestinian leaders, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to effect change that will show their people that they haven’t embraced the diplomatic course that depends on economic and security coordination with Israel only to further their own immediate personal and financial interests — and those of entourages close to Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organization leadership.

“Personal advancement” has been one of the prevalent explanations for the fact that Abbas has stubbornly evaded the holding of elections, and that, within his Fatah faction, elections have been fixed and dictated from above to an extent that is not openly discussed. For the same reason it is argued that Abbas has been avoiding making changes to his cabinet that would allow it to represent the spectrum of political organizations and not just his own.

After recovering from the shock, Abbas and his people will say, and rightly so, that the change in the American position does not necessarily reflect a failure of the Palestinian diplomatic course but rather the incompetence of reasonable factions within the Republican Party in the United States.

After all, President Trump lashed out at all Muslims, including those in countries whose governments are considered U.S. allies, in addition to assailing the Vatican and Europe. Palestinian leaders will be able to say that Trump’s daring, in breaking with international convention, is not confined to one field.

Just recently, he and the economic and Evangelistic right-wing that he serves and represents chalked up two major victories: an increase in benefits to big business through corporate tax cuts and a Supreme Court ruling that allowed the immediate enforcement of a ban on the entry of citizens from six Muslim countries. As a result, Abbas and his associates will say, there is no connection between the internal Palestinian situation and the international community’s attempts to deal with Trump’s policies.

The diplomatic course — involving symbolic international recognition of a Palestinian state — was paved slowly, and included several encouraging achievements such as acceptance into international institutions and the signing of international conventions. But then it was blocked in its tracks by the United States. The diplomatic course angered Israel, but it is exhausted by now, without having changed the reality on the ground: limited autonomy for the Palestinian Authority, split among disconnected enclaves, while absolving Israel of responsibility despite its being the occupying power. Western countries still confer their seal of approval to an unelected and unloved Palestinian leadership as a result of its commitment to restrain the public and maintain quiet vis-à-vis Israel, and for its willingness to pretend that there is still an ongoing “process” leading to a state. The risks that Trump’s move entail will only buttress Europe’s demand that Abbas and his security forces continue to restrain the Palestinian public in exchange for their continued acceptance as the legitimate leadership.

The United States, a very generous donor to the UN Relief and Works Agency and to the Palestinian security forces, accepted the reality of enclaves long before Trump’s arrival. That was the message behind its financing the upgrading of rural roads, as a substitute to wide and fast highways, but in the process, Israel has blocked access from Palestinian towns and villages for the convenience of West Bank Jewish settlers.

European countries are not absolved, however, from their own responsibility for abetting the reality of the enclaves, through their donations that somewhat moderate the chronic financial crisis caused by Israeli restrictions. But these countries have tried and are trying to help Palestinians remain on their land, taking steps that have not been completed to boycott products from the settlements while declaring that Area C (which is under full Israeli control) is part of the Palestinian state. They are at least aware of their negative role in subsidizing the occupation.

They certainly won’t stop subsidizing it now — through humanitarian assistance to Palestinians — amid a growing sense of an impending explosion. This too will enhance the logic of maintaining the Abbas government as it is now.

The call by Abbas’ Fatah party for three days of rage over the Jerusalem issue with no internal systemic changes is a risky gamble. It endangers the lives and health of hundreds of Palestinian young people, exposing them to mass arrest, and all for nothing. Mainly, however, it might demonstrate that the Palestinian public doesn’t heed calls issued by Fatah and the Palestinian Authority since it doesn’t trust them. The public will instead act at a time and in an manner that suits it.

Instead of hounding anyone who criticizes him on Facebook and silencing critics through an internet law, Abbas and people around him could now take several initial steps to refresh the political system that they have built under the auspices of the Oslo accords. It’s hard to imagine how such a process would look like, as a result of the prolonged ossification of PLO and Palestinian Authority institutions. In any event, it requires the inclusion and active involvement of wide sectors of the population in the thinking and doing phases, something that Fatah and PLO leaders have long forgotten how to do.

What’s in A Name? Exploring the Role of Law and Bureaucracy in The Everyday Construction of Holot, an ’Open Detention Facility’ for ’Infiltrators’ in Israel | Oxford Law Faculty
▻https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2017/11/whats-name

https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/maayan_books_outside_holot.jpg

Approximately 38,000 asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea currently reside in Israel. All entered Israel since 2005 through non-authorized border points, and most claim to have fled persecution in Sudan or human rights abuses in Eritrea. In 2013, Israel established Holot ‘open detention facility’ in the middle of the Negev desert, approved by the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament). To date, approximately 10,000 people have been detained in Holot. Detainees must report to Holot for a year-long detention, under the 5th amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law. Detainees must be present for head counts in the mornings, evenings and sleep in the facility, while during the day, they are allowed outside the center’s confines. Israel’s Prison Authority runs the facility. Breach of disciplinary guidelines is punishable by sanctions, including removal to a closed facility, Saharonim, located across the road.

During interviews, three legal terms were frequently used by state employees or legal professionals to describe Holot as a non-punitive arrangement. I expand briefly on each term to trace how a punitive effect takes place, despite the claimed neutrality and administrative nature of these legal terms.

Administrative detention, which includes the arrest and detention of persons without an indictment, trial or access to judicial review, has existed since the state’s founding in 1948. The early days of Israeli statehood were characterised by the mass movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had been displaced during the 1947-8 war. Those who crossed the border without the new State’s authorisation were titled ‘infiltrators.’ Increased organized smuggling by militant groups called Fedayeen in the early years of the state, led to the legislation of the Prevention of Infiltration Law in 1954. Since 2012 this law was expanded, contested in court, and amended to regulate asylum seekers who entered the country through non-authorised border points, and enable their detention.

State employees and legislators insist that administrative detention is not punitive, and therefore does not need to comply with individual criminal law procedures and protections. However, similarities between administrative detention and penal incarceration came under scrutiny in Israel’s Supreme Court and in legislative committees. As explained in the final verdict on detention in Holot by Justice Vogelman: “Long periods of detention cross the border between a ‘disciplinary’ sanction which is largely carried out for the sake of deterrence and a ‘penal’ sanction which is punitive in its essence” (author’s translation). This observation was picked up by scholars, activists and lawyers questioning the legislative aim of detention, its covert and overt goals.

The blurred or intersecting border between criminal law and immigration law has been vastly explored under the term crimmigration. Juliet Stumpf has written about the ways in which ‘the process is the punishment in crimmigration law’, drawing on Malcolm Feeley’s 1979 work. Stumpf identifies two criteria to ascertain when processes of crimmigration law may become punitive: when those subjected to the process experience it as punitive, and when the process is enacted as a sanction by the state.

Facebook & Russian election meddling: The FEC’s Ann Ravel sounded the alarm in 2015 — Quartz
▻https://qz.com/1076964/this-us-official-warned-about-russia-using-the-internet-to-skew-us-elections-yea
►https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/ap_358110062825-e1508362801776.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=16

In October 2014, vice commissioner Ann M. Ravel wrote a statement (pdf) accusing the FEC of turning a “blind eye” to the growing force of the internet in politics, and explaining the reason she and two of her co-commissioners, all Democrats, had voted for more disclosure of funding of political material on the web:

Some of my colleagues seem to believe that the same political message that would require disclosure if run on television should be categorically exempt from the same requirements when placed on the internet alone. As a matter of policy, this simply does not make sense. … This effort to protect individual bloggers and online commentators has been stretched to cover slickly produced ads aired solely on the internet but paid for by the same organizations and the same large contributors as the actual ads aired on TV.

The FEC had just undertaken a vote on the topic that ended in a deadlock, with three Republicans voting against their Democratic colleagues, a common impasse in the increasingly dysfunctional agency tasked with keeping US elections fair and transparent. Nonetheless, Ravel’s statement sparked outcry and anger, especially from conservatives who equated money spent on political advertising on the internet to “free speech”—the same argument that won the landmark 2010 “Citizens United” Supreme Court case, sending a torrent of cash into political elections.

A day after Ravel published her statement, co-commissioner Lee Goodman, a Republican, appeared on Fox & Friends (video) to warn that the three Democrats wanted to censor free speech online, and set up a “regulatory regime” that would reach deep into the internet. “Boy, I thought Democrats were for free speech,” commentated the Fox anchor interviewing him, Tucker Carlson. “That was obviously an earlier species.”

Ravel says Goodman’s Fox appearance unleashed a torrent of abuse. The issue was picked up by Drudge Report, Breitbart, and other right-wing news sites, which singled her out. Responses poured in from Twitter and e-mail, ranging from death threats to misogyny, everything from “stick it up your c-nt,” she recalled this week, to “You’re the kind of person the Second Amendment was made for.” They also included “Hope you have a heart attack,” and “You will more than likely find the ‘Nazi’ scenario showing its ugly head,” the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group that investigates democracy, reported (Ravel is Jewish).

Despite the backlash to her 2014 push to get Facebook and other internet companies to be more transparent about where their ad revenue was coming from, Ravel kept pursuing the issue. In 2015, the FEC grappled with the topic of how to make sure foreign money wasn’t being used to pay for political advertisements on the internet, a clear violation of a federal law.

In doing so, Ravel even anticipated Putin’s influence. “I mean, think of it, do we want Vladimir Putin or drug cartels to be influencing American elections?” Ravel asked in an October of 2015 meeting, while pushing for the commission to require state and local campaigns to declare foreign contributions. The commission tried once again to hash out what was “local” or “national” given the internet’s global reach.

#Publicité #Politique #USA #Régulation #Menaces

For India’s Hindu Nationalists, Religion Alone Defines Entitlement, Rights and Citizenship | Alternet
▻https://www.alternet.org/world/indias-hindu-nationalists-religion-alone-defines-entitlement-rights-and-ci

https://www.alternet.org/sites/default/files/story_images/shutterstock_346429115.jpg

It’s a worldview at odds with modernity and republicanism crafted in the Indian Constitution and the state: A fundamental belief, indoctrinated through skewed ‘history’ lessons in the shakha, that asserts religion and faith systems, some more than others, inherently determine entitlement, rights and citizenship.

It is this prism that governs officialdom and India today and that tells us—quite unashamedly—that the Rohingyas (never mind that they are poor, distraught and below any poverty line) are a security threat, simply because they are Muslim. The Chakmas are not, the Hindus from Myanmar are not, but Rohingyas are a threat, simply because of their faith. (Source: Indian government’s affidavit before the Supreme Court of India dated September 18, 2017.)

At the core of this instrumental use of a militarized form of faith is the transformation—through a climate and fear of violence and death—of India as articulated in the decades long struggle for independence from British colonial rule and exemplified in India’s founding document: its Constitution.

Theocracy, or religion based nationhood, was unequivocally rejected by India’s Constituent Assembly, by leaders of all ideological dispositions. It was exclusivist outfits who were one in their worldview, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, with the Muslim League—who also successfully projected that Muslims could not be part of a composite nation with India’s Hindus.

Today, this worldview, which unashamedly articulates nationhood, citizenship and entitlements based on narrow definitions of faith, dominates Indian Parliament and rules 12 states (another five in alliance). The game of numbers, finally, is on their side.

For any dispensation in the 21st century, in a country of over 1.324 billion people, a good 15 percent of whom are Muslim, 2-3 percent Christian, 27 percent Dalit, a physical ethnic cleansing of those ‘not Hindu’ may not be easy nor practical. But periodic and brute lynchings, by the brainwashed and armed cadres of these multi hydra organizations, are useful to build such an ethos, based on the fear of death.

#Inde #Théocratie #Epuration_ethnique #Fascisme #Religion

The Plan to Erode the Rights of Workers to Act Collectively | Portside
▻https://portside.org/2017-09-30/plan-erode-rights-workers-act-collectively

https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/nlrbtrump_850_567.jpg

Yet, in recent years, the rights of most Americans to engage in concerted legal has greatly diminished. In a 2015 investigative series on this trend, The New York Times reported that, starting in 1999, a “Wall Street-led coalition of credit card companies and retailers”— with soon-to-be Chief #Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts Jr. involved—engineered a plan to get rid of class action lawsuits, because such lawsuits allow individuals to pool their power against companies.

#etats-unis

How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil-obesity-nestle.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/09/17/health/17Obesity-top/00Obesity-slide-AGYS-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg

It is hard to overstate the economic power and political access enjoyed by food and beverage conglomerates in Brazil, which are responsible for 10 percent of the nation’s economic output and employ 1.6 million people.

In 2014, food companies donated $158 million to members of Brazil’s National Congress, a threefold increase over 2010, according to Transparency International Brazil. A study the organization released last year found that more than half of Brazil’s current federal legislators had been elected with donations from the food industry – before the Supreme Court banned corporate contributions in 2015.

The single largest donor to congressional candidates was the Brazilian meat giant JBS, which gave candidates $112 million in 2014; Coca-Cola gave $6.5 million in campaign contributions that year, and McDonald’s donated $561,000.

#obésité #malbouffe

When drawing a line is hard – Equal Future – Medium

▻https://medium.com/equal-future/when-drawing-a-line-is-hard-8d92d30c9044
▻https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*v4ceDWV3AeJBsBgW%2E

The Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford, a case that confronts the question of when partisan gerrymandering is, or is not, constitutional.

This case could be pivotal in drawing a bright line between acceptable and unacceptable partisan gerrymandering, and much is at stake. The upcoming 2020 decennial census will determine how congressional seats are apportioned to each state, and guide how states redraw voting districts. The Voting Rights Act was significantly diminished in 2013, and advocates fear that millions of people will be effectively disenfranchised as a result. And the country has become highly polarized, with many Americans frustrated that their voices, and their votes, are not being heard.

#cartographie #semiologie #manipulation #viualisation #limites #frontières

The Zionist tango -
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.810226

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.810229.1504372009!/image/4261255341.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/4261255341.jpg

Why the racist honesty of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is preferable to the fake views of the Israeli left
By Gideon Levy | Sep. 3, 2017 | 2:28 AM

Ravit Hecht attributes a “fragrance of true love” for my “honest, brave princess,” Justice Minister Shaked, in her op-ed “When Gideon Levy fell in love with Ayelet Shaked.” [ ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.810167 ] Hecht knows my taste in women is slightly different than that, and that, despite what she writes, I don’t know how to dance the tango. But my appreciation for Shaked and her ilk is that they do not deceive: they openly acknowledge their nationalism and racism.

They don’t hide their belief that the Palestinians are an inferior people, indigenous inhabitants who will never gain the rights Jews have in the Land of Israel-Palestine; that no Palestinian state will ever be established here; that Israel will ultimately annex all of the occupied territories, as it already has done in practice; that the Jews are the Chosen People; that Zionism is in contradiction to human rights and superior to them; that dispossession is redemption; that biblical property rights are eternal; that there is no Palestinian people and no occupation; and that the current reality will last forever.

Many of these views are also held among the Zionist left, Hecht’s ideological camp. The only difference is that the Zionist left has never admitted it. It envelops its views in the glittering wrapping paper of peace talks, separation and hollow rhetoric about two states, words it has never really meant and has done precious little to realize.

That’s why I prefer Shaked. With her, what you see is what you get – racism. In its actions and deeds, the Zionist left has done everything to implement Shaked’s views, only in polished words and without acknowledgement. The Zionist left is embarrassed by things Shaked and her colleagues are not ashamed of. That doesn’t make the left any more moral or just. It has merely been quasi-Shaked in its actions.

The occupation was no less cruel under left-wing Israeli governments, which was the founding father of the settlement enterprise. Those princes of peace Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin established more settlements than Shaked and caused the deaths of more Arabs. The left has enthusiastically defended every military action Israel has carried out and every brutal act committed by the Israel Defense Forces. It hasn’t just sat silent in the face of such acts; it has been supportive. Always.

Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge in Gaza (in 2008-09 and 2014, respectively) involved thousands of senseless deaths, and most of the Zionist left supported them. The majority of those on the left supported the siege on Gaza, the checkpoint executions, the nighttime abductions, the administrative detentions, the abuse, dispossession and oppression – the left remained silent throughout.

But the truth is that it’s not Shaked and it’s not the left. It’s Zionism. Havoc has been wreaked, as Hecht herself wrote. But instead of trying to repair the unstable foundations, all of Israel – and not only the right wing – has done everything to undermine them even further.

Yes, this involves the 1948 War of Independence, which has to be discussed even though it’s uncomfortable. The spirit of 1948 has never stopped blowing here and, in this respect, Shaked and Hecht are in the same boat. According to this view, there is only one people here that needs to be considered, only one victim, and it is entitled to do as much harm as it wishes to the other people. That is the essential evolution of Zionism.

It could and should have been rectified, without derogating the Jews’ right to a state. But the Zionist left has never done this. It has never acknowledged the Nakba suffered by the Palestinians, and never did anything to atone for its crimes. This never happened because the Zionist left believes in exactly what Shaked believes in.

It is true there are many other issues in which the right causes national disasters the left never would have created. But on the other side of the line lives a people that for the past 50 years – the past 100, actually – has been suffering and oppressed. Not a day goes by without horrible crimes being committed against it. We can’t say, “Be patient. We’re busy at the moment with the status of the Supreme Court.”

And on the truly crucial issue that overshadows all others, Shaked and Hecht are performing a perfect tango together, with a fragrance of true love exuding from them both – a Zionist tango.

Les #réfugiés_érythréens ne sont pas les bienvenus en Suisse, mais l’or d’Erythrée, lui...

Schweizer Geschäfte mit einem geächteten Regime

Die Schweiz hat von 2011 bis 2013 für rund 400 Millionen Franken Rohgold aus Eritrea importiert. Schweizer Firmen haben es raffiniert und daraus Goldbarren gegossen.
Die #Bisha-Goldmine gehört zu 40 Prozent dem repressiven eritreischen Regime.
Ein ehemaliger Arbeiter der Mine lebt heute als Flüchtling in der Schweiz. Er erzählt von Zwangsarbeit beim Bau der Mine.
Aus keinem anderen Land kommen so viele Asylsuchende in die Schweiz wie aus Eritrea. Die Mine ist eine der wichtigsten Einnahmequellen des Regimes.
Asylpolitiker von links bis rechts kritisieren die Millionengeschäfte scharf.

http://i.imgur.com/WHLZgzw.png

▻https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/schweizer-geschaefte-mit-einem-geaechteten-regime?ns_source=srf_app?ns_source=sr
#or #matières_premières #Erythrée #Suisse #mines #travail_forcé #film #vidéo #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Lufthansa #Frankfurt #Nevsun

Accusation (provenant de la société civile canadienne selon SFR) de travail forcé dans la mine :

http://i.imgur.com/odrLTQB.png

L’exploitant de la mine, Nevsun :
▻http://www.nevsun.com
Ici la description de la mine sur le site de l’entreprise :
Bisha Mine Location

http://www.nevsun.com/projects/bisha-main/location-map.jpg

On dit bien que :

The State of Eritrea has a 40% interest in the Bisha Mine through the #Eritrean_National_Mining_Company (#ENAMCO), 30% of which it bought from Nevsun prior to initial construction. As a result, ENAMCO contributed 33% of the initial build capital and, as a partner with Nevsun, has been integral to the success of the Bisha Mine. For more see About Eritrea.

Et toujours sur le site un chapitre consacré à « about Eritrea », où on parle notamment de l’infrastructure (définie comme « excellente ») qui permet de sortir les matières premières des mines :

http://i.imgur.com/Zexf4dU.png

L’histoire de l’Erythrée, pour Nevsun, s’arrête en 1993 :

Eritrea gained independence in 1993, after fighting for its freedom for over 30 years.

Et bien évidemment, on parle d’économie (un des pays les plus pauvres du monde), mais pas de politique...

Eritrea is largely an agriculture based economy and one of the poorest nations in the world. The country’s economy predominantly consists of:

cc @reka

India’s Supreme Court Upholds Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Rig...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/5971138

India’s Supreme Court Upholds Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right—and It’s About Time ▻https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-upholds-right-privacy-fundamental-right-and-its-about-time #india #privacy

India’s Supreme Court says privacy is a fundamental right in blow to government - The Washington Post
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-supreme-court-says-privacy-is-an-intrinsic-right-in-blow-to-government/2017/08/24/2c0b762c-8828-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/08/24/Foreign/Images/India_Right_to_Privacy_31057-58aaa.jpg?t=20170517

Le gouvernement fasciste indien vient de connaître un retour de bâton sur sa tentative de ficher toute la population. Mais ils essaieront autrement.

A noter : « c’est pour lutter contre la fraude aux aides sociales » est devenu un leitmotiv pour tous les gouvernements réactionnaires. Le deal « une fiche biométrique contre un crouton de pain » est une insulte à la dignité humaine.

NEW DELHI — In a blow to the Indian government’s efforts to roll out the world’s biggest biometric database on its billion citizens, India’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that privacy was a fundamental right for people.

Over the past few years, the government has aggressively pushed to compile the database, known as Aadhar, by sending officials out to remote villages to take iris scans and fingerprints. To ensure complete enrollment, the government this year put out several notices restricting access to essential government services for those not part of the system.

The unanimous ruling by the nine-judge bench will have huge implications in a number of ongoing cases involving Aadhar, which means base or foundation in Hindi.

It could put an end to the government’s efforts of making enrollment mandatory. It also guarantees privacy for Indian citizens as an intrinsic right — removing it could have had far reaching implications beyond biometric IDs for the daily lives of Indians such as the possible decriminalization of homosexuality.

In recent months, government notices said that as part of the Aadhar program, Indians would have to use a 12-digit unique identification number (known as the UID) to participate in almost every aspect of civic life — filing income tax returns, applying for railway job s or opening bank accounts.

Government rules especially targeted the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society, Ramanathan said, by restricting access to services such as free midday meals and allowances for tuberculosis patients.

Unlike social security numbers, UIDs would be accessible to various government agencies and private organizations. In recent months, government websites have mistakenly leaked thousands of UIDs.

#Vie_privée #Inde #Surveillance

India’s Supreme Court says #privacy is an intrinsic right in blow to government - The Washington Post
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-supreme-court-says-privacy-is-an-intrinsic-right-in-blow-to-government/2017/08/24/2c0b762c-8828-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html

In a blow to the Indian government’s efforts to roll out the world’s biggest #biometric_database on its billion citizens, India’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that privacy was a fundamental right for people.

Over the past few years, the government has aggressively pushed to compile the database, known as #Aadhar, by sending officials out to remote villages to take iris scans and fingerprints. To ensure complete enrollment, the government this year put out several notices restricting access to essential government services for those not part of the system.

The unanimous ruling by the nine-judge bench will have huge implications in a number of ongoing cases involving Aadhar, which means base or foundation in Hindi.

It could put an end to the government’s efforts of making enrollment mandatory. It also guarantees privacy for Indian citizens as an intrinsic right — removing it could have had far reaching implications beyond biometric IDs for the daily lives of Indians.

Victory for Indigenous Rights as Brazil’s Supreme Court Rejects Government Proposal To Limit Land Rights
▻http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0817-victory-for-indigenous-rights-as-brazils-supreme-court-rejects-lim

A much-anticipated decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday handed a critical victory to the country’s indigenous peoples. In unanimous rulings on two disputed indigenous land-titling cases, the Court dismissed a legal opinion issued by the Attorney General and endorsed by President Michel Temer, which argued for the rejection of land claims by indigenous peoples unless they inhabited their traditional territories at the time Brazil’s 1988 Constitution was ratified.

“This is a very important victory for our people and our family...who are fighting for health and territory,” said Adilio Benites, a Guarani Kaiowá leader celebrating the decision in Brasilia, after holding an all-night vigil outside of the Supreme Court.

#Brésil #terres #territoire #peuples_autochtones #justice

Historians Question Trump’s Comments on Confederate Monuments - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/arts/design/trump-robert-e-lee-george-washington-thomas-jefferson.html

President Trump is not generally known as a student of history. But on Tuesday, during a combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in New York, he unwittingly waded into a complex debate about history and memory that has roiled college campuses and numerous cities over the past several years.

Asked about the white nationalist rally that ended in violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Va., Mr. Trump defended some who had gathered to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee, and criticized the “alt-left” counterprotesters who had confronted them.

“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Mr. Trump said. “So this week, it is Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.”

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the president noted, were also slave owners. “I wonder, is it George Washington next week?” Mr. Trump said. “And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?”
[…]
Mr. Grossman [executive director of the American Historical Association] noted that most Confederate monuments were constructed in two periods: the 1890s, as Jim Crow was being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of mass Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

“We would not want to whitewash our history by pretending that Jim Crow and disenfranchisement or massive resistance to the civil rights movement never happened,” he said. “That is the part of our history that these monuments testify to.”

How the events in Charlottesville, and Mr. Trump’s comments, will affect the continuing debate over Confederate monuments remains to be seen. Mr. Witt [a professor of history at Yale], for one, suggested that white nationalist support might backfire.

He noted that it was the 2015 murder of nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., by a white supremacist that led to the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the statehouse.

“The amazing thing is that the president is doing more to endanger historical monuments than most of the protesters,” he said. “The alt-right is producing a world where there is more pressure to remove monuments, rather than less.”

A la recherche d’un refuge en Israël : questionnement sur les demandeurs d’asile venus d’Erythrée

C’est à la lecture de ces mots, prononcés en mai 2012 par Miri Regev, ministre israélienne de la culture, que j’ai décidé d’effectuer un travail de recherche sur la situation des demandeurs d’asile africains en Israël, au sein du Centre de Recherche Français à Jérusalem (CRFJ) durant l’été 2015. En raison de ma formation académique très centrée sur les droits de l’homme, cette expression m’a choquée au premier abord, puis elle m’a donné envie de réfléchir. En effet, Israël fait face depuis une décennie à une arrivée massive de migrants venus du Soudan et des pays de la Corne de l’Afrique, principalement d’Érythrée. Il ne s’agit pas d’une immigration appuyée par le pays d’accueil pour des raisons religieuses comme cela avait pu être le cas dans les années 1980 avec les juifs éthiopiens. En effet, les opérations « Moïse » et « Salomon »[2] menées par Israël et les Etats-Unis pour les sauver de la grande famine touchant à cette époque le pays, ont été grandement motivées par des raisons religieuses et démographiques. Il s’agissait d’augmenter le nombre de juifs présents sur le territoire israélien. Ces deux « sauvetages en masse » conduiront ensuite 6 000 Ethiopiens à accomplir leur alya[3], mettant pratiquement fin à l’existence de la communauté juive d’Éthiopie, vieille de 3 000 ans.

https://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/886/files/2016/01/Capture-d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran-2016-01-13-%C3%A0-10.09.31.png

Trump’s Travel Ban Will Have Lasting Negative Impacts On All Refugees
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/trumps-travel-ban-will-have-lasting-negative-impacts-on-all-refugees

The Supreme Court allowed a partial version of Trump’s executive order banning travel from 6 Muslim-majority countries to go into effect this summer. But the full order could have a lasting impact...

Supreme Court Partially Lifts Block on Trump’s ’Bigoted’ Travel Ban
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/supreme-court-partially-lifts-block-on-trumps-bigoted-travel-ban

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it would hear arguments on President Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban—also known as the Muslim Ban 2.0—which had previously been blocked by two federal a

Why Aren’t More Employees Suing Uber?
▻https://www.wired.com/story/uber-susan-fowler-travis-kalanick-arbitration

WHEN UBER COFOUNDER Travis Kalanick announced his resignation as CEO on Tuesday, many of those who pushed for his ouster after years of management scandals credited Susan Fowler. In February, the former Uber engineer published a blog post outlining the sexual harassment, retaliation, and gender discrimination she claims to have experienced there. Uber promptly hired former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate. On June 13, Uber released Holder’s recommendations for fixing the company’s noxious culture, and his suggestions included a diminished role for Kalanick. The embattled CEO took a leave of absence later that day; he resigned one week later amid pressure from investors.

While it’s easy to trace the tremendous impact Fowler had on the $70 billion transportation juggernaut, Fowler—like other current and former Uber employees—probably won’t see her day in court. Uber’s employment contract required signing a binding arbitration agreement stipulating that cases be settled privately by an arbiter instead of a jury. (The company says employees now have 30 days to opt out but did not say when it started allowing them to do so.) The arbitration agreement, like many others, also curbs class-action lawsuits by requiring employees to arbitrate disputes individually, although they can opt out of this too. (Uber requires drivers and riders to also sign arbitration agreements, but the language varies.)
One current engineer told WIRED that Uber’s arbitration agreement has kept at least two people from suing the company for sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Although signing the agreement does not preclude employees from filing suit, the engineer believes that Uber recognizes the chilling effect of mandatory arbitration. “When all of this went down, Uber was smart," the engineer says. “They hired Holder, and this made me realize that no other engineer would be seeking legal action against Uber, either. Who would want to go against the ex-attorney general of the US?”
...
Like some other employers, Uber’s arbitration agreement includes a waiver if employees want to file their complaint with an agency like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employers don’t worry much about this because government agencies have such a heavy workload, says Ramsey Hanafi, a partner at Quintana Hanaf who is representing a client with a pending lawsuit against WeWork.
Hanafi notes that California offers some of the nation’s strictest worker protections, but “then we run into the problem of arbitration, which kind of takes that completely out of the equation." Companies “routinely insist on these clauses, but they see it as a scare tactic."
...
One of the most significant business cases that the Supreme Court will hear during its next term, National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, argues that arbitration clauses prevent employees from bringing class actions. On June 16, the Department of Justice suddenly abandoned its support for workers in a case that cites a New York Times investigation into arbitration as a means of privatizing the justice system.
“Part of the problem nowadays is that you’re waiving your constitutional civil rights,” says Organ, who believes arbitration agreements strongly dissuades employees from suing. “They see the system as rigged in favor of the company, as it is.”

#USA #Uber #Arbeitsrecht #Schlichtung

Why is decentralized and distributed file storage critical for a better web? | Coin Center
▻https://coincenter.org/entry/why-is-decentralized-and-distributed-file-storage-critical-for-a-better-

https://coincenter.org/thumbs/600x315c/2017-06/filecoin.png

The team behind #IPFS and #Filecoin explain how advances in distributed data storage and strong alignment of market incentives are combining to create a much more secure and efficient #web.

BY JUAN BENET, JESSE CLAYBURGH, & MATT ZUMWALT / June 20, 2017

#cccp

#Australie. Île de Manus : plus de 60 millions d’euros versés à des migrants maltraités

Le gouvernement australien a accepté de dédommager des réfugiés retenus dans le centre de rétention de Manus au titre de sa politique migratoire restrictive. Une manière d’éviter un procès gênant durant lequel les exactions commises auraient été exposées.

http://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_1280/public/assets/images/rts16z1p.jpg?itok=oTh0f8Xm#.jpg

Statue of Woman Removed From Bangladesh’s Supreme Court
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/world/asia/bangladesh-statue-justice-supreme-court-islam.html

Under pressure from Islamic hard-liners, the Bangladeshi authorities in the predawn hours on Friday swiftly and quietly removed a sculpture of a woman personifying justice from outside the country’s Supreme Court building.

The statue had been the target of angry, swelling protests by Hefazat-e-Islam, a vast Islamic organization based in Chittagong, which argued that art depicting living beings was proscribed by Islam.

The decision is a substantial victory for Hefazat, and within hours of the statue’s removal its leaders issued a broader call for statues all over the country to be destroyed or removed from public view.

Nos spécialistes de la légalité internationale à la manœuvre: The U.S. Can Get Julian Assange - Avoid extradition and use secret services to airlift him to stand trial in America.
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-can-get-julian-assange-1495403122

Julian Assange is all smiles after Sweden dropped its rape charge against him. He may be hoping to make it to Ecuador, which is unlikely to extradite him to America. Then again, we could always seize him and spirit him here to face justice. We wouldn’t have to resort to the extradition process. The Supreme Court might even prefer it that way.

Take it from the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the opinion in U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (1992). It suggests that if America has a hand in kidnapping a culprit from foreign shores to bring him to justice here, the Supreme Court is not going to be too particular.

[…]

Which brings us to Mr. Assange. If his plan is to slink to Ecuador and if the U.S. really wants him, it might do better by avoiding extradition and turning to our secret services to airlift him to stand trial in America.

Even if America kidnaps him, that might not be the end of the story. Witness the denouement of the saga of Dr. Alvarez-Machain, who was put on trial in the same district court that shrank from trying him originally. The judge acquitted him before the case went to the jury. Dr. Alvarez-Machain then sued America and the Mexicans who’d kidnapped him in league with the DEA. That case, too, went to the Supreme Court, where in 2004 Dr. Alvarez-Machain lost unanimously.

It’s not clear the U.S. wants to put Mr. Assange on trial. If it does, though, the moral of Alvarez-Machain is that it doesn’t have to be squeamish about how it gets him here, even if he’s hiding south of the border.

Meet YouTube’s Hidden Laborers Toiling to Keep Ads Off Hateful Videos
▻https://www.wired.com/2017/04/zerochaos-google-ads-quality-raters

Taken together, the scope of the work and nuance required in assessing videos shows Google still needs human help in dealing with YouTube’s ad problems. “We have many sources of information, but one of our most important sources is people like you,” Google tells raters in a document describing the purpose of their ad-rating work. But while only machine intelligence can grapple with YouTube’s scale, as company execs and representatives have stressed again and again, until Google’s machines—or anyone else’s—get smart enough to distinguish, say, truly offensive speech from other forms of expression on its own, such efforts will still need to rely on people.

“We have always relied on a combination of technology and human reviews to analyze content that has been flagged to us because understanding context in video can be subjective,” says Chi Hea Cho, a spokesperson for Google. “Recently we added more people to accelerate the reviews. These reviews help train our algorithms so they keep improving over time.”

#digital_labor #google #publicité #IA

A worthy sacrifice for a Judeo-Samarian
Amira Hass Mar 09, 2017 1:47 AM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.776072

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.776200.1489061883!/image/2349077637.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/2349077637.jpg

The demolitions of Palestinian structures are easy prey. The horns of the altar shout: More. Harder. Bigger. It is not enough to destroy, people must be evicted, driven out, uprooted.

While you recite Emmanuel Levinas and boast of his being Jewish, and while you prepare the list of guests to invite to celebrate our passing from bondage to freedom, the Jewish high priest sharpens his knife. And while you update the anti-Semitism index with another shattered tombstone and read out poetry on Friday nights in Ashkenazi and Sephardi style, your smug faces are reflected in the gleaming blade. And while you beam with joy at the cleverness of the grandson and youngest daughter and book seats for a show in London, the blade moves closer to the neck of the victim tied on the altar in Amona.

How can we appease you, Judeo-Samarian, how can we placate your wrath, god of vengeance, if not by destroying 10 times more and by the falsehood of symmetry. Kalansua. Umm al-Hiran. Issawiya. Beit Hanina. Jabal Mukkaber. But Moloch is not satiated. The demolitions there are easy prey. The horns of the altar shout: More. Harder. Bigger.

The knife moves closer and closer, the blade is shining, the saliva is dripping. It is not enough to destroy, people must be evicted, driven out, uprooted. Moloch wants to see the children wet themselves at night, the women waking up in alarm, the shepherds impoverished and selling their goats to pay the court fee, the old men imagining the army loading them on trucks, while you board a plane for a trek in Chile.

The newspaper reported: The Civil Administration converted the stop-work orders into demolition orders for some 150 structures in the Jahalin community in Khan al-Ahmar (the village whose school is made of tires). The newspaper also reported: The Civil Administration wants to gather all the Bedouin and settle them permanently on Area C in two or three townships. It also said: According to Israel’s laws these structures are illegal.

The newspaper didn’t report that these are laws of evil and wickedness, which discriminate between one person’s blood and another’s, between one person’s child and another’s. These laws that have evicted the Jahalin time and again, restricted them, and allowed the children of Adumim who came dozens of years later to build and prosper. And now they have their eye on the Bedouin’s little huts as well.

The newspaper will report: On Thursday the state prosecution will respond to the village of Sussia’s petition against the state’s intent to uproot it for the fourth or fifth time. It will probably say: The state insists on going ahead with its plan. The master plan the villagers proposed is unacceptable. The newspaper has already reported: The state knows it’s better for Sussia residents to move to a place near their brethren in the city of Yatta, with their power and water. The school will be close, and this proximity will empower the women. In secret ink it will say: Jews need living space and a view that’s cleansed of Arabs and a pleasant breeze blowing between the rocks and the vineyards, and this land will be only for us and our seed.

This fact, too, wasn’t written in the newspaper: As a prelude to carrying out the court’s order – tearing down the Amona houses that were built in good faith and a pure soul on the enemy’s land – it was agreed and decided to sacrifice the Khan al-Ahmar community on the altar. Only its complete destruction will be accepted as a worthy offering.

And on the way, we’ll teach the Supreme Court judges another lesson. Granted, they have never intervened to thwart our holy determination to deny the Bedouin water and power and building rights. But the judges have also ruled that houses should not be demolished as long as there’s no alternative. Now we’ll show them that it’s possible to destroy and uproot even without an alternative.

Sussia and Khan al-Ahmar have become symbols of the struggle against the laws of wickedness, a subject of international interest and statements against forced uprooting, which is a war crime. When these communities are defeated and destroyed and torn out, we’ll prove that the world is good only at making statements.

We will then find time for all the other communities we aim to wipe out. Arab a-Ramadin, Abu Qubeita, Khalet Hamad, Khatib on Hizme and dozens of other families and communities, for whom the knives are being sharpened. While you’re hurrying to a concert.

Les musulmans américains doivent relever la tête ! | Chronique de Palestine
Ramzy Baroud - 9 février 2017 – Palestine Chronicle – Traduction : Chronique de Palestine – Lotfallah
▻http://chroniquepalestine.com/musulmans-americains-doivent-relever-tete

(...) Depuis 1990, les États-Unis ont massacré au moins 4 millions de musulmans dans le monde

Dans une étude qui fait référence et a été publiée en mars 2015, le groupe basé à Washington, Physicians for Social Responsible, a démontré que la soi-disant guerre contre le terrorisme avait tué entre 1,3 million et 2 millions de musulmans dans les dix années qui ont suivi les attaques du 11 septembre 2001.

Le bien connu journaliste d’investigation, Nafeez Ahmed, est arrivé à la conclusion qu’au moins 4 millions de musulmans ont été tués par les États-Unis depuis 1990.

Cela exclut les tueries qui ont eu lieu ces deux dernières années, ou les innombrables civils qui ont péri lors des sanctions américaines contre l’Irak à partir de 1991, qui ont été appliquées par les administrations Clinton successives.

Pourtant, tout cela est censé être ignoré et vu simplement comme un problème lié à un président odieux, le sommet de la violence américaine contre les musulmans pouvant être réduit à une interdiction de 90 jours de voyage pour certains pays.

Une telle méconnaissance des faits reflète à la fois de l’ignorance et un mépris total à l’égard des millions de vies innocentes qui ont été perdues, tout cela pour que les États-Unis préservent leur empire qui ne cesse de s’affaiblir.

Lors de la Convention Nationale du Parti Démocratique (DNC) en juillet dernier, l’ancien président Bill Clinton avait eu le souci de répliquer aux débordements de haine manifestés lors de la Convention du Parti républicain à l’encontre des musulmans, des Noirs, des Latinos et de tous ceux qui ne souscrivent pas à leur vision tordue du monde.

Mais les paroles de Clinton n’étaient qu’un habillage de la même culture chauvine, raciste et exclusionniste qui conditionne souvent le discours politique de la droite.

« Si vous êtes musulman et que vous aimez l’Amérique et la liberté et que vous détestez le terrorisme, restez et aidez-nous à gagner et à construire un avenir ensemble, et nous voudrons de vous », a déclaré Clinton devant un large public qui a explosé en applaudissements.

Pour les musulmans, le sentiment que leur inclusion, leur citoyenneté et leur humanité sont conditionnés par un ensemble de règles condescendantes, articulé par une élite chrétienne et blanche, est absolument déshumanisant.

Un tiers des esclaves américains étaient musulmans

Ce que Clinton a voulu oublier, c’est qu’un tiers estimé des esclaves qui ont construit son pays étaient, en fait, musulmans – enchaînés et traînés contre leur volonté pour construire les États-Unis, champ par champ et brique par brique. Ce sont les esclaves qui ont principalement apporté l’Islam à l’Amérique et c’est l’Islam qui les a armés de la vertu de patience et de la force de caractère pour pouvoir survivre à l’un des génocides les plus horribles de l’histoire humaine.(...)