From behind the bars around his bed, on the third floor of Athens’s Gennimatas hospital, Nikos Romanos could hear the thousands who took to the streets last week screaming his name, as heavily armed police looked on. Monitored by machine-gun-wielding riot police himself, the 21-year-old anarchist, imprisoned for participating in an armed bank robbery two years ago, has no desire to become a “martyr”.
“He is a fanatical lover of life. He wants to live,” his father, Giorgos Romanos, said in an exclusive interview with the Observer. “But this is his 27th day without food and his condition is deteriorating. He is getting weaker.” Death is not a word that crosses the dentist’s lips as he describes the descent of his son – his only child – from being a ski-loving model student to mascot for a seething segment of Greeks baying for a fight with officialdom at large.
But “martyrdom” is a distinct possibility. As protesters marked the sixth anniversary of the police killing of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos – an event that would trigger weeks of violence widely seen as the prelude to Greece’s great economic crisis – the 58-year-old acknowledged that the desire for a martyr is real among the country’s growing contingent of angry, unemployed youth.
Clashes between 6,000 protesters and riot police erupted in central Athens on Saturday as teargas and water cannon were used to beat back protesters in the bohemian Exarchia neighbourhood, where about 200 black-clad youths hurled stones and molotov cocktails. A cloud of smoke billowed into the sky from the clashes. Dozens of shops were damaged and nearly 100 demonstrators were detained.
More at The Observer - Reverse Countdown by Nikos Romanos at The Anarchist Library
A jailed member of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot was hospitalized Tuesday on the seventh day of a hunger strike to protest what she calls a persecution campaign against her.
Maria Alekhina was transferred to a hospital in her prison colony in the Ural Mountains town of Berezniki. Alekhina went on a hunger strike last Wednesday after she was barred from attending her own parole hearing. The court, which is across the street from the colony, denied her release.
Three members of the band — Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich — were convicted last year of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for an impromptu punk protest against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral and given two-year sentences.
The closing statements from Maria Alyokhina in trial 8 august 2012, Khamovnichesky Courthouse, Moscow
Please turn subtitles on.
The practice of force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as a response to the mass hunger strike there has been increasingly criticized. But the military has continued to carry it out. Now, Al Jazeera has revealed in detail how the practice is takes place--and it’s not pretty.
The document states that prisoners who are force-fed are restrained by being shackled to a chair. Prisoners are also required to wear masks over their mouths to “prevent spitting and biting.” In some cases, Guantanamo prisoners are shackled for two hours. The masking and shackling of the prisoners is done to facilitate the tube that is snaked through prisoners’ nostrils until an X-ray or test dose of water confirms that the nutritional supplement reached their stomach.
Once the forced feeding process is over, a prisoner is placed in a cell that does not have running water. A guard then observes the prisoner to make sure he does not vomit up the nutritional supplement that was forced inside him. If the prisoner does vomit, he is punished. “Participation in the dry cell will be revoked and he will remain in the restraint chair for the entire observation time period during subsequent feedings,” the document reads.
More on Alternet - UN calls force-feeding at Guantanamo 'torture' (RT) - Gitmo hunger strike: Timeline
Inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison have clashed with guards during an attempt to end a two-month long hunger strike there. Officers tried to forcibly remove detainees from communal living quarters and isolate them in individual cells. Non-lethal rounds were fired at the prisoners as they resisted with improvised weapons. More on RT
Up to 130 of the 166 detainees left in Guantanamo are reported to be taking part in a hunger strike with at least 11 being force fed (see also this piece by Chris Hayes at MSNBC). What is not widely reported is the brutal way that detainees have been force fed by the Guantanamo medical staff, a protocol that appears to be in use now.
As detainee lawyer Ramzi Kassen explains in Doctors of the Dark Side, detainees are strapped in a 5-point restraint chair–dubbed by some detainees the “torture” chair–and large tubes that may be left in for days are jammed down their noses without anesthesia or lubricants. When detainees resist the brutal procedure, they are forcibly extracted from their cells by soldiers in full riot gear at the direction of the medical staff.
Lawyers for the despairing detainees, of whom 86 were approved for release over two years ago, are very worried that their clients will die or be permanently injured in the hunger strike.
Activist Irom Sharmila, a woman from India’s north-east who has been force-fed for the past 12 years, was flown to Delhi so that a judge could charge her with trying to commit suicide. The 40-year-old declined to play along. “I do not want to commit suicide. Mine is only a non-violent protest,” the activist told the judge, according to the Press Trust of India. “It is my demand to live as a human being. I love life. I do not want to take my life but I want justice and peace.”
The activist known as the Iron Lady of Manipur launched her fast in November 2000 to protest over the killing of a group of civilians by paramilitary forces and to demand the repeal of legislation that provides effective immunity to soldiers. Since then she has refused to eat, drink or even brush her teeth with water.
Refusing to end her fast until the so-called Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is withdrawn from all of Manipur, she has been repeatedly detained and fed twice a day by a tube attached to her nose. In 2006, she brought her protest to Delhi where she was arrested by police and charged under section 309 of the Indian penal code; the slow nature of the system means her case is only now reaching court.
Imprisoned human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh has dwindled down to 95 pounds as her hunger strike continues into its 42nd day, her husband said in a phone interview. Sotoudeh, who is known for defending Iranian dissidents, was convicted last year of spreading propaganda against the government and acting against national security. She faces six years behind bars at a Tehran prison and will be banned from practicing law for a decade.
Human rights groups denounced the prison sentence as an attempt to quash her activism. Before her arrest, Sotoudeh had spoken out against the unannounced execution of one of her clients. While jailed at Evin Prison, Sotoudeh has protested the restrictions placed on her husband and 12-year-old daughter, who are barred from leaving the country. Her family has also agitated against not being allowed to hug their mother on visits. In October she went on hunger strike.
“In the past 42 days she has drunk only salt water and sugar water solutions,” her husband, Reza Khandan, said in a phone interview. She weighed roughly 95 pounds the last time her family saw her. “Now she may have lost even more weight.” Sotoudeh spent 17 days in solitary confinement in punishment for her hunger strike, according to her husband, but was back in the ward with other female prisoners as of last week.
Khandan also complained that prison officials are not allowing the entire family to visit weekly, as is usually permitted. The Dutch foundation Lawyers for Lawyers sent a petition Monday to the Iranian Embassy in the Netherlands, alarmed about her deteriorating health. “Human rights lawyers do not belong in prison in the first place, and under all circumstances they are entitled to decent and equal treatment like any other prisoner,” said the group's president, Phon van den Biesen.
Two Palestinians who have been on hunger strike for 65 days appeared before Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday to appeal their detention without charge, their lawyer told AFP.
Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla are both staging hunger strikes to protest Israel’s use of administrative detention orders, under which military courts can order individuals to be held without charge for periods of up to six months, which can be renewed indefinitely.
Jamil Khatib, who is representing both men, said his address to the court focused on what he called the “illegality” of administrative detention. “The appeal focused on two sides, the illegality of administrative detention in general, in terms of why they are being held, and secondly why Thaer and Bilal took this step to shed light on administrative detention,” Khatib said.
He said Halahla addressed the session, speaking “about his arrest and the violations that were committed against him and why he decided to go through with his hunger strike.”
“He spoke about his right to a good life and his right to see his daughter, who was born while he was in administrative detention,” Khatib added.
It was unclear when the court would issue a ruling on the appeal.
No sooner had Khader Adnan ended his 66-day life-threatening hunger strike than new urgent concerns are being voiced for Hana Shalabi, another West Bank hunger striker now without food for more than 24 days. Both strikes were directed by Palestinian activists against the abusive use of administrative detention by Israeli West Bank occupying military forces, protesting both the practice of internment without charges or trial and the degrading and physically harsh treatment administered during the arrest, interrogation, and detention process.
The case of Hana Shalabi should move even the most hardhearted. She seems a young tender and normal woman. She had previously been held in administrative detention at the HaSharon prison in Israel for a 30 month period between 2009 and 2011, being released in the prisoner exchange of four months ago that freed 1,027 Palestinians and the lone Israeli soldier captive, Gilad Shalit. Since her release, she has been trying to recover from the deep sense of estrangement she experienced in prison, and rarely left her home or the company of her family. As she was returning to normalcy, she was re-arrested in an abusive manner, which allegedly included a strip-search by a male soldier. On February 16, 2012, the day of this renewal of her administrative detention, Hana Shalabi indicated her resolve to start a hunger strike to protest her own treatment and to demand an end of administrative detention now relied upon by Israel to hold at least 309 Palestinian in prison. Her parents have been denied visitation rights, she has been placed in solitary confinement, and her health has deteriorated to the point of concern for her life.
Between Collateral Murder, the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diary, and Cablegate, it appeared as though 2010 would go down in history as the most shocking year in WikiLeaks revelations.
The 'worst of the worst' included children, the elderly, the mentally ill, and journalists. In April of this year, WikiLeaks released the Guantanamo Files, which included classified documents on more than 700 past and present Guantanamo detainees. These files paint a stunning picture of an oppressive detention system riddled with incoherence and cruelty at every stage.
They shed new light on the persecution of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, who was caged at the camp for more than six years and then abruptly released without ever being charged. His crime was working for Al Jazeera. It was also revealed that almost 100 of the inmates sent to Guantanamo were listed by their captors as having had depressive or psychotic illnesses. Many went on hunger strikes or attempted suicide. Officials in charge also found it appropriate to detain children and old men, including an 89-year-old Afghan villager suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim.
See 4 other revelations at AlterNet
Nine years ago to the day, a prison for "war on terror" detainees opened its doors in a remote US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And despite grand promises, it is unlikely to shut any time soon. "At this point, it is clear that Guantanamo will not be closed during this presidential term, or maybe even the next one, despite administration claims that it remains committed to the goal," Columbia University professor, Matthew Waxman, told AFP.
On January 11, 2002, about 20 prisoners arrived at the base, hooded, handcuffed and clothed in distinctive orange prison garb. They were put on display for the world to see, behind the bars of the prison erected on the military base rented from Cuba since the beginning of the 20th century.
Guantanamo quickly became a notorious symbol for the worst of the US excesses in the war on Al-Qaeda launched in the days that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
And rights groups around the world celebrated when new President Barack Obama swore just after his inauguration on January 22, 2009 to shut down the prison, opened by his predecessor George W. Bush. But two years later some 173 prisoners still languish behind its doors. And Obama's room for manoeuvre has been severely curtailed amid a fierce debate over the future of its high-profile foreign inmates.
We need to evacuate the 2000 + videos on the Alex Jones Channel immediately. We need to clone these videos around the Internet:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel
Throughout the history of mankind, the elite have always fought for world empire. Now, using secrecy and international banking systems, they are making their final push for world government. Only an educated and informed public can stop them in their tracks.
Speaker at the beginning: Carl Sagan
President Evo Morales went on a hunger strike on Thursday to demand Bolivia's Congress pass an electoral law that could make it easier for him to win control of the legislature in December's general election.
Tensions flared last week when members of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party clashed with the opposition over the bill, which could help the leftist president by assigning more seats to poorer, rural areas.
Allies of Morales control the lower house in the Andean country, but the opposition holds a majority in the Senate, allowing his opponents to block the election reform proposal.
"Faced with the negligence of a bunch of neoliberal lawmakers, we have no choice but to take this step (hunger strike) ... they don't want to pass a law that guarantees the implementation of the constitution," Morales told reporters at the presidential palace in La Paz.
