Human Rights

Group From Mass. Helped Shift Net Neutrality Fight

February 20, 2015 Jessica Meyers, www.bostonglobe.com Resist! FCC, Freedom of the Press, Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

From a stuffy attic in this former industrial city, Tiffiniy Cheng and her friends hatched plans to save the Internet. Fight for the Future, the name they later bestowed on their group of 30-something idealists, stirred an online advocacy movement that swayed President Obama, influenced the Federal Communications Commission, and helped defeat the telecommunications industry, one of the mightiest lobbying powers in Washington. They did so in concert with grassroots organizations, tech startups, and a few deep-pocketed companies such as Netflix to promote net neutrality, the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally — with no special treatment for monied interests. “We tapped into people’s basic moral ideas,’’ said Cheng, who was born in a Macau refugee camp to parents who fled the Vietnam War. She arrived in Worcester as a toddler.

Met Police ‘Pay To Protest’ Proposal Rejected

February 20, 2015 Rob Evans, www.theguardian.com Resist! Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Protest

Twelve campaigning groups have said they will refuse to pay for what they view as their right to protest. Their declaration comes after the Metropolitan police told protest groups they would have to pay what could amount to thousands of pounds for private firms to oversee their protests. The Met said they would have to fund traffic management - including measures such as road closures, barriers and stewards - for demonstrations they are planning to hold. Scotland Yard has previously carried out the role. In a statement on Thursday, the coalition of groups declared: “We believe any demand to pay to be able to demonstrate constitutes an unacceptable restriction on the right to protest.”

How The Little Guys Beat The Monopolists

February 10, 2015 Donny Shaw, www.thedailybeast.com Strategize! FCC, Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

It’s hard to overstate either how important FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s statement was last week, or how improbable. The chairman’s proposal, which will be voted on by the full five-member commission on February 26, bans broadband companies from discriminating between different content providers based on who can pay. If the FCC supports it, it protects the Internet from a world in which there are slow lanes for poor content providers and fast lanes for rich ones. At the most basic level, it keeps Comcast and Time Warner from becoming the dictators of what we see, read, and write about. And it’s a political miracle.

Detroit Water Brigade Part Of Larger Struggle

February 9, 2015 Demeeko Williams, www.detroitnews.com Resist! Detroit, Human Rights, Public Health, Water

The largest nurses union in the country declared Detroit in a “public health emergency,” with an infant mortality rate higher than Mexico. The Irish Parliament brought us to Dublin to testify. Even The Hulk himself, actor Mark Ruffalo, came to Detroit to turn the water back on. Occupy Wall Street stands behind the people of Detroit because Wall Street bondholders stand behind the water shutoff program. In reality, we’ve been on the front lines of this real crisis, bringing emergency relief to thousands of Detroiters pushed to the brink by utility cutoffs, foreclosure, crumbling public services and mass joblessness.

Corporate Media Lies For The Telecoms

February 6, 2015 Brian Powell, www.mediamatters.org Educate! FCC, Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

MSNBC's Harold Ford, Jr. used air time to push net neutrality myths without disclosing his relationship to the telecom industry, which has contributed millions of dollars to lobbying against net neutrality regulations. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to vote February 26 on a proposal for stronger net neutrality regulations drafted by chairman Tom Wheeler and detailed in a February 4 op-ed on Wired's website. According to The New York Times, Wheeler's proposed net neutrality rules "will give the commission strong legal authority to ensure that no content is blocked and that the internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept."

Rabbis Tell Netanyahu, ‘Stop Home Demolitions’

February 5, 2015 Rabbis for Human Rights, www.rhr.org Resist! Human Rights, Israel, Palestine

The letter below urges Netanyahu to stop the State’s opposition to a High Court petition submitted by Rabbis for Human Rights seeking to put an end to administrative demolitions by allowing Palestinian villages in Area C to participate in planning and developing their communities. While we wait for the decision of the judges, these rabbis and cantors are asking the State, at its own initiative, to implement moral, reasonable and fair planing and zoning principles that are in-line with international law and Jewish tradition. So far, over 400 rabbis and cantors from Israel, the USA, Canada, Britain and other countries have signed the call to Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the practice of home demolitions. Every year, hundreds of Palestinian homes are demolished due to discriminatory administrative plans created and implemented by the Israel military without significant Palestinian influence. Palestinians are very rarely allowed to build, even on their own land.

230 Egyptian Activists Get Life Sentences

February 5, 2015 Al Akhbar, www.english.al-akhbar.com Resist! Egypt, Human Rights, Law

An Egyptian court sentenced prominent activist Ahmed Douma along with 229 other anti-Mubarak activists to life in prison on Wednesday after the court held hearings for 269 people connected to “the cabinet headquarters events” of December 2011, judicial sources said. Douma and 268 others were accused of staging “riots” outside central Cairo's cabinet headquarters and assaulting policemen during a sit-in back in December 2011 against a decision by Egypt's then-ruling military council to appoint as prime minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, who had served in this position under ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. In addition to “rioting,” the activists were accused of possessing white arms like knives, attacking police officers and armed forces, burning the al-Majmaa al-Alami and attacking other government buildings including the cabinet headquarters.

Ayotzinapa: The Aftermath Of A Drama

February 5, 2015 Merel de Buck, www.roarmag.org Educate! Ayotzinapa, Human Rights, Mexico

The disappearances of 43 students in the southern Mexican city of Iguala have shaken the country to the core. A radical movement of teachers and students sees this drama as the paragon of the Mexican political system marred by impunity, corruption and extreme institutionalized violence. The movement makes history when it sets fire on the gates of the national palace, an unprecedented action since the Mexican revolution in the beginning of the nineteenth century. But although the movement is unwavering and the international media attention unabated, some things in Mexico seem unshakable. A present-day visit to Iguala tells us that nothing has changed. The entangled power of drugs cartels and local politics carry on like never before.

Large Anti-Water Charge Protests Across Ireland

February 1, 2015 Staff, www.thejournal.ie Resist! Government, Human Rights, Ireland, Water

TheJournal.ie was out on the streets of Dublin asking people why they were marching today. Lorraine from Tallaght, who was walking on crutches said that people have had enough with the current government. “They have tried to blacken protesters as they have nothing else on us. We are just normal people, everyday people, who are saying no more. We are in debt, we are losing our homes, people are taking their lives, and enough is enough. We won’t take it,” she said. “Every age group is here, it is a peaceful protest,” she added. John from Finglas said that the slogan today is “No way, we won’t pay”. He said that he is broken by the taxes he has to pay, but said while he has no problem paying his taxes, this one is just “too far”. He said that the government are “shooting themselves in the foot” by not listening to the people, but said that message will be delivered to them “loud and clear” at the ballot boxes.

The One Loophole To Rule Them All

January 31, 2015 Marvin Ammori, www.slate.com Organize! Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

At this point, you may be wondering, “Where are we now?” Here’s the status update: We are one month from the Federal Communications Commission issuing a final decision. But it will be a month that matters because it’s not yet clear who will triumph. For the next month, the giant phone and cable companies will be lobbying to put a loophole in the FCC’s rule. Any significant loophole will do. They will ask for many loopholes, but all they need is one. So they can “compromise” by letting go of several outrageous loopholes because with one alone they can create an entirely new business ecosystem of slow and fast lanes that undermines the open Internet. It would be the one loophole they need to rule all the websites and users.

Defending Net Neutrality Is A Fight For Human Rights

January 30, 2015 New Scientist, www.newscientist.com Educate! Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

FROM its basement beginnings, the internet has spread across the globe. It lets us connect more efficiently than any technology before it, and has become a crucial ingredient of modern life. One of the keys to its success is "net neutrality" – a jargony way of saying that all internet traffic must be treated equally. Neutrality has been a guiding principle of the net since its birth, but next month the US Federal Communications Commission will vote on its future in the US. Internet providers largely want to see it end, allowing them to give preferential treatment to traffic from certain websites, or slow down traffic from competitors. President Obama has advised the FCC to preserve neutrality, and the smart money is on the status quo. But the fact that the vote is happening demonstrates that net neutrality is a public good that needs constant and vigilant defence against private interests.

Physician Report Documents Human Rights Abuses By IDF

January 27, 2015 Haggai Matar, www.972mag.com Educate! Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Wars and Militarism

The team of medical experts that authored the report visited Gaza three times as a delegation of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). They collected testimonies from dozens of wounded and from medical teams, documented the army’s terrifying actions during the war. At least 15 people testified about and described incidents in which the army bombed a target, and then — after a short pause or immediately after — bombed it again. The result was especially deadly: family members, neighbors, passersby and/or medical and emergency teams that arrived to help the wounded and extract bodies from the rubble, were bombed themselves, were killed or wounded. “This is a separate phenomenon from that of the so- called ‘roof-tap[s],” explain the authors of the report, which in a separate section addresses the “roof tap” warning strikes — which are small bombs that aren’t supposed to fell buildings. The “double tap” is something else.

The War On Terror: Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou Speaks

January 21, 2015 Andrew Jerell Jones, www.firstlook.org Educate! CIA, Human Rights, Terrorism, Torture

John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee to go to prison in connection with the agency’s torture program. Not because he tortured anyone, but because he revealed information on torture to a reporter. Kiriakou is the Central Intelligence Agency officer who told ABC News in 2007 that the CIA waterboarded suspected al-Qaeda prisoners after the September 11 attacks, namely Abu Zubaydah, thought to be a key al Qaeda official. Although he felt at the time that waterboarding probably saved lives, Kiriakou nevertheless came to view the practice as torture and later claimed he unwittingly understated how many times Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding.

Guantánamo Diary Exposes Brutality Of US Rendition & Torture

January 20, 2015 Spencer Ackerman and Ian Cobain, www.theguardian.com Educate! Cuba, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Torture

The groundbreaking memoir of a current Guantánamo inmate that lays bare the harrowing details of the US rendition and torture programme from the perspective of one of its victims is to be published next week after a six-year battle for the manuscript to be declassified. Guantánamo Diary, the first book written by a still imprisoned detainee, is being published in 20 countries and has been serialised by the Guardian amid renewed calls by civil liberty campaigners for its author’s release. Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes a world tour of torture and humiliation that began in his native Mauritania more than 13 years ago and progressed through Jordan and Afghanistan before he was consigned to US detention in Guantánamo, Cuba, in August 2002 as prisoner number 760. US military officials told the Guardian this week that despite never being prosecuted and being cleared for release by a judge in 2010, he is unlikely to be released in the next year.

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