http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/03/deloittes-tax-savings-investments-in-poor-countries Deloitte promotes Mauritius as tax haven to avoid big payouts to poor African nations Jamie Doward A global consultancy giant has been accused of advising big business, including UK firms, on how to avoid paying tax in some of Africa’s poorest countries. ActionAid has obtained documentation showing that Deloitte, which employs more than 200,000 […]
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Petition effort in support of Rasmea Odeh under way
Chicago, IL – A massive online petition effort demanding that the government drop the charges against Rasmea Odeh was launched Nov. 2. Odeh, a longtime Palestinian community leader war arrested by Homeland Security on Oct. 22.
Hundreds of people signed the petition in the first few hours since it was posted.
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is going all out to defend Odeh. StopFBI.net is an excellent source of information for developments in her case.
The petition appears below.
Drop the Charges against Rasmea Yousef Odeh
Sign the petition here: http://www.iacenter.org/rasmeaodehpetition/
Signing the petition will generate a direct email to:
— U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara McQuade
— Assistant U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Barry Jonas
— U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
and other public officials demanding that the charges against Rasmea Odeh be dropped.
Full petition text
We, the undersigned, demand that U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade stop the indictment of Rasmea Yousef Odeh and drop all federal charges.
Sixty-six year old Rasmea Odeh is a Palestinian-American feminist, activist, educator and community leader. She has served as the associate director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) in Chicago since 2004. For the past 10 years, Rasmea has built unprecedented community support for close to 600 Arab immigrant women on issues related to English literacy, gender violence, inter-generational cultural conflicts, racial profiling, immigrant rights, and access to social and economic resources. She has established community-wide education projects related to civil and human rights, social justice, and community economic development and workshops that allow Arab immigrant women to tell, write, and perform their immigration stories while improving their writing skills. In 2013, Rasmea received the “Outstanding Community Leader Award” from the Chicago Cultural Alliance, which described her as a woman who has “dedicated over 40 years of her life to the empowerment of Arab women, first in her homes of Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon, where she was an activist, and then the past 10 years in Chicago.”
On October 22, the Department of Homeland Security arrested Rasmea in her home for alleged immigration fraud as part of an ongoing witch-hunt that targets Arabs and Muslims who criticize U.S. and Israeli policy and labels them “terrorists.”
Rasmea has been demanding justice for Palestinians for most of her life. Like the experience of approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, she spent time as a political prisoner in Israeli jails in the 1970’s. There, she was violently tortured and humiliated– despite the international legal prohibition on torture and ill-treatment.
Like their Israeli ally, the U.S. federal government has a history of targeting individuals who express public support for Palestine and over and over, Palestinian and Arab American activists are disproportionately targeted in such cases. According to the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support, their organization, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Palestine Solidarity Legal Support (PSLC) in collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild and other organizations, “has documented over 75 cases of intimidation and legal bullying in 2013 alone. These include perceived surveillance, FBI contacts, and discriminatory enforcement of laws against advocates for Palestinian rights.” Now decades in the making, this U.S. government strategy targets Palestinian immigrants, Palestinian Americans, and their supporters in order to quell any and all support for Palestinian rights in the U.S. and globally. According to CCR and PSLC, it is no coincidence that federal prosecutors are now targeting Rasmea, who is a pillar in the same community where 23 anti-war and Palestinian rights activists, many who’s homes were raided by the FBI, were subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury in 2010. There have been no indictments against the 23 activists subpoenaed presumably because of a lack of evidence.
The U.S. government’s portrayal of Palestinians as violent and inhuman fuels the case against Rasmea and as a result, the U.S. mainstream betrays Palestinians like Rasmea, leaving them with little support. The corporate media makes matters worse. By telling the story of Rasmea’s past as though she was a possible terrorist legitimately and legally arrested by the Israeli government, the media covers up that Israel occupies Palestinian land and arrests and tortures Palestinians systematically and illegally. The sensationalized media portrayal of Rasmea’s “terrorist past” dehumanizes Rasmea and justifies the ongoing state violence committed against her and the larger Arab American and Arab immigrant communities.
We stand in solidarity with Rasmea Yousef Odeh!
We demand the charges placed on Rasmea Yousef Odeh to be dropped immediately!
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An Energy Regime in Crisis and Urban Unrest – Selections from GWN
Gurgaon Workers News [The following two articles on India’s energy regime and on urban unrest, are excerpted from the October 2013 issue of Gurgaon Workers News – Ed] Fight the Power: An Energy Regime in Crisis and the Struggle within and against it Below you can find a short assessment of the various forces crunching […]
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Anti-war activists fight government secrecy in push to unseal documents on FBI raids
St. Paul, MN – Two prominent anti-war and international solidarity activists, Jess Sundin and Mick Kelly, were in federal court here, Nov. 1, in a bid to pull back the curtain of government secrecy that surrounds the FBI raids on their homes on Sept. 24, 2010. In the hearing presided over by Judge Steven E. Rau, Bruce Nestor, attorney for the plaintiffs, made a passionate argument for a motion to unseal the affidavits used to obtain the search warrants for the FBI raids.
Nestor told the court that the government cannot raid the homes of political activists without providing an explanation. He also spoke of the chilling effect the raids had on those exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids struck seven homes in Minneapolis and Chicago and the office of the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee. A total of 23 activists were summoned to a Chicago grand jury investigating “material support for terrorism.” No one testified.
At the Nov. 1 hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter cited the ongoing investigation into the anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists as the “compelling government interest” in continuing to keep the documents under seal. Judge Rau stated that he will hold a closed ‘in camera’ hearing with Assistant U.S. Attorney Winter in 120 days, where Winter will report on the status and scope of the investigation. After that the judge will make periodic reviews (possibly every 90 days) of the order to keep the documents sealed.
Commenting on the Nov. 1 proceedings, Jess Sundin stated, “I came to court today hoping to hear that the investigation of myself and fellow activists was coming to a close and that the veil of secrecy and suspicion around us would be lifted. Instead, the government said the investigation is ongoing. While Assistant U.S. Attorney Winter didn’t openly threaten indictments, he expressed that things could develop in our case any day. Given that the government is fighting to keep its secrets hidden, I think he was saying that one or more indictments may still be coming. Or perhaps he expects the investigation will widen, and other activists will be caught up in this shameful witch hunt.”
Sundin continued, “I left the courtroom with a sense of foreboding. We need to be prepared, in the event of indictments, possibly within the next few months. We need to defend others who are persecuted for their political ideas or who they are – such as Chicago’s Palestinian community leader Rasmea Odeh. Three years ago, many of us made arrangements for family members to put up their homes, in the event that we would need to make bail. It was a sobering moment after court today, when we were reminded that all of these preparations should be reviewed again today.”
Sundin and Kelly have long spoken out against U.S. wars and in support of oppressed people. Mick Kelly said, “This case is all about criminalizing those of us who stand with the struggles in Palestine and Colombia, those of us who work against U.S. wars. There is no doubt that the affidavits used to obtain the search warrants on our homes are full of lies and are an attack on protected political activity. We want to drag them into the light of day.”
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Subaltern Studies and Capital: Naxalite Angle
By Hiren Gohain Partha Chatterjee in his characteristic erudite and elegant prose has joined issue with Vivek Chibber (EPW, September 14,2013) on the latter’s criticism of the theoretical positions of three stalwarts of this group of historians and social scientists (the Subaltern Studies school). It is a little disingenuous of Chatterjee to claim that the […]
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The 2014 Elections and the Hindutva Agenda
By Analytical Monthly Review The parliamentary elections of 2014 are now casting their shadow ahead. The nationwide elections on a five year schedule have become a festival, with the decorations manufactured by the media monopoly and the parliamentary parties. The prospects are dismal for any sign of intelligent engagement with crucial issues. Instead, we are […]
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Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor : Neoliberal “development” in the Indian heartland
By Partho Sarathi Ray The Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (ADKIC) is till date possibly the largest project of the Government of India being proposed for what is being claimed as “industrial development” of the entire northern and eastern part of the country. Being called as the “Eastern Corridor.” The proposal is based on developing a 150-200 […]
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Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor : Neoliberal “development” in the Indian heartland
By Partho Sarathi Ray The Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (ADKIC) is till date possibly the largest project of the Government of India being proposed for what is being claimed as “industrial development” of the entire northern and eastern part of the country. Being called as the “Eastern Corridor.” The proposal is based on developing a 150-200 […]
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HRF Report : An inhuman counter-insurgency
Click here to obtain the pdf file of the report The Preface The Naxalites, or more specifically members of the CPI (Maoist), have establishedthemselves in the predominantly adivasi tracts of Central India. They have done thisby working among the adivasis and gaining their trust through successfully fightingagainst various forms of exploitation and oppression that the […]
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HRF Report : An inhuman counter-insurgency
Click here to obtain the pdf file of the report The Preface The Naxalites, or more specifically members of the CPI (Maoist), have establishedthemselves in the predominantly adivasi tracts of Central India. They have done thisby working among the adivasis and gaining their trust through successfully fightingagainst various forms of exploitation and oppression that the […]