French Police assault elderly, children

by Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

PARIS, June 28 (C-FAM) An international lawyer has filed complaints against France in the UN Human Rights Council for brutalizing peaceful demonstrators. Videos show French police beating marriage demonstrators, using tear gas and clubs against women, men, elderly and children.

Homosexual marriage and adoption became law in France on May 18. But a movement numbering millions of French citizens is determined to change that. La Manif Pour Tous, which means “demonstration for all”, is not relenting despite the government’s attempts to intimidate and violently repress them.

Since the law passed, La Manif has followed French President Francois Hollande with colorful demonstrations characterized by clean-faced youth, families, and elderly who believe children have a right to a mother and a father.

French authorities have decided pro-family demonstratos are a public threat. Riot police show up anywhere the demonstrators appear. They have been subject to baseless identity checks, arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as police brutality through physical assaults and tear gas. Included in those roughed up by police has been Christine Boutin, former Cabinet Minister for the Sarkozy government who was tear-gassed, and Jean-Fredrick Poisson, a Member of the French National Assembly.

A report in Le Figaro has estimates of over 1000 arrests and 500 detentions since May 26. More than 150 individuals have filed complaints through different redress mechanisms.

In comparison, when violent riots erupted following a victory of the Paris soccer team in May only 11 people were arrested. Nearly 300 were arrested at a La Manif demonstration the same month.

Many were arrested solely for wearing a t-shirt with La Manif’s logo, an outline of a mother and father with two children. Forty-eight parliamentarians have demanded Hollande end the arbitrary detentions and arrests.

According to organizers, three massive gatherings of up to one million demonstrators have taken place since January. The French Minister of the Interior, Manoel Valls justifies the presence of riot police by citing brief clashes between riot police and “a few hundred” protesters at the end of some demonstrations.

But videos show French riot police charging peaceful protesters and families with children and elderly or disabled French citizens blinded by tear gas. Images of undercover police suggest they were under orders to instigate violence and then violently repress protesters.

A human rights lawyer has brought a complaint against France at the most recent session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Gregor Puppinck of the European Center for Law and justice (ECLJ) laments that France, a country which claims to have an exemplary human rights record, is the first European country ECLJ has filed a complaint against at the United Nations. The ECLJ hosted a discussion of the repression of La Manif at the Council of Europe this week.

A rally on Monday protested the trial of one peaceful demonstrator, 23-year old Nicolas Bernard-Busse. He was sentenced to two months in prison and 1000 Euros. Nicolas sought refuge in a restaurant after police charged a group of protesters on May 26. He was accused of evading arrest, even though no cause for arrest was alleged against him.

Dozens of cases like Nicolas’ will riddle the French justice system in coming months, and perhaps years. Demonstrators say they don’t care how long it takes to repeal the law.

Axel, a youth leader, told participants at a rally that was violently dispersed by police: “It is our inner life, our peace, our love which form the greatest force of résistance, and to this, the government can oppose nothing.”

Source: Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute; European Council Investigates France Over Abuse of Marriage Supporters

Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women

Years of rumours that Ethiopian women were pressured into having contraceptive injections by Israeli officials have finally been confirmed. The Health Ministry has ordered immigration officials in Ethiopia and health workers in Israel to stop coercing or coaxing women into accepting the long-lasting injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera.

The directive instructed doctors "not to renew prescriptions of Depo Provera to women of Ethiopian origin or any other women who, for whatever reason, may not understand the treatment's implications." They should also ask patients why they want to take the shot, using a translator if necessary. The Ministry did not confirm or acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Ethiopians who claim to be Jews are welcome to migrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but they face discrimination and have not always integrated well into Israeli society. Births among Ethiopian women have dropped by 50% in the last decade, according to a report by the "Vacuum" investigative news program on Israeli Educational Television. "This story reeks of racism, paternalism and arrogance. It's a story to be ashamed of," journalist Gal Gabai concluded.

Ethiopian women told the journalists stories of unsubtle coercion and misinformation. "They said, 'Come, there are vaccinations, gather everyone," one of them said. "We said we wouldn't receive it. They said, 'You won't move to Israel.'" Women said that they were told that it would be hard for them to work or find accommodation of they had large families.

This is not a new problem, but the government is finally facing up to the lack of informed consent on the part of a marginalised, poorly-educated minority. In 2008, Hedva Eyal, of the feminist group Isha L'Isha, wrote a report alleging that the medical profession had failed Ethiopian migrant women.

"The paternalistic attitude towards women of Ethiopian origin and the state's concern over high rates of birth among poor and black populations drove Israeli official bodies, such as The Jewish Agency and the medical establishment, to act, allegedly for the benefit of women's health, but in fact according to the concepts and wishes of the establishment regarding the desirable way to conduct family life. As a result, and as this paper shows, women did not get crucial medical information and their right of choice regarding their bodies, families and lives was severely curtailed."

From here.

Israel did offer an apology for the abuse of these women.

The Pakistan Most Americans Don't Know

"People have become educated, but have not become human." -- Abdul Sattar Edhi, Pakistani mystic and Nobel Peace Prize Candidate


Alice C. Linsley

I have been following events in Pakistan fairly closely for the past 4 years. As a sovereign nation, Pakistan is only 64 years old and is torn by tribal conflicts, government corruption and religious radicals. Corruption within the police forces is widespread, ranging from accepting bribes for registering false complaints or avoiding charges, to intimidation of political opponents, and torture of religious minorities. In 2009 a young Christian, Robert Fanish Masih, who had been falsely accused of blasphemy was arrested and, according to his family, tortured by police. In an attempt to cover up the murder, the man's body was strung up in his cell and the police claimed that he had committed suicide.


Death All Around

Extensive floods in the summer of 2010 reportedly inundated 20 percent of the country and displaced or otherwise affected more than 20 million people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab provinces. The flooding, compounded by the security situation and hoarding, drove up food prices and certain staples became scarce.

Heavy monsoon rains during August 2011 affected over nine and a half million people and claimed an estimated 520 lives in Sindh and parts of Balochistan province. In Sindh province alone, 1.8 million persons were displaced by the floods; 495,000 of whom were still residing in temporary makeshift settlements across Sindh province in October 2011.

Usman Qureshi, a resident of a small village near Khairpur Nathan Shah, said, “I have been stranded here with at least 10 other villagers since yesterday after water inundated our village and we immediately need help and food."

Qureshi, who took shelter at the lone two-storey building in the village used his mobile phone to call for help: “We need help, water and food... We beg you to please contact rescuers and ask them to evacuate us.”

Efforts to deliver food and water to the flood victims were marginally effective. Many trucks were looted and their drivers beaten.

Muslims against Muslims contribute to the spread of violence. Sufi followers and their religious sites have increasingly come under attack by Taliban-aligned militants. This is compounded by the reported inability of the State to provide effective protection against such attacks. On 3 April 2011, a double suicide attack by the Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan outside a Sufi shrine in Dera Ghazi district of Punjab province, left over 40 dead, including women and children, and more than 100 injured. On 5 March 2011, nearly ten persons were killed and over 40 injured in an attack at a mosque located in the compound of a Sufi shrine in Nowshera district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Many deaths and injuries have resulted from the US drone attacks in the tribal areas. These attacks have dramatically increased during President Obama's term, and US-Pakistan diplomatic relations have soured to the point that there is no trust on either side. Obama was encouraged to increase drone strikes by the Heritage Foundation, which also recommended cutting off aid to Pakistan.

While most Americans rejoice that Osama bin Laden was brought to "justice" by a crack force of Navy Seals, few consider how this incursion is felt as a slap on the face by many Pakistanis.

Political strategist Mike Baker observes: "The Pakistanis want what Obama gives to others at the drop of a hat -- an apology. But the problem is Obama usually apologizes for the actions of other people and the past [Bush] administration. He apologizes on behalf of the American people or for American policies from previous administrations. Have you ever heard him apologize for something he did or he ordered done?"

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani accused Obama of ordering drone strikes to boost his political image. "The United States is into the election year and Obama's decision has been aimed at gaining political mileage," the Prime Minister said during a press conference.

Gilani told Al Jazeera television, “First of all I want to inform you that we did not allow or give permission to fly drones from Pakistan."

Pakistan-US relations hit a new low after the Taliban attack on its embassy in Kabul and adjacent Nato headquarters which was reportedly organized in Quetta, Pakistan.  Then there was the Osama bin Laden episodes and speculation in Pakistan about the US military presence at Shamsi Air Base. US officials were quoted as saying that drone launches from Shamsi were halted after a dispute arose between the two governments over the CIA contractor Raymond Davis who killed two Pakistani citizens in Lahore in January 2011.


Light in the Darkness

Sadhu Sundar Singh, (1889-1929) was a Christian who converted from Sikhism. During his ministry, God used him to bring many to the light of Christ. Many miracles were performed by God through Sadhu. His witness is an inspiration for all Indo-Pakistani Christians who consider him a saint.

Christian churches have been the target of terrorist attacks in Lahore. Sohail Johnson, a witness who lives close to the churches, said that more than 1,000 worshipers usually attended the Sunday services. In Peshawar in the northwest, a suicide attack on a historic church killed 85 people.

The Pakistan Dawn provides this report of incidents:

On Aug 9, 2002 gunmen threw grenades into a chapel on the grounds of the Taxila Christian Hospital in northern Punjab, killing four including two nurses and a paramedic, and wounding 25 men and women.

In November 2005, 3,000 militants attacked Christians in Sangla Hill and destroyed the Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Presbyterian churches. The attack was over allegations of violation of blasphemy laws by Yousaf Masih. The attacks were condemned by some political parties.

In February 2006, churches and Christian schools were targeted in protests over the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in Denmark, leaving two elderly women injured and many homes and properties destroyed.

On June 5, 2006, a stonemason named Nasir Ashraf was working near Lahore when he drank water from a public facility using a glass chained to the facility. He was assaulted by Muslims for “polluting the glass”. A mob developed, who beat Ashraf, calling him a “Christian dog”. Bystanders encouraged the beating because it would be a “good” deed that would help them get into heaven. Ashraf was eventually hospitalised.

In August 2006, a church and Christian homes were attacked in a village outside Lahore over a land dispute. Three Christians were seriously injured and one was missing after some 35 people burned buildings, desecrated the Bible and attacked Christians.

In 2009, the Gojra riots took place which was a series of violent attacks against Christian minorities. In June that year, the International Christian Concern reported the rape and killing of a Christian man for refusing to convert to Islam.

In 2010, a Christian woman Aasiya Bibi was sentenced to death in a blasphemy case. The original incident involved a dispute over a trivial matter at a village of Sheikhupura district.

In March 2011, only two months after Governor Salmaan Taseer was killed, when in support of Aasiya Bibi he called the law a black law, Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was killed by gunmen after he spoke out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

The same year in April, at least 20 people including police officials were wounded as 500 demonstrators attacked the Christian community in Gujranwala city.

In March 2013, Muslims attacked a Christian neighbourhood in Lahore, where more than 100 houses were burned after a Christian was alleged to have made blasphemous remarks. The incident took place in Joseph Colony in Badami Bagh area, where Sawan Masih was accused of blasphemy.

In November 2014, a Christian couple who worked at a brick kiln in Kot Radha Kishan (Kasur), were burnt to death in the kiln fire, ostensibly over blasphemy, but the case still lies in court and the reason is still not confirmed.

Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs, was killed because he was an outspoken opponent of the blasphemy law which has been used to arrest, imprison and execute religious minorities.

Sherry Rehman, the former federal minister for information, who also faces death threats for presenting a bill in parliament to amend the blasphemy law, said that Bhatti's murder “is a reminder to us all that we have not acted enough to protect our minorities.”

Humanitarian outreach does not characterize this Islamic Republic, with the exception of the Pakistani mystic Abdul Sitar Edhi, 84, who gave up everything to devote his life to helping Pakistan's poorest. He founded the nation's first and only private ambulance service which responds to all injured or sick persons regardless of their religion or social status. Edhi believes that Humanity's well-being must be the highest priority of all religions. He established Pakistan's largest network of shelters. None who come to the shelters is turned away. Currently the Edhi Foundation is a home for over 6,000 destitutes, runaways and mentally ill. Edhi says, "People have become educated, but have not become human." (Listen to his story here.)

Such wisdom, generosity and kindness are rare in Pakistani religious figures. Islam is a jealous mistress who shows little mercy. Most religious minorities, such as Hindus, Sikhs and Baha’is, are not able to register their marriages. The lack of a marriage registration makes it impossible to obtain passports or to exercise other civil rights, and affect legal recourse in matrimonial disputes.


An Islamic Republic

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world with a population over 187 million. It is the second most populous country with a Muslim majority. Approximately 95 percent of the population professes to be Muslim – of this 75 percent are Sunni and 20 percent are Shia. The remaining five percent includes Christians, Ahmadis and Hindus. All minorities in Pakistan have been subjected to intolerance and religious persecution, including kidnapping of non-Muslim girls and forced conversion to Islam.

In 1974, under severe pressure from clerics, Pakistan's first elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, introduced a constitutional amendment - known as the second amendment - which declared Ahmadiyya non-Muslims. Ahmadis are prohibited from professing to be Muslims or using Muslim practices in their worship or calling their places of worship "mosques." They may not propagate their faith in "any way, directly or indirectly". Each offence id punishable with imprisonment for up to three years and a fine. The Ahmadis are regarded as heretical because they do not believe that Mohammed was the final prophet.

Shortly after seizing power in a military coup in July 1977, General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq embarked on a process of Islamization of the Pakistan legal  system. As a result,  hadd offenses were  introduced into criminal law through four ordinances referred to as the Hudood Ordinances, and the Federal Shariat Court, was established with exclusive jurisdiction to examine whether a law is in accordance with Islam.

The introduction of the blasphemy laws in the Penal Code reportedly promoted an atmosphere of religious intolerance and contributed to the institutionalization of discrimination against religious minorities, particularly the Ahmadi community. The discriminatory nature of the provisions and the severity of the punishments have attracted widespread international criticism.

In 2008, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari expanded his cabinet with 40 members and inducted a very controversial Senator Mir Israrullah Zehri. A few months before, Mr Israrullah Zehri had stood up in the Senate and justified the crime of burying women alive by arguing in the upper house that ‘It is a Baluch tribal tradition (to bury accused women alive) and we have to respect it’.

Five women were buried alive in Baluchistan.  As it was reported, the girls were at the house of Mr. Chandio at Baba Kot village when Mr. Abdul Sattar Umrani, brother of the provincial minister, came with six men and abducted them with gun point. They were taken in a Land Cruiser jeep, bearing a registration number plate of the Baluchistan government, to a remote area in the vicinity of Baba Kot. There Abdul Sattar Umrani and his accomplices took the three girls out of the jeep and beat them before opening fire with their guns. The girls were seriously injured but were still alive. Sattar Umrani and his accomplices hurled them into a wide ditch and covered them with earth and stones. The two older women protested and tried to stop the burial of the girls who were plainly alive, but the attackers pushed them too into the ditch and buried all alive.

Names of victims
Ms. Fatima wife of, Umeed Ali Umrani, 45 years old
Ms. Jannat Bibi wife of Qaiser Khan, 38 years old
Ms. Fauzia daughter of Ata Mohammad Umrani 18 years
and two other girls, in between 16 to 18 years of age


In December 2010, at the request of the Government, the Council of Islamic Ideology reviewed the controversial blasphemy laws and recommended certain procedural changes with a view to preventing their misuse. Under the pressure of large rallies organized by hardline Islamic groups and religious political parties in protest against the bill in December 2010 and January 2011, the Government reneged on its commitment to review the blasphemy laws.Two high profile public figures – Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, and Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs were killed on 4 January and 2 March 2011, respectively, purportedly due to their overt opposition to the blasphemy laws.

Bhatti was a Christian and an outspoken critic of the misuse of the Blasphemy Law. 

Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead just yards away from his mother’s house in broad daylight just 57 days after Mr Taseer was assassinated by his own guard on January 4, 2011. Bhatti suffered 30 bullet injuries in his chest, torso and head. Pamphlets were discovered at the scene of the assassination, in which the Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab claimed responsibility for the attack. The group claimed in the pamphlet that they had targeted Mr Bhatti for his opposition to the blasphemy law. Tahira Abdullah, a Pakistani minority rights activist, remained with the bereaved family for some time. She reported that the family was hysterical with shock and grief.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports:

While the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees the rights of religious minorities, as well as other fundamental rights such as gender equality, freedom of expression and press, freedom of association and assembly, it effectively segregates the country’s citizens on the basis of religion. The Constitution proclaims Islam as the State religion, and binds the legal system to Islamic law by stipulating that no law should be repugnant to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah, and that all existing laws should be brought in conformity. Fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of expression and press, are also subject to “any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam”. (From here.)


The Pakistan Taliban Grows Bolder

In April 2012, the Taliban pulled off the biggest jail-break in Pakistan’s history. About 150 militants stormed the central prison in Bannu and freed 384 prisoners. among them a man sentenced to death for trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf.  Bannu adjoins North Waziristan.

According to an official, the militants arrived after midnight on pick-ups and attacked the prison housing after blowing up the main gates with rocket-propelled grenades. The attackers had accurate information about cells in which militants had been kept. The prison housed about 900 inmates at the time. The police official said the attackers appeared to be interested mainly in freeing the man who was on death row for an assassination attempt on former president Pervez Musharraf.
“We have released our men without losing a single man,” Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said.

Pakistan is engaged in military operations against militants in the federally administered tribal area (FATA) and has not been very effective in addressing the Haqqani network's safe havens in Pakistan.

On June 7, 2012, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta expressed unhappiness with Pakistan’s progress in battling the Haqqani network in Pakistan. Dempsey acknowledged that Pakistan is battling other threats within the federally administered tribal area.

During a news conference in Kabul, Panetta said the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan following an attack on Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province, Afghanistan, earlier this week. FOB Salerno is the largest base in southeastern Afghanistan - it is highly fortified, and hosts extensive surveillance assets and a US rotary wing task force.

One contractor and dozens of service members were wounded in the attack, attributed to the Haqqani network. One soldier died three days later from wounds suffered during the incident. Members of the Taliban, including several individuals wearing suicide vests, launched a coordinated assault that breached the perimeter of the American facility. A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the base's fence, and attackers entered through the gap. Fourteen militants were killed in the assault.

Related reading: First-Hand Account of the Suffering of Pakistani Christians; Destablized Pakistan Wants Help From Iran and USA; USA to Pakistan: Don't Use Foreign Aid to Persecute Minorities

This is a Test

Who is this?



He lies to us constantly about who he is. Not in the way most politicians lie, spinning and shading events with self-serving half-truths. He lies with the arrogant bravado of a con man messiah. My grandfather was tortured by the British. My parents met because of the march in Selma. My white girlfriend wanted to be black. These aren’t lies that were forced out of him in a rough moment to defend himself from controversy — like the lie about terrorist William Ayers being just a guy in the neighborhood, or the one about never having heard the hate-mongering of Jeremiah Wright — these are intentionally crafted falsehoods. They were meant to do exactly what they did: to recreate Obama in the image of the black savior leftists had been waiting for, the man who would relieve them of the disfiguring guilt arising from their dreadful history of racism and justify the disastrous havoc their policies have wreaked on African-Americans.


He does not believe in the American way. When he is not lying, when he thinks he’s among friends, when he inadvertently announces his radicalism because it runs so deep he doesn’t even realize it is radicalism, when he thinks he can get away with it because it’s good politics, Obama reveals his philosophy to be antithetical to the exceptional American project of limited government, personal liberty and free enterprise. The Constitution needs to be falsely interpreted to allow wealth redistribution. The free market doesn’t work. His actions should not be hampered by Congress. The Supreme Court has no right to overturn his laws as unconstitutional. America is arrogant overseas. He can decide unilaterally which laws will be enforced. He can override the free practice of religion if he thinks the issue is really, really important. Again and again, he reveals himself to be wholly a product of the anti-American, anti-liberal and anti-democratic left at odds with the principles of our founding.


He has no clue how things actually work. Even if socialism did work, it would be wrong because it would strip people of the fruits of their labor and the property rights on which liberty depends. Thankfully, it doesn’t work, which makes the moral issue moot. But Obama has no clue of what’s been tried and found wanting. He surrounds himself with ideologues and tunes out anyone who’s ever made an honest dime in the real world. Thus every single idea the “progressive” president puts forward is a regressive throwback to notions that have been failing miserably for more than seventy years. The stuff he believes is just plain dopey. He thinks technology is the cause of unemployment. He does not understand that only private jobs create the wealth that makes public jobs possible. He thinks that wind and solar energy should be subsidized and fossil fuel production suppressed. He insists on bringing the European social model to the U.S. even as the model implodes in front of our eyes.

From here.

Dems Bristle at Obama-Holder Botched Gun Operation

Four House Democrats have suggested that they'll break ranks and join Republicans to vote against Holder for his refusal to turn over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah was the first to cross the party line, announcing his intention on Tuesday. Matheson, the New York Times reminds us, is running for reelection in the country’s most Republican district currently represented by a Democrat.

Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Nick Rahall of West Virginia and Collin Peterson of Minnesota have also suggested they'll vote with Republicans. Citing unnamed sources, Fox News reports that when all is said and done, as many as 20 House Democrats may cross the party line.

All four were among the 31 Democrats who sent a letter to Obama last year expressing their concern over how the botched gun-walking operation was handled.

Read more here.

Lawlessness at the Highest Levels of Government

Lawlessness at the highest levels of government.  Wake up, America.

The muscle in the Arizona law was upheld by the Supreme Court but Janet Napolitano just announced that the feds will decline to respond to most Arizona police referrals and will not provide any support.

Holder is stonewalling on Fast and Furious.  Obama implicated himself by taking executive privledge.

I'm beginning to wonder if a free election is even possible in our country.

Pray, my friends.

Syria Violence Escalating

Things just keep getting worse in Syria.

The latest bad news comes from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who suggested Tuesday that Russia may be in the process of sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Read it all here.

Amid the increasing violence in Syria, the BBC reports that British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said he could not rule out international military intervention, warning that the situation was starting to resemble Bosnia in the 1990s.

The humanitarian crisis also worsens as residents of Homs accuse the Syrian army of shelling rooftop water tanks to deprive residents of drinking water. Amateur video footage taken earlier this year and verified as genuine by the BBC shows the damage done by shrapnel to rooftop water tanks.

Temperatures in Syria can exceed 40C (104F) in summer.

See satellite photos of Homs here.

Ugandan Journalist Seeks Justice after Police Attack

Tom Rhodes

Joseph Mutebi, a photojournalist for the popular vernacular state-owned daily Bukedde, spent his afternoon trying to file a complaint with the police in the capital, Kampala. "First they told me the officer who assaulted me was based at another station, so I went there and now they are telling me he is based at the police station where I originally went. So I am confused. I think they are just playing with me." Mutebi's case is not uncommon--both in terms of the constant threat journalists face from Uganda's police force and the challenges they encounter trying to file a complaint.

Thursday, Mutebi had gone to cover a protest organized by the "boda-boda" drivers (Uganda's motorcycle taxis) outside Old Kampala Police Station along with several journalists from other media houses. "Once I took my camera out an officer came from behind and hit me twice with a baton," he told me. Why Mutebi was singled out from the rest of the press is a mystery to him. "I don't know, perhaps because I have been a crime reporter for the past eight years and they recognized me?" he said. After going to the hospital to receive treatment for the blows to his back, Mutebi is now undertaking another agonizing process: trying to get justice.

There is some hope that justice may be more readily served in the future. Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura is forming a new press unit of police to act as an ombudsman for complaints by journalists and as a public relations department. "The inspector general is committed to professionalizing the police force," Simon Kuteesa, who will run the new unit, told me. "We are not re-inventing the wheel here--it's all part of a strategic initiative." The new unit is expected to be operational in three months, he said.

Kuteesa is the former head of the police's media crimes unit, a division specially designed to monitor Uganda's press. Wokulira Ssebaggala, program coordinator for the Ugandan Human Rights Network for Journalists--an organization that documents and fights police attacks on the press on a weekly, if not daily, basis--is skeptical. "So the Media Crimes department, formerly run by Kuteesa, will continue to function alongside this new department...We are not optimistic about this but will wait and see," Ssebaggala said.

There is certainly a need. According to CPJ research, the police were responsible in 25 cases last year of direct, physical attacks on journalists, none of which were punished. This year is not looking any better, with 10 cases already recorded by CPJ of police physically attacking the press. Mutebi believes the high number of assaults is due to the police force's lack of professionalism. "Some are not trained very well and often don't listen to their commanders, they just try to resolve everything with beating," he said. Even worse, their bosses rarely confront their officers over such attacks, Mutebi said.

The police force's attitude toward the press is a problem, says Sula Mutebi (no relation to Joseph Mutebi), a cameraman for Bukedde TV, the sister broadcaster to the newspaper. "Political leaders see the press as activists. President [Yoweri] Museveni recently accused the press of being bribed so, whether right or wrong, we are seen as the opposition to authorities." A female police sergeant slapped Sula Mutebi and detained him at a police post for an hour and a half on Wednesday after he attempted to cover a story about a murder investigation in Nakasero Market, Kampala, he said.

Ssebaggala takes Sula Mutebi's argument one step further. While police see the press as supporters of the opposition, Ssebaggala believes the police institution is compromised and supports individuals within the government. In May, for instance, police quizzed Nyombi Mahmoud, a presenter for private radio Pearl FM, for over two hours regarding a talk show he hosted that debated the level of Ugandan parliamentary democracy in comparison with other countries, the human rights network reported. Assistant Inspector of Police Byamugisha Jackson, who summoned and interrogated him, admitted that he did not see any reason for the investigation but was "acting on orders from above," the report said.

The high number of police attacks against the press is also due to the political tension on Kampala's streets in recent years. Mass opposition rallies against rising fuel and commodity prices, known as "walk to work" campaigns, has placed the police in a tight spot, with little interest in media coverage of their actions. "Especially duringdemonstrations, individual journalists have been targeted as police try to kill the evidence of their own actions," Ssebaggala told me.

Kuteesa said the assaults are an unfortunate by-product of a force handling a difficult situation. "Uganda is a young democracy," Kuteesa said. "People are trying to exert their rights and not everyone is rational--some resort to violence, especially in the city. The police are facing professional hazards and unfortunately people get injured here and there."

Voice of America recently cited police spokesman Ibin Ssenkumbi as denying that abuse of journalists is widespread, and saying some journalists brought the problem upon themselves. "There have been a few instances where there have been clashes between a few individual journalists and police, especially during operations.  But that is not an institutional policy. We have also encountered some problems that some of our journalists are actually unprofessional. They want to have limitless powers and freedom in any place at any time, which, practically, is not possible," he said, VOA reported on Wednesday.

Whether the new department represents a genuine effort to end attacks on the press with impunity or is simply a public relations exercise remains to be seen. Ugandan police attacked two journalists this week, just days after Inspector General Kayihura publicly apologized to the media for the excesses of some officers against the press and promised to investigate the cases, according to local reports. This is not the first apology from the Inspector General, who marched with journalists in an unexpected show of solidarity on World Press Freedom Day last month. "He can apologize today but tomorrow someone is beaten up," Ssebaggala said.

While many local journalists are skeptical about the new police unit, Sula Mutebi is hopeful and thinks police attitudes are changing. "Actually the police wanted to press charges against the officer that assaulted me. For once I was invited to file a case, so it is an encouraging sign."

[Reporting from Nairobi]

Source: Committee to protect Journalists

Tom Rhodes is CPJ’s East Africa consultant, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of southern Sudan’s first independent newspaper. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ

The Federal Reserve Cartel

Dean Henderson

The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with Deutsche Bank, BNP, Barclays and other European old money behemoths.  But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch.

According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stock holders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation. [1]

So who then are the stockholders in these money center banks?

This information is guarded much more closely. My queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies were given Freedom of Information Act status, before being denied on “national security” grounds.  This is rather ironic, since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe.

One important repository for the wealth of the global oligarchy that owns these bank holding companies is US Trust Corporation – founded in 1853 and now owned by Bank of America.  A recent US Trust Corporate Director and Honorary Trustee was Walter Rothschild.  Other directors included Daniel Davison of JP Morgan Chase, Richard Tucker of Exxon Mobil, Daniel Roberts of Citigroup and Marshall Schwartz of Morgan Stanley. [2]

J. W. McCallister, an oil industry insider with House of Saud connections, wrote in The Grim Reaper that information he acquired from Saudi bankers cited 80% ownership of the New York Federal Reserve Bank- by far the most powerful Fed branch- by just eight families, four of which reside in the US.  They are the Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans and Kuhn Loebs of New York; the Rothschilds of Paris and London; the Warburgs of Hamburg; the Lazards of Paris; and the Israel Moses Seifs of Rome.

CPA Thomas D. Schauf corroborates McCallister’s claims, adding that ten banks control all twelve Federal Reserve Bank branches.  He names N.M. Rothschild of London, Rothschild Bank of Berlin, Warburg Bank of Hamburg, Warburg Bank of Amsterdam, Lehman Brothers of New York, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York, Israel Moses Seif Bank of Italy, Goldman Sachs of New York and JP Morgan Chase Bank of New York.  Schauf lists William Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff and James Stillman as individuals who own large shares of the Fed. [3]  The Schiffs are insiders at Kuhn Loeb. The Stillmans are Citigroup insiders, who married into the Rockefeller clan at the turn of the century.

Eustace Mullins came to the same conclusions in his book The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, in which he displays charts connecting the Fed and its member banks to the families of Rothschild, Warburg, Rockefeller and the others. [4]

The control that these banking families exert over the global economy cannot be overstated and is quite intentionally shrouded in secrecy.  Their corporate media arm is quick to discredit any information exposing this private central banking cartel as “conspiracy theory”.  Yet the facts remain.

Read it all here.

US Secret Service Needs Attitude Adjustment

President Obama has called them “knuckleheads”. A CNN columnist says the actions of a dozen Secret Service agents in Colombia amounted to “stupidity”. United States Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the episode, also involving military personnel, was a “huge disappointment”. The official message seems to be that consorting with prostitutes in Colombia while on an official mission is dumb, embarrassing, but not really bad.

To be sure, the moral character of the men’s behaviour depends on what standard of conduct is being applied, and when you look at this incident in context, it does seem hypocritical to be particularly scandalised by it, or even surprised.

From the beginning two weeks ago, commentaries on the affair have raised the question of “culture” in the service which is responsible for the safety of the US president. Ms Napolitano said a review of Secret Service records showed no similar episodes of misconduct that might have warned of problems brewing at the agency, but journalists have dug up evidence that trouble was brewing all the same.

The Washington Post cites a 2002 US News & World Report investigation which found an agency “rife with problems”, including “alcohol abuse, criminal offences and extramarital affairs between agents and White House employees. Male officers had viewed pornography on White House satellite channels… Supervisors in two field offices had authorised professional strippers at office parties.” (Two of the agents who misbehaved in Cartagena also were supervisors.) Former Post reporter Ronald Kessler wrote a book about the agency, In the President’s Secret Service (2009), which indicated a lax culture and poor leadership. It was Kessler who gave the Post its scoop about the recent incident. New reports allege a similar episodein El Salvador prior to the President’s visit their last year, and expose an incident involving marines and a prostitute in Brazil.

All this points to a view of sex as a recreational right -- particularly in places such as Cartagena where prostitution is legal -- regardless of any security risks or the effect of marital infidelity on families back home. The majority of agents are said to be married men, and the Post has characterised the attitude behind the current scandal as “wheels up, rings off”, despite the fact that an extra-marital affair jeopardises an agent’s security clearance. Not surprisingly, the divorce rate among agents is said to be high. Where did this culture, if that’s what it is, come from?

As others have pointed out, there is a long history linking war, armies abroad and the condoning of prostitution. It is only quite recently that prostitution itself, and the related issue of adultery, have been specifically addressed in military law and regulation. In 2006 the State Department banned engaging with prostitutes for all Foreign Service personnel and contractors, even where prostitution is legal, and penalties include up to a year in jail. Rules at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, are more vague. Employees are prohibited from engaging in any “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, or other conduct prejudicial to the government,” an official told the Washington Post.

Needless to say the new rules for the military were not universally popular. When they were floated in 2004, reports the Christian Science Monitor, “many US troops reacted bitterly, calling such sanctions ‘harsh’” and a sergeant stationed in Germany, where prostitution is legal, complained that, “Next they’re going to be telling us we can’t drink, or only on the weekends.”

Indeed, given the signs that casual sex was (and is) regarded as an entitlement in these sectors and no big deal, and given that Western countries such as Germany were increasingly legalising prostitution and treating it as regular “work”, there might not have been any new rules, except for one important development: the growth of human trafficking and the part that prostitution plays in this modern form of slavery.

A United Nations protocol designed to control and stamp out trafficking came into force at the end of 2003 and was ratified by the US along with -- by 2010 -- 116 other countries. The State Department strictures of 2006 were part of the Bush administration’s effort to give effect to this commitment. The moral issues of casual and adulterous sex, whether with foreigners or other state employees, do not appear to have played any part in it.

Nor do they seem to feature in criticism of the posse of Secret Service agents and their military counterparts who disgraced themselves in Cartagena. (No-one, by the way, seems to have taken the security threat very seriously.) Columnist Kirsten Powers takes them to task for fuelling sex trafficking, indirectly at least, not for cheating on their wives. She quotes the US State Department which says that forced prostitution of women and children from rural areas in urban areas remains a problem in Colombia, which is “also a destination for foreign child sex tourists, particularly coastal cities such as Cartagena” -- the reason why Colombia is known as the “Thailand of Latin America”. Says Ms Powers:

Representatives of the U.S. government should be setting the standard for the world, not feeding the problem of sex trafficking. The chances that the women or girls the Secret Service agents procured for their pleasure were there by free will is very low. Most likely, they were sex slaves.

Most likely she is correct. It is hard to believe that there is much if any freedom in the sex industry, anywhere, but where there is poverty and social dislocation, as in developing countries like Colombia, so much the less. And Kirsten Powers is certainly right to say that Americans abroad should be setting a high standard -- of respect for women, protection of children -- for the world. Sex trafficking is a hateful crime and we must do all in our power to stop it.

But let’s not forget that the war on trafficking starts at home. A couple of years ago Hillary Clinton observed that drug trafficking from Mexico would not be stopped by measures at the border as long as there was an appetite for drugs in the United States. It’s the same with sex. If servicemen work in institutions that wink at the appetite for random sex, those institutions exist in a wider culture where practically any sexual activity that is not forced is permitted -- and in this thicket forced sex also finds shelter in which to grow.

Just one example: Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times last month that America’s leading website for prostitution ads, Backpage.com, has been partly financed (by a 16 per cent stake in the owner, Village Voice Media) for more than six years by none other than Goldman Sachs. The leading financial firm, which had a representative on the board of Village Voice Media for four years, cannot have been unaware that the site is notorious for ties to sex trafficking.

While it is good to see the moral fervour going into the war on sex trafficking, one cannot help feeling that it is doomed to failure. If coercion is to be the only criterion for illegitimate and destructive sex, a huge source of sexual mayhem and human misery will go unchecked. Use of pornography, hooking up, marital infidelity -- these are symptoms of unruly appetites that lead to nights of debauchery in foreign cities and the destruction of families at home. Until the public voices of conscience start dealing with these broad cultural trends, Cartagena-type scandals will continue to embarrass and distract Western governments. Or worse.

From here. 

Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

Mubarak and Multi-National Telecommunications Colluded

Last year, amid widespread protests in Egypt, a group of citizens managed to force their way into buildings of the Ministry of Interior – a branch of the government notorious for brutal tactics employed to preserve the former Mubarak regime.   In one of these buildings, a cache of documents were found (which you can now access on the web) that detailed a series of meetings between officials of the Interior Ministry and the local heads of large multi-national telecommunications and internet companies operating in Egypt.  In one such meeting at the end of 2010, the discussions included how to cut off internet access in a single city and in several cities, blocking particular websites, and obtaining personal information.  In another meeting at the beginning of 2011, digital Spy-ware purchased from a private company was discussed, including its ability to tap into online accounts, plant spy files on computers that would allow one to control the computer, and other highly invasive abilities. Here were well-know private companies planning repression with a government body famous for committing severe rights violations.

A couple of months later all of the capabilities that private companies jointly developed with the Interior Ministry were employed on a country wide scale in an attempt to undermine mass democratic protests.  Sequential crackdown on communication platforms, including kill-switch, happened from 25 January till 5 February[1].

---

[1] Diagram http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramyraoof/5814392791/

SOURCE: Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

(CIHRS/IFEX) - In a Panel on Freedom of Expression on the Internet, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in cooperation with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) delivered an oral statement before the 19th session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council currently in session. A high-level list of panelists composed of UN and state officials, and heads of multi-telecommunications companies took the floor. Speakers included the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay who spoke of the importance of internet in the context ongoing unrest and expressed concern over certain practices like blocking access to websites and committing violations against human rights defenders for using social media tools to document rights violations.

In their joint statement, CIHRS and EIPR revealed the existence of documented proof that the telephone and internet blackout in Egypt during the 18 days revolution was a premeditated crime organized between the Interior Ministry and the local heads of multi-national telecommunications and internet companies. Both organizations argued that official documents from 2010 and 2011, included strategies to cut off internet access in a single city and in several cities, blocking particular websites, and obtaining personal information. In addition to other strategies to tap into online accounts, plant spy files on computers, and other highly invasive abilities.

The statement pointed out that the responsibility for human rights violations and abuses does not lie solely on the state, but also private actors such as companies are liable for such violations.

"The Human Rights Council has the duty to find alternative means to hold private multi-national telecommunications and internet companies liable for these violations" said Ramy Raouf, Online Media Officer at EIPR. "The national and international legal vacuum, under which these companies are currently operating, is further endangering the lives of peaceful pro-democracy protestors and citizens in repressive states" he added.

The two Egyptian organizations argued that asking corporations to conduct a due diligence process is not enough since "in many instances the private companies themselves have violated their own user agreements, but with little consequence since no sufficient external or multi-national ombudsman exist to ensure that these companies apply basic human rights standards."

"If the International Community is serious in implementing policies that protect the life of civilians during peaceful protests, a resolution or international guidelines should be developed to ensure that online companies have a limited access to users' information and that the users themselves have access and control to what personal information companies have and own" said Laila Matar CIHRS' UN Representative. "A clear policy of zero tolerance should be adopted by the international community and private companies concerning the cutting off of communications systems at anytime, for any reason" she added.

During the panel, several countries took the floor, including Germany, Turkey, China, India, Canada, Morocco, and Egypt who stated that freedom of Internet is important for individual dignity and socio-political development and has played a key role in the Egyptian revolution. The Egyptian delegation further stated that there should be no restrictions on the law of the internet, which must be compatible with international human rights law.

To download the text of the intervention:
CIHRS_HRC_Intervention_Multinationals.doc (187 KB)

For more information:
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
PO Box 117 (Maglis El-Shaab)
Street address: 21 Abd El-Megid El-Remaly St., 7th Floor, Flat no. 71, Bab El Louk
Cairo
Egypt
info (@) cihrs.org
Phone: +202 2 795 1112/+202 27963757
Fax: +202 2 792 1913
http://www.cihrs.org

US Government Killing US Citizens

The Obama administration on Monday is expected to provide the most detailed account to date of its legal rationale for killing U.S. citizens abroad, as it did last year when an airstrike targeted an alleged al-Qaida operative in Yemen.

Officials briefed Reuters and the Washington Post ahead of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's afternoon speech at Northwestern pertaining to the government's so-called "targeted kill" program.

Read the full report here.

Syria Seeks to Crush Reports of Brutality

17 August 2011 - Reporters Without Borders continues to register cases of violence and arbitrary arrests in which the victims are anyone trying to provide information about what is happening in Syria. It also condemns journalist Eyad Shorbaji's trial, which is due to begin today in Damascus. The reason for his arrest and the charges are still unknown.

"We fear that Bashar Al-Assad's regime is locked into a repressive frenzy that has reached a point of no return," Reporters Without Borders said. "Isolated internationally, especially since the withdrawal of many Arab ambassadors and the increase in international community pressure, the authorities persist in censoring any discourse different from their own, jailing netizens and journalists who have witnessed violence against protesters."

"We would still like to convince the authorities that truth cannot be suppressed and that the policies they have chosen will only lead down a blind alley. Respect for free expression and media freedom is the only possible way forward."

In one of the latest cases, members of the security forces attacked London-based journalist Moussa Al-Omar's family home in Damascus on 11 August. Omar has interviewed various Syrian opposition figures for the programme he hosts for UK-based Al-Hiwar TV. The attack is typical of the intimidatory methods that Syria's diplomats and security services use with government opponents living abroad.

Reporters Without Borders has also learned that Myriam Haddad, a woman reporter for the magazine Mouqarabat, was kidnapped from Havana Café, in the centre of the capital, on 11 August. Intelligence officials arrested the journalist Sami Al-Halabi on 11 August in the southern city of Suwayda after giving him a severe beating. And Jehad Jamal, a blogger also known by the pen-name of Milan who has had several spells in prison, was jailed again for unknown reasons on 4 August.

Reporters Without Borders is also extremely concerned about four journalists who were abducted by security agents on the morning of 4 August from a café in the southern Damascus suburb of Jaramana. They are Ebaa Monzer, a business reporter for the newspaper Baladna, Omar Al-Assad, who works for Al-Jazeera and the newspapers As-Safir and Al-Hayat and who was already arrested at the start of the protests, and bloggers Rudy Othman and Asim Hamsho.

Monzer, a woman, may have been released but Reporters Without Borders has had no news of the other three except that Hamsho was reportedly tortured at intelligence headquarters in the northern district of Maysat after his arrest. There is also still no news of Hanadi Zahlout, a freelance journalist who has been missing since 25 July.

Reporters Without Borders notes that Omar Koush, a writer and journalist who had been held since 2 May, was finally released on 6 August. But seven other journalists and bloggers are still detained, in addition to those named above.

With authorities cracking down so hard on journalists, new technologies offer the only way of providing an alternative to the regime's propaganda. But netizens are also a priority target for the intelligence services.

Abd Qabani, for example, was arrested in the capital on 8 August, and Ahmed Samir Naji went missing as he was driving to work the same day. The blogger and activist Fadi Zeidan was arrested for covering a demonstration in the central Damascus district of Sha'laan on 4 August and was held for two days.

The netizen Ammar Sa'ib was arrested in Qasaa, a district east of the capital, on 1 August in still unknown circumstances.

For more information:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France

rsf (@) rsf.org 

Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
http://www.rsf.org/

Catholic Activists Use Children to Leverage UN Resolution

(C-FAM) By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.


Dressed in blue, gray and white uniforms, the children of St. Raphael Academy lined the long dark table in the hearing room. A row of microphones separated them from the two benches of smiling state legislators above.

The students wanted their state to issue a resolution urging President Obama to “adopt in its entirety” the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“If enacted, the [convention] would become superior to the laws of the states and their judicial systems, and would be subordinate only to the text of the Constitution,” the proposed resolution stated.

For years, child rights advocates have campaigned to get the United States onboard the controversial children’s treaty. The only other hold out is Somalia, and that country recently announced its intention to join the treaty.

The hearing, held just a few weeks ago in Providence, Rhode Island, was supposed to be a mere formality. State legislators were eager to help the children. The state Senate hastily added its own hearing on the same night to accommodate them. The school had already arranged photo sessions with national legislators in Washington to capture the moment the students would deliver their prize.

It didn’t turn out the way the teachers said it would.

In an awkward turn of events that pitted pro-life and pro-family advocates against the students, legislators heard a host of reasons why U.S. ratification posed a threat to religious freedom, parental rights, and the right to life.

Heightening tensions was talk in the halls that the Vatican backed the resolution. The school’s lay chaplain testified that the resolution was launched at a joint event at the United Nations last year hosted by the Holy See and the religious order that runs St. Raphael’s.

Sources at the Holy See told the Friday Fax that it did not back the resolution. While the school did not mention it, the Holy See acceded to the treaty with several reservations, and just last year they upbraided the committee that monitors the treaty for misinterpreting it.

In 2009, that committee began interpreting it such that children must have access “without parental consent” to “reproductive health education or services,” a term often used by UN staff to include abortion.

Barth Bracy told the legislators that, if ratified, the treaty could jeopardize the state’s parental notification laws regarding abortion. The Rhode Island Right to Life director told the Friday Fax he was shocked and saddened to see students promoting the treaty completely unaware of its ramifications. “Just like Gaddafi, it seems some activists are willing to use our children as human shields to promote an anti-life agenda.”

Neither the House nor Senate resolution passed in the state legislature. The Friday Fax spoke with the campus lay chaplain, but she and the principal declined to comment.


This week another resolution wended its way through the Illinois legislature. If enacted, it would make all state child welfare programs comply with the convention regardless of U.S. ratification. A vote is scheduled for the end of this week.


From here.
 
Related reading:  Vatican Promotes Marriage and Family at the UN

Libya: People Seek Better Opportunities

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The top Church official in Libya said the country’s current unrest was based on legitimate requests by young people for a better future.

Libya, unlike Tunisia and Egypt, has the resources to satisfy those requests, Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, the apostolic vicar of Tripoli, told Vatican Radio Feb. 21.

“The people are asking for some things that are just. And they are fundamental requests of young people: to be able to have a house, a better salary, a job,” Bishop Martinelli said.

Libya is relatively well-off, he said, “and perhaps here is where the crisis arises: Young people see a country that could help them, but that doesn’t.”

The comments came after several days of protests and armed retaliation by the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Several hundred people were reported killed in the skirmishes, and parts of the country were said to be under opposition control.

Bishop Martinelli said it was difficult to foresee a resolution of the crisis. He said the Catholic Church, which represents a tiny minority in Libya, wanted above all a “form of reconciliation that allows the Libyan people to have what is just.”

The important thing now is to reopen dialogue between the factions, he said.

He said Catholic personnel and institutions were not experiencing particular problems during the unrest, but he added that he had been unable to communicate for days with two communities of women religious working south of Benghazi, the center of the protests.


From here.

Julian Assange a Megalomaniac?

Julian Assange, the Australian founder and face of Wikileaks, is an anarchist ideologue, and the idea that an anarchist is writing the rules for information freedom for the internet ought to worry democracies.

This week’s cyber-attacks on PayPal, Visa and Mastercard ought to be sufficient evidence that Wikileaks poses a serious threat on three fronts.

The first, most spectacular and least dangerous, is that it energises hackers to attack businesses and government organisations. A group called “Anonymous” has initiated “Operation Payback” to shut down companies by flooding their servers with traffic. They have threatened other companies which have restricted Wikileaks’ finances at the request of US authorities. The hackers -- who are not members of Wikileaks -- chose their target well. Not only does this punish the lickspittle lackeys of the US government, it also demonstrates that anarchists can disrupt the world financial system.

In one of the most insightful comments on the threat posed by Wikileaks, Evgeny Morozov, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, the author of a book to be published next month, The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World, told the Christian Science Monitor a few days before the cyber attacks:

It’s possible that if Assange is really treated badly and unjustly by the authorities – and possibly even tried like a “terrorist” as some prominent US politicians have suggested – this would nudge the movement toward violent forms of resistance. Given that many of these people are tech-literate and that more and more of our public infrastructure is digital, this could be a significant impediment to the growth of the global economy: Just think of the potential losses if Visa and MasterCard cannot process online payments because of some mysterious cyber-attacks on their servers.

No doubt stiffer policing of the internet and better security software will protect big corporations and governments. But what about smaller, poorer organisations?

The second danger is the harm to the reputation of US diplomacy. There are few surprises in the cables, especially for other governments. Is there really anyone who did not know that Silvio Berlusconi was a party-hearty guy with an eye for beautiful women? Is there anyone in Central Asia unaware that Nursultan Nazarbaev is a megalomaniac? But for the public in the countries mocked by the diplomats, these are deadly insults. The damage to the reputation of the US will take a long time to repair.

It will be impossible to repair the lives lost as a result of disclosures made by Wikileaks about Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban has been combing through the earlier cache of documents, looking for traitors and informants. Not that Assange cares. His comments in a long interview with the New Yorker earlier this year are chilling:

I asked Assange if he would refrain from releasing information that he knew might get someone killed. He said that he had instituted a “harm-minimization policy,” whereby people named in certain documents were contacted before publication, to warn them, but that there were also instances where the members of Wikileaks might get “blood on our hands.”

The most shameful thing is that major newspapers have been enthusiastically cooperating with this anarchist threat. Although the 250,000 US State Department cables are available on the Wikileaks website (currently at http://213.251.145.96/) the world has been reading excerpts edited by the London Guardian, the New York Times, El Pais, in Spain, Le Monde, in France, and Der Spiegel, in Germany. Heedless of the consequences for the security of the US and its allies, the newspapers have published the juiciest tidbits. It’s hardly surprising that some skulduggery has come to light but is it sinister enough to justify the damage done?

Nor is it good journalism. Basically this represents the Twitterization of the news: salacious gossip, snippets of information taken out of context, characters without a plot. As US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, it’s like looking at a war through a soda straw. Assange has a convoluted anarchist theory to explain why he published the cables. But the newspapers? As Australian media analyst Jonathan Holmes says, “Their justification for printing many of these cables seems to me, in that case, to be just, well, that they're secret, and they're interesting because they're secret.”

US rage has been directed at Assange. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described the leak as ““an attack against the international community”. Some politicians and pundits have even demanded his head on a platter. “We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him,” writes columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times. But Assange did not steal the documents. He merely published them. How is his role in the saga essentially different from the editors of the New York Times or the Guardian? They also have blood on their hands.

The third, and the most sinister, is the rise of information terrorism. Suicide bombers sent by Islamic terrorists can be foiled. Cyber-terrorists can be jailed. But information terrorism strikes at democracy itself.

Has it occurred to no one at the New York Times that if Julian Assange can publish government documents stamped “secret”, “confidential” and “Not for foreign eyes” with impunity, why can’t he publish X-ray images of naked airport travellers? Or the tax returns of all of the Times journalists? Or their daughters’ hidden Facebook pages? Or viewers of hard-core pornography on websites run by the Russian mafia?

In fact, information terrorism is already taking place in the US, even without the help of Wikileaks. The vitriolic debate over same-sex marriage in California highlighted this trend. The names of donors to Proposition 8 were made public. Many later complained that they suffered property destruction and threats. Perhaps, it could be argued, courage in asserting political convictions is the price of participating in a democracy. But what if confidential information about political opponents were posted on Wikileaks? Reputations would be ruined but it would be impossible to sue for defamation. Journalism and politics could be brought to a halt by the fear of blackmail.

A often-quoted internet slogan is that “information wants to be free”. Assange has turned this into a kind of metaphysical principle. Hiding information is the way governments have of oppressing people and keeping them in servitude. Leaking information destroys their monopoly power. According to the Wikileaks website:

When the risks of embarrassment and discovery increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption, exploitation and oppression. Open government answers injustice rather than causing it. Open government exposes and undoes corruption. Open governance is the most effective method of promoting good governance.

But what about the right to privacy? Both institutions and persons also have a right to a domain of undisclosed information. There is a way of arbitrating this tension between transparency and privacy. In a democratic state it is called the law. But in the anarchic governance proposed by Assange, he alone is the arbiter of what is publishable and what is not.

What will happen if Julian Assange’s Wikileaks project is not shut down? Assange’s goals have a certain megalomaniac nobility -- changing the way the world is governed in order to empower “a people’s will to truth, love and self-realization”. But his competitors and imitators will be far less scrupulous than he is. Other sites are sure to spring up devoted to hosting politically-motivated leaks. After Oprah comes Jerry Springer. Do we really want to live in a world where hackers with the morality of Jerry Springer determine what we read in our morning newspaper?

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.