Civil liberties - new material (55)
01 May 2004
Esculca bulletin. no 5 (June) 2004, pp16 (in Galician). This issue of the bulletin by the Galician-based Esculca observatory looks at the exclusion of Basque electoral list Herritarren Zerrenda (HZ) from running in the European elections, in a judicial process that it describes as leaving "the unmistakeable smell of pre-cooked meals". It also focuses on the Spanish constitutional court's refusal to hear the appeal against the Ley de partidos políticos (the law that resulted in the criminalisation of Batasuna) submitted by the Basque government, because a regional government is not among the entities allowed to file such an appeal. Other pieces discuss a meeting held "in defence of civil rights and liberties" in Vigo from 20 to 22 April 2004; the situation in A Lama prison in Pontevedra (which includes allegations of abuses perpetrated by prison guards against inmates); and on torture, with a report on the meeting held by the UN Human Rights Commission in April, during which the UN special rapporteur on torture, Theo van Boven was highly critical of Spain. Observatorio para a defensa dos direitos e liberdades, Aptdo. Correos 2112. 36208, Vigo
So Much for Democracy - Iraqis Plan for Introduction of Martial Law, Robert Fisk. The Star/Common Dreams 8.7.04. Seventeen months after the US-UK invasion of Iraq "to bring democracy to the country", Fisk describes how the US-approved prime minister, Iyad Allawi, "has introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law; curfews; a ban on demonstrations; the restriction of movement; phone tapping, the opening of mail; and the freezing of bank accounts." Fisk also draws attention to Bakhityar Amin, Iraq's new "minister of justice and human rights", commenting that it is a "combination of roles unheard of anywhere else in the world." Occupation Watch website: http://www.occupationwatch.org/print_article.php?&id=577
Don't mention the (reasons for) war, Noam Chomsky. Red Pepper no. 121 (July) 2004, pp22-24. This article, an edited version of a talk given last May, considers the Syria Accountability Act (and the lack of an Israeli Accountability Act) and the US Treasury Bureau's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) which has four officers "dedicated to tracking the finances of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein" (but 120 employees dedicated to enforcing the US embargo on Cuba). The second half of the essay examines US concerns that Europe and Asia may take an "independent" course and the "consensus" on how to reduce the threat of terror while inciting terrorist atrocities through actions such as the US deployment of a space-based missile-defence system in Alaska, or supplying Israel with sophisticated military hardware ("Israel's military analysts allege that its air and armoured forces are larger and technologically much more advanced than those of any NATO power apart from the US"). Finally, the article turns to the collapse of the pretexts for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq concluding that "the Bush administration now assumes the right to attack a country even if it has no WMD or programmes to develop them." However, "the steadfast refusal of Iraqi's to accept the traditional "constitutional fictions" has compelled Washington to yield "step-by-step concessions" while the huge demonstrations across Europe have ensured that "crucial questions arise about the nature of industrial democracy and its future."
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