Civil liberties - new material (65)
01 May 2006
Die alternativen der Friedensbewegung zum militärischen Konfliktaustrag [Peace movement alternatives to military conflict management]. Kooperation für den Frieden. March 2006, pp 16, EUR 1. The Peace Network initiated a Monitoring Project in January 2005 entitled Civil Conflict Resolution - Violence and War Prevention, by which it informs civil society about alternatives to violent conflict management and is trying to work towards a broad-based (international) peace movement that offers real solutions to international conflicts and does away with the myth of humanitarian interventions. Available from: friekoop@bonn.comlink.org
Enemy Combatants: Moazzem Begg on his imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram and Kandahar. CagePrisoners 1.8.06. This is the transcript of an interview with Moazzem Begg, a British citizen who moved to Afghanistan to become an aid worker in 2001, until he was abducted by the CIA in violation of international law but with the tacit approval of the British government. He was hooded, shackled and cuffed and "ghosted" to US bases at Kandahar and Bagram before being abandoned to the US gulag at Guantanamo Bay. Labelled an "enemy combatant" by the US government, Moazzem was never charged with a crime and was eventually released with three other British citizens following a long campaign by friends and supporters. In this interview he describes the 300+ interrogations that he was subjected to during his three year imprisonment and describes the murder of two fellow detainees. Moazzem was released in January 2005, but has received no apology or compensation. See: CagePrisoners website: http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=15535
Back to the burqa, Sonali Kolhatkar. Red Pepper issue 144 (August) 2006, pp.18-19. This article discusses the "efforts of the Bush and Blair administrations to convince the world that the 2001 war "liberated" women in Afghanistan." The article concludes that the reality of the Afghanistan war was to simply exchange one set of misogynist rulers for another: "Celebrating the resistance of Afghan women or even admitting their oppression has not ended, unravels part of the justification for war and instead places blame on their purported "saviours". Now that US allies are in power, we are told that the country has been stabilised and Afghan women 'liberated'. No longer does one hear Laura Bush and Cherie Blair speaking out about women's rights in Afghanistan, she says. No longer do the mainstream western media sport exposes about the mistreatment of Afghan women, despite the fact that the women - and men - of Afghanistan continue to suffer under new tyrants. Afghan women are left to continue "alone with the hard work of liberating themselves from all forms of fundamentalism and foreign domination."
Informationen: Komitee für Grundrechte und Demokratie Issue 4, July 2006, pp 4, Free. This monthly newsletter of the German civil liberties organisation includes a survey of the World Cup and the infringement of civil rights it brought about: excessive data collection, systematic surveillance, preventative arrests, repressive police tactics and the planned increase of law enforcement powers are highlighted. Available from: info@grundrechtekomitee.den