ZIMBABWE: ACTIVISTS HELD WITHOUT FOOD IN FILTHY CELLS FOR PROTESTING POLICE

 Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) are condemning police in Zimbabwe for barring their 83 arrested members from receiving food and for holding them in filthy cells for a second night.

According to Woza, 25 of its members were arrested outside parliament, whereupon 58 more handed themselves in in solidarity.

Woza accuses police of beating suspects and says the aim of the protest was to denounce violence during the country's constitutional outreach program.

"There were three simultaneous peaceful demonstrations converging on parliament," says Woza's national coordinator, Jennie Williams. "We were delivering a message to parliament after a four-month study of behaviour of police and after this weekend's violence, under which police didn't act."

According to RFI, she also sharply criticises the condition of police holding conditions.
"There is urine all over the floor. There are faeces from yesterday, from last week, from last month all over floors. There is no food in the cells."

The following is from SW Radio Africa News.

WOZA CONDEMNS POLICE AS 83 ACTIVISTS DENIED FOOD IN JAIL

by Irene Madongo

21 September 2010

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) has condemned the police for barring their 83 arrested members from receiving food and for holding them in filthy cells for a second night. There is also concern for the condition for one of their members’ who the organisation says was seriously assaulted in police custody.

The activists from WOZA were arrested at the end of a march to Parliament buildings in Harare, to mark International Peace Day on Monday. Police rounded up people as they were dispersing, following the peaceful march by over 600 of their members, who included men. The aim of the protest was to highlight community safety issues and police behavior in communities.

After initial talk of charging them with public disorder, the group are now to be charged with obstructing traffic. Police had tried to make the group pay admission of guilt fines, but they refused, insisting on being taken to court. It is hoped that they will be taken to court Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday Jenni Williams, founder of WOZA, said: “Our support team were attempting to feed our 83 colleagues because there is no food in the cells. They were denied the right to take the food in at lunch time today. They were told we are not allowed to take the food unless a lawyer is present, which is not within standard operating procedures. We are seeing this as another delaying tactic.”

WOZA also said a Men of Zimbabwe Arise member, Lazarus Mandondo, was severely beaten with baton sticks by police officers during a routine counting exercise last night. It is unclear why he was beaten but there is some concern for his welfare as apparently the beating was severe and witnessed by all detainees.

W illiams said the ill-treatment of their members further highlights how the police continue to violate all standard operating procedures. She said Police Commissioner Chihuri has ignored their request for a meeting and she appealed to co-Home Affairs Minister Theresa Makone to take action.

On Monday Makone claimed ZANU PF was ‘virtually holding the Zimbabwe Republic Police captive,’ in response to weekend reports that police did nothing to stop ZANU PF supporters from the violence that disrupted outreach meetings in Harare. Makone excused the police by saying that they were just as paralysed as most victims of political violence.

On Tuesday 1,200 members of WOZA marked International Peace Day with a peaceful protest to Southampton House in Bulawayo in the morning. The aim of the protest was to hand over a set of demands to the Police Commissioner and the co-Ministers of Home Affairs.

Other groups in Bulawayo also marked International Peace Day on Tuesday. Zimrights, Habbakuk Trust and the Zimbabwe Victims of Organised Violence (ZIVOV) arranged a march from Bulawayo City Hall.

SW Radio Africa correspondent Lionel Saungweme said a group of about 50 people heard victims of the organised violence in 2002 recount their ordeals. Those who spoke included Themba Ndlovu, who was ambushed by ZANU PF thugs at his home and badly beaten, and Sidumiso Moyo, whose house was burnt by ZANU PF thugs.

Saungweme said a former Green Bomber also spoke at the event. “He said he wanted to thank God, because God had changed his heart. He said at the training he got at the national military camps (run by ZANU PF) he was taught to hate and he prided himself in violence,” Saungweme said.

Saungweme added that the National Healing Organ was invited to the march but did not attend, saying they were too busy with their work elsewhere. 

SWEDEN REACTS AS RACISTS ENTER PARLIAMENT

The bad news is that a racist, right wing party has managed to sneak into the Swedish Parliament. The good news is that they still got less then 6% of the vote. Further good news is that tens of thousands of Swedes have taken to the streets in protest against the racists.

Anti-immingrant bigotry has been a good sale throughout much of Western Europe and the U.S. but Sweden felt immune from this crap since dealing with it in the early 90s.

As the Toronto Star reports, "Swedish leaders lashed out at Scandinavian neighbour Denmark for sharply tightening immigration in 2002, and reacted with horror to the anti-Muslim statements by leaders of the nationalist Danish People’s Party.

"That helped cement Sweden’s reputation as being a haven for immigrants, and was one the reasons the nation of 9.4 million attracted more Iraqi refugees following the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein than any other in the West."

When the anti-immigrant party gained a foothold in Parliamentary elections this weekend it came as a shock to many Swedes...and they responded rapidly.

A crowd of around 10,000 people gathered in central Stockholm on Monday evening to demonstrate against racism. The peaceful gathering was spontaneously organised by a 17-year-old girl from the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna, Felicia Margineanu, who was so disappointed by the election results she posted a protest call on her Facebook page.

The following is from Bloomberg.

SWEDES PROTEST ON STREETS AS ANTI-IMMIGRANTS ENTER PARLIAMENT

About 10,000 people protested in central Stockholm late yesterday while in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-biggest city, 5,000 took part in a “sorrow march against racism” after the Swedish Democrats got 5.7 percent of votes and their first seats in parliament. About 2,000 protesters gathered in the southern city of Malmoe.Thousands of Swedes demonstrated against the Swedish Democrats as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt struggles to form a government that doesn’t have to rely on the anti-immigrant party after Sunday’s election.

Protesters waved banners that declared their support for multiculturalism, including placards that said: “Refugees -- welcome!” and “No racists in our parliament.”

Reinfeldt, whose four-party coalition won 49.3 percent, has reached out to the Green Party, part of the three-party opposition bloc, to stop the Swedish Democrats from holding the balance of power. They have so far rejected his overtures. All groups in parliament have said they won’t work with the Swedish Democrats, who want to reduce immigration by 90 percent.

“The banner of tolerance has been hauled down and the forces of darkness have finally also taken the Swedish democracy as a hostage,” Sweden’s Expressen newspaper wrote in an editorial yesterday. “It’s a day of sorrow.”

‘Dismay’

Many Swedes prided themselves on the fact that anti- immigration parties had failed to get into parliament since 1994, in contrast with its Scandinavian neighbors, where the Danish People’s Party and Norway’s Progress Party are among the biggest groupings. Sweden has also criticized Switzerland’s ban on minarets at mosques and France’s deportation of Roma.

“While it’s hard to say that Sweden has woken up to a new self-image, one can say that this is more like a normal European situation and is similar to other western European countries with a proportional election system, where a populist right-wing party has seats in parliament,” said Carl Dahlstroem, a political science professor at Gothenburg University. “It’s the party that is the least liked among other voters, so it is not surprising that people have reacted with dismay.”

While Reinfeldt’s government will probably have to rule as a minority, it is only three seats short of a majority in the 349-member parliament. The ability of the Swedish Democrats to act as kingmakers may be diminished if Reinfeldt finds support among the opposition parties. The Green Party, which shares the government’s stance on business-friendly policies, may back some proposals and Reinfeldt may also find Social Democratic support in other areas, Dahlstroem said.

Minority History

Reinfeldt has a “relatively big” chance of securing a majority once all postal and foreign votes come in, Olle Folke, a political scientist at Columbia University in the U.S., told the Aftonbladet newspaper. The final count will be completed tomorrow, according to the Swedish Election Authority.

Sweden has been ruled by minority governments since the current one-chamber parliamentary system was introduced in 1971, with the exception of six years of majority coalitions starting in 1976, and the last four years under Reinfeldt.

“It is important to remember that a minority government is nothing unusual in a proportional election system and it is actually quite common in Sweden,” said Dahlstroem.

The country’s fiscal laws make it impossible to block a budget bill unless the opposition can muster a majority of lawmakers to back an alternative proposal. The other parties in parliament have said they will shun the Swedish Democrats, which also campaigned on promises to lower aid to foreign countries. It has called Islam the greatest threat to Swedish society since World War II.

Swastikas

In its election advertisement, an old lady with a zimmer frame walking toward a desk to get cash from the authorities is overtaken by a large group of women wearing black burqas pushing their kids in prams. A speaker says voters now have the choice to put the brakes on immigration, or on pensions.

Still, the party has improved its image. While swastikas and Nazi salutes could be seen at its rallies in the 1990s, the party’s leaders now dress in suits and ties and have distanced themselves from the early neo-Nazi roots.

Support for the party was strongest in the Skaane province in the southern tip of Sweden, where it got an average 10 percent of the vote and in neighboring Blekinge, where it got 9.9 percent.

That has angered many Swedes north of the region.

Some people are calling for Skaane to be cut off from the rest of Sweden and handed back to Denmark, where the anti- immigration Danish People’s Party is the third-largest party and has acted as an inspiration for the Swedish Democrats.

Support for the party in the south increased after an influx of immigrants in recent years, riots in immigrant- populated areas in Malmoe and after a Swedish pensioner was killed in a Landskrona parking lot.

It is “time for the Swedes to get themselves a new national self-image” as the election “created a new picture of Sweden,” Svenska Dagbladet daily said after the election in an editorial.

To contact the reporter on this story: Niklas Magnusson in Stockholm atnmagnusson1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.netTasneem Brogger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

ISRAELIES AND PALESTINIANS CHIDED ON JAILS

Torture and abuse in jails...everybody is doing it, doing it, doing it...for themselves.

We take you now to that little piece of land known as Palestine, or Israel, or both or neither...whatever, you know the place.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that all is not well, or swell in the jails of Israel where Palestinians face abuse on a fairly regular basis.  Just today we learn that a Palestinian human rights group is denouncing an attack by Israeli troops on Palestinian prisoners in Ramon jail last night.

But hey, not to be outdone, the Palestinian Authority is being called to task by the International Crisis Group concerning the mistreatment and torture going on in the prisons of Ramallah

PRISON IS PRISON...DOESN'T MATTER MUCH WHERE...


The following two articles are from The Palestinian Information Center.


RIGHTS CENTER DEMANDS INT'L INQUIRY INTO RAMON JAIL ATTACK

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian center for defending prisoners strongly denounced the Israeli "aggressive" attack on the Palestinian prisoners in Ramon jail at night Sunday and called for opening international probe into the incident. In a statement, the center demanded the international community to break their silence towards Israel's violations against the Palestinian prisoners in its jails and the bad incarceration conditions which they are living in. The high national committee for the support of prisoners had affirmed that several injuries happened among the prisoners as a result of the excessive use of force by the special units Nahshon and Masada. A large number of heavily-armed troops from these units stormed brutally and suddenly at night yesterday the rooms of prisoners in Ramon jail and forced them out before ransacking their rooms at the pretext of looking for cell phones. The troops also strip searched the prisoners. All this provocative acts prompted the detainees to raise their voices in protest at what was happening to them, but the troops escalated the situation firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades at them, and beating them. Israel has stepped up lately its punitive measures against the Palestinian prisoners in all jails and used different pretexts to justify its aggressive acts against them. The Palestinian center for defending prisoners urged all international organizations concerned with human rights and detainees' affairs to urgently intervene to protect the prisoners from Israel's escalation. ================================== INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION URGES PA IN RAMALLAH TO END TORTURE IN JAILS BRUSSELS, (PIC)-- The international crisis group (ICG) has called for an end to torture rounds in the prisons of Ramallah security apparatuses in the West Bank. The ICG report published on Monday said that the Ramallah authority should end the maltreatment of detainees in security premises, proposing the trial of officers and security elements accused of maltreatment before public, civil courts. It also advocated issuing a presidential decree prohibiting torture in all PA-affiliated security apparatuses. The report stressed that the PA should cancel its condition that all civil servants, journalists, members of non-government organizations, drivers of taxicabs and public vehicles should obtain a certificate of good conduct from the security apparatuses. The PA should respect freedom of political meetings and allow Hamas to work as a political party and to desist from closing civil organizations especially charities and monitor work of security bodies, the report elaborated. It asked the Ramallah authority to adopt whatever is necessary to strengthen respect for human rights, prevent detention without solid proof and release all detainees in addition to maintaining judicial powers on work of security bodies.

CANADA: INDIGENOUS MAN SAT IN DISTRESS A DAY AND A HALF IN HOPITAL WAITING ROOM ... TO DIE ALONE

Rich people don't go to the hospital in Canada, I suspect, wait in the waiting room for a day and a half, and then die needlessly.  


That kind of treatment is pretty much reserved for the poor, especially the non white poor, especially the indigenous poor.


 As reported in the Winnipeg Free Press, Brian Sinclair, an aboriginal man who used a wheelchair, was found dead on Sept. 21, 2008, after he waited 34 hours in the HSC emergency room without being treated for a bladder infection, a condition that required a simple catheter change and antibiotics.

Brian Sinclair back when he was alive

So what happened next.  Well, Manitoba's chief medical examiner Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra said Sinclair's death could have been prevented if the blood infection had been treated.  He said last Feruary that an inquest would be held.


Guess what? No inquest has been held.


This week the Sinclair family filed1.6 million lawsuit was filed this week in Court of Queen's Bench.


Of course, even if they win, Brian remains dead and those being sued, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, WRHA vice president Brock Wright, the government of Manitoba and 13 individuals  go on with their lives.


"Winning," by the way, won't come easy since 


Justice Minister Andrew Swan has capped the amount Sinclair's family will get for legal fees before and during the upcoming inquest at $110,000.


That ain't much in a case like this.


What would Crazy Horse do?


The following is from CBC News.


Waiting-room death prompts family to sue

The family of Brian Sinclair, an aboriginal man found dead after spending 34 hours in an emergency department, has filed a lawsuit against several medical staff, the regional health authority and the Manitoba government for $1.6 million.

The statement of claim, filed Wednesday in the Court of Queen's Bench, lists 18 defendants, including the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and its senior vice-president of critical care Brock Wright.

It also lists the government and 15 individuals, most of whom are named other than two who are only referred to as Jane Doe and John Doe.

"The kind of treatment that Brian Sinclair received at the HSC [Health Sciences Centre] was cruel and discriminatory," the claim states.

"The medical institutions and professionals that Brian Sinclair relied on for care failed in their duty to provide him with proper and timely care."

Sinclair, a 45-year-old double amputee with a speech problem, was found dead in his wheelchair in the HSC's emergency department waiting room in September 2008.

'The kind of treatment that Brian Sinclair received at the HSC [Health Sciences Centre] was cruel and discriminatory.'—Statement of claim

An autopsy determined he died of a blood infection brought on by complications from a bladder infection caused by a blocked catheter. He hadn't been able to urinate for 24 hours and his bladder was full.

Sinclair's death could have been prevented if the blood infection had been treated, 

Manitoba's chief medical examiner, Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra, said within days of the death. Balachandra announced in February 2010 that an inquest would be held but that has not yet occurred.

"For 34 hours, hospital staff callously, recklessly or negligently ignored Brian Sinclair, even as he sat in the hospital waiting room in distress, vomiting, and dying," the claims states.

"They left him to suffer in agony, and gave him no care, treatment, assessment, attention, or necessaries of life. As a result, he died."

Toronto lawyer Vilko Zbogar, who represents Sinclair's family, said a lawsuit is against those people who were "involved in either ignoring Brian Sinclair to death or involved in the misstatements about the case after the fact."

The lawsuit claims the health officials publicized incorrect information as part of a "media campaign to deflect responsibility for Brian Sinclair's death away from the WRHA."

Brock Wright and others named in the lawsuit told the media that Sinclair did not attend to the triage desk at the emergency room to seek help, "implying that Brian Sinclair was in some way responsible for his own suffering," the claim states.

Zbogar said there's still no agreement on fees for the family's legal team and no decision on whether police will launch a criminal investigation into the death. He said those uncertainties are delaying the inquest.

"One of the objectives of the lawsuit is to do what so far no other process is doing, which is finding answers about how such a terrible thing could have possibly have happened in a hospital in Canada," said Zbogar.

No statements of defence have been filed.
----------------------

For more background on this go to http://www.turtleisland.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6696

END OF THE WORLD

I'm starting to doubt that anything Earth screams at us will ever get the human race off its collective asses.


In Peru, Quelccaya glacier, the largest in the tropics, could disappear within 10 years.  Hello.  The Peruvian Times reported just last month  that studies of Quelccaya during the last 30 years have found the glacier retreated at an average rate of 6 meters per year during the first 15 years and 60 meters per year in the last 15. This year, it is expected to retreat 150 meters as a result of an unprecedented increase in global temperatures.


Peru is home to some 70 percent of Earth’s tropical glaciers.  I didn't know that.  


The Chacaltaya Glacier, thought to be 18,000 years old is now reduced to a rocky mountainside.  Hello.


Water is a sensitive issue in Peru as desert covers its Pacific Ocean coast, where most of the population lives, and its Andean glaciers are melting because of climate change.


Just today the water issue led to a clash which left one dead and eighteen injured.  According to Reuters, "The country's human rights office said the skirmish occurred before dawn in the town of Espinar, 400 miles (650 km) south of Lima. Police fought with protesters who say the Majes-Siguas II irrigation project will leave Espinar without water, said Silvio Campana of the rights office, which tries to mediate conflicts. The man who died was a bystander.


 The following is from the Guardian.


"WE WILL HAVE NO WATER AND THAT WILL BE THE END OF THE WORLD FOR US"

A farmer walks with her son during a potato harvest in southern Peru. Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP

Julio Hanneco is possibly the world's greatest potato grower. Some call him the King of Potatoes, but I prefer Señor Spud because Julio is as humble as the vegetable he grows.

He lives in a small village called Pampa Corral, at 4,020m (nearly 13,000ft) in the Cusco region, and he grows a staggering 215 varieties of potatoes - red ones, black ones, translucent ones, shapes and sizes you cannot imagine. He can name every one, like his family, but his favourite is a fantastically knobbly variety called Melchora, which he told me was designed to test out future daughters-in-law. "If they can peel in one piece this potato, then a prospective bride is considered worthy to marry the grower's son."

I met Julio in Lima, showing off his spuds to wide-eyed urban foodies who were amazed by this one-man seed bank and store of local knowledge. They all knew that Peru was the home of the potato 8,000 years ago, but few had any idea the country grew 3,000 of the world's 5,000 varieties.

And I doubt if any had read John Reader's marvellous book the Propitious Esculent, which charts human development through the cultivation of the potato. It was central to the 19th century global population explosion, it shaped the American revolution, it starred in the Conquistadores' invasion of Latin America and is now the world's fourth largest staple crop and one of the most nutritious of all foods.

But the point is, folk like Julio and their extraordinary diversity of crops are critically endangered by the massive changes they observe taking place in the High Andes. When Julio was a boy, (he's now in his 50s) a glacier was just two minutes walk from his door. Now it is a nine-hour hike away.

"The seasons used to be very clear, we knew when to plant. Now we have less water. We used to get the water from the glacier. Now we have twice as many mosquitoes. We have no light from the glacier I don't understand what is going on. We feel very disoriented," he said. "I think that I will have no water and that will be the end of the world for us."

Peru is said to be the 56th richest country in the world, with 28 of the world's 35 climates and more than 70% of the tropical glaciers on earth. Most are in rapid retreat, leaving behind devastated farmers and communities short of water.

Julio invited us to his home, but we are in the hands of Oxfam and heading for another region far from the retreating glaciers but where climate change is impacting communities hard.