human rights violation
Carbon Trading is Making a Killing and Destroying the Environment
Press Release: Carbon Markets Violate Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Threaten Cultural Survival
“Indigenous Peoples are being forced to sign over their territories for REDD to the Gangsters of the Century, carbon traders, who are invading the world’s remaining forests that exist thanks to the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples,” denounced Marlon Santi, President of the CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, one of the most powerful native organizations in the world. “Our forests are spaces for life not carbon markets.”
Indigenous leader kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to surrender carbon rights for REDD in Papua New Guinea
New York, USA — As carbon traders hawk permits to pollute at the Second Annual Carbon Trading Summit, Indigenous Peoples denounced that selling the sky not only corrupts the sacred but also destroys the climate, violates human rights and threatens cultural survival.
“Carbon trading and carbon offsets are a crime against humanity and Creation,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network. “The sky is sacred. This carbon market insanity privatizes the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source.”
Fascistic Danish Police Force Threatens to Shoot Activists!
The policing of COP15 has been totalitarian and democratic rights routinely suspended: no one is considered innocent until proven guilty, but simply arrested “preventatively”. Close to two thousand – 968 in one swoop – were arrested without committing any offence and been left to sit for hours in a freezing cold street, in their own piss and shit, with plastic strips around their bleeding wrists. Some, including delegates, have been severely beaten.
There have been riots in the animal cage prisons (illegal according to Amnesty) and some spokespeople have been arrested and will be charged with – so far all taking place behind closed doors! – the intentions to be violent against the police and for the intentions to incite riots. In part based on phone tapping of interviews with journalists and alleged illegal tapping of Greenpeace. This is what democracy looks like! The police has since admitted that they “only performed two illegal acts of surveillance of phones, nothing more” and Johan Martini Reimann, Director of Copenhagen Police, in order to calm the waters with an unwitting irony, ensures the public that “they have not operated in a manner differently from normal“. Nice to know that the Danish Police routine breaks the law – and as usual revealing to hear what total disregard for the rule of law that this institution has!
In other words, the rule of law no longer rules (did it ever?) the little rotten Duck Pond. There has been world wide reporting of the fascistic policing measures (see for instance: “Copenhagen: the sound of silence: Denmark’s reputation is being destroyed by police action outside the summit and the gagging of NGOs and poor nations inside“), which, of course, does not really surprise those familiar with the Danish police force and political system. Chavez has interestingly stated that Denmark is more repressive than Venezuela.
In connection with a funny, rather innocent, yet cheeky and coordinated Greenpeace action last night in front of and inside the Danish Parliament – Christiansborg – the Chief Inspector of Copenhagen Police, Per Larsen (currently accused of covering up a terrorist act for political gain) , now severely threaten people. First he states that such an action is “as stupid as anything can be. When you do that kind of thing, you are going to pay for it. And that bill is being prepared now“:
That’s not enough for Per Larsen, however, who also threatens to shoot activists. He says that “the risk is present if anyone feels threatened. When you do such a thing you expose yourself to risks”:
»Den risiko er også til stede, hvis nogen havde følt sig truet. Når man gør den slags, så udgør man da en risiko for sig selv«, siger Per Larsen.
As we have seen throughout COP15 the Danish police do whatever they can, whatever the want, with whatever means necessary to repress protests and to intimidate and scare people from participating in saving the world from corrupt politicians and greeedy corporate pigs, but this is the first time that they directly threaten to shoot people. (Of course they have infamously shot at protesters in Copenhagen before – in 1993 when 113 rounds were fired at an anti-EU demonstration. Denmark just is like that!)
Obviously poor little Per Larsen is upset that the Greenpeace activists took the piss out of him and his imbecile force and now he wants revenge and speaks like a little boy who has had his toy taken away.
While activists climbed lamp posts etc. in front of the parliament building, three others, dressed in appropriate galla fashion entered the fine dinner where the Danish Queen were receiving the “leaders” of states for some pompous food and drink. The exact same style of action was carried out a week earlier in Brussels. EDIT: The four Greenpeace activists have still not been released, causing the Spanish state to “help” one of them, namely the Spanish head of Greenpeace, Juan Lopéz de Uralde.
All bets are off now, all targets – by any means necessary – are legitimate, it seems.
»Der er ikke andre tilfælde i nogle andre sager om anholdelser af klimaaktivister, hvor aflytninger er underkendt«, siger Carsten
Killings in the Amazon: Peruvian protests even more violently repressed
colonos is reproducing here a text by Ben Powless on rabble.ca, including the “INTERNATIONAL DENUCIATION of President Alan García Pérez of Peru and his admistration” by the COORDINATING BODY OF ANDEAN INDIGENOUS ORGANZIACIONES – CAOI.
We have received various notices from people in the Amazon reporting about 10 – 40 indigenous protesters having been shot dead.
Here goes:
50 days of protest and one massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
I’m writing this right now from Peru after having taken part in a 5 day Indigenous Peoples Summit held in Puno, Peru in the high Andes. Read the rest of this entry »
Tarnac 9 and Anti-terrorism: it “positively produces the political enemy as terrorist”
The following interview was published in Le Monde on 25 May 2009 and translated by NOT BORED! 27 May 2009. It also appears in the Tarnac9 blog, and here, as well as in this tag collection. Spread the word!
LeMonde | 5.25.09 – Here are the responses to the questions that we [Isabelle Mandraud and Caroline Monnot] posed in writing to Julien Coupat. Placed under investigation on 15 November 2008 for “terrorism,” along with eight other people interrogated in Tarnac (Correze) and Paris, he is suspected of having sabotaged the suspended electrical cables of the SNCF. He is the last one still incarcerated. (He has asked that certain words be in italics.)
Q. How are you spending your time?
A. Very well, thank you. Chin-ups, jogging and reading.
Q. Can you recall the circumstances of your arrest for us?
A. A gang of youths, hooded and armed to the teeth, broke into our house. They threatened us, handcuffed us, and took us away, after having broken everything to pieces. They first took us into very fast cars capable of moving at more than 170 kilometers an hour on the highways. In their conversations, the name of a certain Mr Marion (former leader of the anti-terrorist police) came up often. His virile exploits amused them very much, such as the time he slapped one of his colleagues in the face, in good spirits and at a going-away party. They sequestered us for four days in one of their “people’s prisons,” where they stunned us with questions in which absurdity competed with obscenity.
The one who seemed to be the brains of the operation vaguely excused himself from this circus by explaining that it was the fault of the “services,” the higher-ups, all kinds of people who want [to talk to] us very much. Today, my kidnappers are still free. Certain recent and diverse facts attest to the fact that they continue to rage with total impunity.
Q. The sabotage of the SNCF cables in France was claimed [by someone] in Germany. What do you say about that?
Read the rest of this entry »
Peru Sends in Army to Suppress Peaceful Indigenous Protests
colonos is reproducing here an Amazon Watch news release. Our comment: no news there.
Date: May 19, 2009
Source: Amazon Watch
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2009
Media Contacts:
USA – Gregor MacLennan (415) 395-6734 gregor AT amazonwatch.org
PERU – Edson Rosales +511 99-787-6616, +511 265-5011 comunicaciones AT aidesep.org.pe
Oil Production Interrupted as Peru Sends in Army to Suppress Peaceful Indigenous Protests
Dozens Injured in Government Attacks on Protesters
Video footage, photos, interviews available upon request
LIMA, Peru, May 19, 2009— Yesterday, on the 40th day of sustained protests by Peru’s indigenous peoples, the state oil company Petroperu, announced it had shut down the country’s main oil pipeline. On Saturday, the Garcia Government authorized the intervention of the armed forces to crack down on peaceful protests that have swept the Amazon region.
Coca-Cola India Foundation & Shashi Tharoor: Greenwashing at its best!
The long-running and hard working campaign against the extreme behaviour of the Coca-Cola Company – the makers of soft drinks synonymous with The American Empire (which, of course, included trading with Nazi Germany, just like the Bush family and IBM, Ford etc.) – by the India Resource Center, has written an open letter to the celebrity writer, diplomat and capitalist Shashi Tharoor.
He is the perfect “cute”, intellectual poster boy for the celebrity-industrial complex, who after failing to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations (“he came a close second“), has become a figurehead of Coke’s greenwashing front, called the Coca-Cola India Foundation. Poster-boy responds, showing for all to see just how corporate the UN world and all the rest of those claiming to represent the people (who pay for their extravagant life styles) are:
Mining Action Alert
Action Alert: Ask the Ecuadorian Government to Protect Human Rights During Upcoming Anti-Mining Demonstrations
The Ecuador Solidarity Network, an organization based in Canada and the United States, is joining human rights and indigenous peoples organizations in calling on President Rafael Correa to respect human rights during nation wide protests against large-scale mining that will begin on Monday January 19th.
The protests will spread from the Amazon and reach Quito, Ecuador’s capital, on January 20th. Anti-mining protests earlier this month were met with police violence in the Southern provinces of Azuay, Loja, Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago. A number of activists were beaten and detained, and one leader was critically injured after being shot in the head.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and a number of farmer and environmental organizations are protesting against the recent approval of a mining law by Congress, opening the country to large-scale metal mining. Canadian mining companies would benefit from many of the concessions. The CONAIE and other organizations contend that the new law will allow large-scale mining in protected areas and contaminate critical community water supplies. The CONAIE is also protesting against government plans to drill for oil in the Yasuni National Park, the rainforest home of two indigenous communities in voluntary isolation.
Following recent statements from the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the Ecuador Solidarity Network calls on activists around the world to support the human rights of protesters demonstrating against large-scale metal mining in Ecuador. The CONAIE emphasizes that the demonstrations will be peaceful and calls on President Correa to not use police or military forces against protesters.
E-mail President Rafael Correa and President of Congress Fernando Cordero and ask that the government take preventative action to ensure that protesters’ human rights are respected. We also denounce any attempt by right-wing organizations in the U.S. or Canada to opportunistically use the upcoming mobilizations to attack President Correa for motives that have nothing to do with indigenous rights or environmental protection.
Please send emails to:
Presidencia de la República, Presidente Rafael Correa:
presidencia @ presidencia . gov . ec
Presidencia Legislativa, Presidente de la Comision Legislativa y de Fiscalizacion, Fernando Cordero Cueva:
presidencia @ asambleaconstituyente . gov . ec
Please send a carbon copy of the messages to
ecuadorsolidarity @ gmail . com
Media Contacts:
Ecuador: Jennifer Moore, Ecuador Solidarity Network (593) 8-877-8928 / jenmoore0901 @ gmail . com
Canada: Jamie Kneen, Mining Watch (613) 761-2273
Jatun Sacha Foundation and Bioprivateering: Dodgy Business as Usual
As a curious reader of the blog stats is has once again been brought to my attention that there is widespread interest for information about the Jatun Sacha Foundation’s involvement in what is sometimes wrongly called biopiracy. There was never anything privately owned in the first place, as was the case when pirates liberated goods from the capitalist (slave) ships, hence bioprivateering is more to the point.
Colonos have previously posted about Jatun Sacha twice (1/2) and when looking in the stats today I noticed that quite a few people were clicking on the external link to see some proofs of the allegations. So I thought I’d save people some clicking and reading and excavate with a bit of gimping some of the relevant paragraphs of the Rafi Communique, September-October 1995 for all to easily see:
from:
Biopiracy Update: A Global Pandemic
Download PDF (2 MB) – about 348 seconds on a 56k modem
Cases from Thailand, Gabon, Ecuador, and Peru
RAFI is now called www.etcgroup.org
Student and staff arrested at University of Nottingham: Abusing the Terrorism Act of 2000
CONSIDER THIS. A fine example of the distortion of the rule of law that the Terrorism Act of 2000 is. It provides the opportunity to switch of due process and being innocent until proven guilty – moreover, and the important catalyst here, it encourages mis- and uninformed people to call the authorities on their neighbour. Boy Cry wolf, where do we go from here? Like climate change processes operate through positive feedback loops, so do law and culture. Two people have probably just been radicalised – and thousands give them their support. As the leaders of the world creep further and deeper into the ir castles their guns and laws are all the more loud. A downward spiral for profit.
Dear Friends,
I’m writing to call your attention to a recent incident at the University of Nottingham, where one of our graduate students at the School of Politics and International Relations and an administrative member of staff at the Department of Engineering were arrested by armed police under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
Their alleged “crime” was that the graduate student had downloaded an Al-Qaeda training manual from a US government website for research purposes, as he’s writing his MA dissertation on Islamic extremism and international terrorist networks. He had then sent this to his friend in the Department of Engineering for printing. The printed material had been spotted by other staff and reported to the University authorities who passed on the information to the police.
The two were then arrested by armed police on May 14 and held for six days without charge, before being released without charge on May 20. During the six days they were imprisoned, the men had their homes raided and their families harassed by the police. It is worth noticing that in talking to one of my colleagues, a police officer remarked that the incident would never have occurred if the people involved had been blonde, Swedish PhD students (the two men were of British-Pakistani and Algerian backgrounds respectively).
The incident was recently reported in the Times Higher Education Supplement online:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402125&c=2
Needless to say, this raises hugely important issues both about academic freedom and civil liberties. Obviously, there is the issue that for those of us involved in research on contentious issues we will by necessity have to consult primary materials of a controversial nature, and the fact that the material is controversial should not lead to it being deemed as illegitimate research material. Moreover, we should not under any circumstances have to fear for infringements upon our civil liberties as a consequence of doing our jobs. Moreover, it goes without saying that the university should guarantee the academic freedom, freedom of speech and expression, and civil liberties of all members of staff and students, irrespective of ethnic and religious background or political beliefs!
I would be most grateful if you could circulate this e-mail as widely as possible in the interest of raising awareness and attention about this incident and the wider issues of academic freedom that it gives rise to, to as many of your friends and colleagues as possible!
Please consider writing to the University of Nottingham to express your concern about this case. Letters should be sent to the Registrar, Dr Paul Greatrix, at registrars@nottingham.ac.uk; please send a copy to alf.nilsen@nottingham.ac.uk.
Regards
Dr. Alf Gunvald Nilsen
RCUK Fellow, Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/index.php
University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England, UK
Office: (0044) (0) 1159514032
Are humans collectively intelligent? Rejecting the ecofascist label.
Some “consultant” – whatever that consultation may be – takes note that environmental celebrity and Leonardo DiCaprio chum, David Suzuki, thinks that letting the world turn into a baking hot desert with sulphuric rain is a crime demanding punishment:
“As reported by a University of Toronto student newspaper, Suzuki stated that government leaders who aren’t acting quickly enough to save the environment “should go to jail for what they’re not doing right now … What our government is not doing is a criminal act.”“
Here one might ask if not it ought to be the ultimate crime to destroy the planet? What could possible be a worse crime against humanity, against civilization, against all life?
However, the consultant, God knows who he’s been consulting?, “thinks” that this is a fascist action:
“This bit of eco-fascism was no mere slip of the tongue. A few weeks later at McGill University, Suzuki again equated government inaction on the environment with a criminal act and again was reported to have told students to find a legal way to throw politicians in jail for ignoring climate-change science.
It is worth keeping in mind that Suzuki is a geneticist turned broadcaster and not an expert on climate change. He apparently is no expert on the fundamental tenants of living in a democracy either.“
The consultant, obviously an expert on democracy, in other words, is of the opinion that fiddling while Rome burns is a democratic – right or privilege?
What exactly is it that renders the socalled elected representatives beyond jurisdiction? Why does Kissinger get the Nobel Peace Prize and not life in prison?
Miembros del Centro de Medios Independientes: Arrestados en Ecuador!
Four independent media activists from Indymedia-Ecuador have been arrested without charges, making the reason for arrest obviously political – and (as such) in violation of human rights and of article 24(4) of the Ecuadorian constitution. It is an attack on the freedom of speech in Ecuador – as in so many other places in the new world order and permanent global state of exception. Spread the word, show your support and keep struggling for human rights and the freedom to speak your mind!
====================
COMUNICADO DE PRENSA
Ecuador. Francisco de Orellana, 07 de mayo del 2008. (hora: 11:50)
REMITIMOS COMUNICADO DE PRENSA.
Quito /Ecuador / INREDH
Comunicadores independientes víctimas de arresto arbitrario. El día martes 6 de mayo de 2008, entre las 10 y las 12 de la noche, fueron arrestados los comunicadores sociales Carlos Andrade, Santiago Cadena, Diana Cabascango y Francisco Jaramillo. miembros del Centro de Medios Independientes Indymedia-Ecuador.
El fiscal del caso, Doctor Francisco Noboa, encabezó el operativo de allanamiento a los domicilios y captura. Dicho fiscal se negó a informar al abogado de los detenidos sobre las razones de su detención, no quiso informar cual era el juez que conocía la causa, no mostró la orden de detención, ni la de allanamiento.
Esta actuación es violatoria al artículo 24(4) de la Constitución, el cual señala: Toda persona, al ser detenida, tendrá derecho a conocer en forma clara las razones de su detención, la identidad de la autoridad que la ordenó, la de los agentes que la llevan a cabo y la de los responsables del respectivo interrogatorio.
Por esta razón, el INREDH presentará una denuncia en contra del agente fiscal mencionado. El personal de la Policía Judicial no permitió que los detenidos se entrevisten con su abogado, por lo cual se configura una situación de incomunicación, por lo que el INREDH denunciará ante asuntos internos de la Policía Judicial esta falta para que se impongan sanciones a los policías responsables.
Estos hechos configuran una detención por conciencia, es decir una detención cuyo móvil es político. Las actividades comunicacionales de los detenidos eran de constante crítica al sistema constituido y de denuncia por los atropellos del poder a los derechos de las personas. Los bienes incautados de sus domicilios fueron computadoras, documentos de trabajo y afiches alusivos a su tendencia política.
Este arresto arbitrario esta siendo denunciado ante organismos internacionales como Amnistía Internacional, la Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos, la Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura y la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.
Exigimos que se frene la incomunicación de los detenidos, que se señalen las causas de su detención, que se sancionen al Agente Fiscal y a los oficiales de la Policía Judicial por la violación de los derechos
humanos de los detenidos y que si los supuestos legales no se cumplen se los deje en inmediata libertad.
Pedimos a la opinión pública que se mantenga vigilante de estos hechos que parecen configurar un ataque a la libertad de expresión en nuestro país.
Más información: Comunicación INREDH
Amanda Trujillo: 2526365 / 088994039
Ana Cristina Vera: 096200423
