Monthly Archives: December 2012

Hundreds Of Indigenous Women And Girls Were Murdered In Canada

Posted on by

By Farooque Chowdhury, Countercurrents.org

30 October, 2012

Hundreds of indigenous women and girls were murdered in Canada . To many, it’s a baffling fact.

Recently, there were proposals in the UK parliament to expand the use of secret court hearings in civil cases.

In Greece , migrants and asylum seekers are being hounded by police and right-wing extremists.

These are only a few bitter, and unbelievable to a section in broader society, facts related to human rights in the advanced capitalist world. These facts are difficult to swallow to the section that trusts moral standing of state.

Hard facts related to human rights in these advanced capitalist democratic countries accompany human rights situation in Iraq and Pakistan , countries in the fringe of the world system, but part of the system. In one of these countries, democracy, considering it as a simple commodity, has been exported/imported or is being constructed.

A dirty picture overwhelms human perception. It’s a picture of asserting power, imposing authority, calculus of competition, internal power game, failure to resolve conflicting demands, subjugation, and silencing souls dissenting. Continue reading →

Philippines: Revolutionary forces making gains in Mindanao

Posted on by

A victorious decade of People’s War in Mindanao

Jorge Madlos (Ka Oris), Spokesperson, NDF-Mindanao

December 26, 2012Together with all revolutionaries and the the people of Mindanao and the entire nation, the NDFP-Mindanao wishes to express its warmest congratulations and highest tribute to the Communist Party of the Philippines (MLM) on the 44th anniversary of its re-establishment. Through the Party’s leadership, the National Democratic Revolution has advanced to its current phase despite the relentless counterrevolutionary attacks of US imperialism and the local ruling class. We also proudly salute all our revolutionary martyrs who have heroically offered their lives for the revolution. Continue reading →

Update on Tracking Police Murders: Every 36 Hours a Black Person is Murdered by the Law Enforcement

Posted on by
This episode of  Critical Insight we were joined by Kali Akuno of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement to discuss their 2012 report detailing the fact that every 36 hours (at least) a Black person is extra-judiciously executed by “Law Enforcement” within the United States. Please watch this episode to to hear Mr. Akuno discuss the more recent developments regarding this report, how the corporate media has tried to marginalize it, and what you can do to help make a positive impact. Your support is needed.

Sources:  Critical Insight, Navigating the Storm

India tea workers burn boss to death in Assam state

Posted on by
27 December 2012By Subir Bhaumik, BBC News,  Calcutta

Assam tea garden [Half of India’s tea output comes from Assam’s 800-odd tea estates]

Hundreds of tea plantation workers have set alight their boss’s bungalow in north-east India, burning to death the owner and his wife, officials say.

Angry workers surrounded the bungalow at Kunapathar in Assam state late on Wednesday, following a two-week long dispute with the management.

Police said the incident happened after the management asked some workers to leave their accommodation.

More than half of India’s tea output comes from 800 tea estates in Assam.

Local official SS Meenakshi Sundaram said some 700 tea garden workers surrounded the manager’s bungalow on Wednesday evening and set it on fire. Two vehicles belonging to the manager were also torched. Continue reading →

Six charged with murder in India gang rape after woman dies

Posted on by
India gang rape: Indians light candles as they mourn the death of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi, Saturday. IMAGE
by Ashok Sharma, Associated Press, 29 December, 2012

NEW DELHI — Indian police have charged six men with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang raped a woman on a New Delhi bus two weeks ago in a case that shocked the country.

The murder charges were laid Saturday, hours after the woman died in a Singapore hospital, where she had been flown for treatment.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India for greater protection for women from sexual violence, and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from reporting it to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Police often refuse to accept complaints from those who are courageous enough to report the rapes, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts drag on for years. Continue reading →

Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

Posted on by

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

, guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 December 2012
Occupy Oakland clashes

[Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP]

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens. Continue reading →

Rape As Weapon of Domination: The Clout of Caste And Class in India

Posted on by

By Ershad Abubacker,  Countercurrents.org, 27 December, 2012

More often than not, Arundhati Roy speaks unwelcome truths, truths that essentially do not go down well with the elite class. And hence she always gets dubbed as outspoken and is being criticized for that. She was recently in the headlines for speaking out against Indian rape culture in the back drop the gang rape at New Delhi and the mass protests that drew attention all over.

She recently noted that India lives simultaneously in several centuries. While nearly 10 Indian industrialists make it to the first 50 in the Forbes World Richest Men List, the capital of India is dubbed as ‘The Rape Capital’ and is a combination of incredibly crowded, ill-smelling slums; wide modern roads and elegant villas; the extremely poor and wretched; the fabulously wealthy and super-indulgent, and yet unable to protect its women traveling in buses. Speaking to Channel 4 on the recent gang rape of a 23-year old women in a running bus in Delhi, she asks critical questions on how and why and could this case be an exceptional crime demanding widespread protests; something which was uncommon in many prior instances of violence against women mete out by the Upper Class, Police and Armed Forces.

There is no doubt, the cruelty of the gang rape in a running bus at New Delhi is brutal and the culprits should be given maximum punishment in a model way. Our thoughts and prayers must be there with the girl who had her whole life tormented within a night’s bus journey.

Having said that, the present case does not stand vindictively different from the many of the rape cases registered earlier in Delhi . So what makes it a flare point for youngsters to protest at India Gate daring to defy the water cannons of Delhi police? Continue reading →