…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Bahrain to prosecute civil servants over protests
The Associated Press
Originally published Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 11:42 AM

Bahrain’s official news agency says dozens of civil servants will face “legal action” for participating in anti-government protests in the Gulf kingdom.

Bahrain’s official news agency says dozens of civil servants will face “legal action” for participating in anti-government protests in the Gulf kingdom.

The state-run Bahrain News Agency says 111 employees of the Education Ministry have been fired as part of a wide ranging crackdown on the Shiite opposition that staged street marches and strikes against the Sunni rulers calling for greater rights and freedoms.

Sunday’s report says the employees will be prosecuted for “flagrant violations” of the country’s civil service law. It also says the Teacher’s Union strike last month was politically motivated and aimed at “crippling schools.”

Bahrain imposed martial law March 15 to crush the Shiite-led uprising, detaining hundreds of protesters, political figures, doctors and activists. …source

Bahrain braced for new wave of repression
Foreign staff – guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 April 2011 21.05 BST

Arrests and troop movements signal another government crackdown on protests in the tiny Gulf state

Bahrain is braced for a fresh bout of violent repression as new arrests and the alleged death of a female student fuel sectarian tensions in the tiny Gulf state.

Armoured vehicles and security forces were reported to be gathering in the streets of the capital, Manama, and in surrounding suburbs and villages.

Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have been involved in violence against the opposition in the mainly Shia villages and suburbs around Manama. In a graphic eyewitness account of the repression given to the Observer, a Bahraini who has been caught up in the violence claimed that officers with Saudi accents, in plainclothes but armed with automatic weapons, had led attacks on members of the Shia opposition on several occasions over the past month.

When Saudi and UAE troops from the Gulf Peninsula Shield force entered the kingdom at the request of the government last month, it was said that they were there to guard strategic buildings and infrastructure. …more

[excerpt from article – Police State Terror in Bahrain – Contributed by Stephen Lendman] …source

On April 12, 19 human rights organizations condemned Bahraini state terror, their joint press release saying:

The undersigned “severely condemn the authorities’ crackdown on prominent human rights defenders….We are gravely concerned for (their) safety and well-being….”

“Human rights organizations estimate that over 600 individuals (including human rights activists and political opponents) remain in Bahraini prisons at high risk of torture and ill-treatment. It is a particularly alarming situation given that torture is a virtually systematic practice that has been used against activists increasingly since last year.”

In this context, we firmly believe that Bahrain’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council (should) be suspended….Furthermore, the undersigned organizations (condemn the) complicity and lack of political will from international actors, particularly the US and EU (for) turn(ing) a blind eye (to) massive and systematic human rights violations in this region of the world.” …full article

Signed:

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

Arab Organization for Human Rights, Syria

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Egypt

Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights

Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services, Egypt

Committees for the Defense of Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights, Syria

Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies

Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement

Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Egypt

Human Rights First Society, Saudi Arabia

Human Rights Organization in Syria, MAF

Iraqi Human Rights Association in Denmark

Kurdish Committee for Human Rights in Syria al-Rased

Kurdish Organization for the Defense of Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria, DAD

National Organization for Human Rights in Syria

New Woman Research Center, Egypt

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights

Yemeni Organization for Defending Rights and Democratic Freedoms

Other human rights groups, around 1,500 NGOs, and the International Trade Union Confederation (and its 301 affiliated members in 151 countries) also denounced Bahraini state terror.

Appealing to the international community, they called for those responsible to be held accountable. So far, daily crackdowns continue, Bahrainis still terrorized by US-backed militarized repression.

Obama Weighs Deployment Of Sternly Worded Letter To Bahrain,
By: Eli Friday April 15, 2011 6:01 pm

WASHINGTON, DC – Human-rights activists have become increasingly frustrated by the Obama Administration’s inaction as Bahrain’s crackdown against pro-democracy protests continues. In an apparent response to allegations of hypocrisy, the White House has revealed that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are considering sending a Sternly Worded Letter to the troubled Middle Eastern nation.

The deployment of a Sternly Worded Letter (or SWL) would be a very serious action, and some foreign policy experts fear that it could destabilize an already-delicate region even further. Adding to the uncertainty, it is not yet known whether the President would seek congressional or United Nations approval before taking action, and legal scholars are split on whether such approval would be necessary. Some believe that the 2003 AUMF grants him the necessary authority, others believe he needs a separate AUSWL, while still others believe that it is an inherent executive power. …more

Saudi protests against Bahrain invasion, repression
By Bill Van Auken
16 April 2011

Hundreds protested in Saudi Arabia Friday demanding an end to the Saudi occupation of Bahrain and the release of the dictatorial kingdom’s political prisoners.

It was the second day of mass protests, which have been concentrated in the predominantly Shiite eastern region of the country, the center of Saudi Arabia’s oilfields and refineries.

Friday’s demonstrations also saw protesters rally outside the interior ministry in Riyadh in support of individuals they referred to as the “forgotten political prisoners,” who in some cases have been imprisoned for as long as 16 years without charges or trials for daring to demand political rights.

The larger demonstrations took place in the eastern city of Qatif and nearby villages, where demonstrators marched through the streets carrying banners and candles to denounce the Saudi military’s intervention in neighboring Bahrain and to demand the release of over 100 people, including children, who have been arrested in the area during protests over the last month.

In the village of Awwamiya, near Qatif, scores of women demonstrated, chanting for the release of political prisoners and denouncing the regime’s suppression of women’s rights. The monarchy has rejected widespread demands that women be allowed to vote and run in municipal elections set for next September.

While massed security forces closed in on the demonstrators, there were no reported clashes.

“Bahrain, we will respond to your call,” the demonstrators chanted in solidarity with Bahrain’s predominantly Shia population, which is facing intense repression, with scores having been killed, at least 800 imprisoned, and several detainees tortured to death. The ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa monarchy has seized the only opposition newspaper and on Thursday moved to outlaw the largest political group in the country, Al Wefaq, together with another Shiite political formation.

(Reuters) – Bahrain has detained a human rights lawyer and at least two doctors as part of a crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in the Gulf Arab kingdom, campaigners said Saturday.

The Sunni-led state saw the worst sectarian clashes since the 1990s last month after mainly Shi’ite protestors, emboldened by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, took to the streets.

Manama imposed martial law and invited in troops from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni allies to keep order.

Security forces arrested lawyer Mohammed al-Tajer on Saturday, the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights and Wefaq, the biggest opposition party, said.

“Security forces stormed his home… (at) 2 a.m.,” the rights group said in a statement.

Tajer represented Hassan Mushaimaa, leader of the Bahraini opposition group Haq, who returned from exile in London in February and was arrested last month.

At least two doctors were also detained, said Wefaq politician Mattar Ibrahim Mattar.

Opposition activists have accused the government of trying to intimidate medical staff to discourage them from treating protestors.

“Two doctors were detained,” he said. “They arrested Mohammed al-Tajer to put fear also into lawyers.” …more

Health of Bahrain hunger striker slumps as regime comes under pressure
By Robert Booth The Guardian (UK) Thursday, Apr 14, 2011

Mother of Zainab al-Khawaja – a 27-year-old protesting against treatment of father – says she is struggling to stand up. Zaynab al-Khawaja – a Bahraini woman on hunger strike – is vomiting and unable to breastfeed her daughter, according to her mother. Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP

Britain and the EU have heaped diplomatic pressure on Bahrain over the alleged killing of pro-democracy activists in custody, while the health of a hunger striker protesting against the beating and arrest of her dissident father has deteriorated markedly.

In a meeting with interior minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, the British ambassador to Bahrain, Jamie Bowden, raised concerns over the deaths of four dissident prisoners in the last week. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, speaking through a spokesman also called on the Bahrain regime to immediately release all those who have been detained for peacefully expressing themselves. Ashton announced she is to visit Bahrain next week and her spokesman called on the authorities to “investigate all recent events which have resulted in loss of life and injuries”. …more

Bahrain’s athletes behind bars
Barack Obama has maintained a shameful silence about repression by a Gulf ally.
April 14, 2011 By Dave Zirin

A’ALA HUBAIL is a legend in the world of Bahraini soccer. In 2004, along with his brother Mohamed, he led the national team on a rollicking VCU-esque run into the Asian Cup semifinals. Hubail then became the first Bahraini player to win the prestigious Golden Boot Award after scoring five goals against the continent’s best team.

Now, the winner of the Golden Boot has gotten the boot–he was expelled from the national squad and arrested after news cameras caught him at an “anti-government” protest aimed at Bahrain’s royal family. His soccer-playing brother, who stood alongside him at a peaceful protest across from Bahrain’s shoot-first army and the imported armed forces of Saudi Arabia, was also sacked from the team and put in custody. Both brothers, along with two other players, were handcuffed and frog-marched off the practice field in front of shocked teammates. …more

Bahraini woman continues hunger strike even at the cost of her own life!
10-14 Nisan, 2011 | 12:10

After her father, a well-known human rights activist, being seized by masked soldiers, beaten unconscious and then taken into custody, a Bahraini woman has told to an english newspaper that she is willing and ready to die on hunger strike unless he is released from Bahranian prison.

Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, entered her fourth day without food inprotest at the violent arrest and following disappearance of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, 50, along with her husband and brother-in-law. The three arestees are known for their dissenting opinions on the ruling government in Bahrain.

Zainab, now in exile in Denmark, is taking only water, although she is breast-feeding her 18-month-old child, which causes her strength being sapped faster than she had expected. She says she will leave her with family members if she dies.

A group of a dozen masked and heavily armed soldiers from Bahrain’s special forces, stormed her apartment in Manama, capital of Bahrain in the early morning hours at Saturday. Her father had previously called for Bahrain’s king to face trial for murder, kidnappa-ing, torture and corruption.

“I am willing to go all the way,” she stated. “Either they come out or I will not eat.”
…more

Washington wrong to endorse suppression of democracy in Bahrain
By Husain Abdulla, March 18, 2011

It is shameful of the Obama administration to acquiesce in the brutalization of the people of Bahrain.

When peaceful protesters gathered in the country’s capital for weeks and demanded democracy, Washington continued to back the monarchy. When security forces and gangs sent out by the monarchy engaged in bloody attacks on demonstrators, Washington barely said a peep. And the day before Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain to help the Bahraini ruling family suppress the protests, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates actually visited Bahrain. The Saudis would not have made this incursion into their neighboring country if they had sensed that the Obama Administration, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, would disapprove.

Once the Saudis invaded, the State Department urged only that they show “restraint.” That’s not the usual way the United States responds to foreign invasions. The Obama administration won’t even call it an invasion, for some reason.

Meanwhile, appalling repression continues in Bahrain. …more

by Marian Wang — ProPublica, April 12, 2011, 9:52 a.m

“No leniency.” That was the warning from Bahrain’s crown prince last week as government forces continued cracking down on protesters, activists, journalists and doctors. It was issued alongside yet another promise of reform by the Bahraini government.

The warning was also met with silence from the United States. The U.S., which has long considered Bahrain a key ally in the region, condemned the violence in mid-March, and two weeks later noted that arresting bloggers “doesn’t help” promote an inclusive national dialogue.

But so far this month—as reports of increasing intimidation, censorship and brutality emerge—the U.S. doesn’t seem to have had a public response. In one of the State Department’s last statements, spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on March 22, “Our position towards Bahrain is crystal clear. We’re going to continue to work with the Bahraini Government.”

We called the State Department to ask why the violence in Bahrain hadn’t been broached in recent press briefings. “We respond to reporters’ questions,” a State Department spokesman told me, noting that “there’s a lot going on throughout the entire Middle East.”

Human rights groups have reported that at least 26 people [6] have been killed since the Bahraini government declared martial law in mid-March. At least three activists have also died in police custody. More than 400 have been detained and dozens are missing.
…more

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The Gulf nation of Bahrain is intensifying its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. On Saturday, masked police offers broke into the home of Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, a prominent Bahraini human rights activist. He was beaten and detained. We speak to his daughter, Zainab Alkhawaja, who witnessed the attack and is now on a hunger strike. Her husband and brother-in-law were also beaten and arrested in the pre-dawn raid. We also speak to Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. He is facing a possible military trial for publishing the photograph of Ali Sager, a protester who died while in Bahraini custody. …source Democracy Now

The Pentagon and murder in Bahrain
by Nick Turse*

U.S. Defense Departments documents, scrutinized by TomDispatch, reveal that as far back as the 1990s the United States has been supplying vast quantities of military equipment to Bahraini security forces, which have currently unleashed a bloody repression against thousands of peaceful demonstrators demanding an end to the corrupt Al-Khalifa dynasty.

The men walking down the street looked ordinary enough. Ordinary, at least, for these days of tumult and protest in the Middle East. They wore sneakers and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts. Some waved the national flag. Many held their hands up high. Some flashed peace signs. A number were chanting, “Peaceful, peaceful.”

Up ahead, video footage shows, armored personnel carriers sat in the street waiting. In a deadly raid the previous day, security forces had cleared pro-democracy protesters from the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain’s capital, Manama. This evening, the men were headed back to make their voices heard.

The unmistakable crack-crack-crack of gunfire then erupted, and most of the men scattered. Most, but not all. Video footage shows three who never made it off the blacktop. One in an aqua shirt and dark track pants was unmistakably shot in the head. In the time it takes for the camera to pan from his body to the armored vehicles and back, he’s visibly lost a large amount of blood.

Human Rights Watch would later report that Redha Bu Hameed died of a gunshot wound to the head. …more

Shenaz Kermalli

HAVANA TIMES, April 8 (IPS) — Salmaniya Medical Complex, once one of the most renowned medical facilities in the Gulf and a jewel in the crown of Bahrain’s public healthcare system, has been transformed into a virtual ghost town.

Its gates and front entrance are barricaded with checkpoints and masked military officers, armed with rifles. Its emergency room, once the busiest in the country, is empty.

And, according to eyewitness reports collected by Human Rights Watch, hospital staff say security and military forces have sought out and threatened, beaten and detained patients with protest-related injuries.

These patients are then systematically segregated from the rest of the patient population and transferred to the sixth floor, where they are virtually inaccessible to anyone, including family.

“There are more military officers in the hospital than patients,” says Faraz Sanei, a Human Rights Watch observer who has recently been inside Salmaniya. “It is not a normal environment or safe haven for patients. Patients and staff have told us there’s a security lockdown and doctors from there are very frightened to speak.

“The fact that it’s empty means there’s not much of an inflow of patients going in. People don’t want to go there because they’re afraid,” he adds. …more

U.S.-Backed Bloodshed Stains Bahrain’s Arab Spring
By Amy Goodman

Three days after Hosni Mubarak resigned as the long-standing dictator in Egypt, people in the small Gulf state of Bahrain took to the streets, marching to their version of Tahrir, Pearl Square, in the capital city of Manama. Bahrain has been ruled by the same family, the House of Khalifa, since the 1780s—more than 220 years. Bahrainis were not demanding an end to the monarchy, but for more representation in their government.

One month into the uprising, Saudi Arabia sent military and police forces over the 16-mile causeway that connects the Saudi mainland to Bahrain, an island. Since then, the protesters, the press and human-rights organizations have suffered increasingly violent repression.

One courageous young Bahraini pro-democracy activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, has seen the brutality up close. To her horror, she watched her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent human-rights activist, be beaten and arrested. She described it to me from Manama:

“Security forces attacked my home. They came in without prior warning. They broke down the building door, and they broke down our apartment door, and instantly attacked my father, without giving him a chance to speak and without giving any reason for his arrest. They dragged my father down the stairs and started beating him in front of me. They beat him until he was unconscious. The last thing I heard my father say was that he couldn’t breathe. When I tried to intervene, when I tried to tell them, ‘Please to stop beating him. He will go with you voluntarily. You don’t need to beat him this way,’ they told me to shut up, basically, and they grabbed me … and dragged me up the stairs back into the apartment. By the time I had gotten out of the room again, the only trace of my father was his blood on the stairs.” …more

By David Walsh
13 April 2011

The regime of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Bahrain, which the Obama administration backs to the hilt, is continuing its violent repression of political opposition. The Khalifa regime imposed a state of emergency, after its security forces, backed by troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, violently cleared protesters from Pearl Square in Manama, the kingdom’s capital, on March 16.

More than 400 people have been arrested, including human rights activists, doctors, bloggers and oppositionists. Twenty-seven political opponents and protesters are officially reported dead and dozens are missing. A leading newspaper has been shut down and its editors and reporters threatened with imprisonment.

Two Shiite activists have been murdered in prison, according to human rights organizations and the families of the victims. The Bahraini interior ministry claimed that Ali Issa Saqer, 31, died when guards tried to restrain him for “causing chaos.” According to news reports, however, Saqer’s corpse showed telltale signs of torture and abuse. …more

By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Apr 13, 2011 (IPS) – If President Barack Obama wanted to place Washington “on the right side of history” during the ongoing “Arab Spring”, his reaction to recent events in Bahrain will likely make that far more difficult, according to a growing number of analysts and commentators here.

While his administration has become ever more outspoken against repression in Syria and Yemen – not to mention Libya, where Obama has called for regime change – it has remained remarkably restrained about the escalating crackdown by the Sunni monarchy against the majority Shia population and prominent pro-democracy figures.

The strongest criticism in weeks came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday night at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum here when she appealed for a “political process that advances the rights and aspirations of all the citizens of Bahrain” and asserted that “security alone cannot resolve the challenges” facing the government.

More than two dozen people have been killed by security forces since the government declared martial law Mar. 15, while more than 400 others have been arrested or are otherwise unaccounted for, according to international rights groups. Three detainees have died in custody, at least one apparently from “horrific abuse”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday.

Last weekend, HRW accused the regime of creating a “climate of fear”, particularly in Shia neighbourhoods and villages where night-time raids appear designed mainly to instil terror among the mostly poor residents. …more

“But a closer study of the origin, history and tendency of governments, convinced me that this was a mistake; I came to understand how organized governments used their concentrated power to retard progress by their ever-ready means of silencing the voice of discontent if raised in vigorous protest against the machinations of the scheming few, who always did, always will and always must rule in the councils of nations where majority rule is recognized as the only means of adjusting the affairs of the people. I came to understand that such concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.

I will state this contention in another way: I learned by close study that it made no difference what fair promises a political party, out of power might make to the people in order to secure their confidence, when once securely established in control of the affairs of society that they were after all but human with all the human attributes of the politician. Among these are: First, to remain in power at all hazards; if not individually, then those holding essentially the same views as the administration must be kept in control. Second, in order to keep in power, it is necessary to build up a powerful machine; one strong enough to crush all opposition and silence all vigorous murmurs of discontent, or the party machine might be smashed and the party thereby lose control. ”

Lucy Parsons – The Principles of Anarchy – 1905

Bahrain: Saudi Forces at Forefront of Brutal Repression
by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, April 10, 2011

Bahraini man Ahmed Farhan was shot in the head by Saudi soldiers as he lay fatally wounded on the ground. He was singled out for the brutal killing simply because he was carrying the Bahraini national flag in his car, witnesses say.

Thirty-year-old Ahmed had the misfortune of going to refuel his car at a petrol station on the outskirts of his hometown, Sitra, when it came under attack from heavily armed troops belonging to the Bahraini Defence Force and Saudi army. The soldiers, backed by armoured cars and tanks, were firing live rounds and raiding homes in the mainly Shia town in northeastern Bahrain – military operations that have become a daily event here in towns and villages across Bahrain.

“There were other customers at the petrol station, but the soldiers noticed that Ahmed had a Bahraini flag in his car,” recalled a close friend.
Because of this, they saw him as a protester against the regime. They shot him first with shotguns while he was sitting in the car. Ahmed got out of the car and tried to run away, but the soldiers fired at him and hit him in the head. Then as he lay on the ground bleeding, a Saudi soldier walked up to him and shot Ahmed in the head with a high-velocity weapon.”

His friend continued: “They were wearing masks but they were Saudi soldiers because we could tell from their uniforms and their accents.”

This was only 24 hours after thousands of troops from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states arrived in Bahrain as part of the Peninsula Shield task force on March 14. The Bahraini government headed by King Hamad Al Khalifa declared then that it had called on neighbouring states to help it “restore order and stability” after four weeks of massive pro-democracy, and mainly peaceful, protests were threatening to topple the US-backed Sunni rulers.

When Ahmed’s remains were viewed later in the morgue his body showed the signs of point-blank shooting. His back was riddled with shotgun wounds and when the morticians turned his body over, the back of his skull flopped open revealing a bloody mess and a gaping hole where the brain used to be. A surgeon said helplessly: “We could do nothing to save him.”

Nearly four weeks after the arrival of the Peninsula Shield forces, the military crackdown against Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement appears to be intensifying, with Saudi troops at the forefront of the assault on mainly Shia villages and districts within the capital, Manama. Some 31 people have been killed since the uprising began on February 14, two-thirds of them since the Saudi-led forces entered the country, according to the Bahrain Centre of Human Rights. More than 20 persons remain missing. The latest victim was named yesterday as Ali Essa Sager (31), from Sihlaa, who died in detention, believed to have been tortured. Over 600 people, including politicians, doctors and lawyers, are reported to be unlawfully detained in unknown conditions – the vast majority having been arrested since the Saudi forces came to Bahrain. …more

TEPCO Director Weeps After Disclosing Truth About Fukushima Disaster
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/18/2011 14:13 -0400

The Daily Mail has released a dramatic picture showing the emotional exhaustion of TEPCO managing director Akoi Komiri who is openly weeping as he leaves a conference to brief journalists on the true situation at Fukushima, following his acknowledgment that the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens. “A senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis. He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: ‘The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.” This is precisely as Zero Hedge had expected would happen all along, following our recurring allegations of a massive cover up by the Japanese government. And furthermore as we predicted a week ago when we said that continued government lies and subversions would make the situation untenable once the population loses faith in the government, this is precisely what has happened. …more main article

Omaha Two story: An explanation

The Omaha Two are Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice). Both men are imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln where they are serving life sentences for the August 17, 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha police officer.

Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa deny any involvement in the death of patrolman Larry Minard, Sr. Minard, a 29 year-old father of five young children, was killed instantly when he handled a booby-trapped suitcase in a vacant house.

Minard had been lured with seven other officers to the vacant house on Ohio Street in Omaha by a false 911 emergency call reporting a woman screaming at the residence. Police immediately suspected the local Black Panther chapter, called the National Committee to Combat Fascism, of the crime and focused their attention on the Panthers.

Poindexter was Chairman of the chapter and Mondo was the Minister of Information. Both men had been targets of COINTELPRO, an illegal counter-intelligence operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover had been personally monitoring the COINTELPRO actions against Black Panther chapters across the United States. In December 1969 Hoover chastised the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha office, Paul Young, for not getting the Panther leadership off the streets. …more

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

On the evening of May 13, 2008, Jenny Synan waited for a phone call from her husband, Daniel McGowan. An inmate at Sandstone, a federal prison in Minnesota, McGowan was serving a seven-year sentence for participating in two ecologically motivated arsons. It was their second wedding anniversary, their first with him behind bars. So far his incarceration hadn’t stopped him from calling her daily or surprising her with gifts for her birthday, Valentine’s Day and Christmas. But Jenny never got a call from Daniel that night—or the next day, or the next.

It was only days later that Jenny heard from a friend that Daniel was in transit, his destination Marion, Illinois. She quickly researched Marion and learned that it housed both a minimum- and a medium-security facility. Daniel, however, was classified as a low-security prisoner, a designation between minimum and medium. Even though he had a perfect record at Sandstone and had been recommended for a transfer to a prison closer to home, Jenny still didn’t think it was likely that Daniel would be stepped down to minimum security. But it made no sense that he would be moved up to medium security.

By May 16 the inmate locator on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) website showed Daniel in a variety of places, including a federal correctional facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. After speaking with several people at the BOP, Sandstone and Terre Haute to no avail, Jenny e-mailed friends, “This is seriously like pulling fucking teeth.”

Finally on June 12, one month after their missed call, Daniel telephoned Jenny. He was still in transit and had only a few moments to speak. He was definitely going to Marion, where he heard he would be housed in something called a Communications Management Unit (CMU). He had no idea why he was being transferred. He simply had been told he was moving, given thirty minutes to pack and thrown into “the hole” until he was moved. All he knew was that the CMUs were supposedly run out of Washington and placed severe restrictions on phone calls, mail and visits. He was anxious about his new placement and asked Jenny to find out all she could about Marion. …more

Statement re the Nuclear and Earthquake Disaster Unfolding in Japan

The Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) is deeply concerned for the health and safety of the people affected by the earthquakes and tsunamis that have struck Japan over the last two days. We are particularly concerned for the people in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, including workers who are trying to minimize the scope of the disaster.

Unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is in a state of meltdown. A nuclear disaster which the promoters of nuclear power in Japan said wouldn’t happen is in progress. It is occurring as a result of an earthquake that they said would not happen.

This could and should have been predicted. It was predicted by scientists and NGOs such as CNIC. We warned that Japan’s nuclear power plants could be subjected to much stronger earthquakes and much bigger tsunamis than they were designed to withstand.

Besides the question about how this accident will unfold, the big question now is, will the government and the nuclear industry acknowledge its mistakes and change track?

Last December the Japanese government began a review of its nuclear energy policy. The review was commenced in the spirit of essentially confirming the existing policy. That approach is no longer viable. The direction of the policy review must be completely reversed. It must be redirected towards developing a policy of phasing out nuclear energy as smoothly and swiftly as possible.

Philip White
International Liaison Officer
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Phone: 81-3-3357-3800 (office)

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