-- The best way to end the war is to support war resisters. "War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Monday
OH CANADA!!!
Friday
CONSCIENTOUS OBJECTORS NEED SUPPORT!!!
co-alert
conscientious objectors need our support
TKM14708-070907
War Resisters' International, London, 7 September 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Conscientious objector Begench Shakhmuradov to be tried on 10 September
Amnesty International reports that conscientious objector Begench Shakhmuradov, a Jehovah's Witness, is to be tried for refusing to serve in the army on 10 September 2007. Begench Shakhmuradov was called up for military service in May 2007, and was deemed fit for military service, although he suffers from tuberculosis which he contracted while serving a prison sentence in 2005 for "evasion of call-up for military service" (see co-alert, 18/02/2005). He had been sentenced to one year imprisonment on 10 February 2005.
Following a presidential decree, Begench Shakhmuradov and three other imprisoned conscientious objectors were released on 16 April 2005, allegedly to avoid that Turkmenistan to be classified as a "country of particular concern" under the USA's International Religious Freedom Act.
The new trial is part of a new wave of arrests and prosecutions of conscientious objectors in Turkmenistan (see co-update, September 2007), and gives reason for grave concerns. Many of the conscientious objectors recently (re-)arrested already served prison sentences for the refusal to serve in the military.
Turkmenistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The right to conscientious objection is derived from Article 18 of the Covenant, and has recently been clarified by the UN Human Rights Committee, in a decision on two individual complaints from South Korea (see co-update, February 2007). This also applies to Turkmenistan.
War Resisters' International calls for the protest letters to the Turkmen authorities, and Turkmen embassies abroad. Kurbanguly BERDYMUHAMMEDOV President of Turkmenistan Apparat Prezidenta 744000 Ashgabat TURKMENISTAN Fax: +993 12 355112
Rashid Meredov Minister of Foreign Affairs Magtymkuli ave., 85 744000 Ashgabat Email mfatm@online.tm A protest email can be sent at http://wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20070907a.html.
War Resisters' International calls for the immediate release of Begench Shakhmuradov and all other imprisoned conscientious objectors.
Andreas Speck War Resisters' International
Archives of co-alert can be found at http://wri-irg.org/news/alerts
Support War Resisters' International! Donate today!
Online: http://wri-irg.org/en/donate-en.htm
Help WRI to support conscientious objectors! Send your donation:
• online by credit or debit card (in GBP, Euro, or US Dollar) at http://wri-irg.org/en/donate-en.htm;
• by cheque in GBP, Euros, or US$, payable to WRI
• by giro transfer to War Resisters' International
• in Euros to Bank of Ireland, IBAN IE91 BOFI 9000 9240 41 35 47, SWIFT/BIC BOFIIE2D
• in GBP to Unity Trust Bank, IBAN GB11 CPBK 0800 5150 07 32 10, SWIFT CPBKGB22
conscientious objectors need our support
TKM14708-070907
War Resisters' International, London, 7 September 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Conscientious objector Begench Shakhmuradov to be tried on 10 September
Amnesty International reports that conscientious objector Begench Shakhmuradov, a Jehovah's Witness, is to be tried for refusing to serve in the army on 10 September 2007. Begench Shakhmuradov was called up for military service in May 2007, and was deemed fit for military service, although he suffers from tuberculosis which he contracted while serving a prison sentence in 2005 for "evasion of call-up for military service" (see co-alert, 18/02/2005). He had been sentenced to one year imprisonment on 10 February 2005.
Following a presidential decree, Begench Shakhmuradov and three other imprisoned conscientious objectors were released on 16 April 2005, allegedly to avoid that Turkmenistan to be classified as a "country of particular concern" under the USA's International Religious Freedom Act.
The new trial is part of a new wave of arrests and prosecutions of conscientious objectors in Turkmenistan (see co-update, September 2007), and gives reason for grave concerns. Many of the conscientious objectors recently (re-)arrested already served prison sentences for the refusal to serve in the military.
Turkmenistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The right to conscientious objection is derived from Article 18 of the Covenant, and has recently been clarified by the UN Human Rights Committee, in a decision on two individual complaints from South Korea (see co-update, February 2007). This also applies to Turkmenistan.
War Resisters' International calls for the protest letters to the Turkmen authorities, and Turkmen embassies abroad. Kurbanguly BERDYMUHAMMEDOV President of Turkmenistan Apparat Prezidenta 744000 Ashgabat TURKMENISTAN Fax: +993 12 355112
Rashid Meredov Minister of Foreign Affairs Magtymkuli ave., 85 744000 Ashgabat Email mfatm@online.tm A protest email can be sent at http://wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20070907a.html.
War Resisters' International calls for the immediate release of Begench Shakhmuradov and all other imprisoned conscientious objectors.
Andreas Speck War Resisters' International
Archives of co-alert can be found at http://wri-irg.org/news/alerts
Support War Resisters' International! Donate today!
Online: http://wri-irg.org/en/donate-en.htm
Help WRI to support conscientious objectors! Send your donation:
• online by credit or debit card (in GBP, Euro, or US Dollar) at http://wri-irg.org/en/donate-en.htm;
• by cheque in GBP, Euros, or US$, payable to WRI
• by giro transfer to War Resisters' International
• in Euros to Bank of Ireland, IBAN IE91 BOFI 9000 9240 41 35 47, SWIFT/BIC BOFIIE2D
• in GBP to Unity Trust Bank, IBAN GB11 CPBK 0800 5150 07 32 10, SWIFT CPBKGB22
Tuesday
That driver's license will soon be your national I.D.- affect on Immigrant civilians
Promise of ID Cards Is Followed by Peril
of Arrest for Illegal Immigrants
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: July 23, 2007
NEW HAVEN — Under his family’s homemade shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Alan Flores, 8, spoke softly about the morning last month when federal immigration agents entered his home.
It was part of a raid that has complicated, but not defeated, this city’s novel plan to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows.
The agents separated the children from the men. They placed Alan and three cousins, ages 7, 2 and 1, in a row on the living room couch. Then they asked the women, including Teresa Vara-Gonzalez, a housemate, if any of the children were theirs.
“Teresa said no, and that’s when they took her,” Alan said in Spanish last week, pressing closer to his mother, Norma Sedeño. “They took away Teresa, and my father and my two uncles. And then I got scared that they were going to come back and take away my mom.”
Those taken from Alan’s household were among the 32 immigrants arrested in the New Haven area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and scattered to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, in an operation that began June 6 and ended June 11.
The operation started two days after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved the plan to offer municipal identification cards to all residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants settled in this city of 125,000.
But as the city prepares to issue the first municipal cards tomorrow, 28 of the 32 are home on bond — a rare outcome that underscores how the arrests galvanized community protest, bail money and legal help.
And while the operation made many illegal immigrants more fearful of applying for the Elm City Resident Card, as the New Haven identification card is called, Ms. Vara-Gonzalez, 32, a waitress, said the risks are now outweighed by the benefits: a valid photo ID that she could use in daily life and that could help her open a bank account. “For us who have already been arrested,” she added, “we have nothing to lose.”
New Haven’s mayor, John DeStefano Jr., remains convinced that the operation was retaliation for the card initiative, he said in an interview Thursday. Despite denials by Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that charge has been central to the unusual legal arguments raised by Yale University law students and professors who are working with the immigrants to challenge the arrests. The debate casts a spotlight on tactics used in raids around the country as municipalities grapple with immigration issues that have defied Congressional consensus.
During the raid, one man was up in a cherry picker when immigration agents called him down, waving a photo of someone else, and arrested him when he could not produce immigration papers, the lawyers said.
In some cases, they said, agents who found no one home at an address specified in a deportation order simply knocked on other doors until one opened, pushed their way in, and arrested residents rousted from bed when they acknowledged that they lacked legal status. Of the 32 arrested, most of whom are Mexican, only five had outstanding deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
Many immigrants do not know that they have a right to remain silent, or to deny agents entry to their homes without a search warrant, said Michael Wishnie, a Yale law professor directing the legal challenge. Immigration statutes give government wide latitude to question people, he said, but the law requires agents to have a valid reason for suspicion, not one based on an illegal motive like racial or ethnic profiling.
In this case, Professor Wishnie contended, the overall motive for the operation was unconstitutional retaliation for New Haven’s card program. The evidence collected from the arrests, he said, is therefore “the fruit of an illegal act” and should be thrown out.
In a letter to Connecticut’s Congressional delegation, which sharply questioned the timing and conduct of the operation, Mr. Chertoff defended what his agency calls Operation Return to Sender, a national enforcement effort to reduce a backlog of more than 632,000 “fugitive aliens.” He insisted that in New Haven the agents “at no time” entered a dwelling without consent.
Professor Wishnie said, however, that Mr. Chertoff wrote that agents had waited with an 11-year-old girl for her father to come home from work. A child cannot give legal consent for entry, Professor Wishnie said.
The conflict has also energized opponents of the city ID card. On Friday, an immigration control group based in the suburbs of New Haven, Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, demanded a list of applicants under Freedom of Information laws and vowed to sue for it, fanning fears among illegal immigrants that if they sign up, they could become the targets of future raids.
“Everytown U.S.A. has got their eyeballs fixed on this,” said Sean McMurray, a demolition foreman in the group. “I don’t want to see innocent people hurt, but I’m talking security for the legal residents of this country.”
On the other side, John Jairo Lugo, director of Unidad Latina en Acción, an immigrant self-help group in New Haven, also said towns across the country are watching.
“This was to make New Haven a model city in the United States,” Mr. Lugo said of the card, which is meant to be useful to all New Haven residents by combining access to city pools, libraries, the municipal golf course and the dump, and doubling as a debit card for parking meters. “Maybe that’s one of the prices you pay: the raids happened, people got detained. But the rest of the community came together. It’s a symbolic lesson: You cannot fight for the immigrants alone.”
In interviews last week with seven of those arrested, the fear remained palpable.
Alan Flores’s father, Apolinar Flores Romero, a pizza maker, said that in the first days after his release, he was afraid to leave the house.
Florente Baranda, another man, said he is haunted by his detention: “They had us with chains on our feet in Hartford, 23 or 24 people in this tiny room.” Mr. Baranda, 32, has lived in New Haven since 1998, packaging bread at a bakery from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. for $11 an hour. He and his wife have two children and, like many of those arrested, attend St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, which played a major role in raising bail.
“I’m nervous taking my kids to the park,” Mr. Baranda said at Junta, an immigrant organization that helped feed families when the raid left them without breadwinners.
A Yale law intern, Stella Burch, tried to reassure Mr. Baranda. Now that he is in deportation proceedings and out on $15,000 bond, she explained, “No one can arrest you for immigration issues, and we’re going to fight with you to win your case — St. Rose, Junta, the law school.”
The lawyers are still working for the release of Ivania Sotelo, 48, a Nicaraguan woman who was one of the few arrested on an outstanding deportation order. Her son, Jerry Sarmiento, 14, a United States citizen and the chess champion of his school, said her early-morning arrest left him in shock.
“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said. “But I started crying right in the middle of the seventh-and-eighth-grade morning circle.”
His mother is in the county jail in Portland, Me. “It’s a horrible place,” said Jerry, who was able to visit only once. “They’re all in orange and she’s right next to the drug addicts and murderers, and I don’t know why.”
Others had no families to call when they were bused in shackles to a private prison in Rhode Island. “I felt like I could disappear,” José Yangua, 27, a landscaper, said through a translator.
Ms. Burch had called jails in three states to find Mr. Yangua and his brother Edinson, who was also arrested. She collected handwritten testimonials from their landlord and bosses to win their release on bail.
Their landlord, Michael Quoka, wrote that the brothers were “solid members of the community” who studied English at night and paid the rent on time.
Most of the cases will probably take years to resolve. But just 18 days in jail has turned José Yangua’s life upside down. Immigration authorities confiscated all his identity documents, he said, including his valid Michigan driver’s license and the bank card he needs for access to his savings.
A municipal card, he said, may now be his best chance to prove his identity.
Please Come!
July 27-29, 2007 National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference,
University of Richmond School of Law
Richmond, VA
http://www.2007conference.net
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990
Please consider making a donation to the important work of National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Send check pay to:
National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ
and mail to:
ActionLA/The Peace Center
8124 West 3rd Street, Suite 104
Los Angeles, California 90048
(All donations are tax deductible)
*to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail to: isn-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn
*a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn-digest
Please join our following listservs:
Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv, send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/api-la
NYC Immigrant Alert!: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas immigrant workers information and alerts, send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert
US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support Immigrant Rights! send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/
of Arrest for Illegal Immigrants
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: July 23, 2007
NEW HAVEN — Under his family’s homemade shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Alan Flores, 8, spoke softly about the morning last month when federal immigration agents entered his home.
It was part of a raid that has complicated, but not defeated, this city’s novel plan to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows.
The agents separated the children from the men. They placed Alan and three cousins, ages 7, 2 and 1, in a row on the living room couch. Then they asked the women, including Teresa Vara-Gonzalez, a housemate, if any of the children were theirs.
“Teresa said no, and that’s when they took her,” Alan said in Spanish last week, pressing closer to his mother, Norma Sedeño. “They took away Teresa, and my father and my two uncles. And then I got scared that they were going to come back and take away my mom.”
Those taken from Alan’s household were among the 32 immigrants arrested in the New Haven area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and scattered to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, in an operation that began June 6 and ended June 11.
The operation started two days after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved the plan to offer municipal identification cards to all residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants settled in this city of 125,000.
But as the city prepares to issue the first municipal cards tomorrow, 28 of the 32 are home on bond — a rare outcome that underscores how the arrests galvanized community protest, bail money and legal help.
And while the operation made many illegal immigrants more fearful of applying for the Elm City Resident Card, as the New Haven identification card is called, Ms. Vara-Gonzalez, 32, a waitress, said the risks are now outweighed by the benefits: a valid photo ID that she could use in daily life and that could help her open a bank account. “For us who have already been arrested,” she added, “we have nothing to lose.”
New Haven’s mayor, John DeStefano Jr., remains convinced that the operation was retaliation for the card initiative, he said in an interview Thursday. Despite denials by Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that charge has been central to the unusual legal arguments raised by Yale University law students and professors who are working with the immigrants to challenge the arrests. The debate casts a spotlight on tactics used in raids around the country as municipalities grapple with immigration issues that have defied Congressional consensus.
During the raid, one man was up in a cherry picker when immigration agents called him down, waving a photo of someone else, and arrested him when he could not produce immigration papers, the lawyers said.
In some cases, they said, agents who found no one home at an address specified in a deportation order simply knocked on other doors until one opened, pushed their way in, and arrested residents rousted from bed when they acknowledged that they lacked legal status. Of the 32 arrested, most of whom are Mexican, only five had outstanding deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
Many immigrants do not know that they have a right to remain silent, or to deny agents entry to their homes without a search warrant, said Michael Wishnie, a Yale law professor directing the legal challenge. Immigration statutes give government wide latitude to question people, he said, but the law requires agents to have a valid reason for suspicion, not one based on an illegal motive like racial or ethnic profiling.
In this case, Professor Wishnie contended, the overall motive for the operation was unconstitutional retaliation for New Haven’s card program. The evidence collected from the arrests, he said, is therefore “the fruit of an illegal act” and should be thrown out.
In a letter to Connecticut’s Congressional delegation, which sharply questioned the timing and conduct of the operation, Mr. Chertoff defended what his agency calls Operation Return to Sender, a national enforcement effort to reduce a backlog of more than 632,000 “fugitive aliens.” He insisted that in New Haven the agents “at no time” entered a dwelling without consent.
Professor Wishnie said, however, that Mr. Chertoff wrote that agents had waited with an 11-year-old girl for her father to come home from work. A child cannot give legal consent for entry, Professor Wishnie said.
The conflict has also energized opponents of the city ID card. On Friday, an immigration control group based in the suburbs of New Haven, Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, demanded a list of applicants under Freedom of Information laws and vowed to sue for it, fanning fears among illegal immigrants that if they sign up, they could become the targets of future raids.
“Everytown U.S.A. has got their eyeballs fixed on this,” said Sean McMurray, a demolition foreman in the group. “I don’t want to see innocent people hurt, but I’m talking security for the legal residents of this country.”
On the other side, John Jairo Lugo, director of Unidad Latina en Acción, an immigrant self-help group in New Haven, also said towns across the country are watching.
“This was to make New Haven a model city in the United States,” Mr. Lugo said of the card, which is meant to be useful to all New Haven residents by combining access to city pools, libraries, the municipal golf course and the dump, and doubling as a debit card for parking meters. “Maybe that’s one of the prices you pay: the raids happened, people got detained. But the rest of the community came together. It’s a symbolic lesson: You cannot fight for the immigrants alone.”
In interviews last week with seven of those arrested, the fear remained palpable.
Alan Flores’s father, Apolinar Flores Romero, a pizza maker, said that in the first days after his release, he was afraid to leave the house.
Florente Baranda, another man, said he is haunted by his detention: “They had us with chains on our feet in Hartford, 23 or 24 people in this tiny room.” Mr. Baranda, 32, has lived in New Haven since 1998, packaging bread at a bakery from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. for $11 an hour. He and his wife have two children and, like many of those arrested, attend St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, which played a major role in raising bail.
“I’m nervous taking my kids to the park,” Mr. Baranda said at Junta, an immigrant organization that helped feed families when the raid left them without breadwinners.
A Yale law intern, Stella Burch, tried to reassure Mr. Baranda. Now that he is in deportation proceedings and out on $15,000 bond, she explained, “No one can arrest you for immigration issues, and we’re going to fight with you to win your case — St. Rose, Junta, the law school.”
The lawyers are still working for the release of Ivania Sotelo, 48, a Nicaraguan woman who was one of the few arrested on an outstanding deportation order. Her son, Jerry Sarmiento, 14, a United States citizen and the chess champion of his school, said her early-morning arrest left him in shock.
“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said. “But I started crying right in the middle of the seventh-and-eighth-grade morning circle.”
His mother is in the county jail in Portland, Me. “It’s a horrible place,” said Jerry, who was able to visit only once. “They’re all in orange and she’s right next to the drug addicts and murderers, and I don’t know why.”
Others had no families to call when they were bused in shackles to a private prison in Rhode Island. “I felt like I could disappear,” José Yangua, 27, a landscaper, said through a translator.
Ms. Burch had called jails in three states to find Mr. Yangua and his brother Edinson, who was also arrested. She collected handwritten testimonials from their landlord and bosses to win their release on bail.
Their landlord, Michael Quoka, wrote that the brothers were “solid members of the community” who studied English at night and paid the rent on time.
Most of the cases will probably take years to resolve. But just 18 days in jail has turned José Yangua’s life upside down. Immigration authorities confiscated all his identity documents, he said, including his valid Michigan driver’s license and the bank card he needs for access to his savings.
A municipal card, he said, may now be his best chance to prove his identity.
Please Come!
July 27-29, 2007 National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference,
University of Richmond School of Law
Richmond, VA
http://www.2007conference.net
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990
Please consider making a donation to the important work of National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Send check pay to:
National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ
and mail to:
ActionLA/The Peace Center
8124 West 3rd Street, Suite 104
Los Angeles, California 90048
(All donations are tax deductible)
*to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail to: isn-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn
*a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn-digest
Please join our following listservs:
Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv, send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/api-la
NYC Immigrant Alert!: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas immigrant workers information and alerts, send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert
US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support Immigrant Rights! send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/
看不出
  Invisibility is the best advantage. But if forced to a confrontation, Come out with all your skill.There was once roadside vendor who sold rheumatism formulas to the passersby. He was a cheery old man who was faithfully at his spot for years. One day a young bully begin to harass the vendor. The old man tried very heard to avoid the confrontation, but eventually the bully because convinced that he had a coward to abuse as he pleased. When the moment of attack came, the old man defeated him with superior boxing skills. Significantly, the old man was never seen again. He had manifested his superiority at a critical moment, but once he had exposed himself, he disappeared. In this competitive world, it is best to be invisible. Go through life without showing off, attracting attention to yourself, or making flamboyant gestures. These will only attract the hostility of others. The wise accomplish all that they want without amusing the envy or scorn of others. They make achievements only for the sake of fulfilling their inner yearnings. Yet it is inevitable that you will have to prove yourself at one time or another. When that is necessary, then you must marshal all your skills and do your very best. Prove yourself when it is demanded, and when you must prove yourself, be superior. At that moment, it is no time to talk of philosophy and humility. Act. Do. Then fade back into invisibility. invisibility from the book 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao ISBN: 0.06.250223.9 "Bufous Boofose Golly" © 2007 lisbethwest hiding behind the elizabeth ann kibben memorial garden for a short reading list of Taoist and Zen material, please go to http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html (duckdaotsu receives a small monetary contribution when books are purchased from that location) PayPal at http://preview.tinyurl.com/yxv6xa to subscribe to daily Taoist meditations send an email to duckdaotsu write SUBSCRIBE TAO in the subject line  archived at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/july07/invisibility.html if you receive the text-only version, click here to see the full color!   Please consider the environmentbefore printing this web page |
Monday
I'd Leave Now, But Who Would Be Here To Stand Up For YOU?
Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky | |
Global Research, July 20, 2007 | |
The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of whoever opposes the US led war. A presidential Executive Order issued on July 17th, repeals with the stroke of a pen the right to dissent and to oppose the Pentagon's military agenda in Iraq. The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of "certain persons" who oppose the US led war in Iraq:
In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act. The Executive Order also targets those "Certain Persons" who are "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction", or who, again in plain English, are opposed to the confiscation and privatization of Iraq's oil resources, on behalf of the Anglo-American oil giants. Moreover, those persons or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), who provide bona fide humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians, and who are not approved by the US Military or its lackeys in the US sponsored Iraqi puppet government are also liable to have their financial assets confiscated. The executive order violates the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution. It repeals one of the fundamental tenets of US democracy, which is the right to free expression and dissent. The order has not been the object of discussion in the US Congress. Sofar, it has not been addressed by the US antiwar movement, in terms of a formal statement. Broader implications The criminalization of the State is when the sitting President and Vice President use and abuse their authority through executive orders, presidential directives or otherwise to define "who are the criminals" when in fact they they are the criminals. The war criminals in high office are intent upon repressing all forms of dissent which question the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. In May 2007, Bush issued a major presidential National Security Directive (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20), which would suspend constitutional government and instate broad dictatorial powers under martial law in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency" (e.g. Second 9/11 terrorist attack). On July 11, 2007 the CIA published its "National Intelligence Estimate" which pointed to an imminent Al Qaeda attack on America, a second 9/11 which, according to the terms of NSPD 51, would immediately be followed by the suspension of constitutional government and the instatement of martial law under the authority of the president and the vice-president. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran? June 2007) NSPD 51 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. It allows the sitting president to declare a “national emergency” without Congressional approval. The implementation of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.
ANNEX TEXT OF THE EXECUTIVE ORDER July 17, 2007 Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order: Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, (i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of: (A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or (B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people; (ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order. (b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited. (b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited. Sec. 3. For purposes of this order: (a) the term "person" means an individual or entity; (b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and (c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States. Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order. Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order. Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken. Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order. Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person. GEORGE W. BUSH THE WHITE HOUSE, July 17, 2007. [There has been no response by the US congress or commentary by individual Senators or Representatives.] Office of the Press Secretary July 17, 2007 Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act White House News Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. I issued this order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. In these previous Executive Orders, I ordered various measures to address the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in that country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq. My new order takes additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315 by blocking the property and interests in property of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. The order further authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to designate for blocking those persons determined to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person designated pursuant to this order, or to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order. I delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, the authority to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of my order. I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued. GEORGE W. BUSH The White House, July 17, 2007. Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s "War on Terrorism" Second Edition, Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization | |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)