assassination
Assange: justice denied again as court declines to admit new evidence of US murder plots
Wikileaks founder will remain in Belmarsh prison while judges seek further meaningless ‘assurances’ from US
The High Court has this morning again denied justice to persecuted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Despite admitting that the US is denying Assange’s rights to free speech and is pursuing him in a way that it would not pursue one of its own citizens, judges have decided to keep Assange in Belmarsh prison while it asks for further ‘assurances’ that the US will not kill him – even though there has been longstanding evidence of US plans to murder him outside the US.
Shamefully, the court has also declined to admit fresh evidence of US plots to assassinate him, claiming that the evidence is irrelevant because the US’s incentive to murder Assange would not apply if it had him in custody, as Declassified UK has pointed out:
Incredibly, the High Court has refused to admit fresh evidence of CIA plots to kidnap or kill Julian Assange.
The judges say the rationale for kidnapping or killing Assange would be removed if he is extradited, and the evidence is thus not worth consideration.
Read that again. pic.twitter.com/PqwJIg4yAn— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 26, 2024
The extradition case should have been laughed out of court three years ago, when the main US witness admitted he had been lying all along in his claim that Assange induced him to hack US systems. Instead, Assange has been submitted to what former UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer described as sustained psychological torture – and still faces the likelihood of imprisonment for more than a century in US retaliation for Wikileaks exposing its war crimes in Iraq and as a deterrent to other journalists who might expose its crimes in future.
Shame on the UK and its travesty of justice and democracy. Free Julian Assange. Protect real journalism.
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Palestinian ambassador’s 7yo niece killed, left hanging from building by Israeli bomb
Eight of Husam Zomlot’s wife’s family murdered, including 7yo twins, in Rafah attack as Israel’s genocide continues. Starmer silent
Israel has murdered an entire family group of Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot, leaving the mutilated body of Sidra, the seven-year-old cousin of Zomlot’s wife hanging, mutilated, from the outside of a building after she was flung from her home by the force of the blast. Sidra’s twin sister Suzan, her baby brother and five other members of their family including their parents and grandparents were also murdered in Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians and its assault on Rafah in south Gaza, where it had told the Palestinian people to flee for safety.
Ambassador Zomlot announced the tragic news on his social media:
This is 7 year old Sidra, the cousin of my wife. The impact of the Israeli missile was so powerful it flung her out, leaving her mutilated body dangling from the ruins of the destroyed building in Rafah 48 hours ago. My wife’s aunt Suzan, her husband Fouzy Hassouna, two of their… pic.twitter.com/0RFgyPUdzu
— Husam Zomlot (@hzomlot) February 14, 2024
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and MP Andy McDonald, who was suspended by Keir Starmer for wishing for both Palestinians and Israelis to have peace, responded:
My dear Husam and family, i am shocked angry and appalled at your loss and the thousands more in this dusgusting onslaught on the Palestinian people. You do so much good to represent Palestine despite the terrible pain of such loss.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 14, 2024
Husam, I am so so sorry to read this truly appalling news.
This is beyond unbearable.
All the words have been said over and over again, yet still the killing of the innocents continues.
In the name of God and in all humanity, the killing has to stop now.— Andy McDonald MP (@AndyMcDonaldMP) February 14, 2024
‘Labour’ ‘leader’ Keir Starmer, who has supported Israel’s ‘right’ to commit war crimes but put out a far too late call for a ceasefire after learning that pro-Palestinian, Jewish former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein plans to stand against him in the next parliamentary election, has not commented as of the time of writing.
Neither has Starmer’s Shadow Home Secretary David Lammy, nor Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Skwawkbox offers heartfelt sympathy and solidarity to Husam Zomlot and his family.
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Al Jazeera news crew hit by Israeli missile as they reported on bombed South Gaza UN school
Wael Al-Dadouh’s family was killed in earlier Israeli airstrike targeting journalists’ homes
Al-Dahdouh receiving treatment after the missile strike
At least two Al Jazeera journalists have been hit by an Israeli missile as they reported on Israel’s overnight strike on a UN relief agency (UNRWA) school in southern Gaza that killed twelve people and seriously wounded at least twenty-five others. The victims were mainly women and children sheltering in the school after being driven from northern Gaza to the supposedly ‘safer’ south.
Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose family was killed in an earlier strike, was wounded but able to walk clear of the attack zone, while his cameraman was severely wounded and could not be reached by ambulances as the vehicles came under attack from Israeli forces. Al Jazeera showed footage of Mr Al-Dahdouh, bloodied and shaken, receiving treatment for shrapnel wounds:
Israel has been accused of targeting the homes and families of journalists and of Palestinian academics and artists, including poet and professor Refaat Alareer last week. The apartheid regime has also hit Al Ahli hospital in northern Gaza, which it bombed early in its genocidal assault killing more than five hundred people, with multiple strikes from drones and jets overnight.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least sixty-three journalists in Gaza have been killed by Israel since 7 October: fifty-six Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese, plus another fourteen missing and nineteen arrested, with more deaths reported but still to be confirmed. At least one more has been murdered in southern Lebanon and another lost her leg in a tank shelling.
Update: camera operator Samer Abu Daqqa has died of his wounds, the 64th journalist (some calculate 78th) confirmed murdered by the genocidal apartheid Israeli regime.
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Israeli government ‘ordered assassination’ of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer
Netanyahu cabinet approved murder of Palestinian poet who mocked discredited atrocity propaganda, says Tikkun Olam security site
The Netanyahu government officially approved the murder of Palestinian poet, academic and activist Refaat Alareer, according to a website known for its sources inside the Israeli security apparatus.
Tikkun Olam, a news site run by writer Richard Silverstein, whose title refers to a concept in Judaism of healing the world, has broken a string of firsts since its creation in 2003 – and it has this to say about the assassination of Prof Alareer, who had mocked Israel’s now thoroughly-discredited atrocity propaganda about the murder and dismemberment of babies during the 7 October Hamas kibbutz raid:
Israel ordered Refaat Alareer’s assassination after derided Israeli claim of babies burned in an oven as hoax. He was right, but died for it.
Refaat was a Palestinian poet and professor. It’s rare that countries assassinate poets. Not just murder them in wartime, but intentionally assassinate them…
But Refaat was an unusual combination of teacher and activist. He not only taught his students Palestinian poetry. He also taught them Hebrew poetry. For this, he was profiled in the New York Times: In Gaza, a Contentious Palestinian Professor Calmly Teaches Israeli Poetry. And the Times published an op-ed by him as well: My Child Asks, ‘Can Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?’
Unlike Israel’s educational system, which promotes a triumphalist ideological indoctrination, Alareer’s teaching of Hebrew poetry analyzed and appreciated the beauty of the language, but critiqued that ideology underpinning it. This clearly unnerved the Times editors, presumably pressured by one of alphabet soup of pro-Israel media watchdog groups (CAMERA, MEMRI, Honest Reporting, etc), and published a “correction” to the profile.
He responded to them (unfortunately they did not offer a full quotation of what he wrote):
…He denied that there was a “substantial change” in his teaching and said that showing parallels between Palestinians and Jews was his “ultimate goal.” But he said that Israel used literature as “a tool of colonialism and oppression” and that this raised “legitimate questions” about Mr. Amichai’s poem.
Apparently, this sort of social-political-ideological analysis of literature, a method taught at almost all educational institutions, troubled these editors. Instead, their correction implied he was a propagandist, rather than an academic professor…
I broke the story here about Israel’s security cabinet issuing the Amalek Directive to assassinate six senior Hamas leaders and their families. It also similarly targeted specific journalists and their families. The IDF has murdered 80 journalists suggesting that it is deliberately targeting them for execution. This is a war crime.
An Israeli security source confirms my suspicion that the cabinet ordered Refaat’s execution, because his joke marked him as being a member of the tribe of Amalek. An eternal enemy of the Jewish people. He was no such thing of course.
He was a poet, a teacher who loved literature. He was also a champion of his people. He was an implacable enemy of injustice. For that he died. Along with him, Israel killed his brother, sister and their four children. It knew it would them along with the intended target. But killing entire families is now the Israeli modus operandi...
Refaat was displaced multiple times during this war and ended up at his sister’s home along with his parents, wife and children. A few days ago, Refaat moved with his wife and children to an UNRWA school in al-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza according to his family.
However, a close friend of Refaat’s told Euro-Med Monitor that he had received an anonymous phone call from someone who identified himself as an Israeli officer and threatened Refaat that they knew precisely the school where he was located and were about to get to his location with the advancement of Israeli ground troops.
While the credibility of the threat itself is unclear, it contributed to prompting Refaat to move back to his sister’s apartment, believing it was more concealed than an open and overcrowded school where it would have been difficult to hide.
For weeks since the start of this war, Refaat has been receiving numerous death threats and hateful messages from Israeli accounts on social media after prominent public figures [Bari Weiss, among others] singled him out for harassment and incitement.
In 2014, Israel bombed Refaat’s home in Shejaiya and killed over 30 of his and his wife’s families.
Read the full story, including details of how Refaat Alareer was stalked, threatened and ultimately murdered, and details of how Silverstein’s attempts to spread the news on social media were censored, here.
Many if not most of the Israeli victims of the Hamas raid are now known to have been killed by Israeli forces as part of the so-called ‘Hannibal doctrine’. Despite the abundance of evidence, the UK and other western media continue to ignore it.
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