The Justice Ministry has received complaints of severe police violence against demonstrators, including the use of Taser electroshock weapons, beating and kicking bound detainees, racist verbal abuse and sexual harassment of female detainees.

The complaints were filed to the ministry’s department for investigation of police officers by the Adalah advocacy group two weeks ago, after a demonstration in support of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners outside the prison clinic in Ramle.

According to Adalah’s letter to the police investigation department, after most of the demonstrators had left, about 30 of them formed a protest vigil near one of the prison gates and police commandos at the site attacked them with extreme violence and arrested eight of them.

A few of the remaining activists came to the Ramle prison station to wait for their colleagues’ release and started singing. One of them, Dorit Argo, wrote in a personal statement to the department that police commandos attacked them in a frenzy of violence and beat them up, using tasers on them, kicking and swearing.

«A policeman shouted at me that I’m a whore and if I open my mouth he would smash my face. I said he was threatening me and he kicked me, pulled my hair and threw me to the floor of the room the men were held in. Some of them were in a locked cell and others were on the floor. Two of the men were bound and blindfolded. A cop tasered all those on the floor. I managed to avoid direct contact with the taser but felt the electric shock. None of the detainees resisted, even slightly. The cop threatened that if he hears us talking he will taser us again … Throughout the evening cops and officers mocked our names, our dress and our appearance,» she wrote.

An officer named «Shimon,» who didn’t like one of the women’s reply to his derisive comments, pinned her to a wall, pointed his taser at her and threatened to use it unless she sits quietly, Argo said.

Another detainee, Eden Dror, wrote in his statement, «We heard the women shouting. A few bound youngsters were brought into the room, some screaming with pain. The first one I saw was Jihad – he was cuffed and a commando behind him pushed him and choked him with a tape. The others’ feet were bound bent on the floor and the policemen punched and kicked them. As they screamed in pain the policeman shouted ‘dumb Arabs, die,’ and I heard the sound of tasers being used on the prisoners lying tied up on the floor. Shimon spat in a detainee’s face, tasered him and shouted ‘you’re a hero, want to be a shahid (martyr )?’»

The policemen sexually harassed the female Arab detainees, calling them «whores» and saying «I’ll f— you» and «I’ll smash your face up,» Adalah attorney Orna Cohen wrote to the department.

Two other female detainees and a man who happened to be at the police station and witnessed the policemen’s violent behavior also attached statements to the complaint.

A police spokeswoman told Haaretz that due to the severe suspicions rising from the complaint the police passed it on to the Justice Ministry department.

Israeli NGO: Police beat handcuffed detainees in Palestinian solidarity protest

]]> http://www.ikkevold.no/2012/05/israeli-ngo-police-beat-handcuffed-detainees-in-palestinian-solidarity-protest/feed/ 0 http://www.ikkevold.no/2012/05/urgent-action-three-tamil-nadu-protestors-face-arrest/ http://www.ikkevold.no/2012/05/urgent-action-three-tamil-nadu-protestors-face-arrest/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 07:40:35 +0000 johansen.jorgen http://www.ikkevold.no/?p=2868

At least three leaders of an anti-nuclear group in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are facing the threat of arrest, though more than 330 protestors ended their hunger strike on 15 May following a call from a former high court chief judge.

The peaceful protestors, including more than 300 women, went on hunger strike on 1 May at coastal Idinthakarai village as part of their protest against the commissioning of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant project. The state police issued orders prohibiting the protests and surrounded the village, as if about to arrest the protestors.

The three leaders, teacher Dr S P Udayakumar, former Jesuit priest Pushparayan and Jesuit priest My. Pa. Jesurajan, told Amnesty International that even as the hunger strike was on, the police continued to charge the protestors with offences including «sedition» (crimes against the state), «waging war against the state», «conspiracy» and «rioting with lethal weapons». If convicted, they could face life imprisonment. Police also charged the three leaders and four other protestors with having abused, assaulted and attempted to murder two Idinthakarai villagers for refusing to join the protests. Over 180 protestors were arrested in March, and all were released within a month except for two men, Mukilan and Satish.

The former chief justice of the Chennai high court, Justice A P Shah, led a public hearing at Chennai into the claims of at least 180 protestors that they had faced false charges, including «sedition» and «waging war against the State», and called for dialogue between the state authorities and the protestors on 14 May. The protestors ended their hunger strike after this. The judge also assured the protestors that he would take up the issue of filing of false charges with the National Human Rights Commission.

An Amnesty International researcher visited Idinthakarai and nearby coastal villages on 15 and 16 May, and found that hundreds of protestors were still defying the police orders prohibiting more than four people to gather within seven km of the project site, and were still assembling at the hunger strike venue. However, the police were not moving into the villages, and allowed visitors in.

Please write immediately in English or your own language:
* Calling on the authorities not to arrest the three protest leaders, and drop any false charges against them;
* Urging them to release the two peaceful protestors – Mukilan and Satish – currently in detention;

* Calling on them to immediately respect the protestors’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly in accordance with India ’s obligations under international law.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 28 JUNE 2012 TO:

Prime Minister
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
South Block, Raisina Hill
New Delhi 110 00, India
Fax: +91 11 2301 7931
Email: Through website:

http://pmindia.nic.in/feedback.php

Salutation: Dear Prime Minister

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
Ms.J. Jayalalitha
Fort St George
Chennai 600 009
India
Email: cmcell@tn.gov.in
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister

Solidarity messages may be sent to:
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy
Dr S. P. Udayakumar
Idinthakarai PO 627104
Tamil Nadu
India

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation

Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. This is the fifth update of UA 367/11. Further information: http://amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA20/020/2012/en

URGENT ACTION
three tamil nadu protestors face arrest

Additional Information
The People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy has been leading the protests against the commissioning of the nuclear power plant since July 2011. Kudankulam’s neighbouring villages were hit by the tsunami that struck South and South-East Asia in December 2004, and local residents are fearful of a radioactive leak if such a disaster strikes again. According to Dr Udayakumar, the expert panel established by the Indian authorities to conduct a safety assessment for the project failed to respond satisfactorily to several site and safety concerns raised by an independent group of experts.

Names: Dr S P Udayakumar, Pushparayan; My. Pa. Jesurajan

We are aware that the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) has unleashed a powerful campaign to dissuade you, and consequently dissuade the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) from moving forward with their well-considered divestment campaign.

As Jewish leaders, we believe the JCPA’s stance against church divestment does not represent the broader consensus of the American Jewish community. There is in fact a growing desire within the North American Jewish community to end our silence over Israel’s oppressive occupation of Palestine. Every day Jewish leaders – we among them – are stepping forward to express outrage over the confiscation of Palestinian land, destruction of farms and groves and homes, the choking of the Palestinian economy and daily harassment and violence against Palestinian people. Members of the Jewish community are increasingly voicing their support for nonviolent popular resistance against these outrages – including the kind of cautious, highly-specified divestment such as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) are preparing to undertake.

However, even if the American Jewish community were unanimously opposed to such phased selective divestment by your Church – which is not at all the case – we believe it is still important that you move forward with the thoughtful multi-year process which your Church has begun. Your Church has long been active in pursuing justice and peace by nonviolent means, including divestment, in many places around the world. As Christians, you have your own particular stake in the land to which both our traditions have long attachments of faith and history. We particularly acknowledge the oppression of Palestinian Christians under Israeli occupation and the justice of your efforts to relieve the oppression directed against your fellows.

To advocate for an end to an unjust policy is not anti-Semitic. To criticize Israel is not anti-Semitic. To invest your own resources in corporations which pursue your vision of a just and peaceful world, and to withdraw your resources from those which contradict this vision, is not anti-Semitic. There is a terrible history of actual anti-Semitism perpetrated by Christians at different times throughout the millennia and conscientious Christians today do bear a burden of conscience on that account. We can understand that, with your commitment to paths of peace and justice, it must be terribly painful and inhibiting to be accused of anti-Semitism.

In fact, many of us in the Jewish community recognize that the continuing occupation of Palestine itself presents a great danger to the safety of the Jewish people, not to mention oppressing our spirits and diminishing our honor in the world community. We appreciate the solidarity of people of conscience in pursuing conscientious nonviolent strategies, such as phased selective divestment, to end the occupation.

With prayers for peace,

Rabbi Margaret Holub*
Rabbi Brant Rosen*
Rabbi Alissa Wise*
Rabbi Julie Greenberg*
Rabbi Michael Feinberg*
Cantor Michael Davis*
Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt*
Rabbi Lynn Gottleib*
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman*
Rabbi Rebecca Alpert*
Rabbi Joseph Berman*
Rabbi David Mivasair*
Rabbi Brian Walt*
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom*
David Basior, Rabbinical Student*
Alana Alpert, Rabbinical Student*
Ari Lev Fornari, Rabbinical Student*
Rabbi Borukh Goldberg
Rabbi Meryl Crean
Rabbi Howard A Cohen
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton*
Rabbi Everett Gendler
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Rabbi Michael Feinberg*
Rabbi Leonard Beerman*

* member of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council

A Norwegian, for instance, once wrote to me that there simply wasn’t enough direct conflict in the country to use the word “revolution”; as I have described in detail before, the Labor Party got enough votes in the 1930s so it could finally create a coalition government. An election seems to have made the change. But that view focuses on politicians and electoral forms and overlooks the main scene of the conflict, which was mass direct action in the economic arena. To say that the change happened through elections is to mistake the effect for the cause.

The Norwegian owning class fought for decades to maintain domination against the rising militancy of workers’ strikes and other forms of direct action. The 1 percent — through its instrument, the Conservative Party government — called out troops repeatedly to keep workers in line. My Norwegian father-in-law refused military service as a young man because he personally might have to shoot fellow workers rather than a national enemy. The owning class also recruited tens of thousands of people into an organization devoted to violent strike-breaking.

The Labor Party was not the polite, consensus-seeking party of today’s Norway; it was the electoral representative of — and controlled by — the workers. One couldn’t even be a member of the Labor Party in the old days if one wasn’t a worker. The action that counted for Norway’s future was not in the Storting (the parliament) but in the deadly fight between the 1 percent and the trade unions. And the stakes were very high: Who would lead Norway, the super-rich and their bourgeois allies or the working class?

The stakes were so high, in fact, that a young Vidkun Quisling tried to put together a military coup against the government that was run by the Conservative Party in an attempt to suspend parliamentary forms and create an efficient dictatorship. After all, the German and Italian 1 percent supported a fascist solution to “labor unrest,” so why not the Norwegian?

One reason, I believe, is that the Norwegian working class, although inspired by Marxism and even Leninism, was not inspired by violence. “Yes” to a workers’ (and farmers’) state, but “no” to armed struggle.

Here’s where we need to open the space to think freshly when we think about power and revolution. Smart nonviolent strategy influences the choices available to ruling class. Nonviolent struggle constrains the options of the opponent.

In Norway, the largely nonviolent struggle of the 1920s and 1930s made it impossible for the 1 percent to go “all the way” with violent repression. In Norway, organizers ruled out — as far as I have found — even considering the option of asking the British 1 percent to intervene in the Norwegian struggle, as it might have had there been an armed conflict. (The British empire was highly experienced in meddling in the affairs of other countries and had sent troops to Russia after its violent revolution. Norway was considered to be in Britain’s backyard.)

The lack of a fascist response by the Norwegian 1 percent in the 1930s to the workers’ prolonged nonviolent direct action doesn’t tell us there was not a revolution. What the workers (and farmers, in their own dimension of the struggle) did was show the 1 percent that it could no longer run the country. If the owners did not make a giant compromise, they might end up without any ownership stake in the country at all.

In light of what happened later, it is to the credit of the owning class and the workers that they made their historic compromise of 1936. But their decision not to go over the brink doesn’t give us reason to paper over the conflict. Labor decided it would not escalate further but instead take the reins of government (postponing the issue of ownership of the means of production) in order to alleviate the worst depression in Europe and set the ship of state onto a new — and fundamentally different — course.

Now we come to the heart of the matter: What defines revolution? The Norwegian Labor Party and its farmer and middle class allies could fundamentally change the country’s course because they forced a power shift. The super-rich no longer ruled, as they had for centuries (sometimes in collaboration with the Danes and Swedes).

That power shift is what didn’t happen in the 20th century in the U.K., in France and in Germany, although the working class in those countries gained more concessions than were gained in the U.S.

How significant was the power shift? The crisis in the financial sector that is still wrecking Europe reveals the difference dramatically. When, in the 1980s, Norway took a temporary detour by flirting with neoliberalism, the economy headed toward the cliff: speculation on housing, a bubble, a crash. But the fundamental power arrangement re-asserted itself: The government seized the three biggest banks, fired the senior management, made sure the shareholders didn’t get a krone and told the other private banks that they could either recapitalize on their own or go bankrupt. No bailouts — period.

The Norwegian bottom line: When the capitalists act out, they must pay for their spree, not the people.

It couldn’t be more different from what we now see in most of Europe (and the U.S.). The 1 percent rule, and the people pay. As the European giants began to totter in 2008, the Norwegian (and Swedish) financial sectors remained secure because they had won their fight with the 1 percent previously. If the Norwegians and Swedes had not fought their nonviolent revolution, they also would have been at the mercy of their 1 percent and in just as big a mess as the rest of Europe.

It thus seems especially wise that Norwegians successfully resisted their own internationalist sentiments when asked to join the European Union. Twice voting “no” for a variety of reasons in national referenda, many realized decades ago that international capital uses the EU for its own agenda. The class struggle continues in Norway, as it must everywhere because it is a fundamental historical reality. But the playing field inside Norway is different because they won their most important battle in the 1920s and 30s — nonviolently.

Labor’s strategy was this: to use widespread direct action, accept compromise, change the union/management rulebook, lead the government, massively regulate capital, redistribute wealth, and take controlling shares of major corporations. It has unmistakably shifted the entire society. In Norway’s political spectrum, a leading Norwegian Conservative told me, Barack Obama would be considered right-wing.

I’ll share two of the more light-hearted signs of the continued hegemony of working class values like solidarity and equality. Poverty has been largely wiped out in Norway, but a bit stubbornly remains; during a recent election the Labor government found that fact being used as an attack by, of all groups, the Conservative Party, under whose rule an estimated majority of Norwegians had once been poor!

The brand-new national opera house in Oslo, an architectural gem built by the government for a traditionally elite art form, has been such a success that seats are often sold out months in advance. Nevertheless, the opera house refuses to put a price premium on its best seats because that “just wouldn’t be the Norwegian way.”

Norway is not a utopia, and in my forthcoming book I’ll share ideas from radical Norwegians as they continue to envision a more carbon-neutral, egalitarian, decentralized and liberated society than the one they have. Whether or not they break new ground in coming decades, Norwegians have already shown us that people power can overcome money power, that the dominance of the super-rich can be overcome through nonviolent direct action and that democracy can flourish. I’m willing to call that a nonviolent revolution.

Did the Norwegians Have a Revolution? | The Indypendent.

Rights group decries Palestinians’ need to subject themselves to physical harm in order to extract basic rights from Israel following conclusion of mass hunger strike

The deal that ended the Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike not only headed off a confrontation with Israel, but also proved the growing success of the Palestinian strategy of non-violent protest.

The agreement, signed just hours before Nakba Day, when Palestinians mourn the «catastrophe» that befell them due to their forced expulsion from Palestinian lands in 1948, provided a happy ending for local, regional and international players.

Not only did the prisoners manage to improve their lot through the deal, but Israel was able to avoid what could have been a potentially serious backlash if any of the prisoners had died, and all sides breathed a sigh of relief.

In a statement welcoming the deal, Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said he had repeatedly pushed Israel «to resolve the crisis expeditiously in order to avoid a tragic outcome which had the potential to destabilise conditions on the ground.»

Gaza’s Hamas rulers and the radical Islamic Jihad movement had warned Israel it would face dire consequences if any of the 1,550 prisoners died.

Most of the detainees refused food for four weeks, but two of them, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, both from Islamic Jihad, went 76 days without eating, setting the record for a hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners.

«If anything had happened to Thaer or Bilal, for example, it would have pushed Islamic Jihad to react immediately by firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, which Hamas would not have wanted because it wants to keep the peace there,» a Palestinian official told AFP.

In a bid to resolve the standoff, Hamas had last week dispatched a delegation of former prisoners to Cairo to participate in negotiations, which were mediated by Egypt.

The explosive potential of the strike had also worried officials in Ramallah.

«Like Israel, some Palestinian circles were worried that the strike could deteriorate into a new intifada (uprising), which would be run by leaders of the first and second intifadas, but this time from inside Israeli prisons,» said political analyst Khalil Shahine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev said Israel had backed the agreement «in response to a request by President Abbas» in the hope that it would «build confidence between the parties and further peace.»

But, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said it was unacceptable that the prisoners were forced to endanger their own lives in order to secure basic rights.

«We regret that Israel’s authorities had for years violated inmates’ rights, so they had to risk their lives in their struggle,» said Anat Litvin, head of prisoners and detainees at PHR.

But she hailed the detainees for their use of a non-violent campaign to achieve their rights.

«The Palestinian inmates proved that a non-violent and just struggle can bring important achievement and raise international awareness,» she said in a statement.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza also paid tribute to «the most serious and longest hunger strike in Israeli prisons.»

«The agreement was not achieved without struggle and the determination of prisoners who put their lives at risk in one of the highest forms of resistance and peaceful protest,» it said.

In a speech on Monday night, ahead of Nakba Day, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas spoke in broad terms of «peaceful popular resistance against occupation, settlement, and the (Israeli West Bank separation) wall, in which foreign activists and Israeli pacifists take part.»

He mentioned the boycott of settlement products as an example.

Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi also hailed the prisoners’ peaceful protest as a «victory» for the entire Palestinian people.

«They have truly demonstrated that non-violent resistance is an essential tool in our struggle for freedom,» she said in a statement on Monday evening.

«Our new heroes are Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Lurther King,» Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath has repeatedly said, alluding to three giants of peaceful popular resistance who have inspired the current Palestinian strategy, which was even publicly approved by Hamas in 2011.

Palestinian strike: a coup for non-violent protest – Region – World – Ahram Online.

Russian riot police have dispersed an Occupy-style protest against President Vladimir Putin, forcing dozens of people out of central Moscow park, where they had been camped for more than a week.

The action against the sit-in was the latest step in a government crackdown on protests over Putin’s return to the presidency on May 7 for a six-year term following four years as prime minister.

Police converged on the site at Chistiye Prudy Park early on Wednesday and told about 50 people who had spent the night there to leave, citing a court order issued on Tuesday requiring them to clear the area.

Police clashed with demonstrators, beating some on the head with batons in the worst violence since a wave of protests prompted by suspicions of fraud in a December parliamentary vote.

At least 15 protesters had been detained after the swoop, Reuters news agency reported.

«People were ready to gather their stuff and move, but they did not give us time, they just started pushing people out,» Alisa Obraztsova, a protester in her 20s, said.

Protesters said that police had told them they must leave by noon (08:00 GMT) on Wednesday, but Obraztsova said the police who cleared the park said it had to be cleaned by noon.

Talking point

The small protest became the talking point of Russian politics while testing the ruling elite’s desire to put up with a form of dissent that still falls narrowly within the confines of increasingly strict legislation.

The rallies swelled to a few thousand as people finished work but shrank to just a few dozen activists overnight.

The sit-in referred to itself as Occupy Abay a reference to the looming bronze statue of 19th century Kazakh poet Abay Kunanbayuli around which the protesters gathered in a leafy boulevard in the upscale Chistye Prudy district.

And they got around rules requiring the city to mandate any form of protest by calling their action a mass public «stroll».

A Moscow court, responding to a complaint filed by three residents near the site, issued an order on Tuesday ordering police to «take measures to stop the mass event and the violations of civil order”.

Protest leaders have accused police of being behind the complaint.

«The morning dispersal was illegal and here is the proof,» Sergei Mitrokhin, liberal Yabloko party leader, wrote in a blog on the Moscow Echo radio station website next to a copy of his own letter to the court.

Riot police detained more than 400 people at a May 6 protest and hundreds more on inauguration day, when they cleared streets near the path of Putin’s convoy of peaceful protesters and bystanders, and grabbed people sitting at a pavement cafe.

Protesters dispersed from Moscow park – Europe – Al Jazeera English.

When President Obama visited Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 2009, he was asked this question:

“If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?” 

The president hesitated—perhaps making certain he didn’t name someone who might raise a red flag, or create embarrassment.

When he finally decided on a name, it was this: “Gandhi.”

Then he added: “Now, it would probably be a really small meal because, he didn’t eat a lot.” 

He went on, “He’s somebody who I find a lot of inspiration in.  He inspired Dr. King, so if it hadn’t been for the nonviolent movement in India, you might not have seen the same nonviolent movement for civil rights here in the United States.”

In fact, you could say, the president was paying homage to someone who had directly enabled him to become the highest public official in the United States. 

I’d like to tell you two stories from the annals of nonviolence, one Indian, the other Kurdish, and whether they can tell us anything about realigning the Kurdish struggle for liberty from its warpath to nonviolent resistance. 

If time permits, I will end with an actual story of Gandhi’s meeting with King George the Fifth at Buckingham Palace in London.  In that meeting, Gandhi was vintage Gandhi.  And if Nathaniel Hawthorne is right, “Our past is a rough draft of our present and our future,” President Obama would have had a formidable companion for dinner and returned home with more than food in his stomach.

“Can it possibly be that Gandhi’s incredible, world-changing nonviolence may be what we need to achieve an independent Kurdistan?”

Speaking of more than food in his stomach, let me digress a bit here and squeeze in a story about Madeleine Albright, the second secretary of state in the Clinton administration.  Last month, the New York Times run a story about her titled, “Madeleine Albright: By the Book.”  Because I can pass as a lover of books, I read the piece with more than my usual curiosity for an op-ed piece. 

I found out that of the nineteen books that she favored, I had actually read eight.  Because she is older than I am, I figured I still had some time to catch up with her.  But what really intrigued me about the piece was her definition of a good book, which she compared to a good speech, and said it should make the audience: “laugh, think, cry, and cheer.”

Now that is a tall order.  Let me be frank with you at the outset that I have no intentions of making you laugh–our topic is too serious for that, and I’m probably too dull-witted for the task anyway. 

Crying and cheering—well, I’m not so sure if I can do that either. 

But I do hope you will leave here thinking.

I hope you will leave thinking with increased curiosity about Gandhi and his theme of nonviolence.

Can it possibly be that Gandhi’s incredible, world-changing nonviolence may be what we need to achieve an independent Kurdistan?

Consider that profound thought with me for a moment.

In directing our gaze to nonviolence, I also pay tribute to Kamal Artin and his friends at Kurdish National Congress (KNC), the hosts of our conference, who heartily deserve another hearty round of applause for bringing us together here.

Let’s show them our genuine appreciation!

In re-directing our view to nonviolence, I am also redirecting the gaze of the Kurds from violence, the fiendish delight of our foes—to nonviolence, the Achilles’ heel of our adversaries.

Gandhi’s nonviolence, after all, brought a world superpower to its knees, and who knows but that it may be the approach to bring us success?

Indeed, some of us, sitting in this room today, may be the instruments to bring that miraculous change about.

After all, in ancient Persia, part of our beloved Kurdish homeland, a young woman was told some 2,500 years ago: “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”  (Esther 4:14).

That young woman, Esther, rose up and magnificently saved her people from annihilation.

May we perhaps one day look back and see that this was the day that someone here rose up, and set the nonviolent spark that helped to save our Kurdish people?

In 1917, Hindi Punch, a satirical paper, wrote of an Indian prince of Bikaner who had returned to Bombay from a tour of Europe and was ordered to show his passport at the customs. 

The prince complained that he had not been asked to produce one when he left the country, and wanted to know what had changed in the meantime. 

The officer told him he had left India in “European garb,” which exempted him from examination, but was returning in “native costume,” which required him to submit to inspection. 

I don’t know if Gandhi ever knew of this story.  If he had, his mind may have flashed back to his time in South Africa in 1893.  Dressed in his impeccable European clothes, he was riding a train from Durban to Pretoria.  He was told, as a coolie, he could not ride first class. 

When he refused to move to the back of the train, he was kicked out of it at Maritzburg railway station together with his baggage.  It was, you might say, a providential kick.  Nothing like it has ever been the source of so much good—before or since.

“May we perhaps one day look back and see that this was the day that someone here rose up, and set the nonviolent spark that helped to save our Kurdish people?”

Clothes and Indians go back in history.  Before the English showed up on the shores of India, Indians had set the standards for fashion for much of the known world. 

In the Roman Empire, Indian tunics commanded not just attention, but also a lot of money.  A trade, in spite of hardships, kept European ladies happy and Indian ones busy. 

By the time Gandhi came of age, the order had reversed.  To be sure, India still supplied cotton and silk to the world, but the weaving was done in Europe.  The mechanized production made the Indian spinning wheel obsolete.  Great Britain dominated India and Indians were trying to find their place in the new world. 

Gandhi, a spiritual person by temperament, was, to use his term, “experimenting” with his life to come to terms with the new Indian reality.  In South Africa, he found not just his voice, but also his Indian roots and the best of western writers such as Thoreau, Mazzini, Ruskin and Tolstoy.

Initially, his was a voice in the wilderness.  The world was filled with the prophets of violence and supreme cunning.  Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian like Gandhi, spoke the language of unbridled confrontation and had coined the slogan, “Give me blood and I promise you freedom.” 

Vladimir I. Lenin in the pages of What Is To Be Done? had written of the need for a “small, compact core of the most reliable, experienced, and hardened workers … connected by all the rules of strict secrecy,” to bring about revolution. 

Gandhi, on the other hand, thought violence, secrecy and lying had a common ancestry.  In his words, “I would rather India remained a thousand years more under British rule than that a lie be used to win our independence.”

A votary of truth, its kindred, he declared was love of the kind that Jesus of Nazareth had spoken of it in the pages of the New Testament.  Knowing what India had possessed once, he set out to regain it: freedom and self-sufficiency. 

Writing in the pages of his newspaper, Young India, he laid the ground for the formation of an army of soldier-saints.  The word, dignity, which we use relative to the Arab Spring these days, was not used then, but it must have played a big role in the deep recesses of his heart or brain. 

In 1920, he asked his compatriots to boycott foreign clothes and adopt home spinning as a way of liberating self as well as India.  Wearing a farmer’s dhoti, that covered one-fourth of his body, he announced the first ever bonfire of imported clothes in India. 

It proved to be a cathartic event.  He later undertook a tour of the country to debut his clothing line as it were and always asked his fans, now numbering millions, to cleanse themselves of artificial western appendages and values.  In the words of Emma Tarlo, the effort embodied, not just freedom and self-sufficiency, but also “spiritual humility, moral purity, national integrity, communal unity, social equality, the end of ‘untouchability’ and the embracing of nonviolence.”

Some mistook his action as the work of a coward.  He was the total opposite.  If the choice was between cowardice and violence, “I would choose violence,” he noted. 

Nonviolence, he added, required more courage than violence.  He did not live to see the lone Chinese student standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen Square, but would have certainly recognized a kindred soul in him. 

In the words of Louis Fischer, “No coward would sit still on the ground as galloping police horses advanced upon him or lie in the path of an automobile or stand without moving as baton-swinging police laid about them.” 

But Gandhi’s soldier-saints did, prompting a physicist, Albert Einstein, to say of their general, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”

My second story is from the oral history of the Kurds. 

I first heard it watching a Kurdish film in Washington, DC.  Min Dit was the name of the film.  The children of Amed were its theme.  Anyone who has been to the largest Kurdish city in Turkish Kurdistan can tell you of his or her stories of these homeless kids who are forced to live concentrated lives or skip years to assume roles that we ordinarily assign to the adults. 

But in Min Dit there was something else. 

There was a bedtime story about a Kurdish village cursed with a terrible plague.  Like most children’s stories, it started bad, got worse and then there was magic, a solution that was telling, heartwarming, and everlasting, which allowed the children to enter into the sleep zone on a very happy note.

Inside the Kurdish tale, a wolf attacks the livestock of the village with impunity.  The villagers feel terrorized and powerless.  One day, the village elders call for a meeting to remedy the situation. 

A decision is finally taken: The wolf must be found and eliminated.  A search team is put together.  After a couple of tries, the beast of prey is found.  As a villager gets ready to shoot it, an old man shouts, “Lay down your gun.” 

Everyone is surprised.  The old man counsels a pause.  He approaches the wolf and offers it a piece of meat. The wolf eats the offering and turns into a pussycat.  The old man takes advantage of the moment and ties a bell around its neck. 

“This wolf will never harm anyone again,” he says. 

“Whoever can hear the bell can run away,” he adds. 

From then on, whenever the wolf approaches sheep, the ringing of the bell wakes up the shepherd.  Whenever it approaches a deer, the deer runs off for safety.  Days pass and the wolf grows hungry.  Then one day, he falls near a rock and dies of starvation.

“As Kurds, to persist on a path that is to our disadvantage is not only wrong, but also reckless.”

I don’t know about you, but I find the seeds of nonviolent resistance in this Kurdish tale.  Our ancestors thought of it as a way to cope with the losses of their animals and we could expand on it to prevent the death of at least some of our fighters. 

The numbers speak for themselves.  In the latest fighting between the Kurds and the Turks, most experts agree on a number of 45 thousand deaths so far.  The Turks say their losses are in the vicinity of 5 thousand.  Ahmet Turk, a Kurdish parliamentarian, gave a list of 17 thousand civilian Kurds to President Obama in 2009, saying all were murdered by shadowy Turkish groups. 

That leaves the figure of 23 thousand for the Kurdish fighters.  The figures in Iraq, between the Kurds and the Arabs are even more lopsided, again, against the Kurds.  Iran and Syria pose the same questions. 

To be sure, nonviolent resistance is not exempt from deaths, but when it is waged, its disciples are its first casualties and not the defenseless civilians who are often first tortured and then murdered on the flimsiest of charges.  As Kurds, to persist on a path that is to our disadvantage is not only wrong, but also reckless.

I will close, as I promised, with the story of Gandhi’s meeting with King George the Fifth at the Buckingham Palace in London.  According to Vinay Lal, a professor of history at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Gandhi and King George engaged in a light banter as a sitting King and his subject would. 

But Gandhi wouldn’t let go of the historic occasion without a bit of histrionics.  A year before, he had marched to the sea, making his own salt and breaking the monopoly of the British on the essential commodity.  At the meeting, he produced a pinch it and placed it in a yogurt bowl. 

There is no record of the king noticing it, or making a comment about it.  But that didn’t matter.  Gandhi was a politician-saint in India and he knew of the famous Indian saying, “Be faithful to your salt-giver.”  In fact, the tradition of the subcontinent goes, if you want to seal a friendship, throw some salt into the water. 

For Gandhi, yogurt was as good as water.

Yes, Gandhi has a lot to teach us—if we listen carefully.

Gandhi showed us that nonviolence—when properly applied—can be just as powerful as all the great armies that ever marched… all the mighty navies that ever sailed… and all the grand air forces that ever flew.

* Kani Xulam is a political activist based in Washington D.C. He is the founder of the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN). He delivered this statement at the 24^th annual Kurdish National Congress (KNC-NA) conference in Washington, DC.

Rudaw in English….The Happening: Latest News and Multimedia about Kurdistan, Iraq and the World – Is Gandhi Relevant to Kurds?.

For Mother’s Day, I’ve been thinking about some of the powerful and provocative creative nonviolent activist work that mothers have done through the ages — and there is a lot of it. So much of popular history tells the stories of the men who “led” the charge in struggles, but my thoughts went to South America, and Chile in particular, because of the richness of the cultural methods used, and the leadership of mothers in the face of brutal and patriarchal regimes.

“You can’t have a revolution without songs,” read the banner behind Salvador Allende when he became president of Chile in 1970, highlighting the role of Nueva Canción (New Song) in the emergent resistance movements in South America. This style of musical resistance didn’t just include the voices of women, though one of its early proponents was Violeta Parra, a mother, who wrote the song “Gracias a la Vida.” Nueva Canción was intentionally used to unite and identify concerns of oppressed peoples, as it integrated native and rural musical instrumentation with urban and European styles to speak to ever larger communities. Only three years later, when Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile, his regime outlawed several instruments identified with Nueva Canción, recognizing and attempting to stop the powerful spread of political ideas, courage and resistance through music.

Still, the music lived on. Today, the tradition continues thanks to, among others, the son and daughter of Violeta, who instilled a love of this music in her children. What an amazing gift.

Even as music served functions of education, empowerment, community-building and the putting forward of alternate visions for society, it was not the only cultural work that significantly contributed to the effectiveness of the movement for justice. During the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet, mothers spent hours stitching stories of resistance and suffering in the 1980s into a traditional tapestry form, arpilleras. Disregarded as inconsequential women’s work, it was possible to smuggle and sell these beautiful quilts both into and out of jails, and outside of Chile — moving information to sons and husbands, and spreading news beyond the borders even when a suppressed press corps could not. This galvanized anti-Pinochet sympathizers globally and resulted in both financial and political support for the resistance.

Arpillera, via the Royal Alberta Museum.

As the arpilleraistas gathered, often in church sanctuaries, the threads of their handiwork not only provided income to support their families, but also sewed together a growing consciousness of their own power. The craft provided a very accessible and low-risk entry point to the movement for many, while preserving collective memory and building capacity to go public with their demands, both on the political and home fronts — confronting the dictatorship and later the culture of machismo itself.

Another protest against Pinochet evolved from Chile’s national dance, the cueca. As thousands were “disappeared” by the regime, a symbol of resistance became “la cueca sola.” Originally done with partners, it was now being performed solo by women, clutching photographs of their missing loved ones, to confront the denial of the death squads.

Chilean women’s integration of cultural resistance into movement strategies seems to have contributed greatly to the outreach, education, accessibility, endurance and, therefore, effectiveness of their protracted struggle. The mothers’ motivation to better their children’s lives and future living conditions inspired many to take action, however risky. Day to day concerns of finding food for empty bellies moved mothers to stitch together rags to not only fill wallets but also to make change.

Thank you, arpilleraistas, singers and dancers for giving us more reasons to celebrate mothers today.

How Chile’s mothers resisted / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.

An escalation of violence in Syria, as well as the enfeebled UN cease-fire, have revived the tactics of civil, peaceful resistance among many of Syria’s democracy activists. Nonviolent means may be their ultimate force.

The tactics of nonviolence can be a frustrating path for those who seek freedom. In Tibet, for example, many young people have lately given up on the Dalai Lama’s peaceful means against Chinese rule, while some have even resorted to self-immolation in public.

The tactics of nonviolence can be a frustrating path for those who seek freedom. In Tibet, for example, many young people have lately given up on the Dalai Lama’s peaceful means against Chinese rule, while some have even resorted to self-immolation in public.

One sign of such a shift came last month when a young woman named Rima Dali, wearing a blood-red dress, stood in a street outside Syria’s parliament and held up a banner: “Stop the killing, we want to build a homeland for all Syrians.” Her act of courage (and her arrest for a few days) has led to similar displays of protest for peace.

One reason is that the killing by all sides has gotten worse. Suicide bombers killed dozens last week. More arms are flowing into Syria – from Russia, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere. “What we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war,” warned Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special envoy to the Middle East.

Even since April 12, when the United Nations began to send 300 unarmed monitors to observe a promised cease-fire by all sides, nearly 1,000 people have been killed in political violence. The UN broker for peace, Kofi Annan, now worries about full-scale civil war among Syria’s 23 million people.

Another reason for resuming peaceful tactics is the near-collapse of the leading political opposition group, the Syrian National Council. Based in Italy with a wide range of anti-Assad activists, the SNC was not even invited to attend Wednesday’s meeting of the 22-nation Arab League, which seeks to oust President Assad.

Pro-democracy activists in Syria also now believe that President Obama and NATO are not going to launch a Libya-style attack on Assad forces. And they have seen how Assad uses attacks by rebels to consolidate his support from Syria’s many ethnic and religious minorities who fear domination by the majority Sunnis in a post-Assad regime.

What Assad seems to fear most are nonviolent protesters. Their stand for a secular, democratic Syria could entice the minorities, such as Kurds and Christians, to support them. As Louay Hussein, an intellectual leader of nonviolent tactics and a founder of the group Building the Syrian State, said last year, “If we enter the cycle of violence we will not find a democratic solution but the division of the country.”

In recent days, Assad forces have tried to arrest prominent peace activists. Such actions, however, only result in more foreign support for international isolation of Assad and his top supporters. On Monday, for example, the European Union ratcheted up sanctions against the regime.

Popular, peaceful protests have the best chance of winning the backing of Russia and China for further action by the UN Security Council. Such tactics also are the best path to ensure that a post-Assad Syria looks more like Tunisia in its calm, postrevolutionary state than like Libya, where former rebels are creating chaos after NATO airstrikes forced the end of the Qaddafi regime.

Nonviolent tactics rely on a principle of peace and an appeal to conscience that are often difficult to resist. In some cases, such as Syria today, they may be the only way to freedom.

Nonviolent tactics may be Syria’s only path to freedom – CSMonitor.com.

Demonstrators at a Bersih rally on 28 April before it turned violent

Malaysia’s prime minister is visiting London as questions continue to be asked about his reformist credentials back home.

In early April Najib Razak was praised for his leadership by David Cameron when the British prime minister brought a trade mission to Kuala Lumpur.

Now Mr Najib is poised to call a snap election, despite more than 100,000 people taking to the streets to call for substantial changes to the voting system.

That demonstration, the largest Malaysia has ever seen, turned violent as the authorities tried to enforce a hastily arranged court ban stopping people entering Merdeka Square, the birthplace of independent Malaysia.

Scores of protesters were beaten by the police, and teargas and watercannon were fired at the crowd. Some said they had been attacked simply for wearing a particular t-shirt.

The group behind the 28 April rally is called Bersih, which translates simply as «clean». It is a coalition of 84 non-governmental organisations united by the belief that Malaysia’s voting system is rotten to the core.

«The system has been set up so the ruling party has to win a very low level of popular support to win a simple majority in government,» Anbiga Sreenevasan, the Bersih co-chair and a litigation lawyer tells me from the calm of her practice’s library.

Bersih have listed eight key areas which need addressing before an election is held.

They include cleaning up the electoral roll, reforming the postal ballot system, and a longer election campaign, which in 2008 ran for just eight days.

The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, which has in various guises governed since independence, say the protests have become political and have been hijacked by opposition parties.

«Electoral reforms are ongoing,» says Khairy Jamaluddin, a spokesman for the coalition.

«There’s been a lot of concern about voters voting twice, of phantom voters and one of the most significant reforms is the introduction of indelible ink in the upcoming election.»

He said opposition parties would be given fair access to the media during the campaign and that efforts were ongoing to clean up the electoral roll.

But 54 years of being ruled by the same parties has entrenched political bias into the judiciary, business and media. The internet is now where most independent-minded Malaysians go for their news.

One of the most popular sites is called Malaysiakini and its editor, Stephen Gan, pulls out a bar chart to demonstrate what he sees as the biggest flaw in Malaysia’s voting system.

The graph shows that the usually rural constituencies won by the ruling BN coalition are overwhelming the least populated ones (some with just over 15,000 voters), with the opposition parties strongest in the larger urban districts (many over 80,000).

«The electoral system has been changed over the years and structured in such a way that the Barisan Nasional can win a majority with just 15-20% of the votes,» Mr Gan says.

Most other countries operating first-past-the-post systems have limits on the variation in constituency sizes so that each person’s vote has roughly the same clout. In Malaysia those limits were abolished in 1973, allowing huge disparities to occur.

Political bias

Responsibility for redrawing constituency boundaries fairly rests with the Electoral Commission. It is supposed to be independent but both Bersih and the opposition accuse it of being partisan towards the Barisan Nasional.

Bersih has also been accused of political bias, with the government accusing them of being hijacked by the Malaysian opposition.

In particular they point to controversial veteran Anwar Ibrahim.Anwar Ibrahim Opposition leader

Acquitted on sodomy charges earlier this year and blamed by some for instigating the Bersih violence, Mr Anwar says he sees the protests as part of what he is calling a «Malaysian Spring».

«Our preference is to go through a constitutional legal process,» the 64-year-old said. «We’ve made our position very clear to Prime Minister Najib that he cannot assume that people will have the patience to go through the election process if they are convinced that process is fraudulent.»

Despite all the opposition complaints, their showing in Malaysia’s last general election in 2008 still shook the political establishment to its core.

From a high of more than 90% in 2004 the Barisan Nasional parliamentary majority dropped below two thirds for the first time (with 51% of the vote). Such was the fall-out that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi resigned in favour of his deputy Najib Razak.

The son of Malaysia’s second prime minister, Mr Najib immediately promised reforms and repealed a security law that allowed people to be detained indefinitely without trial.

Though a vote does not have to be called until next year, the widely-predicted early election would test not just Mr Najib’s popularity but also how deeply Bersih’s message has resonated beyond the streets of Kuala Lumpur

BBC News – Could street protests herald a Malaysian spring?.