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Protests calling for Khader Adnan’s release have been held across the occupied West Bank and in Gaza City [REUTERS]

Friday is the 62nd day of the Palestinian prisoner’s protest against his detention by Israel.

Sixty-one days. That is how long it’s been since Khader Adnan has eaten.

The 33-year-old Palestinian was taken from his home in Arrabeh village near Jenin in the occupied West Bank at 3:30am on December 17. One day later he began his hunger strike to protest against the “humiliation and policy of administrative detention”. Adnan, like hundreds of other Palestinians, was arrested under a military order that Israel has named “administrative detention”, which allows prisoners to be held without charge or trial for periods of up to six months, spells that can be renewed indefinitely.

Sahar Francis is a lawyer with Addameer, a prisoner rights groups based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and a member of Khader Adnan’s legal team. She visited the hunger striker in Ziv hospital in Safad, Israel, on Friday.

She described her client, who remains shackled to his hospital bed, as “mentally perfect, but physically very weak”.

Francis told Al Jazeera that Adnan was being given only glucose and other sugars through an intravenous drip, but refusing anything else that would be considered a breach of his protest. Doctors told Francis that he could suffer from a heart attack or from the failure of other internal organs and die at any moment.

Adnan’s family and legal team were hoping that he would be released this week when his case went before a military appeals court. However, the appeal was denied and the court ordered that Adnan must finish the four month administrative detention, set to end on May 8.

In response to Al Jazeera’s request for an interview, the Israeli military sent a statement that read:

“Khader Adnan was arrested with an administrative arrest warrant for activities that threaten regional security. This warrant was authorised by a judicial review.”

Francis and Adnan’s legal team argue that, after losing some 40kg from more than 60 days without food, Adnan is wheelchair-bound and too weak to pose a risk to anyone.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both called on the Israeli authorities either to release Adnan or immediately charge him with criminal offences and have him tried.

Prison knowledge

For Adnan, like many Palestinians in the occupied territories, incarceration is not an uncommon experience. According to Addameer, in January there were more than 4,400 Palestinian “political prisoners” in Israeli jails. Of them, 310 were being held under administrative detention.

Adnan, who in the past was convicted of being a spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad armed group, has, according to his family, been detained nine times since his first arrest as a student activist in 1999.

It was soon after his first imprisonment that he met Mousa Abu Maria in Ashkelon prison. Abu Maria, the same age as Adnan, explained to Al Jazeera how, for many, prison is like a “university”, where prisoners teach each other about global struggles and discuss how they relate to their own as Palestinians.

“The old prisoners tell the new prisoners about history of the past and when people make hunger strike[s] and how the situation changed,” he said.

The history lessons seem to spread quickly through the prisons.

“The first time that people start to talk about hunger strike, I started to hear from them about how they [could] start. Sometime[s] they started to talk room to room about hunger strike and the goal in going on hunger strike.”

The stories, Abu Maria said, “give you power and hope”.

One of the stories commonly told among Palestinians inside Israeli prisons is of the ten republican prisoners in Northern Ireland who died as a result of their hunger strike in 1981. Most famous among them was 27-year-old Provisional IRA member Bobby Sands, who was elected to the British parliament during his fast, and died after 66 days of refusing to eat. This, and other hunger strikes and organised actions, were believed to have improved prisoners’ conditions and made gains for their nationalist cause.

Since the rise of a Palestinian nationalist movement in the late 1960s and 1970s to combat Israeli occupation, hunger striking has been a common tactic among Palestinian prisoners that, according to Addameer’s Francis, has frequenty succeeded in improving the conditions of their incarceration.

Stories such as Sands’, Abu Maria said, “made us think that hunger strike is the only way a prisoner can resist”.

Abu Maria served almost five years of his prison sentence and was released in 2003. However, like Adnan, he faced ongoing harassment from Israeli officials. Abu Maria’s home and that of his family was later raided by Israeli soldiers, and he was eventually rearrested and placed under administrative detention in 2009.

Abu Maria told Al Jazeera that not knowing what the charges against him were – and when he would be released – made being jailed all the more difficult. He said the more than 14 months he spent under administration detention was “a really bad time in my life”.

“Now Khader is in a bad condition, and any time he can die,” Abu Maria said.

With protests in solidarity with Khader Adnan already happening both in the occupied territories and inside Israel, Abu Maria said there would be widespread rage if Adnan were to die.

“I believe, if he dies, the situation in Palestine will change very fast. We can have a third intifada ["uprising"].”

Few options left

With the military’s case against prisoners kept secret to both the defendant and legal teams, Addameer’s Francis said defending clients under administrative detention is incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

“You don’t have any tools to build a defence,” Francis said. “This is the most serious problem for any lawyer in administrative detention cases.”

She pointed out that, while administrative detention may be considered short-term, Addameer has documented cases showing prisoners kept in jail for up to six to eight years, with their detention renewed every six months.

In 2009, the UN committee against torture expressed concern with the “inordinately lengthy periods” that Israel gives prisoners and reported that it could constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

“Administrative detention thus deprives detainees of basic safeguards, including the right to challenge the evidence which is the basis for the detention, warrants are not required, and the detainee may be de facto in incommunicado detention for an extended period, subject to renewal.”

After a millitary court rejected Adnan’s appeal on Monday, Francis is hoping that Israel’s high court will agree to review his case, including its secret evidence, in the coming days – and make a decision to release him, by either cancelling his sentence or shortening it to the time he has already served. “This is the last channel [available to us] in the Israeli legal system,” Francis said.

Randa Adnan, Khader’s pregnant wife and the mother of the couple’s two young daughters, told the UK’s Independent on Thursday: “I know my husband. He will not change his mind. I expect him to die.”

With no media allowed access to prisoners, Adnan’s own words have only been available through a letter that he gave to one of his lawyers on a recent visit. The Ma’an news agency, based in the occupied West Bank, published parts of the letter translated into English:

“The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners. I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey.”

“Here I am in a hospital bed surrounded with prison wardens, handcuffed, and my foot tied to the bed,” the letter continued. “The only thing I can do is offer my soul to God, as I believe righteousness and justice will eventually triumph over tyranny and oppression.”

Khader Adnan: No food without freedom – Features – Al Jazeera English.

Observers for rights groups expelled amid security clampdown to prevent mass pro-democracy protests in capital.

Bahrain announced the deportation of four foreign activists for “taking part in illegal demonstrations” in the country, adding to a number of deportations of activists over the past week.

The four activists were deported for “lying on immigration forms” as their “visas were issued for the purposes of tourism but all were participating in illegal demonstrations”, the official BNA news agency reported late on Friday.

The news agency did not specify the nationalities of those deported. The main Shia opposition group, Al-Wefaq, said they included one American and one Briton.

Police detained, and later deported, Medea Benjamin, an American with the observer group Witness Bahrain. Elaine Murthagh, an Irish-British activist, was also deported.

Benjamin and Murthagh, joined a protest with a group of about 150 women that clashed with riot police, which including a group of female officers, for several minutes on Friday.

More deportations

Police told the group to disperse, then threw a round of stun grenades and tear gas at the women. One woman was dragged away by female riot police after she was pepper-sprayed.

“These women are protesting peacefully,” Benjamin shouted as she was being dragged away.

Reuters news agency reports that at least 10 foreign activists have been deported this week. An opposition member said as many as 15 foreign activists had been deported in the last five days.

The authorities have recently increased restrictions for foreign activists and international media, denying press visas to several news organisations.

Bahraini police also deployed a water cannon on Friday and armoured vehicles against an anti-government demonstration of around 500 people from the majority Shia population following a funeral.

Thousands protest

Bahrain has imposed a security clampdown this week in a bid to avert mass protests on the anniversary of the February 14 pro-democracy uprising last year in which four people were killed.

The clampdown also aimed to prevent Shias from reaching the Pearl Roundabout, a junction in capital Manama that has became the focal point of protests.

Nabeel Rajab, an activist with the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights told Al Jazeera: “The Bahrain government launched armoured vehicles… almost in each and every village in Bahrain.”

Rajab said there have been continuous protests in Bahrain since February 14.

“Tens of thousands of people came out in the street, many of them were heading to the Pearl Roundabout and they were attacked,” Rajab said.

Bahrain deports four foreign activists – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

One of the most iconic cases shedding light on the consequences of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the unjust treatment of Palestinians is that of Khader Adnan. The 33-year-old mathematics graduate who usually runs a bakery in the West Bank, is on his 61^st day of hunger strike in an Israeli jail.

The hunger strike is in protest of his unjust detention and the degrading treatment he has been subjected to by the Israeli authorities, his lawyer Jaward Boulous, confirmed.

Dubbed as ‘Record‘ Palestinian hunger striker by a variety of media outlets over the past few weeks, Adnan was detained on 17 December, 2011 near the West Bank city of Jenin. The main reason for his incarceration is having served as the spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad, even though the Israeli authorities have yet to provide evidence against him or to formally charge him.

Adnan is currently in a very weakened state. His doctor, from Physicians for Human Rights, says that he is “in immediate danger of death.”  While in detention, he has been shackled to his bed by both legs and one arm. Due to his deteriorating health, he has been transported to a number of Israeli hospitals since January.

In an attempt to garner international attention, support and action for Adan’s case, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk spoke to Ahram Online.

Falk expressed that this is a “troubling case” that needs special attention, as doctors report he cannot survive beyond 70 days if he sustains the strike. “Outside of it being a humanitarian crisis, this is also a significantly sound political crisis,” Falk added.

Although Israel have linked Adnan to Islamic Jihad, Falk also asserted that Adnan should be characterised as a “thinker” as opposed to an “activist”, as no proof has been provided linking him to the group.

This case brings to light the inconsistencies in international public opinion and Israeli state policy. There are clear double standards in the way that Adnan’s case has been dealt with in contrast to treatment of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli prisoner who was exchanged for 1,207 Palestinian prisoners on 18 October, 2011.

Falk compared the “fuss” made over Shalit’s case with the silence surrounding Adnan’s.

“If Adnan is to die, a third intifada is to rise… he will be considered a martyr,” expressed Falk, further emphasising the importance of the issue. He explained that that whatever happens to Adnan, “the Palestinian political imagination has been fastened on this case and it will never be forgotten.”

The visit to Cairo, in addition to raising awareness about Adnan, was an attempt to cross over in the Gaza Strip, which had to be cancelled due to the turbulent security situation in Northern Sinai. Instead lawmakers and activists have met with Falk in Cairo.

Egypt, Falk explained, was key to the situation: “it is important to use Egypt’s relations with Israel, and to push the Egyptian authorities to take an initiative.”

Randa, 31, Adnan’s wife who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, urged the Egyptian authorities to step in, as reported by MENA on Tuesday. “Our hope now lies in Egypt for Khader’s release,” said Randa. “There is talk of Egyptian efforts being made, which I hope is true as Egypt was instrumental in the last prisoner swap deal,” she added making reference to Gilad Shalit.

Falk sees that Adnan’s case is an opportunity for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), as acting president, to step up and show concern over what is taking place outside of Egypt.

However, it is important to note that the SCAF has behaved in a similar way to Israel when handling domestic affairs in Egypt. Since 28 January, 2011 the ruling military council has abused Emergency Law and randomly arrested over 12,000 civilians.

One of those people is Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger who was recently released from military detention at the end of January 2012, after also sustaining a hunger strike in protest of his illegal detention

To what extent the Egyptian authorities will be motivated to intervene in Adnan’s case remains uncertain.

In a press statement issued on Wednesday, Falk said the Israeli government must take “immediate and effective action to safeguard Mr. Adnan’s life” and also to uphold his rights.

Falk deemed Adnan’s imprisonment without charges illegal and called on the international community to pay attention to the way Israel mistreats thousands of Palestinian prisoners. This is a problem, Falk added, which should be of great concern to them.

Falk is due to present a full human rights report in Amman, Jordan on the 20 February.

Until then, Adnan’s slim chance of survival should serve as a wakeup call to those who are responsible for his life.

As thousands are already rallying in Gaza calling for his release and Palestinian activists from different political parties are, unusually, coming together, Israel should be wary of the repercussions of Adnan’s possible death. For the regionally and locally isolated Jewish state, the demise of this new icon of Palestinian resistance could bring with it very serious problems.

Threat of 3rd intifada, says UN Rapporteur about Khader Adnan hunger strike – Region – World – Ahram Online.

Higher Council of Peaceful Movement for Liberation of South calls on supporters to ‘take every possible peaceful action’ against election.

.:Middle East Online::Yemen separatists urge ‘civil disobedience’ to disrupt poll:..

Eight Nobel laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu have written to the prime minister to argue that oil derived from Canadian tar sands “threatens the health of the planet” and that the UK should support European moves to classify the controversial energy source as highly polluting.

A similar letter has been sent this week to the transport minister, Norman Baker, by the shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, asking him “to vote in favour of labelling oil from tar sands as highly polluting immediately and in line with the European commission’s proposals”.

Last November, the Guardian revealed that the UK government has been actively supporting Canada’s attempts to stop the tar sands oil being designated by Europe as emitting 22% more greenhouse gas emissions than that from conventional fuels. The proposal, the Fuel Quality Directive, could effectively ban tar sands oil from Europe and would set a precedent of officially labelling tar sands oil as dirtier than conventional oil.

Baker has defended the UK’s stance on the grounds that all different types of crude oil – not just tar sands oil – should be assessed as low, medium and high emissions. “To be clear, we are not delaying action in any way, but are seeking an effective solution to address the carbon emissions from all highly polluting crudes, not simply those from one particular country,” he has said. The foreign office has admitted such a system “may take some time” and would effectively kick the proposal into the long grass.

But the Nobel Peace Laureates warn that “tar sands development is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and threatens the health of the planet. As the tar sands have contributed to rising emissions, Canada recently stepped away from the Kyoto protocol. Europe must not follow in Canada’s footsteps.” They describe the Fuel Quality Directive as a policy that would “help Europeans make cleaner fuel choices.” In an op-ed last year, Tutu wrote that “oil from the tar sands of Alberta is the dirtiest in the world”.

Writing to Baker, Eagle warned that siding with Canada could threaten UK jobs in the manufacture and development of low-emission vehicles, such as electric cars. “Experts agree that oil from tar sands is a ‘dirty fuel’ and the EU has every right to identify the environmental impact of oil extracted from tar sands in Canada and elsewhere. The government must act to prevent a further serious blow to the huge opportunities that exist to boost the UK car industry’s potential for growth in low-carbon vehicle sector for the sake of dirty jobs in Canada.”

The UK stance has been criticised across the political spectrum, with the Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies saying the UK has been naive for accepting Canada’s “special pleading as though it were gospel truth”. The Tory MP Zac Goldsmith called the UK position a “disgrace”.

The senior Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman said: “Next week’s tar sands vote will be a key test for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. The deputy prime minister must now intervene to stop his government standing in the way of a law that would effectively stop the dirtiest oil in the world from ending up in cars across Europe.”

Several studies have shown emissions from tar sands oil to be higher than other sources of crude oil. Last month, Barack Obama rejected approval for a key pipeline, Keystone XL, which would have carried tar sands crude from Alberta to the Gulf coast, following prolonged and vocal campaigning by environmental activists.

Critics also say the extraction process is extremely damaging to Canada’s local environment, due in part to its water-intensive nature. The Canadian environment minister, Peter Kent, this month moved to tackle such fears by announcing a new monitoring system of the Alberta tar sands’ impact on the environment, in particular on water pollution.

The EU vote is expected to take place on the 23 February. Reuters reported this week that a stalemate was likely, according to its EU sources.

Desmond Tutu tells David Cameron tar sands threaten health of the planet | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

A protest against the arrest of Addu Atoll MP Mohamed ‘Mode’ Rasheed morphed into a face-off between civilians and police forces, who were mocked as the corrupt servants of Maamingili MP and opposition Jumhoree Party (JP) leader Gasim Ibrahim and taunted by several hundred young men between Parliament and Sosun Magu on Sunday night.

“We are protesting this bad government, with these police, they hit head and they hit cock, ask them! They are coming drunk! We are saying this is not our police,” said one elderly man at the protest.

Another man jested, “You can buy one! Ten rufiya, one policeman!” as protesters chanted, “Lari Lari! Yes sir!” and “Villa police!”, a reference to Gasim’s lucrative Villa Hotels chain.

In a creative turn of events the young, mostly male gathering of “not MDP [Maldivian Democratic Party], just civilians” threw coins and cash, including valuable US dollars, at the approximately 10 police who had formed a human blockade with riot shields after pushing protesters away from parliament at around 8:30pm.

Dancing and chanting, the crowd asked people to make contributions while encouraging foreign media to take pictures of their antics. The police refused the bait for approximately 20 minutes before charging the crowd and pushing them towards busy Sosun Magu as civilians watched from nearby cafes and homes.

The baiting continued with protesters alternately insulting and running from the police until approximately 1:00am, when protesters were dispersed throughout Male.

Police officials report no arrests were made, however one officer in basic uniform was struck in the face with a stone outside of the MDP office while riding his bike on Sosun Magu at approximately 11:30pm. He is being treated at ADK hospital, police report.

It appears injuries were also sustained by demonstrators. One eyewitness reports crossing paths with a man near Parliament after 1:00am whose eyes were red and who was holding his head in pain. He claims he was walking along the street when police stopped and pepper sprayed him.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said the protesters’ implications of corruption and abuse were baseless: “As you know if there are any allegations there’s the Police Integrity Commission, if there are any concerns of human rights violations there is the Human Rights Commission. We are sure there is nothing like that happening here at the moment,” he said.

A police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “not all police officers have taken money. Now everybody is being labelled. Those who are innocent should be cleared by holding those responsible accountable for their actions.”

Cloud of Doubt

Police are currently under scrutiny across the country. On Tuesday, February 7 a rogue faction assisted with the takeover of Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) and attacked an office of Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) on Male’. At 1:00pm that day, former president Mohamed Nasheed resigned under conditions he later described as a “coup d’état.”

Since Tuesday, reports of police and military brutality against civilians and politicians who support Nasheed’s party (MDP) have spread from the Maldives’ southernmost atolls up to Male.

Following riots which left all police facilities, court houses and the prosecutor general’s office in ashes last Wednesday, Addu citizens report that police and military forces have teamed up with supporters of opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) in a witch hunt for MDP supporters. Opposition members claim the police have merely asked the public to assist in the arrest of those responsible for Wednesday night’s destruction, while police in Addu flatly deny any wrongdoing.

In a previous article Minivan News spoke with citizens on Addu who claim to have been beaten after police facilities were destroyed on Wednesday night; several said members of their family remain in detention without charges.

While public and police accounts fail to match up, one rumor could hold water: “Some police uniforms, shield and batons were stolen during the fires, and we’ve received reports that people who the community confirms are not policemen are going around in those outfits,” said Superintendent Yoosuf Sobah of Addu City Police, suggesting that any beatings may only appear to be done by police. Some Addu City citizens confirmed the report.

Sobah added that misinformation bolstered Wednesday’s riots. “Raajje TV reported that two MDP members had been killed in Male’, and that triggered a huge sentiment within the demonstrators,” he said.

“A clear attack on the justice system”

While Sobah recognises the emotional factor of Wednesday’s fires, he said the destruction of all police and court house documents related to ongoing cases, which were not backed up in a central database, made it “clear that this was an attack on the justice system.”

Explaining the logistics of the Wednesday night’s operation, Sobah said Addu’s roughly 70 officers, spread over four islands, had been outnumbered by the hundreds who turned out after reports of a brutal police crackdown on a MDP march in Male’ reached the islands.

Sobah added that police are currently hamstrung in their posts. “We don’t have computers, records, facilities, so processing paperwork has been difficult.”

While paperwork is a challenge, police appear undeterred in making arrests. However, the lack of infrastructure raises the question of how evidence is being collected.

Some citizens who claimed to have been beaten and detained said they were told they would be taken again if evidence against them was found on CCTV. Sobah stated that there are no CCTV records, and explained that evidence against those who have been arrested since Wednesday is taken from “mobile phone videos, eyewitness accounts, and the people who we know were causing the violence.”

Three Addu City councilors and one MP have been arrested. When asked how the evidence against those individuals was acquired, Sobah did not provide specifics, stating only that all 80 arrests in Addu have been evidence based, and made with only the minimum force necessary.

“Some people we’ve arrested are hardened criminals, many are under sentence and in rehabilitation programs. Those have given us a lot of resistance. But many are cooperating, coming in, giving their accounts. We are releasing those without evidence,” he added.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera has released a report with footage of the 74 individuals who are still in detention in Gan’s semi-destroyed police station. The report shows the bruised legs of men who claim they’ve been tortured; several individuals interviewed by Minivan News reported being forced to kneel on the ground, which was coated in broken glass and debris, and being doused in petrol and threatened with burning.

Sobah and Superintendent Abdulla Navaz, Head of Investigations in Serious and Organised Crime Department in Male, both said, “We have invited the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) and the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) to come and see what we are doing. If they believe we have mistreated people, then they will take the necessary action.”

Sobah added that he hopes to find an alternative detention center, or perhaps to  release detainees to house arrest in the coming days.

Testy police, tense public

The attack has created a sharp divide between the people and the police. Many are cautious about driving into Gan, where individuals are asked to provide identification at a military checkpoint. One young man was nervous when he realised he was carrying MDP registration papers in his motorbike.

While the public is nervous, the police are frustrated. Without clothes, computers or beds, but still on-duty, police on Gan report spending the first few nights on the causeway outside the burned station.

“It’s a very emotional time,” Sobah said. “A bunch of guys aren’t from Addu, and all they had here, their memories, are gone.”

Minivan News asked if the personal damage was fueling revenge attacks. “I understand this is an emotional time, but we’ve instructed them very carefully to prosecute people within the law. They’re trained police officers,” Sobah claimed.

Superintendent Navaz later suggested that the situation in Male’ has exhausted and destablised security forces. “Since January 16 we have been engaged in so many protests. At the time we couldn’t think of anything else except suppress, tackle and neutralise the protests. We are hopeful everything will be better. I can’t say it will be normal in any period of time, but it will happen with the passage of time. Now, we are getting different news, we don’t know what will happen any day. We should be ready for anything.”

Policing north to south

“For police, I think this is just as big as the tsunami.”

Noting that the council and police had joint plans to “bring policing in Addu up to Male’ levels,” he observed “this has set us back to 2004, not just Addu police but the whole police service.”

Meanwhile, the Male’ standard itself is on faltering, according to both police and public.

Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz yesterday stated that, “The police face big political challenges. In the face of those challenges it is very important that we regain the public’s confidence.”

Riyaz, whose appointment last week has been questioned as the law requires the police commissioner to come from a senior rank in the force, rather than a civilian – Riyaz was previously dismissed by Nasheed’s government – assured the police he would never issue an unlawful or illegal order.

Although policemen are instructed not to speak to the media, one spoke to Minivan News on condition of anonymity. “The public no longer trusts the police institution. We are receiving verbal attacks on the street and during protests,” he confided.

Sub-Inspector Shiyam denied receiving complaints from the public, and said the police forces are only being harassed at MDP gatherings.

While police are struggling to maintain unity and save face, they continue to deny the allegations of mistreatment which are piling up against them.

A report by MDP’s Parliamentary Group today provided pictures and statistics regarding attacks on MPs since February 7. According to the report, two MPs have been hospitalised due to beatings by police while Mariya Didi was twice targeted and beaten around her eyes. A total of 10 MPs are listed and photographed in the report.

Protesters throw money, taunt police amid growing civil unrest | Minivan News.

Members of the Occupy New Paltz movement rallied on Thursday one week after several of them were arrested for disobeying a park curfew.

Max Richmond, an Occupy supporter, criticized Mayor Jason West as “hypocritical.” Back in 2004, West locked horns with then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, favoring the gay marriage issue by solemnizing 20 weddings without a license.

“Civil disobedience is just fine when Jason West is marrying gay couples” Richmond said.   “But when it doesn’t fit into his political career, all of a sudden it’s worthy of police intervention.”

Richmond said West has decided to side with “those who use repression to stamp out our First Amendment Rights.”

The Occupiers had arrived in the Village of New Paltz on the evening of December 10, following an eviction from Hulme Park in Poughkeepsie during the wee hours of December 7.

According to the activists, their encampment moved from New Paltz Peace Park, across from Village Hall, to nearby Hasbrouck Park on December 11 at the invitation of Mayor Jason West.

Drier grounds and free electricity were enticing accommodations, they claim. Before long, extension cords began providing warmth through space heaters, inside a few of their tents.

Initially the village trustees were acquiescent. On December 15, they voted unanimously to allow the occupiers a haven for staging an ongoing protest citing First Amendment rights.

Eventually the village pulled the electric plug over safety and budgetary concerns.

Around February 8, the park occupants were notified by New Paltz officials that their continued activity at Hasbrouck Park requires a permit application and $1 million in liability insurance.

Police charged four participants with non-criminal trespass on February 9, just before midnight.

Meanwhile, the encampment has been temporarily relocated to a lawn on Huguenot Street, outside the old Creamery building. Michelle Ridell, one of the arrestees, owns the Unframed Artist Gallery on the premises.

Amanda Sisenstein, another arrested New Paltz resident, declared that “The First Amendment doesn’t have a curfew.” She was joined by attorney Valeria Ghoerghiu, who represents the group and witnessed the arrests.

Two others charged with trespass are Margaret Human, a local activist, and Brent Stewart, a young homeless veteran. All took umbrage at what they said was mayor’s apparent flip-flop on the matter – but praised local police for their sensitivity and professionalism.

Arrested New Paltz occupiers temporarily relocate to Huguenot Street.

This past fall, Occupy transformed the political landscape by seizing a moment, wedding righteous anger to high spirits—by existing and enduring in public places. The occupations cleared spaces for public life, for mutual education and controversy. From them came all kinds of direct actions that carried symbolic weight. From them also came the marches of tens of thousands where the inner movement of the encampments was joined by the outer movement of the membership organizations—the unions, progressive groups and so on. That was when the movement broke through to the larger public—by looking like the 99 percent.

Then, in house occupations and anti-foreclosure actions, the movement began to deliver palpable results—putting real families in real homes, preventing evictions. And despite ample provocation by paramilitarized police, the movement occupied the moral high ground by staying almost wholly nonviolent. Now, ready or not, here comes the election cycle of 2012, putting pressure on the movement to keep up a vital tension between self-maintenance and growth, between challenging the whole plutocratic political economy and upping the odds of reforms that can arrest and reverse it.

And, right on cue, here come the city governments of Chicago, Tampa and Charlotte, readying noxious rules and massive armament to corral the likely thousands of demonstrators who will gather, in the Occupy spirit—though not necessarily with any official imprimatur—to greet the G-8 and NATO in May, the Republicans in August and the Democrats in September, respectively.

In Chicago, at the behest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the City Council on January 18 passed a stupendous ordinance, requiring, among other things, that all applicants for demonstration permits (1) supply at the time of application “a description of the size and dimension of any sign, banner or other attention-getting device that is too large to be carried by one person,” and (2) obtain $1 million insurance coverage to “indemnify the city against any additional or uncovered third party claims against the city arising out of or caused by the parade, and agree to reimburse the city for any damage to the public way or city property arising out of or caused by the parade.” (If all that weren’t tragic and farcical enough, it now also becomes mandatory that the applicants submit “a list identifying the type and number of all animals that applicant intends to have at the parade.”) The minimum fine for a violation jumps to $200; the maximum is $1,000 and/or ten days in jail.

The local press accepted Emanuel’s spin and treated the final version of the ordinance as a back-down after critics assailed an earlier version. It is not a back-down. It is full frontal abuse of the First Amendment. Chicago’s applicants had to scramble to file their papers before the new regulations took effect on January 28. And even then, the feds may end up pre-empting the city by imposing still more-stringent national security laws.

Plastic netting, video surveillance, bans on “weapons” like pens, fenced-in “free speech zones,” beefed-up police forces, pepper spray and tanks—some of what’s in store for protesters in Tampa and Charlotte—are officialdom’s bankrupt notions of how a democracy ought to confront “the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” in the words of some eighteenth-century document. These are slaps in the face of the people’s right to govern themselves, as much as the Citizens United decision and the billion-dollar election campaigns that line the pockets of the oligarchs who hold free licenses to operate TV and radio stations on the public airwaves.

The authorities in Chicago, Tampa and Charlotte hope to scare Occupiers away. They’ve thrown down their gauntlets. These are flagrant insults. And very likely some who show up to stand for economic justice and decency will react not only with indignation and mockery (eminently called for) but in-your-face breakage and belligerence, even though Occupy Chicago explicitly defines itself as a “nonviolent nonpartisan people’s movement.” No matter whether it’s the riot police or the agents provocateurs or the “black bloc” who cast the first stones, under Chicago’s new ordinance, if vandals hijack the demo or damage property, the city could legally force the organizers to pick up the tab.

It’s not hard to imagine scenarios in which windows are smashed and heads clubbed. What happens then—regardless of who started it, regardless of the assemblies’ nuanced arguments about the true meaning of violence—is that the image of the protest becomes just that: violence. Which offends people in living rooms everywhere, many of whom sympathize with the thrust of Occupy. Seeing what gets framed as “violent clashes,” whoever started them, they cringe and pull back. What moves to the forefront of their minds is an association between Occupy and a symbolic amalgam of disruption, inconvenience and the privileged frolic of rich kids. Panicky about the loss of law and order, they’re more likely to vote for take-no-prisoners politicians whose idea of reform is a reformatory.

I was on the streets of Chicago in August 1968 when provocative disrupters among overwhelmingly nonviolent protesters were infiltrated by provocateurs and beset by rampaging police, producing a televised spectacle that had the perverse effect of encouraging a disengaged public to side with the police against what they thought were dangerous and frivolous revolutionaries—even as the Vietnam War declined in popularity. Let there be no romanticizing of those who “upped the ante” toward militancy, indifferent to the fact that 95 percent of America was politically on their right—or of the few hundreds whose stagy vandalism (“Days of Rage”) a year later sounded the death knell for a mass student movement.

The greater Occupy movement has rightly understood nonviolence not as a negation, the absence of destructiveness, but as a creative endeavor—a repertory for invention. But Occupy has been reluctant to be more explicit about it. An “Open Letter to the Occupy Movement: Why We Need Agreements” makes the case that Occupy should define itself, explicitly, as a movement of “strategic nonviolent direct action.” By renouncing violence against persons or property, Occupy would enhance its appeal to the disabled and people of color, who have good reason to stay away from volatile confrontations. By isolating those who seize the spotlight by smashing things, it can prevent them from trampling the ethos of a brilliantly leaderless movement.

Think about right-wing billionaires like David Koch and Sheldon Adelson. Would they rather see Occupy preoccupied with the cops, or fighting the banks? Smashing windows, or bringing down politicians who oppose reinstating Glass-Steagall?

The Occupy movement has till now been a seedbed of creativity. Now it needs to amp up its declaration of values.

Will Occupy Embrace Nonviolence? | The Nation.

In Chile and Germany, for example, long-term mass mobilisations by student movements through civil disobedience have forced governments to reintroduce free education. While we watch cowardly here in the University of Botswana as our leaders are being subjected to torture, harsh disciplinary actions and legal threats after fighting for our rights, students in Cairo have agreed to participate in a general strike from the 11th of February which could be escalated to a civil disobedience until their demands are met.

Having observed closely on what has befallen UB students and their leaders, I simply tender an advice that it is high time all students around the country launch a massive civil disobedience if the University decide to expel or suspend the SRC members. Students from other schools must not distance themselves from these high temperatures in UB as they may also be affected somehow. The civil disobedience must be overwhelmingly peaceful and nonviolent and it should not be a strike because a strike is a means of protest where people stay home and do not attend classes or work. But civil disobedience is an unconstitutional and extreme form of protest, in which people refrain from dealing with the government and or any oppressive institutions like the UB management up until their answers are addressed.

During this period, students should participate in variety of non-violent tactics such as boycotts, noncooperation, limited property destruction, mass marches, demonstrations and disruption of public ceremonies. This is all what we can do; it is left to us students to fight against these oppressive systems – and to link our actions to the struggles of ordinary working people everywhere. Be warned that our struggle is not easy, and we must not think of nonviolence as a “safe” way to fight oppression. The strength of nonviolence comes from our willingness to take personal risk without threatening other people.

Lastly, in the spirit of advancing student leadership I also urge the University of Botswana to consider drafting and adopting a policy which will protect student leaders from future legal threats and harsh disciplinary actions.

Tiro Diepo
WHEATON MA, USA

UB students should launch civil disobedience – The Botswana Gazette.