medialens
15 October 2009

In our previous alert (‘The Westminster Conspiracy,’ October 8; http://www.medialens.org/alerts/archive.php) we described how the media’s insistence that journalists be ‘balanced’, that they keep their personal opinions to themselves, is used as a tool of thought control.

Journalists who criticise powerful interests can be attacked for their ‘bias’, for revealing their prejudices. On the other hand, as we will see in the examples below, almost no-one protests, or even notices, the lack of balance in patriotic articles reporting on the experience of British troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the credibility of British and American elections, or on claims that the West is spreading democracy across the Third World. Then, notions of patriotism, loyalty, the need to support ‘our boys’, make ‘balance’ seem disloyal, disrespectful; an indication, in fact, that a journalist is ‘biased.’

[Read the alert]

via:  NY Jericho
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Dear Friends:

October 10 was World Day Against the Death Penalty.  I am in The Netherlands at the invitation of Amnesty International.  On Friday I gave a lecture at a prestigious law school to a wonderful group of students on behalf of Mumia.  Yesterday I spoke at the showing of In Prison My Whole Life, sponsored by Amnesty, concerning my client and the death penalty. Mumia is now a global symbol in the campaign against the death penalty.

I am presenting litigating the issue of the death penalty in the United States Supreme Court. Last year we won a new jury trial in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia.  The state has gone to the Supreme Court seeking a reversal of that ruling and the execution of my client.  We are presently litigating the matter.  Next week the court will hear arguments in an older case from Ohio, Smith v. Spisak, which has a similar issue.

There is a new effort underway to destroy the support for Mumia, who has been on Pennsylvania’s death row for nearly three decades.  The government’s purpose is to kill him. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest.  I am fighting for his life. The support of the movement in Germany is crucial to the fight to save and free him.

Continue reading →

[Download the video / images]

Palestine Monitor
12 October 2009

In this short video, produced with the support of the NoVA Center For Social Innovation, Palestine Monitor would like to introduce you to Arafat Kanaan: an inspirational 16-year-old non-violent activist and filmmaker from the West Bank village of Nil’in.

Every week, Arafat films as his village non-violently demonstrates against the apartheid wall that Israel is building, a wall which has cut off the village from thousands of dunams of its lands, and which has turned Nil’in into a ghetto. Arafat has filmed as Israel imposed curfews on the village, staged military incursions, humiliated, beaten and assassinated villagers. During the protests, Arafat films as Israeli solders respond to non-violent resistance with teargas cannons, rubber bullets, live ammunition, sound bombs and sewage water. Despite harrassment from Israeli soldiers, who broke his camera while he was filming an assassination, Arafat continues to peacefully resist – and expose – life in his village under occupation.

Palestine Solidarity Project
12 October 2009

Mehdi Abu Ayyesh, 17, died this morning after being shot in the head with what doctors believe was a .22 ruger rifle by Israeli forces in Beit Ommar on March 4.  The funeral was earlier today and as of 5:00pm today there was still an ongoing military invasion in Beit Ommar.

Here’s a link to Gideon Levy’s article written when Mehdi was shot:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072406.html

for more information, people can contact Mousa at: 0542 037 539

Bekah

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PSP http://Palestinesolidarityproject.org