by AUDREY BOMSE

Almost all the factual findings, as well as the legal analysis and conclusions of the recently leaked UN Secretary General’s Panel of Inquiry into the “Flotilla Incident” on May 31, 2010 (Palmer/Uribe Panel) directly contradict those of an earlier UN report of the Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission (FFM, whose conclusion that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, including the naval blockade is illegal, was just reaffirmed on September 13, 2011 by five independent UN rights Special Rapporteurs. In line with all statements Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon has made about Gaza, the Goldstone report, and statements by other international agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), these UN international law experts rejected the Palmer/Uribe conclusions and demanded that “[t]he Israeli blockade of Gaza must end immediately and the people of Gaza must be afforded protection in line with international law.”

Click here to continue reading “Why the Palmer Report Deserves No Deference” by Audrey Bomse.

Date of Publication:
09/20/2011

Atlanta – Today, the day before Troy Anthony Davis is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection, Georgia Senate Democratic Whip Vincent Fort and Southern Center for Human Rights Executive Director Sara Totonchi have issued a joint statement calling upon the individuals charged with carrying out the execution to refuse to participate in the killing of a possibly innocent man.

Davis is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 21 at 7:00pm at Georgia Diagnostics & Classifications Prison in Jackson, Georgia. The statement, included below and sent to all parties mentioned, appeals to the basic humanity of individuals who each play roles in carrying out an execution including the private medical company that contracts with the state to be involved in executions and the Corrections staff at the prison.

Statement from Senator Vincent Fort and Sara Totonchi to Those Who Will Carry Out the Execution of Troy Davis

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via Nigel Parry

protest website OccupyWallStreet

by Julie Webb-Pullman
Gaza TV News

When Kia Ora Gaza was in Gaza almost a year ago, some of the team visited poor families and orphans in Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Yunis.

At that time I reported on the dire situation faced by families there, some of whom had been living in these conditions since 1948. Click Here for article

Yesterday I returned. The intervening year has not seen an improvement, but rather, even more homeless, living in even worse conditions, as a result of even more attacks by Israel, compounded by that state’s refusal to permit the necessary building materials in to replace the houses they have been destroying for over 60 years now.

UNRWA has managed to construct apartment shells but they stand empty, unable to be completed because of lack of materials, while next to them homeless families have cobbled together shelters on vacant government land – shelters they must leave before winter because the land is lower than the surrounding area, and when it rains, these paths become rivers flowing around – and through – their ‘homes’. Besides which, many have no glass in the windows, and the roofs are merely sheets of iron held down with chunks of broken concrete salvaged from the rubble, providing about as much protection from the rain as a colander.

Click here to continue reading “Khan Yunis revisited” by Julie Webb-Pullman.

Click here to read this statement on amnestyusa.org.

(Atlanta) – Following the announcement that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International AIUSA (AIUSA), released the following statement:

“It is unconscionable that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied relief to Troy Davis. Allowing a man to be sent to death under an enormous cloud of doubt about his guilt is an outrageous affront to justice.

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