FREE SAMI AL-ARIAN
POLITICAL PRISONER SINCE FEB. 20, 2003

Washington, DC – February 20, 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the arrest of Professor Sami Al-Arian by U.S. authorities. On that day, in 2003, former Attorney General John Ashcroft declared in a nationally televised news conference, carried on all major media outlets, that Dr. Al-Arian was one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Based on these assertions, Dr. Al-Arian was held in solitary confinement for 43 straight months during and after his trial, despite the fact that he had never waived his right to a speedy trial. Amnesty International protested the conditions of his detention, calling them “gratuitously punitive.”

[Read more]

Active Stills: Bil’in 5 Years
http://www.activestills.org/content/bilin-5-years

A photo selection from the last 5 years of the struggle against the fence in the West Bank village of Bil’in.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Popular Committee to Defend Ush Ghrab (PCDUG)
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps

Today there were demonstrations and confrontations in a number of locations in the occupied West Bank with three enduring particularly vicious Israeli attacks: Nilin, Bilin, Al-Ma’sara.   It is impossible to be in many places at one time so I chose to go to Al-Ma’sara for their weekly demonstration.  There, the demonstrators decided to go on the main street and as soon as we got there, the occupation army attacked the peaceful demonstrators. There were no warnings but immediate volley of concussion grenades and tear gas canisters.  The soldiers chased people into the village and continued firing. I stayed close to the soldiers and tried to reason with them. In one instance they used a stun grenade to prevent me from talking to soldiers who are mindlessly obeying officers.  I could not help think of Nazis and Apartheid soldiers.  I persisted in trying to reason with them. As we were leaving, a higher ranking military intelligence officer stopped me and did get my name and coordinates.

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeaRzx8kDA

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The Palestinian Information Center

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Muhammad Nazzal, member of Hamas’s political bureau, accused Mohmmad Dahlan, the leader of the mutiny trend in Fatah, of being involved in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

In a statement to al-Jazeera.net on Thursday, Nazzal said that the two Palestinians accused of providing logistic support for the assassination team which consisted of at least 11 Mossad spies were Ahmad Hasanin, who is a former member of the Palestinian Mukhabarat (intelligence) and Anwar Shuhaiber, a former officer of the Palestinian “preventive security”. Both men work in Dubai for a real estate company owned by Muhammad Dahlan.

Hasanin and Shuhaiber worked for PA security apparatuses in the Gaza Strip before Hamas took over control of the Strip in June 2006.

[Read the report]

A bumbling Mossad hand suspected in Dubai assassination
Israel has refused to comment on whether it sent the team that killed Mahmoud Mabhouh, a Hamas military commander, but as evidence mounts and Interpol issues warrants, questions are multiplying.

By Borzou Daragahi

The suspects traveled on fraudulent British, Irish, German and French passports. But at least seven of the suspects’ names match those of dual Israeli citizens, who allege that their identities were used to create phony travel papers with others’ photographs.

One of the Israelis said he was considering suing the government.

“What I’ve been going through since two days ago is a terrible nightmare,” repairman Paul John Keeley told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “What have they done to me? How did they steal the private information from my passport just like that?”

Ostrovsky said using Western passports of dual Israeli citizens to create false covers was standard practice for the operations division of the Mossad.

“Most of the time they get permission,” he said, in a telephone interview. “I believe at some point, they stopped asking permission.”

[Read the report]