Lawsuit: Federal Prisoners With “Unpopular Political Beliefs” Isolated, Abused

Friday 21 January 2011

by: William Fisher, t r u t h o u t |

If you are unlucky enough to be doing time at one of the federal government’s two “experimental prisons” – which it calls Communications Management Units (CMUs) – you are categorically banned from any physical contact with visiting friends and family, including babies, infants and minor children. You may not hug, touch or embrace your children or spouses during visits.

Severe restrictions are also placed on your access to phone calls and letters, as well as work and educational opportunities. Transfers to the CMU are not explained, nor are prisoners told how to earn release into less restrictive confinement, as there is no review process. Lawyers say that because these transfers are not based on facts or discipline for infractions, a pattern of religious and political discrimination and retaliation for prisoners’ lawful advocacy has emerged.

marie mason, one of many environmental activists imprisoned as an "ecoterrorist."

When the BOP announced the first CMU in 2007, they said its purpose was “to house inmates who, due to their current offense, conduct, or other verified information, require increased monitoring of communications with persons in the community to ensure the safe, secure and orderly running of BOP facilities and to protect the public.”

But the CCR disputes that statement. “These units are an experiment in social isolation,” said a CCR attorney. “People are being put in these extraordinarily restrictive units without being told why and without any meaningful review. Dispensing with due process creates a situation ripe for abuse; in this case, it has allowed for a pattern of religious profiling, retaliation and arbitrary punishment. This is precisely what the rule of law and the Constitution forbid.”

The CCR says that upward of two-thirds of the prisoners confined there are Muslims – a figure that overrepresents the proportion of Muslim prisoners in BOP facilities by at least 1,000 percent. Many of the remaining prisoners have unpopular political views, including environmental activists designated as “ecoterrorists.”

The CCR says most of those other prisoners appear to have been transferred to the CMU because of other protected First Amendment activities, such as speaking out on social justice issues or filing grievances in prison or court regarding conditions and abuse.

see the rest of the article, from truthout…

Mexican Military Raids Social Organization’s Office

Written by Kristin Bricker
Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:04

On Tuesday, January 11, at about 6:45 pm, the Mexican Army raided the Oaxaca City office of the Committee for the Defense of the People’s Rights (CODEP) and the Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CODEM). According to CODEP members who were present during the raid, approximately 20 uniformed soldiers in an official vehicle pulled up in front of the organizations’ building, broke down a makeshift sheet metal door, and searched their offices. After the soldiers broke down the door, they held CODEP member Patrocino Martinez at gunpoint. Martinez says that he demanded a search warrant, but that the soldiers pushed him and rushed up the stairs of the building, which is currently under construction.

Other members of the organization managed to lock the doors of the offices that contained their computers, copiers, and files, so the soldiers were unable to search those offices. However, the soldiers entered other unlocked offices, which included a dormitory and a screen-printing workshop. According to Martinez, the soldiers took photos of those offices. However, the soldiers did not remove any items from the building, nor did they make any arrests.

CODEP members who were present during the raid say that the soldiers questioned them at gunpoint about the organization’s work and organized crime. Ernesto Lopez says that the soldiers’ commander, who identified himself only as “Carlos,” told him that they received an “anonymous tip” that “organized crime held meetings” in the building. Meanwhile, other soldiers questioned neighbors about possible criminal or drug trafficking activity in or near the building.

During the raid, the soldiers never showed a search warrant, and they refused to identify themselves. However, one CODEP member did manage to get the vehicle number off of the large military convoy-style truck that the soldiers used in the raid.

from upside-down world

poor people in the philippines to be used as organ sources

from al-jazeera

In impoverished communities in the Philippines, many are involved in an illegal million-dollar industry – selling their own organs on the black market.

Most of these organs are sold to foreigners, which prompted the government to ban transplants on anyone other than Filipinos in 2008. But implementation of the law has been lax.

Now the government is considering lifting the ban, as a shortage of kidneys in the country is forcing a re-think of the ban for non-relatives.

Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas reports from the town of Lopez…

video report is viewable, from al-jazeera…

Kidney shortage prompts the Philippines to consider lifting transplant restrictions.

 

U.S. government commits avian holocaust with mass poisoning of millions of birds

by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews)

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is engaged in what can only be called an avian holocaust through its Bye Bye Blackbird program that has poisoned tens of millions of birds over the last decade. The USDA even reports the number of birds it has poisoned to death in a PDF document posted on the USDA website.

Anticipating the USDA possibly removing that document, we have posted a copy on NaturalNews servers at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/files/US…

The original source URL of this file was:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_…

This document shows that, just in 2009, the following bird populations were poisoned and killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, using taxpayer dollars:

(Listed as “Intentional” and “Killed / Euthanized”)

Brown-headed cowbirds: 1,046,109
European Starlings: 1,259,714
Red-winged blackbirds: 965,889
Canadian geese: 24,519
Grackles: 93,210
Pigeons: 96,297

…plus tens of thousands of crows, doves, ducks, falcons, finches, gulls, hawks, herons, owls, ravens, sparrows, swallows, swans, turkeys, vultures and woodpeckers, among other animals.

The chart even shows that the USDA “unintentionally” euthanized one Bald Eagle.

Also murdered in 2009 by the USDA are victims of other species:

27,000 beavers, 1700 bobcats, 81,000 coyotes, 2,000 gray foxes, 336 mountain lions, 1900 woodchucks, 130 porcupines, 12,000 raccoons, 20,000 squirrels, 30,000 wild pigs, 478 wolves.

See the list yourself at: http://www.naturalnews.com/files/US…

The mass-murdering U.S. government that disavows violence?

Keep in mind that murdering animals is an act of violence. Yet in the wake of the recent Giffords shooting, we have U.S. government officials running around screaming about how much they disavow violence, saying things like “violence should never be used to resolve problems.”

But their actions say something different: Violence against non-human life forms is not only tolerated and approved by the federal government, but even encouraged. Through these mass killings of birds, cougars, ducks and other animals, the United States federal government is actively engaged in widespread acts of violence against nature, murdering literally millions of animals on an annual basis.

Keep in mind that the numbers shown above are only for 2009. A similar number of animals were killed by the USDA all the other years, too, going all the way back to the 1960′s when the “Bye Bye Blackbird” program was first initiated.

By my estimates, the USDA has actively murdered at least 100 million animals in America over the last four decades, putting this on the scale of an animal holocaust and a crime against nature.

read the rest of the article, from natural news…