Saturday, March 12, 2016

The Guardian reports today: "Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project."

The Guardian reports today: "Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project."
GREG GRANDIN, grandin@nyu.edu, @greggrandin
 
BEVERLY BELL, bev.otherworlds@gmail.com, @beverly__bell    Bell appeared on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release last April: titled "Cáceres, Threatened Honduran, Wins Biggest Enviro Award." As noted on that news release, "For 15 years, Bell has been a close collaborator with Cáceres€™ and the group she coordinates, the National Council of Indigenous Organizations of Honduras." Bell has repeatedly warned that Cáceres and other indigenous activists' lives were in danger because of their work.

    She said then: €œBerta likes to say that Honduras is known only for having been a Contra base and for Hurricane Mitch. But that country also hosts a powerful social movement which has taken on unaccountable government, multinational corporations and oligarchy run amok, and U.S. military domination..."

    Bell said today that, more than anything, this is "about continued U.S. and Honduran government support for land and river grabs and multinational investment."
 
School of the Americas Watch released a statement titled: "Human Rights Organizations Demand an Investigation of the Circumstances Surrounding the Assassination of Berta Cáceres, the General Coordinator of COPINH." It says: "At approximately midnight last night, the General Coordinator of COPINH, Berta Caceres was assassinated in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibuca. At least two individuals broke down the door of the house where Berta was staying for the evening in the Residencial La Líbano, and shot and killed her. COPINH is urgently responding to this tragic situation.

"Berta Cáceres is one of the leading indigenous activists in Honduras. She spent her life fighting in defense of indigenous rights, particularly to land and natural resources. ...

"Since the 2009 military coup that was carried out by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Honduras has witnessed an explosive growth in environmentally destructive megaprojects that would displace indigenous communities. Almost 30 percent of the country's land was earmarked for mining concessions, creating a demand for cheap energy to power future mining operations. To meet this need, the government approved hundreds of dam projects around the country, privatizing rivers, land, and uprooting communities. Repression of social movements and targeted assassinations are rampant. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate. Honduran human rights organizations report there have been over 10,000 human rights violations by state security forces and impunity is the norm -- most murders go unpunished. The Associated Press has repeatedly exposed ties between the Honduran police and death squads, while U.S. military training and aid for the Honduran security forces continues."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

March 3, 2016

Institute for Public Accuracy

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Sarah Lazare reports for AlterNet in "The FBI Has a New Plan to Spy on High School Students Across the Country," that: "Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and 'western corruption' as potential future terrorists, warning that 'anarchist extremists' are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to 'suspicious' countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.
 
"Based on the widely unpopular British 'anti-terror' mass surveillance program, the FBI€™s 'Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools' guidelines [PDF], released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.
"This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other."
ARUN KUNDNANI, arun@kundnani.org, @ArunKundnani
Kundnani is the author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror and a lecturer at New York University.
 
    He said today: €œThe document aims to encourage schools to monitor their students more carefully for signs of radicalization but its definition of radicalization is vague. Drawing on the junk science of radicalization models, the document dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological expression and violent criminal actions.
 
    €œIn practice, schools seeking to implement this document will end up monitoring Muslim students disproportionately. Muslims who access religious or political material will be seen as suspicious, even though there is no reason to think such material indicates a likelihood of terrorism.€
 
"The belief system of the Islamophobes," and other of his writings are available at Kundnani's website. He was featured last year on the Institute for Public Accuracy news release, "Trump€™s Islamophobia is Tip of Iceberg." See an interview of his on CNN.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

March 7, 2016

Institute for Public Accuracy
980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
   



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