The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients’ constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government’s terrorist watch list.

“There’s five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I’m on all of them,” Boyle said

“I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off.”

Boyle, who has represented several high profile Arab and Muslim clients in the past, also said the agents repeatedly questioned him about interviews he has given in various international media outlets that were critical of U.S. foreign policy towards Arab and Muslim countries. Similar reports have also come out including a recent one about agents allegedly spying on University of Michigan professor and writer Juan Cole.

Boyle’s visit began innocently enough as the two agents introduced themselves to Boyle’s secretary, he said.

They identified themselves as businessmen who wanted to speak with him about matters of international law and were wearing suits and ties, looking reputable. Boyle let them in.

“They misrepresented who they are and what they’re about to my secretary,” Boyle said.

They also gave him no indication that Boyle would be placed on the terrorist watch list after leaving what Boyle called a “nearly hour-long interrogation.”

Speaking of interrogations, Boyle was subjected to one an hour and a half long upon returning from a lecture in Canada at the end of the summer of 2004.

The pattern has continued for Boyle, who has a Ph.D in Political Science from Harvard University specializing in International Relations and has authored books such as “Biowarfare and Terrorism,” which links the U.S. biowarfare development to the October 2001 post-9/11 anthrax attack on Congress, and “The Palestinian Right to Return Under International Law,” which was released in March 2011.

“I was flying in from Malaysia and two armed federal agents on the jet port saw me and my passport and took me into custody; they said ‘You’re coming with us,’ and two guys with guns you’re not going to argue with,” he said.

“After searching me they said they were looking for someone on the watch list but not you, of course; how many Francis Anthony Boyles are there in America?”

Other extensive searches of Boyle occurred in Switzerland and Chicago.

He’s still waiting for an explanation as to why he was placed on the terrorism watch list and concerned about the future.

“I’m not supposed to talk about clients’ business to anyone let alone to become an informant on them, that violates their constitutional rights and also my ethical obligations as an attorney to maintain privacy,” Boyle said.

“Whether you like lawyers or not, we’re sort of the canaries in the mineshaft of democracy, the first line of defense.”

An article in Criminal Justice Magazine in Summer 2002 said that immediately following the September 11 attacks against the U.S., then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a controversial order that permits the government to monitor all communications between client and attorney when there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ to ‘believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism.’ The order raises constitutional concerns under the First, Fourth  Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments according to authors Paul Rice and Benjamin Saul.

Boyle believes that the rights of attorneys and anti-war critics as well are under attack, as is the Constitution in general as many analysts have been saying.

“They’ve gone after many other lawyers, and what they did to Juan Cole doesn’t surprise me either,” Boyle said.

“We’re living in a police state now and what people really need to understand, especially Arabs and Muslims, is that the police are not their friends,” Boyle said.

“No Arab or Muslim should talk to the FBI without a lawyer present, you have to be very careful dealing with these people.”

Boyle noted that about 1,200 non-citizens were rounded up immediately after the 9/11 attacks and that the only charges brought against them were actually for routine immigration violations or in some cases ordinary crimes as asserted in the 165-page report “America’s Challenge” about civil liberties, domestic security and national unity after the attacks, released by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

More than one million people are currently on watch lists according to a USA Today report in 2009, but Boyle believes he’s in more exclusive company on a list of about 5,000 people who were asked to be informants.

Guarding against unjust tactics in the name of security is something that should drive Arab Americans and Muslims, and others, he said.

“Arabs and Muslims and their supporters have to get organized and stop assuming the FBI is their friend, and to set up watch committees and inform themselves as to their rights under the law., and fight back in court,” he said.

“It’s only going to get worse…the FBI and the CIA are completely out of anyone’s control. And Arabs and Muslims are going to have to sit down and figure out how to combat this,” he said.

Boyle said they should band together to demand that the Department of Justice re-institute the Edward Hirsch Levy Guidelines, which terminated the FBI COINTEL spying program and were revoked after 9/11 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. He also said the communities need more lawyers and journalists to fight on their behalf.

He remains concerned about the possibility of retribution against he and others should another attack occur but plans to remain firm in his commitment to his country and its ideals of freedom.

“It feels sort of like a loaded gun sitting there,” he said. “But I was born here and I will stay here as a U.S. citizen, and stand and fight for the rights and future of this country.”

Anders Breivik is a rightwing Christian terrorist who bombed government buildings in Oslo and killed 69 boys and girls in cold blood with automatic weapons on a little island near Oslo.

His political orientation suggests that he chose these children to kill because they were attending a youth camp organized by the ruling Labour Party, an organization he detested, but he also killed them because they were innocent. Breivik is a symbolist: he needed to kill a critical mass of innocents to shock Norway, Europe, indeed the world, into paying attention to his grievances and prescriptions. What we saw on Utoya was ritual child sacrifice performed with a Glock. After shooting them on land and then shooting them in the water (as they tried to swim away), Breivik described the killings as grotesque but necessary.

This parade of composure and dispassion is part of the persona that Breivik has taken some trouble to construct. Breivik’s narcissism, his keenness on military costume, medieval and modern, shouldn’t mislead us into thinking of him as a dysfunctional adult playing at soldiers. Breivik is a special kind of monster; he’s the internet stalker on steroids, the anonymous bigot who hones his hatred in a dozen chatrooms, a fanatical autodidact who begins to see himself, thanks to the anonymity and equality of the worldwide web, as a world-historical intellectual.

And he is an intellectual. Breivik has careful ideological positions, a world view that makes sense of the noise of the modern world and a highly developed sense of historical mission. He has a 1500 page political manifesto posted online which sets out his grievances, his hatreds and his plan for the world. Contrary to the stereotype of the monster as loner, Breivik sees himself as part of a global uprising against Muslims, immigrants and black people (so often contained in the same vile body) and in his mind, he is surrounded by allies in this struggle. Islamophobic bloggers like Daniel Pipes, best-selling bigots like Mark Steyn, the skinheads of the English Defence League, Israeli Zionists beset by violent Arabs, Indian ‘Sanatan Dharmists’ threatened by fertile, fast breeding aliens are, in his obsessive manifesto, potential comrades-in-arms.

For Breivik the children he killed were individually innocent but collectively guilty because they were associated with the Labour Party which supported multiculturalism and had been instrumental in allowing the Muslim migration that now threatened Norway’s white, Christian identity. Reading Breivik’s online rants, the Indian reader will immediately recognize his loathing of the Labour Party and other advocates of multiculturalism as the exact equivalent of the Hindu Right’s denunciation of its own bogeyman, the ‘pseudo-secularist’.

The reflexive assumption that the killings in Norway were the work of Muslim terrorists made many rightwing commentators look silly but their stupid bigotry is less worrying than the justification that has been offered for their ‘mistake’. The standard defence has been that while these bloggers and journalists were wrong to jump to conclusions, their error was understandable because Islamist terror is overwhelmingly the main threat to peace in Europe. The conviction that terrorism in Europe is coterminous with Muslim mayhem is so widespread as to need no explanation or documentation. The only problem with this conviction is that it’s wholly false.

In 2009, there were 294 terrorist acts in Europe (not including the United Kingdom) of which one, yes, one, was committed by a Muslim. The vast majority of terrorist attacks in 2009 (237 out of 294) were perpetrated by white, non-Muslim separatist groups, mainly in Spain and France. In 2007, two out of a total of 581 terrorist plots had been inspired by Muslim radicals, whereas in 2008 not a single one of 441 documented terrorist attacks was carried out by a Muslim.

These figures aren’t compiled by some bleeding-heart liberal think tank dedicated to manufacturing alibis for bad Muslims; they are cited in a report called the Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2010, compiled by an European Union agency, Europol. In its own words, “[t]he TE-SAT aims to provide law enforcement officials, policymakers and the general public with facts and figures regarding terrorism in the EU, while also seeking to identify trends in the development of this phenomenon. It is a public document produced annually on the basis of information provided and verified by the competent law enforcement authorities in the EU Member States.”

These figures, therefore, are officially endorsed by the EU’s member states. According to the report’s typology of terror, most terrorist attacks in Europe are carried out (in descending order of frequency) by separatists, leftwing terrorists and rightwing terrorists. The incidence of Islamist terror attacks in Europe over the last three years has been vanishingly small. And yet this grotesquely violent killing in Norway had respectable journalists in the Washington Post and the New York Times looking for Muslim connections that didn’t exist.

As it became clear that the killer might well be a blond, rightwing Christian, the New York Times, that pillar of the liberal press in America, tried to salvage something from its earlier assumption that the perpetrator was a Muslim jihadi:

“Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking al-Qaida’s signature brutality and multiple attacks. If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from al-Qaida,” said Brian Fishman, a counter-terrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Notice that the first sentence of this passage suggests by implication that if Muslims weren’t responsible for the Oslo killings, mass murder wouldn’t amount to terrorism. Even when the killer turned out to be a white, Muslim-hating Christian, al-Qaida remained, in some speculative way, responsible for the violence. The main lesson of the Oslo tragedy has been that “terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target”. Replace ‘American’ with ‘Indian’ and Glenn Greenwald could be writing about us.

In majoritarian discourse, no violence committed by non-Muslims can be legitimately labelled terrorist because such violence is either trivial (compared to global jihad) or retaliatory, the involuntary response of a goaded majority. This form of passive-aggressive denial rules out the possibility of majoritarian terror while simultaneously holding out the threat of massive violence if the tolerant, much-tried majority is provoked beyond endurance. A good example of this position is Chandan Mitra’s criticism of those who pointed to Hindutva terrorism in the aftermath of the Malegaon explosions:

“The fact is that individual miscreants or petty bomb peddlers do not constitute anything like Hindu terror groups; they have no sympathy, at least yet, from the community. But stoked and insulted repeatedly, the tolerant and largely passive Hindu might just start justifying the actions of fringe groups. By nature, the Hindu can never be a terrorist. Secular-fundamentalists should not provoke him to a point where he seriously contemplates the option.” (Italics mine.)

Anders Breivik didn’t just seriously contemplate the option, he acted on it. We can either grant such acts the preemptive absolution Chandan Mitra recommends or we can learn to call terrorism by its proper name regardless of the identity of the terrorist.

THOUGH THE Bible tells us “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17), I could not help myself. I was happy.

Muammar al-Gaddafi was the enemy of every decent person in the world. He was one of the worst tyrants in recent memory.

This fact was hidden behind a façade of clownishness. He liked to present himself as a philosopher (the “Green Book”), a visionary statesman (Israelis and Palestinians must unite in the “State of Isratine”), even as an immature teenager (his innumerable uniforms and costumes). But basically he was a ruthless dictator, surrounded by corrupt relatives and cronies, squandering the great wealth of Libya.

This was obvious to anyone who wanted to see. Unfortunately, there were quite a few who chose to close their eyes.

WHEN I expressed my support for the international intervention, I was expecting to be attacked by some well-meaning people. I was not disappointed.

How could I? How could I support the American imperialists and the abominable NATO? Didn’t I realize that it was all about the oil?

I was not surprised. I have been through this before. When NATO started to bomb Serbian territory in order to put an end to Slobodan Milosevic’s crimes in Kosovo, many of my political friends turned against me.

Didn’t I realize that it was all an imperialist plot? That the devious Americans wanted to tear Yugoslavia (or Serbia) apart? That NATO was an evil organization? That Milosevic, though he may have some faults, was representing progressive humanity?

This was said when the evidence of the gruesome mass-murder in Bosnia was there for everyone to see, when Milosevic was already exposed as the cold-blooded monster he was. Ariel Sharon admired him.

So how could decent, well-meaning leftists, people of an unblemished humanist record, embrace such a person? My only explanation was that their hatred of the USA and of NATO was so strong, so fervent, that anyone attacked by them must surely be a benefactor of humanity, and all accusations against them pure fabrications. The same happened with Pol Pot.

Now it has happened again. I was bombarded with messages from well-meaning people who lauded Gaddafi for all his good deeds. One might get the impression that he was a second Nelson Mandela, if not a second Mahatma Gandhi.

While the rebels were already fighting their way into his huge personal compound, the socialist leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was praising him as a true model of upright humanity, a man who dared to stand up to the American aggressors.

Well, sorry, count me out. I have this irrational abhorrence of bloody dictators, of genocidal mass-murderers, of leaders who wage war on their own people. And at my advanced age, it is difficult for me to change.

I am ready to support even the devil, if that is necessary to put an end to this kind of atrocities. I won’t even ask about his precise motives. Whatever one may think about the USA and/or NATO – if they disarm a Milosevic or a Gaddafi, they have my blessing.

HOW LARGE a role did NATO play in the defeat of the Libyan dictator?

The rebels would not have reached Tripoli, and certainly not by now, if they had not enjoyed NATO’s sustained air support. Libya is one big desert. The offensive had to rely on one long road. Without mastery of the skies, the rebels would have been massacred. Anyone who was alive during World War II and followed the campaigns of Rommel and Montgomery knows this.

I assume that the rebels also received arms and advice to facilitate their advance.

But I object to the patronizing assertion that it was all a NATO victory. It is the old colonialist attitude in a new guise. Of course, these poor, primitive Arabs could not do anything without the White Man shouldering his burden and rushing to the rescue.

But wars are not won by weapons, they are won by people.  “Boots on the ground”, as the Americans call it. Even with all the help they got, the Libyan rebels, disorganized and poorly armed as they were, have won a remarkable victory. This would not have happened without real revolutionary fervor, without bravery and determination. It is a Libyan victory, not a British or a French one.

This has been underplayed by the international media. I have not seen any genuine combat coverage (and I know what that looks like). Journalists did not acquit themselves with glory. They displayed exemplary cowardice, staying at a safe distance from the front, even during the fall of Tripoli. On TV they looked ridiculous with their conspicuous helmets when they were surrounded by bareheaded fighters.

What came over was endless jubilations over victories that had seemingly fallen from heaven. But these were feats achieved by people – yes, by Arab people.

This is especially galling to our Israeli “military correspondents” and “Arab affairs experts”. Used to despising or hating “the Arabs”, they are ascribing the victory to NATO. It seems that the people of Libya played a minor role, if any.

Now they blabber endlessly about the “tribes”, which will make democracy and orderly governance in Libya impossible. Libya is not really a country, it was never a unified state before becoming an Italian colony, there is no such thing as a Libyan people. (Remember the French saying this about Algeria, and Golda Meir about Palestine?)

Well, for a people that does not exist, the Libyans fought very well. And as for the “tribes” – why do tribes exist only in Africa and Asia, never among Europeans? Why not a Welsh tribe or a Bavarian tribe?

(When I visited Jordan in 1986, well before the peace treaty, I was entertained by a very civilized, high-ranking Jordanian official. After an interesting conversation over dinner, he surprised me by mentioning that he belongs to a certain tribe. Next day, while I was riding on a horse to Petra, the rider next to me asked in a low voice whether I belonged “to the tribe”. It took me some time to understand that he was asking me if I was a Jew. It seems that American Jews refer to themselves in this way.)

The “tribes” of Libya would be called in Europe “ethnic groups” and in Israel “communities”. The term “tribe” has a patronizing connotation. Let’s drop it.

ALL THOSE who decry NATO’s intervention must answer a simple question: who else would have done the job?

21^st century humanity cannot tolerate acts of genocide and mass-murder, wherever they occur. It cannot look on while dictators butcher their own peoples. The doctrine of “non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states” belongs to the past. We Jews, who have accused mankind of standing idly by while millions of Jews, including German citizens, were exterminated by the legitimate German government, certainly owe the world an answer.

I have mentioned in the past that I advocate some form of effective world governance and expect it to be in place by the end of this century. This would include a democratically elected world executive that would have military forces at its disposal and that could intervene, if a world parliament so decides.

For this to happen, the United Nations must be revamped entirely. The veto power must be abolished. It is intolerable that the US can veto the acceptance of Palestine as a member state, or that Russia and China can veto intervention in Syria.

Certainly, great powers like the US and China should have a louder voice than, say, Luxemburg and the Fiji Islands, but a two thirds majority in the General Assembly should have the power to override Washington, Moscow or Beijing.

That may be the music of the future, or, some may say, a pipe dream. As for now, we live in a very imperfect world and must make do with the instruments we have. NATO, alas, is one of them. The European Union is another, though in this case poor, eternally conscience-stricken Germany, has paralyzed it. If Russia or China were to join, that would be fine.

This is not some remote problem. Gaddafi is finished, but Bashar al-Assad is not. He is butchering his people even while you read this, and the world is looking on helplessly.

Any volunteers for intervention?

In the 15 November 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence that was approved by the PNC representing all Palestinians all over the world,  the Executive Committee of the PLO was set up as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice.

In addition, the Declaration of Independence also provides that all Palestinians living around the world automatically become citizens of the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice. So the Executive Committee of the PLO in its capacity as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine will continue to represent the interests of all Palestinians around the world when Palestine becomes a UN Member State.

Hence all  rights will be preserved: for all Palestinians and for the PLO. No one will be disenfranchised. The PLO will not lose its status. This legal arrangement  does not violate the Palestinian Charter, but was approved already by the PNC.

Unfortunately, an Oxford professor calleed Guy Goodwill-Gill has circulated a memo full of distortions. The memo is based on many erroneous assumption. This professor is not aware of all the legal and constitutional technicalities that were originally built into the Palestinian Declaration  of Independence to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize–at my advice.

All  rights have been protected and will be protected by Palestine becoming a Member State  of the United Nations, including the Right of Return. Indeed, in the Memo I originally did for President Arafat and the PLO back in 1988, I explained how we  could obtain UN Membership.

All of the advice that I gave to President Arafat and the PLO in 1987 to 1989 was originally premised on the assumption that someday we would apply for UN Membership. That day has come. Please move forward. I have been working for this Day since I first proposed UN Membership for Palestine  along the lines of Namibia  at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in June of 1987.  Palestine’s Application for UN Membership was my idea.

When my Client and Dear  Friend the late, great Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi  Chair of the Palestinian Delegation to  the Middle East Negotiations instructed me to draft the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement, he most solemnly told me: “Professor Boyle, we have decided to ask you to draft this Interim Peace Agreement for us. Do whatever you want! But do not sell out our right to our State!”

And I responded to Dr. Haidar: “Do not worry, Dr. Abdul Shaffi. As you know, I was the one who first called for the creation of the Palestinian State back at United Nations Headquarters in June of 1987, and then served as the Legal Adviser to the PLO on its creation. I will do nothing to harm it!”

As I promised Dr. Haidar, I would do nothing to harm Palestine and the Palestinians.

Francis A. Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Five days after “rebels” entered Tripoli, under the cover of NATO bombing and led by foreign special forces, the abject criminality of imperialism’s takeover of Libya is becoming increasingly evident.

Fighting continues to rage throughout the Libyan capital, whose two million residents have been made hostages of the armed gangs and Western special forces troops that have seized control of the city’s streets.

The focus of NATO operations has become a frantic effort to hunt down and murder Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled the country for 42 years. A $2 million bounty has been placed on his head, and the British media now openly boast that SAS special forces troops are leading the search for him and his family. A vast array of US armed Predator drones, AWACS spy planes and other surveillance equipment has been concentrated on the North African country to facilitate the manhunt.

The pretense that the US and its European NATO allies were intervening in Libya to “protect civilians and civilian populated areas from threat of attack,” as stated in the United Nations Security Council resolution, has effectively been abandoned. Behind the fig leaf of this resolution the naked imperialist and colonial character of the war has emerged.

The Security Council’s stipulations that ground troops not be introduced into the country, that an arms embargo be kept in place and that mercenaries be prevented from entering Libya have all been flouted in this criminal operation to seize control of an oil-rich former colony and loot its resources. There is barely any attempt to hide the fact that special forces, intelligence agents and mercenary military contractors have organized, armed and led the “rebels”, who have not made a single advance without the prior annihilation of government security forces by NATO warplanes.

After being terrorized for five months by NATO bombs and missiles, the people of Tripoli are now facing sudden death and a looming humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the NATO campaign to “protect civilians”.

Kim Sengupta of the Independent reported Thursday from the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim, which the “rebels” stormed under the cover of NATO air strikes. Known as a pro-Gaddafi area, its residents have been subjected to a reign of terror.

“There was no escape for the residents of Abu Salim, trapped as the fighting spread all around them,” Sengupta reported. “In the corner of a street, a man who was shot in the crossfire, the back of his blue shirt soaked in blood, was being carried away by three others. ‘I know that man, he is a shopkeeper,’ said Sama Abdessalam Bashti, who had just run across the road to reach his home. ‘The rebels are attacking our homes. This should not be happening.

“‘The rebels are saying they are fighting government troops here, but all those getting hurt are ordinary people, the only buildings being damaged are those of local people. There has also been looting by the rebels, they have gone into houses to search for people and taken away things. Why are they doing this?’”

Asked why local residents were resisting the NATO-led force’s takeover of the city, Mohammed Selim Mohammed, a 38-year-old engineer, told the Independent, “Maybe they just do not like the rebels. Why are people from outside Tripoli coming and arresting our men?”

Meanwhile, other reports laid bare war crimes carried out by NATO and its local agents on the ground in Tripoli. Both the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies documented a massacre perpetrated against Gaddafi supporters in a square adjacent to the presidential compound that was stormed and looted on Tuesday.

“The bodies are scattered around a grassy square next to Moammar Gadhafi’s compound of Bab al-Aziziya. Prone on grassy lots as if napping, sprawled in tents. Some have had their wrists bound by plastic ties,” AP reported.

“The identities of the dead are unclear but they are in all likelihood activists that set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi outside his compound in defiance of the NATO bombings.”

AP said that the grisly discovery raised “the disturbing specter of mass killings of noncombatants, detainees and the wounded.”

Among the bodies of the executed the report added were several that “had been shot in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs. A body in a doctor’s green hospital gown was found in the canal. The bodies were bloated.”

Reporting from the same killing field, Reuters counted 30 bodies “riddled with bullets”. It noted that “Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm.” Two of the bodies, it said, “were charred beyond recognition.”

Amnesty International has raised urgent concerns about the killing, torture and brutalization of people being rounded up by the “rebels,” particularly African migrant workers who have been singled out for retribution because of the color of their skin.

In a report from a makeshift detention camp set up by the NATO-led forces in a Tripoli school, Amnesty stated:

“In an overcrowded cell, where some 125 people were held with barely enough room to sleep or move, a boy told Amnesty International how he had responded to calls by al-Gaddafi’s government for volunteers to fight the opposition.

“He said that he was driven to a military camp in Az-Zawiya, where he was handed a Kalashnikov rifle that he did not know how to use.

“He told Amnesty International: ‘When NATO bombed the camp around 14 August, those who survived fled. I threw my weapon on the ground, and asked for refuge in a home nearby. I told the owners what happened, and I think they called the revolutionaries [thuuwar], because they came shortly after.

“‘They shouted for me to surrender. I put my hands up in the air. They made me kneel on the ground and put my hands behind by head. Then one told me to get up. When I did, he shot me in the knee at close range. I fell on the ground, and they continued beating me with the back of their rifles all over my body and face.

“‘I had to get three stitches behind by left ear as a result. In detention, sometimes they still beat us and insult us, calling us killers.’”

A pro-Gaddafi soldier told a similar story, recounting that he was captured August 19 while bringing supplies to his unit. “He said that he was beaten all over his body and face with the backs of rifles, punched and kicked. He bore visible marks consistent with his testimony.”

Amnesty said that “rebel” leaders estimated that one-third of the detainees were “foreign mercenaries,” meaning sub-Saharan Africans. “When Amnesty International spoke to several of the detainees, however, they said they were migrant workers. They said that they had been taken at gunpoint from their homes, workplaces and the street on account of their skin colour.” Several said that they feared for their lives and that guards had told them that they would be “eliminated or else sentenced to death.”

Among those detained were a family of five from Chad, including a minor, who were taken off of a truck while being driven to a farm to collect produce. A 24-year-old man from Niger who had worked in Libya for five years told Amnesty that armed men had seized him from his home, handcuffed and beaten him and thrown him into the trunk of a car. “I am not at all involved in this conflict,” he said. “All I wanted to do was to make a living. But because of my skin colour, I find myself here, in detention. Who knows what will happen to me now.”

The human rights group also cited a report from a Reuters reporting team which saw a “rebel” pickup truck carrying three black men in the back. One of them told Reuters he was Nigerian. “He sobbed as he said: ‘I do not know Gaddafi. I do not know Gaddafi. I am only working here.’”

News reports and statements from international aid agencies warn of a humanitarian catastrophe in the city as a result of the NATO siege. Reporting from a local hospital, the Telegraph said: “As battle raged in the Tripoli streets hundreds of casualties were brought in, rebel fighters, Gaddafi’s soldiers, and unlucky civilians, laying next to each other in bed and even on a floor awash with blood, screaming or moaning in agony. Many died before they could be treated.”

The paper interviewed Dr. Mahjoub Rishi, the hospital’s Professor of Surgery: “There were hundreds coming in within the first few hours. It was like a vision from hell. Missile injuries were the worst. The damage they do to the human body is shocking to see, even for someone like me who is used to dealing with injuries.” Most of the casualties, he said, were civilians caught in the crossfire.

The Telegraph reported that Tripoli’s two other major hospitals were similarly overflowing with casualties and desperately understaffed, as were all of the city’s private hospitals.

The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that the city is facing a medical “catastrophe”.

The group told Reuters that “Medical supplies ran low during six months of civil war [i.e., NATO bombardment] but have almost completely dried up in the siege and battle of the past week. Fuel supplies have run out and the few remaining medical workers are struggling to get to work.” The lack of fuel means that hospitals that have kept their power by running generators can now no longer do so.

Health officials in Tripoli report that blood supplies have run out at the hospitals and that food and drinking water is unavailable over whole areas of Tripoli.

Meanwhile the governments of Algeria, Venezuela and South Korea have all reported that their embassies in Tripoli have been attacked and looted by “rebel” gunmen. While the governments of Algeria and Venezuela had opposed the NATO invasion and supported Gaddafi, South Korea, a close US ally, had taken no such positions.

The universal euphoria of the US and much of the European media, which is “embedded” with NATO and its “rebels,” cannot conceal the brutal reality that a war waged under the pretense of human rights and protecting civilians has unleashed immense death, human suffering and destruction.

Far from a “revolution” or struggle for “liberation,” what the world is witnessing is the rape of Libya by a syndicate of imperialist powers determined to lay hold of its oil wealth and turn its territory into a neo-colonial base of operations for further interventions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

As the battle for parts of Tripoli and swathes of Libya continues, the “international community” has released $1.5 billion of Libyan assets, much of which will basically be used by the National Transitional Council (NTC). It is already well known that NATO’s involvement in the Libyan conflict means that they are effectively dictating the terms of Libya’s future, and the release of these funds is a part of the same process whereby the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set out in a written statement Friday 26th August what is expected from the NTC:

“As funds are released, we look to the Transitional National Council to fulfill its international responsibilities and the commitments it has made to build a tolerant, unified democratic state—one that protects the universal human rights of all its citizens.”

Of course, these words are simply empty slogans, since the United States has never even tied the supply of extensive aid (such as their billions in military aid to Egypt) to any meaningful program of encouraging tolerance or what they term “universal human rights”, and their financial and political support of oppressive dictatorships whose torture chambers would be outsourced by the CIA for the interrogation of “terrorist” suspects undermines any such rhetoric that the World has heard many times from the State department previously. The fact that these assets are in effect actually owned by the Libyan people, and not aid of any form, makes it even more astonishing that the “international community” and the United States feel entitled to dictate their use.

Cutting through the empty language which is common fare to be used in such circumstances by the US, a later section outlines some of the conditions expected. “The TNC also has obligations to the international community. We will look to them to ensure that Libya fulfills its treaty responsibilities, that it ensures that its weapons stockpiles do not threaten its neighbors or fall into the wrong hands, and that it takes a firm stand against violent extremism”.

Given the extent of the American war machine to the point they are killing civilians by remote control, and the proliferation of Western arm deals with all manner of despots from Saudi to Israel, “violent extremism” is something that the US and its allies engenders rather than acts against. What is meant in this context, and within the framework of establishing a “tolerant, unified democratic state” is one that will submit itself to Western financial and political interests, which today also entails ensuring that Israel remains safe, and any Islamic based polity is off the table.

As for the will of the Libyan people, this will be expressed through the NTC who appear to be poised to serve as representing the will of the “international community” rather than that of the people of the region, and given that the NTC will be relying upon the goodwill of NATO and others to put bread on its table, it is unlikely to act as an independent force truly representing the people. As has already been explained NATO involvement in the conflict and the next phase of rebuilding the country has put them in the position to effectively dictate the future.

The far-fetched thought that NATO would leave the people to resolve their own path forward once the obstacle of Gaddafi was removed is now completely disproven. For all talk about “partnership” and “working together” in the words coming out of the State Department, Clinton is effectively explaining to the NTC and Libya – you need access to your own money, and we are the doorkeepers. In effect, we own you.

Reza Pankhurst has a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, Government department. He is a former political prisoner of the previous Mubarak regime in Egypt, having spent 4 years in jail between 2002 and 2006. He also contributes to the New Civilisation online magazine (www.newcivilisation.com)

This summary is generated out of the Seventh Annual Hindu Human Rights Report assembled by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). It highlights the human rights conditions in different countries and accentuates the discrimination of Hindus.

Hinduism is one of the oldest surviving religions with its origins tracing back to at least the third millennium BCE. Hindus are pluralistic in their beliefs and accept the myriad means of worship and prayer. Furthermore Hindus, numbering nearly one billion, constitute the third largest religious group in the world.

noted in its updated edition of the report (http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/not-cast-caste-big-picture-and-executive-summary.) Nevertheless there is evidence that some of the twenty million Hindus living outside India have been subjected on occasions to discrimination, violence, forced conversions, socio-political ostracization, disenfranchisement and the demolition of places of worship. In some countries, fundamentalists from other religions advance a discriminatory and non‐inclusive agenda, and promote hatred of religious and ethnic minorities in league with politicians and other government officials.

For a detailed account of events and conditions in various countries I have decided to give a short description of Trinidad and Tobago.

Historically Trinidad and Tobago had an indigenous population with a tradition which was not exposed to the world religions. The emergence of Hinduism in this society is therefore a unique development.

For an overview of the ‘situation in different hotspots’ I also singled out Afghanistan and Australia.

In Afghanistan one can find out how three different existing legal frameworks (International Human Rights, Islamic principles and traditional Afghan law in action) compete with one another and how religion is exploited by the ‘so called government’ for the implementation of political issues.

With Australia a good example is given for a ‘racial overtone’ affecting Asians (in this case: Hindus) which is linked to an ongoing and pervasive xenophobia.

Trinidad and Tobago

The democratic republic of Trinidad and Tobago, which is described as a “plural society” and which constitution legally guarantees the right to equality of treatment and freedom of religious belief, is headed by the first female Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who is of Indian and Hindu descent and took office in May 2010. Citizens of Indian descent (approximately 40.3% of the islands’ population), who had been marginalized now look forward to their rightful place in this multi‐ethnic and multi-religious society after nearly six decades of discrimination.

Hindus are still frequently subjected to discrimination, hate speech, acts of violence and faced a multitude of human rights issues, including physical attacks and temple desecration. Furthermore Indo-Trinidadians have been systematically denied government benefits and employment in public sector jobs. Hindu institutions and festivals are subject to acts of violence and are denied equal access to public funds. Discrimination against Hindus is also present in the educational system. In many primary and secondary schools and colleges, Hindu children are prevented from practicing their religion and debarred from wearing Hindu clothing and other symbols. Over and above Hindus fear a systematized attempt of denial in the media. For instance, photographs in tourism brochures depict Trinidad and Tobago as a nation whose population is predominantly of African descent.

The Trinidadian government has repeatedly violated the signed UN Covenants by failing to protect its Hindu and Indian citizens and discriminating against them on ethnic and religious grounds, even though Trinidad’s Constitution provides for “equality before the law” and freedom of religion. Indians and Hindus have, however, faced systematic discrimination and harassment. With the change in government in 2010 and an Indian/Hindu heading the new government, it is expected that pressure will ease on the Indo-Caribbean population. However, it is incumbent upon the government to pay attention to enforcing civil and criminal laws and to protect all citizens. Trinidadian leaders should discourage racial and religious stereotypes, recognize Hindus and Indians as equal partners in the rule and governance of the nation and distance themselves from hatred against Hindus and Hinduism.

Hotspots of Trouble

Afghanistan:

The unclear situation in Afghanistan is characterized by foreign occupation and also by three different competing laws (the International Human Rights principles, Sharia law (Islamic principles) and the traditional Afghan law in action). For this reason social tensions are rising and make a deep impact on the everyday life of people which is marked by instability and insecurity. And even though Afghanistan is one of the oldest Hindu centres of the world and Afghanistan’s constitution grants equal rights to all to practise their religious ceremonies, Hindus still face many problems. For example in February 2001, during the Taliban’s reign, Hindus were forced to wear a distinguishing yellow stripe on their arm, similar to the Jews during Hitler’s reign. Furthermore Hindus are not allowed to be in charge of a governmental body or office or even to cremate dead bodies, Hindu-owned land and property has been seized and/or occupied.

Finally, Afghanistan is only one example of religious bigotry and Islamic fundamentalism but it is doubtful that the Hindu minority will survive any longer in Afghanistan. This is ironic because to this day, Indian movies and music are popular in the country. Also, India is the sixth largest foreign aid donor to Afghanistan and Indian companies are rebuilding roads and schools in Afghanistan despite the constant security threats.

It is obvious that Afghanistan’s lawlessness has exacerbated the plight of the Hindus.

Australia

The Australian government and society has to concern itself with an ongoing xenophobia which affects people from the Asian region. In January 2010, there were about 70,000 Indian students studying in the country and make up 18% of Australia’s total overseas student population, the second-largest group of students after the Chinese. One can hypothesize that the majority of Indian students in Australia are Hindus.

The Victoria Police Commission reported that there were many cases of robbery and assault against Indians – some with fatal consequences.

Another report submitted in early 2010 to the Indian Parliament by the Overseas Indian Ministry said that many of the attacks that the Indian Consulate was aware of had “racial overtones”.

Given the fact that international students contribute $13 billion to the Australian economy every year, and Australia stood to lose nearly $70 million because of the attacks against and flight of Indian students, the Indian government and the Australian government sought to repair the damage with ministers traveling to and from to learn the facts and establish goodwill.

Over and above the ongoing public debate pertaining to the Aborigines and the issue of asylum seekers and resettlement programs there is an unsettled and alarmingly xenophobia concerning Indians and Hindus in Australia. This is a challenge which also demands urgent attention through bilateral cooperation.