Oread Daily January 9, 2003
randy
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OREAD DAILY
WARNING FROM THE PEOPLE'S MUJAHIDEEN OF IRAN
A leader of Iran's main rebel group, the People's Mujahideen, Massoud
Rajavi, has warned that Iran plans to exploit the Iraqi crisis to attack its
bases in Iraq. "Taking advantage of the current crisis, (they) are making
all-round preparations, politically and militarily, in order to repeat their
terrorist attacks...inside Iraq," said the group. the Iraq-based group said
in a statement received in Dubai on Thursday. "Rajavi provided...documents
on the mullahs' planned aggression with the objective of attacking and
capturing the Mujahideen's camps in the circumstances of war and crisis," it
said. The People's Mujahideen is a leftist Islamic group which is labeled
by the US as "terrorist."
The political arm of the People's Mujahideen and several related resistance
groups, the National Council of Resistance in Iran presents a modernist
democratic alternative to the totalitarian medieval theocracy of the
ayatollahs, especially their repressive policies toward women. With 40,000
soldiers armed with tanks, and artillery, cross-border raids, radio and
television broadcasts in Iran, its encouragement of internal dissent and
work abroad to call into question the legitimacy of the ayatollahs' regime,
the NCR is a genuine threat to the Tehran government. It believes in
political pluralism and a multi-party system. It recognizes democracy as the
sole guarantee for the advancement and progress of the country. It believes
in equal political and social rights for all and reject s all discrimination
based on gender, creed or religion. It views elections and the popular vote
as the sole criterion of legitimacy for elected officials. The NCR respects
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and commits itself to the
Declaration's implementation. It recognizes complete freedom of thought and
expression and prohibits any form of torture and ideological scrutiny under
any pretext. The council allows all forms of opposition to the government up
to the point of armed rebellion. It guarantees judicial and occupational
security of all citizens and dissolves all military tribunals, revolutionary
and emergency courts, and all repressive organs, such as the Pasdaran Corps,
and bans any form of torture. It supports separation of religion and state,
as well as equal rights for women. This hardly qualifies it as a terror
group. In fact, many believe the People's Mujahideen (Mujahideen-i-Khalq
Organization) is the only hope for revolutionary change in that country.
Sources: National Council of Resistance of Iran, Asia Times, Reuters Alert,
Tanzeem-e-Islami
LET HIM GO, BUILD THE MORGUE ELSEWHERE
Over 3000 placard carrying Nigerian women from Obinze near Owerri, stormed
Imo State police headquarters Monday morning, to protest the continued
detention of their town union president general, Uche Onyeagucha, even as
the angry women defied several tear gas canisters fired at them by anti riot
police men deployed by the command to dislodge the protesters who blocked
the main entrance into the headquarters. They sang all manner of songs and
poured invectives on the police command.. "The police arrested the president
general of our town union, Barrister Uche Onyeagucha, his brothers, James
and Chidi, his aged parents as well as the 80 year old traditional prime
minister of the town, Chief Godwin C. Amaechi," the women told the local
media.
The trouble started after a morgue owner by the name of Dr. Echefu insisted
on building a morgue in the residential area of the community, which the
people resisted.
In a two page letter addressed to the state Police Commissioner, Bennet
Oghomone, the South East zonal chairman of CLO, Barrister Uche Wisdom
Durueke reminded the police command that Onyeagucha "is a legal practitioner
and an illustrious son of Imo State." Part of the letter reads: "On January
3, 2003, the citizen was arrested by men of the State Criminal Investigation
Bureau (CIB) on allegation of malicious damage of the sign post of a morgue
belonging to one Dr. Echefu. The alleged damage was not the action of the
citizen but that of some youths in the community. The citizen was arrested
and is being detained by virtue of his position as the president general of
Obinze Town Union."
"We verily know that the alleged offense is bailable under the law. More so,
when the citizen is not the person who allegedly destroyed the said
property. We consider his arrest and detention an infraction of his
fundamental human rights to personal liberty. The situation is worrisome on
the grounds that the complainant's brother has openly boasted that the
citizen would remain in detention. "Also, we are requesting that the
traditional prime minister of the community Chief Godwin C. Amaechi, an 80
year old man, be released on bail too. He was arrested and detained at the
instigation of the complainant when he came to seek the bail of the
citizen."
Onyeagucha is also an activist lawyer with the Environmental Rights Action,
a leader of the Democratic Alternative, and former president of the Civil
Liberties Organization, a non-governmental, non-partisan and voluntary
Nigerian human rights league whose purpose is the defense and expansion of
the scope of human rights and the civil liberties of all residents in
Nigeria.
Sources: Vanguard (Lagos ), Columbia University, Democracy Now, This Day
(Lagos)
THE LITTLE TRAIN THAT WOULDN'T
Two engineers on the English Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) refused to
move a freight train yesterday carrying ammunition believed to be destined
for British forces being deployed in the Gulf. The engineers said they
opposed Tony Blair's threat to attack Iraq. The two crewmen declined to
operate the train between the Glasgow area and the Glen Douglas base on
Scotland's west coast, Europe's largest NATO weapons store. Leaders of the
Aslef rail union were pressed at a meeting with EWS executives to ask the
drivers to relent. But the officials of a union opposed to any attack on
Iraq are unlikely to comply. Trade unions supporting workers who refuse to
handle weapons could risk legal action and possible fines for contempt of
court. Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "We
fully support the action that has been taken to impede an unjust and
aggressive war. We hope that other people around the country will be able to
do likewise."
The Stop the War Coalition is organizing a second national demonstration in
central London on Saturday February 15. As a prelude to the February 15th
event the group is organizing a peace conference for this Saturday which
will include an appearance by Ahmed Ben Bella. Ahmed Ben Bella first rose to
international prominence as the leader of the Algerian liberation movement
before becoming Algeria's first post-independence president in 1962. More
recently Ben Bella has played a central role in peace talks in Algeria, has
been a tireless campaigner for lifting sanctions against Iraq and was made
president of the International Campaign Against US Aggression on Iraq,
founded at the historic Cairo peace conference in December. This Saturday's
conference will be from 10:00 to 17:00, at The Camden Center, Judd Street,
London WC1H 9JE Registration starts at 9:30am. The conference is open to all
supporters, and every affiliated organization is permitted to send 4 voting
delegates.
Sources: Guardian, Stop the War Coalition
HALE TO JAIL
Oops. Matt Hale has gone to jail. Wednesday in Chicago's federal
courthouse, a phalanx of federal agents arrested the white supremacist
leader of the World Church of the Creator (WCOC) on charges he solicited the
murder of a federal judge. He was showing up for a contempt hearing before
that very judge, Joan Humphrey Lefkow, when arrested. The hearing was
canceled. Those already in the courtroom, which included representatives of
various anti-racist groups, and approximately 15 recognizable racists, were
told by a court official that the proceedings were postponed. Attorney
Patrick Fitzgerald said prosecutors would seek to hold Hale until his trial
as a danger to the community. At a subsequent hearing in federal court on
the criminal charge, Hale was greeted by several supporters who stood and
raised a hand in a Nazi-style salute.
Lefkow was presiding over a trademark infringement suit filed by the Church
of the Creator, headquartered in Oregon, against World Church of the
Creator. The Oregon church, operated by TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation, said the
similar names and trademarks left the mistaken impression that it endorses
Hale's racist messages. Last January, Lefkow ruled in Hale's favor,
dismissing the Oregon church's lawsuit, but in July a federal appeals court
in Chicago ruled that Hale's group had violated the trademark. Lefkow was
enforcing the appeals court's directive when on Nov. 19--10 days before the
alleged murder solicitation commenced--she ordered the World Church of the
Creator to stop using that name and trademark and remove both from printed
materials and Internet sites. On Dec. 13 Lefkow granted TE-TA-MA's motion
for Hale's church to show why it shouldn't be held in contempt for defying
the order and ordered Hale to appear in court Wednesday.
Hale was on the schedule to appear at a rally in Lewiston, Maine this
Saturday where the topic of his speech was to be "The Invasion of Maine by
Somalis and How We Can End It". The pro diversity rally scheduled to
protest Hale will go on as scheduled there according to Mark Schlotterbeck
of the Many and One Coalition.
Hale was also trying none to successfully to hold a meeting at a public
library in York, Pennsylvania in early February. That meeting was never
official since Hale refused to meet at 7 a.m., the only time library
officials said he could meet there. Nearly a year ago, Hale spoke at the
Library in York - a meeting that precipitated street fighting between
racists and anti-racists.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, York Daily Record, World Church of the Creator,
WMTW (Portland, Maine), One People's Project