External resources relating to Repression of protest

New York - In October, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department turned parts of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley into an urban battlefield. The occasion was Urban Shield 2011, an annual SWAT team exposition organized to promote “mutual response,” collaboration and competition between heavily militarized police strike forces representing law enforcement departments across the United States and foreign nations.

At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department was preparing for an imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up camp in downtown Oakland, and would demonstrate the brunt of its repressive capacity against the demonstrators a month later when it attacked the encampment with teargas and rubber bullet rounds, leaving an Iraq war veteran in critical condition and dozens injured.

With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street, a new generation of mostly middle class Americans is learning for the first time about the militarization of their local police forces. And they are learning the hard way, through confrontations with phalanxes of riot cops armed with the latest in "non-lethal" crowd control weaponry. Yesterday's protests in Oakland, California were the site of perhaps the harshest police violence leveled against the Occupy movement so far. Members of the Oakland Police Department and the California Sheriff's Department attacked unarmed protesters with teargas canisters, beanbag rounds, percussion grenades, and allegedly with rubber bullets, leaving a number of demonstrators with deep contusions and bloody head wounds. It is not difficult to imagine such scenes becoming commonplace as the Occupy protests intensify across the country.

The police repression on display in Oakland reminded me of tactics I witnessed the Israeli army employ against Palestinian popular struggle demonstrations in occupied West Bank villages like Nabi Saleh, Ni'lin and Bilin. So I was not surprised when I learned that the same company that supplies the Israeli army with teargas rounds and other weapons of mass suppression is selling its dangerous wares to the Oakland police.

As a child growing up in the remote highlands of West Papua, we often heard stories from the elders about how our ancestors' spirits lived in the mountains and forests. How they would cry if they saw what is happening today. Illegal logging is rife, and the world's largest gold and copper mine, Freeport, has caused permanent environmental devastation to our sacred lands that is visible from space.

Earlier this week, Indonesian security forces opened fire on striking workers at the Freeport mine. It left one person dead and several others wounded, leading Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia Pacific director, to say that "Indonesian police have not learned how to deal with protesters without resorting to excessive, and even lethal, force". Rough justice is nothing new to my people. Journalists are not permitted entry to Papua but raw footage from Papuans' mobile phones regularly documents Papuans suffering brutality at the hands of Indonesian security services...

In the early hours of Saturday, March 12, Yemeni security forces under the direction of Yemen’s Central Security Service (CSS) (which is commanded by Yahya Salih and is home to the U.S. funded and trained “counter-terror unit”) stormed the anti-government protesters’ camp near Sana’a University. The ensuing battle between the protesters and state security forces resulted in over 100 injured and two dead protesters. The violence continued across Yemen on Sunday with more injured protesters and one death reported in the southern port city of Aden...

Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Bil’in had no cause to ring in the New Year as tragedy struck the Abu Rahmah family for the fourth time in three years.

After inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli military at a December 31 demonstration, 36-year-old villager Jawaher Abu Rahmah died the next day from cardiac arrest. Rather than admit wrongdoing, the Israeli military briefed behind closed doors friendly bloggers who then shamefully blamed her death on cancer, or failing that, on an “honor killing.”

Previously, Jawaher’s 29-year-old brother Bassem was killed by the Israeli military in April 2009 when he was hit in the chest with a high-velocity tear gas canister...

Israel Defense Forces soldiers recently resumed the use of prohibited tear gas canisters to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank.
                                                                                              
These tear gas grenades, which are in effect 40 mm rounds with a range of 250 meters, were responsible for numerous serious injuries and at least one death. In March 2009, the U.S. peace activist Tristan Anderson was hit in the head by one of these canisters while demonstrating against the West Bank separation barrier in Na'alin. Anderson was critically injured and was hospitalized in a minimally responsive state for several months after the incident. He has recovered some physical and mental functions. In April 2009, Bassam Abu Rahma, of Bil'in, died immediately after being hit in the chest by a tear gas grenade. The incident is still under IDF investigation...

Israeli military exports to South America have been on the rise in the recent years. Brazil is gearing up to become the gateway for Israeli military technology and companies. Israel continues to be a top supplier of the Colombian military. Ecuador, while not having extensive military ties with Israel, has recently purchased drone aircraft. Chile, already a buyer of Israeli arms, also has expressed interest in similar drone technology.

It is the goal of this report to analyze these trends, both in light of recent events and also as they relate to the history of Israeli involvement in South America. We will highlight that it is impossible for South America’s democratic governments to reconcile protection of human rights - whether at home or abroad - with military ties and arms trade with Israel.

Any military ties with Israel support the state’s policies of occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, policies whose sustainability depends on Israeli military capacities and the profits deriving from its military industry,  and adversely affect the Palestinians and their struggle. Israel has developed an indigenous military industry that produces much of the equipment used by its military.  International buyers help ensure the survival of the Israeli military industry.

He stands on a small sandy hilltop wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, cigarette in hand. He is calling out to the soldiers on the other side of the fence “Do not shoot, do not shoot. There are children and internationals here, do not shoot.” Thin white wisps of tear gas linger in the gentle breeze, a moment of calm in the confrontation.

Suddenly a tear gas canister whizzes past the camera making an audible “clunk” as it hits something to the right. He tries to let out a scream, but all he manages is a stifled yelp. One can almost hear his breath being cut short as the projectile punctures his chest. Another muted scream of pain. He falls to the ground then jumps up quickly, running a few steps before collapsing again.

His body rolls a few times as he hits the ground, his limbs flapping loosely underneath him. Two fellow demonstrators run to him, looking almost surprised and unsure of what has just happened. They turn him over, lifting his shirt and calling his name. But he is unresponsive. His eyes are open but his body lies motionless. His bright yellow shirt now quickly growing a wet red stain over his heart...

The beating and arrest Saturday of Alexander Kozulin, a key opposition leader and a presidential candidate in last week's election — now branded as a farce by the EU and the U.S. — signaled the onset of a bloody melee in Minsk that left thousands beaten up,several of them in grave condition, tear-gassed, stunned with percussion grenades and chased all over town by club-wielding policemen. Hundreds have been detained. Arrests are still underway in the city. Earlier, Kazulin had told TIME in an interview that the government's response to the protests underscored its lack of legitimacy.

The story of the Amungme and Kamoro peoples and U.S. mining corporation Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold ("Freeport") offers one of the best-documented examples of how local communities have experienced and resisted the seizure of their traditional lands by government-backed multinational mining enterprises...

In April 2015, following a long period of speculation, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was seeking a mandate to run for a third-term in office. The following July his party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) won by a landslide in a highly disputed election. Critics consider this a direct violation of the Burundian Constitution, which allows a maximum two-term limit. The Constitution was set up as part of the 2006 peace accord, which marked the end of a 13-year civil war and promised the embracement of democracy. The ruling party defend the violation by insisting that Nkurunziza’s first term does not count, as he was initially appointed by parliament and is therefore entitled to run for a second time as an elected candidate.

In the lead up to the elections and beyond, there have been increasing reports of extra-judicial killings, torture, violence and intimation being carried out by loyalists of Nkurunziza's govermment, in an effort to defend his right to stand and suppress his opponents. This has elicited fears that the country could be plunged into another civil war and prompted a mass exodus of civilians from the country...

Breathing air thick with teargas and smoke from makeshift barricades on Valparaiso’s street corners, Carla Casoni remembers feeling her skin and eyes burn with the chemical-infused water used as a common police tactic to disperse demonstrators. “I lost vision temporarily so I was an easy target for the police,” she says. Casoni is one of nearly 30,000 people who have been detained, many arbitrarily, in more than two months of unrest that has swept across Chile.

Turkish authorities committed human rights violations on a massive scale in the government’s attempts to crush the Gezi Park protests this summer said Amnesty International.

In a report published today the organization details the worst excesses of police violence, during the protests, the failure to bring these abuses to justice and the subsequent prosecution and harassment of those that took part...

The annual Security & Policing (S&P) exhibition is marketed to both sellers and buyers by the Home Office, the department responsible for MI5, as a “closed” gathering from which the public and media are barred. All visitors must receive official approval prior to entry. Officials insist that the sensitive nature of some of the equipment on display – from mobile phone interception devices to sonic crowd control instruments – in the vast Farnborough International conference centre make it necessary to prevent any external scrutiny. But documents seen by i show that Britain has nonetheless thrown open the door to delegations from countries known to have poor human rights records. A list of the 61 countries invited to the show, obtained under Freedom of Information rules, includes six countries which feature of the Government’s own list of “human rights priority” countries, among them Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Colombia. It also includes Brazil, Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria and Thailand – all countries where there have been recent allegations of police abuse.

Hong Kong police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters who had massed outside government headquarters on Wednesday in opposition to a proposed extradition bill that has become a lightning rod for concerns over greater Chinese control and erosion of civil liberties in the territory.

The legal cases against Tahoe Resources are being carried out in a larger context of opposition to the Escobal mine. The violence, repression, and criminalization community leaders continue to face is not limited to what transpired on April 27, 2013...

Further militarization of the Ilisu Dam construction site has exacerbated the tension around the highly controversial dam project. In a press release, the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive warns about a potential escalation of the situation including human rights violations and call upon the civil society and policy maker worldwide to protest against the decision of Turkish State Water Works (DSI) to continue with this destructive project.

Another person has been shot dead during violent protests in south India against a copper plant operated by a British mining giant residents say is polluting the local environment. Opposition politicians in the state of Tamil Nadu have accused the police of committing mass murder against protesters opposed to the expansion of a copper smelting facility in the port city of Thoothukudi.

Hong Kong police have used tear gas to disperse thousands of pro-democracy protesters near the government complex, after a week of escalating tensions.

Dozens of demonstrators were arrested, with hundreds vowing to stay put to continue the protest.

Protesters want the Chinese government to scrap rules allowing it to vet Hong Kong's top leader in the 2017 poll.