Wars at Home/State Terrorism

Posted on March 31, 2003 in Atrocity War

While the country’s news adventurers clog Iraq — reporting back every rumor and propaganda “leak” in the hope that it will win them a Pulitzer Prize — Amnesty International investigators have been painstakingly documented the ways that governments have used the war as an excuse for abridging their citizens rights.

Among the friendly fire incidents AI reports today:

• Belgian police have been arresting peace demonstrators and detaining them for hours. It seems to be suspicious to even talk about organizing a peaceful demonstration: “People who met in the village of Melsele on 1 March to plan protest action were placed under administrative arrest.”
  
  
  
• Egyptian security forces have detained demonstrators and reportedly even tortured a few. (Not verified). Even members of parliament have not been exempted: two of them were detained after they participated in demonstrations against the war. Beatings of demonstrators during arrests has been documented here.
  
  
  
• Seventeen Jordanian peace activists have been held incommunicado since the start of the war.
  
  
  
• Despite the refusal of the Turkish Parliament to enter the war, the Turkish government has used laws restricting freedom of association and freedom of the press to squash demonstrations and press statements against the war. Police in Istanbul attacked a crowd of 5,000 demonstrators who gathered after Friday prayers outside the Beyazit mosque.
  
  
  
• British police have resorted to stopping and searching people without reasonable suspicion under provisions of the nation’s Terrorism Act. “One person was allegedly arrested arbitrarily while filming police restraining a child at a demonstration.”
  
  
  
• Chicago police arrested 450 people for blocking a traffic artery, dragging in bystanders and demonstrators who refused to take part in the unlawful behavior. U.S. customs officials have been detaining people based on national origin under provisions of Operation “Liberty” Shield.
  
  
  
• Germany: “Police reportedly used water cannons and batons to clear several hundred protesters, many of them teenagers, who refused to disperse from outside the US Consulate [in Hamburg] after the main demonstration had ended.”
  
  
  
• Greece is another country where violence against demostrators has been reported:
  

  the dean of the Education School of Aristotelis University was stamped on by riot police after he had fallen to the ground as a result of a tear gas can exploding next to him. On 21 March, 23 demonstrators were detained by police and dozens of others were briefly detained after buildings were damaged in Athens during an anti-war protest. After the demonstration, anti-riot police reportedly beat Iraqi immigrants and took 38 of them away to check their identities. All were released, but three are recovering from their injuries in hospital.

  
  

• Spanish police have fired rubber bullets at and beaten demonstrators.
  
  
  
• Sudanese police admitted to killing a 22 year old student demonstrator. Two other demonstrators have died.
  
  
  
• Three protestors — including an 11 year old child — were shot by police in Yemen.

We lose credibility when we complain about the as yet unverified reports of Republican Guard brutality against retreating Iraqi civilians and do not speak about what other governments are doing to those expressing their conscience or merely observing demonstrations. The actions that I have described above are terroristic in nature: they are directed at civilians and they are calculated to inspire free. To those who say that the war in Iraq is a war for the cause of freedom, I echo the famous phrase of Milton: Look Homeward, Angel!

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Human Rights Watch published a statement criticizing Iraq for disguising its solders as civilians today:

Perfidy poses particular dangers because it blurs the distinction between enemy soldiers, who are a valid target, and civilians and other noncombatants, who are not. Soldiers fearful of perfidious attacks are more likely to fire upon civilians and surrendering soldiers, however unlawfully.