#blinken — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #blinken, aggregated by home.social.
-
#ElSalvador faces scrutiny for ‘political’ trial of five #EnvironmentalActivists
UN and legal experts have condemned prosecution of #AntiMining campaigners over alleged civil war-era killing
Nina Lakhani
Wed 9 Oct 2024 11.43 EDT"Five environmental activists who helped secure a historic mining ban in El Salvador are facing life imprisonment for an alleged civil war-era crime, in a case that has been condemned by #UN and legal experts as baseless and politically motivated.
The trial against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, who were arrested in January 2023 for the alleged killing of an army informant in 1989, opened on Tuesday in Sensuntepeque, in the department of Cabañas in northern El Salvador.
"The case has proceeded in almost total secrecy amid widespread allegations of legal violations – and repeated calls for the charges to be dismissed from UN experts, and hundreds of international lawyers, academics and rights groups.
"The defendants, who were at the forefront of a 13-year grassroots-led campaign to ban #MetalMining to protect the country’s dwindling #water and #farmland from further #contamination, were arrested amid warnings that President Nayib Bukele was planning to overturn the 2017 historic law.
"The five anti-mining activists had denounced suspicious land sales and mining interests operating in the area when arrested, accused of murder and illicit association over an alleged crime during the 1979-1992 civil war.
"'This case has no legal basis, but we fear that the lack of judicial independence and the Bukele government’s desire to overturn the metal mining ban risks the five #environmental leaders being subjected to a terrible miscarriage of justice,' said Pedro Cabezas, coordinator of the Central American Alliance Against Mining.
"'The five are respected community leaders, and sentencing them to inhumane prison conditions would be a death sentence.'"
[...]
"In what was perceived as a show of support for the activists, #Canada, #Germany, #France, the #UK and the #EU sent representatives to pre-trial hearings. The #Biden administration has remained silent despite 17 members of Congress condemning the arrests and urging the secretary of state, Antony #Blinken, to join calls for the charges to be dismissed."
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/09/el-salvador-trial-environmental-activists-mining#EnvironmentalActivists #CriminalizingActivism #WaterIsLife #TrumpedUpCharges #NoMiningWithoutConsent #BigMining #Corruption
-
Willkommen in der SmartHome-Hölle
https://libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1066-fad3-d622-1ec534594719
-
[cont’d]
#Haaretz reporting further:
Gantz spoke with #Blinken, and his office noted that he asked him to reconsider the #Biden administration's decision to impose sanctions against the "Netzah Yehuda" battalion operating in the West Bank. In a statement from him, it was reported that Gantz warned that the decision would harm Israel's legitimacy during wartime, and that it is unjustified since "Israel has a strong and independent judicial system."
From DAWN’s report:
[…] In March 2022, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights NGO, published a data sheet, "Law Enforcement on Soldiers Suspected of Harming Palestinians and their Property," notably finding that:
The odds that a Palestinian would see his or her complaint result in the prosecution of the soldier who harmed them: 2%.
72% of all complaints that were filed in 2019–2020 following suspected offenses committed by soldiers against Palestinians in which a decision was reached were closed with no criminal investigation.[…] "[A]s soon as the operational investigation was completed, its insignificance quickly became clear: the battalion commander was reprimanded, and two other commanders were removed from their positions and barred from command roles for two years. As usual, the military announced the launch of [a military police] investigation into the incident. Yet B'Tselem's years of experience indicate that this investigation, too, is part of the MAG Corps' sophisticated whitewashing system. Its primary purpose is to silence criticism directed at the military – and at Israel – over the incident. It is not intended to uncover the truth or to hold those responsible accountable, and is certainly not meant [to] prevent the recurrence of such cases or ensure As'ad's [sic] family even a modicum of justice."
https://dawnmena.org/culprit-netzah-yehuda-battalion/
@israel
@palestine
#NetzahYehuda #WarCrimes
#Israel #ICJ #US -
It has passed 9 AM in #Israel and #Gaza - a quick recap:
#US is in talks with #Israel , the #UN and #Egypt on allowing aid into #Gaza , and providing safe passage out of the territory for some residents. #Blinken is due to land in IsraelIsrael has massed troops near the Gaza border, which includes about 300,000 #reservist forces. It is still unclear if and when it plans to launch a ground offensive inside Gaza
( cont.)
