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Indian villagers have sound reasons to distrust their government

Despite mass opposition, India pushes ahead with operationalizing nuclear plant WSWS, By Arun Kumar and Kranti Kumara  27 September 2012“…….It is not just the safety of the plant that the villagers are angry about. While the Indian government has spent huge amounts to build ultra-modern facilities for the nuclear plant’s employees, including a fully-equipped hospital, villagers are barred from using them. Most of the villagers and fishermen live in squalor and poverty lacking even basic facilities such as running water.
Moreover the villagers put no faith in the ability of the Indian elite to manage a nuclear accident given the government’s display of a mixture of incompetence and callousness during and after the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal. The uncontrolled release of toxic gas at Bhopal, which caused over half a million casualties including over 20,000 deaths, was the worst industrial disaster in world history. Even after the passage of 38 years, the government has left the plant site and its surroundings severely contaminated with toxic substances. No one has been held criminally responsible and the Indian government has essentially connived to this mass crime by agreeing to accept a measly $470 million in compensation from Union Carbide.
Despite this horrible precedent, the Indian government has agreed that the Russian firm that has supplied and built KNPP’s reactor will have zero liability in the event of an accident
In a desperate attempt to justify the state suppression of the protests, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has brazenly declared that the anti-nuclear protestors are acting at the behest of United States-based Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that want to derail India’s “progress”.
The Indian establishment is justifying its single-minded pursuit of nuclear power plants by claiming that it will help reduce the chronic electricity shortage that afflicts the country. Such arguments are duplicitous as there are far more cost-efficient ways to produce electricity than from nuclear power plants.
But motives other than providing cheap electricity are propelling the Indian elite to expand the country’s nuclear power industry—first and foremost its drive to increase its arsenal of nuclear weapons. With the signing of the India-US Nuclear Accord in 2008, the Indian elite can now utilize domestic uranium reserves for weapons production while obtaining and gaining expertise in the latest state-of-the-art nuclear technology. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/indi-s27.shtml

September 29, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

USA classes Assange with al-Qaeda and Taliban: Australian govt toes the USA line

‘Enemy’ tag poses fresh test of citizens’ rights, The Age editorial September 28, 2012 The law must be the same for Assange as for everyone else. THE designation of WikiLeaks and its co-founder, Julian Assange, as enemies of the US adds to the gravity of the consequences for releasing classified embassy cables two years ago.

The development, revealed in newly released US Air Force documents, puts Assange in the same category as al-Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban. Personnel who contact him risk being charged with crimes that may carry the death penalty.

Senior US politicians have called Assange a terrorist and demanded he be charged with espionage, hunted down or assassinated.

The Age has refuted Australian government claims of ignorance of US plans to pursue Assange. When coupled with public denunciations – Prime Minister Julia Gillard declared Assange to be a criminal – this government inspires little confidence that it would be any more diligent than the Howard government was in standing up for its citizens’ rights.

A member of the military charged with a military offence can expect to be tried in a military court. US Army private Bradley Manning faces a court martial charged with aiding the enemy by transmitting information that became available to the enemy via WikiLeaks.  However, as a result of being deemed ”enemy combatants” – an expedient but legally dubious categorisation – Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib endured long detentions without charge at Guantanamo Bay until a special military tribunal was set up to try detainees.

That points to the risks for anyone declared an ”enemy” of the US military. Assange, though, is not a combatant; as WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, he sees himself as a journalist. The Age published excerpts from the cables by arrangement with WikiLeaks, as did The New York Times in the US and The Guardian in the UK. This information exposed the truth
about the conduct of governments involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Publication was based on the conviction that citizens have a right to know about glaring differences between what governments say in public and what they say and do in private. We had no compunction about making public the secret business of governments and their militaries when the public had been deceived about grave decisions of state,
which went to the justifications for and progress of two wars. At the time, The Age cited an obvious historical precedent. Four decades ago, the Pentagon papers, also illegally copied and provided to The New York Times, showed the Johnson administration had deceived Congress and the public about the Vietnam War.

It is hard to mount a credible argument that exposing deceptive conduct and collusion by elected governments is against the public interest. If governments are embarrassed, lose credibility and are politically damaged, they deserve to be…….  http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/enemy-tag-poses-fresh-test-of-citizens-rights-20120927-26o6e.html#ixzz27o1kr02U

September 28, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

250 arrested in Tuticorin as India’s govt cracks down on anti nuclear movement

Kudankulam protest: 250 anti-nuclear activists arrested Zee News, September 16, 2012, Kudankulam (TN): Around 250 people were arrested in Tuticorin when they attempted to set out on a march to express solidarity with anti-nuclear agitators here who on Sunday buried themselves upto waist in beach sand, in a new form of protest against loading of fuel in Kudankuklam plant.

A ‘solidarity march’ by cultural leaders from Kerala to Kudankulam to express support with the anti-nuclear activists here was also stopped on the state’s border with Tamil Nadu.

Leader of Peoples Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), which is spearheading the protest here, meanwhile, offered unconditional talks with the central and state governments and said they were ready to give up the agitation if the government assured that fuel would not be loaded for now. ….. Continue reading →

September 17, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

India: Police block march of peaceful anti nuclear writers and activists

Kerala marchers stopped Deccan Chronicle, September 17, 2012 Thiruvananthapuram | Chennai     The Kerala-Kudankulam march led by writers and social activists on Sunday to express solidarity with the anti-nuclear protests in Kudankulam was blocked by the police near the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border at Inchivila.

Kerala Anti-Nuclear Support Group, which organised the march, then tried to bus the activists to the protest site.

But this attempt was also derailed when the bus was stopped and asked to return by TN police before Kudankulam.

The march, undertaken by over 200 people, was inaugurated by poetess Sugatha Kumari at Parassala. Other noted personalities who took part in the march were: writer Sara Joseph, former diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar, Latin Diocese Vicar-General Eugene Pereira, social activist B.R.P. Bhaskar, Gandhian P. Gopinathan and former naxallite K. Ajitha…… http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/south/kerala-marchers-stopped-454

September 17, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Peaceful anti nuclear protestors from Kerala stopped by large police presence at border

The activists, writers and poets from Kerala, including writers Sugathakumari and Sara Joseph, social activist K Ajitha, environmental activist C R Neelakantan had sought permission from the Kerala police to take out a march from Parasalai to Idinthakarai, but were denied permission.

KKNPP: Kerala activists try to enter TN  http://timesofindia indiatimes.com/city/madurai/KKNPP-Kerala-activists-try-to-enter-TN/articleshow/16429530.cms  TNN | Sep 17, 2012, TIRUNELVELI: A group of activists from Kerala, who took out a march to Idinthakarai were prevented from entering the Tamil Nadu border at Kaliyakkavilai in Kanyakumari district on Sunday. Continue reading →

September 17, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Indian govt’s harsh crackdown on anti nuclear protesors

India: Government crushes nuclear protests  http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/india/india-nuclear-protests  14 Sept 12,  Nuclear projects in India can only be thrust on unwilling citizens at gunpoint, writes activist Praful Bidwai In the wake of police firing that killed one  of the many Indians protesting against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, activist Praful Bidwai lays it into the government that not long back was hailed for its groundbreaking civilian nuclear agreement with George W. Bush.

“The repression, including lethal firing, unleashed on peaceful protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear plant on Monday, on top of FIRs over many months charging thousands with sedition, makes two things clear. Nuclear projects in India can only be thrust on unwilling citizens at gunpoint. [And] as the jalsatyagraha (water civil disobedience) shows, people will resist them tenaciously, because they are aware of their hazards,” Bidwai writes in India’s Hindustan Times newspaper .

As GlobalPost reported last year, a massive nuclear project planned for Jaitapur, Maharashtra, has also faced large protests.

Casual readers and the government dismisses these protests as the work of ignorant villagers and eco-radical agitators (as demonstrated by the claim that the opposition can be traced to various “foreign-funded” NGOs).

But Bidwai points out that every single nuclear project India has planned has spurred committed resistance:

“That’s true of every nuclear project, whether Jaitapur (Maharashtra), Gorakhpur (Haryana), Mithi-Virdi (Gujarat), Kovvada (Andhra Pradesh), Haripur (West Bengal), Chutka (Madhya Pradesh) or Banswada (Rajasthan). For instance, at Gorakhpur, there has been a daily dharna against four proposed reactors for two years, unbeknownst to Delhi, which lies in their potential radiation-fallout zone,” he writes.

And when some 100 activists met in Delhi this August, nobody listened to their reservations about the Kudankulam project, which Bidwai says “was cleared in violation of the recommendations of an official Task Force, and without even the fig leaf of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.”

Now villagers, and, yes, more than a few “agitators” have walked into the sea near the reactor, in imitation of a protest against the flooding of villages in Gujarat earlier this month.

They might be wrong. The government says  Kudankulam is safe.  Coal isn’t without its dangers. And the huge number of hydropower projects planned for Northeast India will destroy cultures and wildlife in one of the country’s last remaining wilderness areas.  (Personally, I was sold on nuclear after visiting Arunachal Pradesh for this series on dams–if the government can proceed responsibly).

But it is foolishness bordering on the criminal to undertake such projects on the assurances of company insiders and circumvent the environmental clearance regime, as Bidwai and others say has been done for nuclear plants, and other environmental activists say is routinely done for big dams, coal mines, and every sort of industrial activity.

And it’s bad politics simply to dismiss those claims because of some hidebound commitment to the ideology of economic growth.

September 15, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | 2 Comments

Japan’s radiation standards relaxed following lobbying by nuclear power companies

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster  – Public Health Lessons and Challenges
“Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan has successfully lobbied radiation specialists including ICRP members and the Nuclear Safety Commission to relax radiation standards.”
—
FEPC has covered travel costs for ICRP members
to attend international conferences through the
Radiation Effects Association….

Conclusions
The health risks posed by radiation are not
limited to cancer.
There is risk of cancer even at levels less than 100mSv.
There is both theoretical and epidemiological evidence
for this.
The risk is purported to be an unknown. Is this to maintain
the power of MEXT, METI, and the utilities in order to
promote nuclear power?…

CITIZENS’ RESPONSES    IPPNW public mee.ng, 27 August 2012, Tokyo
HOSOKAWA Komei（細川弘明）, k22m@me.com
Takagi Fund for Ci.zen Science / Asia-Pacific Resource
Center / Greenpeace Japan / Kyoto Seika University      http://fukushimasymposium.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/e382abe38390e383bceng.pdf

September 15, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, health, Japan | Leave a comment

India’s peaceful anti nuclear campaign now facing terror and repression

A regime that hates common masses and uses them only as vote bank can do anything to  make the rich and multinationals terribly happy

 Indian regime has already exhausted all techniques and tricks to malign, terrorize the people of Kudankulam.

India’s Kudankulam Nuclear Terror threatens Jal-Satyagraha http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/news/editorial/2012/09/14/4450.html 14 SEPTEMBER 2012 : BY DR. ABDUL RUFF  Gandhian method of struggle still has relevance for India which fought against the British occupation for centuries. In fact the Indian regime is not happy about protesters using non-violent protests against a government that employed as its prime tool of attack on Britain.

Defying security presence, Kudankulam protesters have entered sea for a  Sea water Protest , or Jal Satyagraha, signalling  that the not only the people of Kudankulam, especially the fishermen and families angry with central  India and Tamilnadu regimes, but even the Sea itself is annoyed with an nuclear extra terror fitting on its shores..

Upon state murder of one fisherman in Kudankulam vicinity, the protesting masses have decided to continue the movement through relaunching the struggle by getting into the sea.    Protesters have formed human chain in sea from Sep 13, 2012. Continue reading →

September 14, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India, opposition to nuclear | 1 Comment

Australian Aboriginals reach out to Julian Assange

Sovereign Aboriginal nations consider sanctuary for Julian Assange, Green Left , September 14, 2012 The Indigenous Social Justice Association released the statement below on September 14.

Several sovereign Aboriginal nations are considering giving Julian Assange refuge and sanctuary in their nations.
It was argued that as Julian is an Australian citizen he should be allowed to seek sanctuary in one of the sovereign Aboriginal nations in the lands known as Australia.

Whilst the federal government is held in thrall to the dictates of the US, we are not and are therefore quite free to support Julian in every way we possibly can. Offering safe refuge is but one way. Why should Julian be forced to seek refuge in a South American country and not his own?

Despite the ongoing protestations of the foreign affairs minister, Bob Carr, in reality the federal government is doing very little to assist Julian being press-ganged to the United States via Sweden. That is why Julian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Our Welcome to Aboriginal Land Passport Ceremony will take place from 11am to 4pm at The Settlement, 17 Edward Street, Darlington on Saturday, September 15.
We are honoured to be able to present to Mamdouh Habib and John Shipton on behalf of his son, Julian Assange, the Aboriginal Nations Passport for travel through the Aboriginal nations…… http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/52227

September 14, 2012 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Riot police attack Kudankulam anti nuclear protestors

Indian riot police attack 4000 nuclear protesters, Examiner  SLIDESHOW SEPTEMBER 10, 2012 BY: DEBORAH DUPRE    Saturday and Sunday, Indian riot police opened fire one group and assaulted thousands of others with tear gas, mainlywomen and children on the beach protesting Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), the country’s largest nuclear power facility, due to fire up soon. By late Sunday, there was one dead and many injured as police began rampaging homes of protesters.

“A large riot-gear bedecked police force is in the frontline facing the people, and tear gas lobbers are apparently on stand-by,” a human rights defender informed Counter Currents Sunday morning.

View slideshow: Indian police protecting nuclear industry attack women, children protesters near Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project

“Police are intimidating people by moving closer, swaying batons,” Dr. S P Udayakumar at the scene texted in an SMS at 11:30 a.m. “Thousands of women and children are here. Officials threatened with naval intervention. Situation is very tense and dangerous. We need your appeals to the governments.”

A 44-year old fisherman was killed when police opened fire at a group blocking a road in Manapad coastal village as the anti-nuclear protest spilled to neighbouring Tuticorin District. The deceased is identified as Antony Samy (40)….. http://www.examiner.com/article/indian-riot-police-attack-4000-nuclear-protesters

September 12, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Police shoot dead an anti nuclear fisherman in Southern India

One killed in India nuclear plant protest http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/one-killed-in-india-nuclear-plant-protest/story-e6frf7k6-1226471469932    From: Herald Sun, AFP  September 11, 2012    POLICE have shot dead a fisherman during a mass protest against the loading of uranium at a nuclear power plant in southern India.

Steel-helmeted officers ringed one of two 1000-megawatt nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu state’s Koodankulam region as hundreds of activists tried to lay a siege of the Russia-backed project, television footage showed.

The protests then spread and a 48-year-old fisherman was killed when police opened fire at activists staging another rally in the nearby Tuticorin district, according to a report by the Press Trust of India.

“A number of people including police personnel have received injuries in the clashes,” another officer said while TV footage showed anti-riot personnel chase some of the activists, including women, into the nearby sea.

Monday’s violence comes six months after a lull in protests at the plant, which campaigners say could endanger the lives of locals in the case of a nuclear disaster.

The Press Trust of India said the new protests were in opposition to the loading of enriched uranium in the plant’s reactor…..

Since Fukushima, Indian activists have also campaigned to stop work scheduled to start in 2013 at Jaitapur in western Maharashtara state which would be one of the world’s biggest nuclear facilities.

Nuclear energy has been a priority for India since 2008 when then-US president George W. Bush signed into law a deal with New Delhi that ended a three-decade ban on US nuclear trade with the country.

Since then, France, Russia and private US and Japanese firms have been locked in fierce competition to sell new reactors to India.

September 12, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Taiwan’s crackdown on anti nuclear protestors

Anti-nuclear protesters confronted by Taipower ‘thug’ police: DPP lawmaker Taipei Times, 9 Sept 12, By Su Yung-yao and Jake Chung   The National Police Agency special police second headquarters has taken the lead in countering anti-nuclear activities and become a thug for Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said yesterday.
Cheng said the headquarters’ Web site included an articled titled “The anti-nuclear trend is no longer fashionable”, which claims that anti-nuclear activists are irrational, use false data and base their views on the slim chance that a nuclear disaster might happen……
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/09/10/2003542412

September 10, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, Taiwan | Leave a comment

UK puts Assange’s lawyer on ‘inhibited person list’

Lawyer for Assange detained at Heathrow and told she was on a ‘secret watch list’ Daily Mail, By ABUL TAHER, 1 September 2012 A lawyer acting for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says she was stopped at Heathrow and  told that she was on a secret watch-list and required special clearance before she could board her plane.

Australian Jennifer Robinson said she was left stunned after being told  by an airline crew that she was on an ‘inhibited person list’ that means she must have ‘done something controversial’.

Ms Robinson said that she could not understand why she was on the list as she had never done anything controversial or criminal. She had only represented clients around the world, one of whom was Mr Assange….. Ms Robinson, 31, said: ‘This incident raises so many questions.
‘Why would I need clearance to travel to my own country? So far I have not had a proper explanation.’
The human rights lawyer is a member of Mr Assange’s legal team, which has been fighting his extradition to Sweden on alleged sexual assault offences.
She was also his legal adviser when WikiLeaks published US military documents as well as diplomatic cables from American embassies. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2197003/Lawyer-Assange-detained-Heathrow-told-secret-watch-list.html#ixzz25RNRNfJl

September 3, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | 1 Comment

Julian Assange’s mother gets Nazi taunt on Australian radio

Assange’s mother subjected to Nazi taunts The Age August 19, 2012 – Julian Assange’s mother has hung up the phone on a Melbourne radio host after he taunted her with a Nazi slogan when she backed out of an interview.

Christine Assange was due to speak to 3AW’s Sunday morning show about her son, the founder of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, and his successful appeal for asylum in Ecuador.

But she changed her mind after hearing how co-host John-Michael Howson had treated a previous guest.

“I won’t be doing an interview with you because you’re acting like a pig,” Ms Assange said. Howson responded by screaming on air: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

Ms Assange then hung up the phone…… http://www.theage.com.au/national/assanges-mother-subjected-to-nazi-taunts-20120819-24g2f.html

August 20, 2012 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Injustice USA: Bradley Manning needs our help

Save human rights whistleblower Bradley Manning! Why this is important
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_human_rights_whistleblower_Bradley_Manning/?wnQTQbb Accused WikiLeaks whistleblower and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley
Manning will spend the rest of his life in prison for telling the public the truth, if US officials get their way. Government conduct, apparently aimed at discouraging whistleblowers, has ignored due process and made a fair trial impossible. But, in the past, outrageous government conduct has led judges to dismiss the charges against whistleblowers. Tell the judge in Bradley’s military Court Martial to do the same!

– Bradley was held in pre-trial solitary confinement for 11 months, in conditions condemned by the UN Rapporteur on Torture as “cruel, inhuman and degrading,” including being stripped and made to stand naked at roll call. This was a clear violation of the US military’s
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ: Article 13). Yet, only worldwide outrage–including over 500,000 Avaaz members signing a petition–ended this illegal treatment. Continue reading →

August 18, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

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