Guinean Military Coup Leader Flown to Morocco After Being Shot

Guinea Military Leader Flown to Morocco After Being Shot

Posted on Friday 4 December 2009 - 15:00

AfricaNews editor

Guinea’s military leader, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, has been flown to Morocco for medical treatment after being shot by an aide on Thursday, officials have said. They had earlier said that Capt Camara had only been lightly wounded in the attack and was in “good health”.

Separate reports say the international airport in the capital Conakry has been surrounded by presidential guards.

This is believed to be the first time Capt Camara has left the country since seizing power last December.

Analysts say he may fear a counter-coup in his absence and so his departure indicates that his condition may be serious.

But this was denied by government minister Keletigui Faro.

“His condition is not very serious but he’ll need to undergo extensive medical tests in Morocco,” he told the BBC French service for Africa.

Morocco has said it will treat Capt Camara for humanitarian reasons.

He has not been seen in public or appeared on national TV or radio since the shooting.
A Senegalese medical team flew to Guinea to treat him on Thursday night.

The whereabouts of Aboubacar “Toumba” Diakite, the officer allegedly behind the attack, is unclear.
Communications Minister Idrissa Cherif had said he had been arrested after the shooting but reports on Friday say road-blocks have been set up in Conakry by security forces trying to find him.

Maj Faro said Lt Diakite had gone into hiding.

Analysts say the shooting highlights deep rifts within the junta after the killing of an estimated 157 opposition supporters in September.

Three UN peacekeepers killed after attack in Sudan’s Darfur region

Three Rwandan peacekeepers from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were killed and others wounded today in an attack by unidentified gunmen while collecting water in the north of the strife-torn Sudanese region.

Two UN peacekeepers killed in attack in Sudan’s Darfur region

Two Rwandan peacekeepers from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were killed and others wounded today in an attack by unidentified gunmen while collecting water at the north of the strife-torn Sudanese region.

UN refugee chief urges end to impasse over Saharawi activist

The United Nations refugee chief today appealed to Spain and Morocco to consider any measure to pave the way for the movement of a Saharawi activist who started a hunger strike last month and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating.

Iran students prepare for Monday protests under government repression

 

They say authorities have cracked down at campuses nationwide to prevent the demonstrations from becoming widespread and that students recruited by the pro-government Basij militiamen are on the watch, informing on classmates suspected of being pro-opposition troublemakers.

 

On Thursday police warned of a tough response, especially if demonstrators try to move outside campuses into the streets. “Any gathering or ceremony outside the designated places will be considered illegal and police will take necessary steps,” a statement said.
 

 

In telephone interviews from Beirut with more than a half-dozen students in Tehran, the crackdown was described as part of a government campaign to control not only security but ideas at universities, strongholds of the reform movement that took to the streets after the disputed presidential election in June.

 

Some courses seen as too Western-based have been replaced with more Islamic ones, students say. Since classes began in October at Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University of Technology, members of herasat, a feared force of guards and morals police in universities, have been stopping women at campus gates for wearing clothes that are too colorful or not all-covering enough.

 

A herasat official uses a cell phone to photograph male students with long hair or those wearing colorful T-shirts, said Kouhyar Goudarzi. “If a student complains, he grabs his student card and says ‘when you look like a human being, you will get your card back,’” he said.

 

“Student dissatisfaction has reached a point where it’s about to explode,” he said.

 

Goudarzi, a 23-year-old aerospace student, said he was expelled because he spoke to the BBC’s Persian TV service about a campus demonstration in October.

 

Six months later, the fire is still burning, said Atieh Vahidmanesh, a 24-year-old economics post-grad at Sharif University. “We are under aggressive surveillance.”

 

Pro-government students recruited by the Basij militia are on the watch, turning in classmates whose loyalties are suspect.

 

It’s difficult to judge how big Monday’s protests will be, whether they will be confined to campuses or spill into city streets and squares. While calling for thousands to turn out at campuses, leaders acknowledge the crackdown may reduce the numbers.

 

“Our sympathizers who are not active themselves are afraid to come to the protest,” said one student leader at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabei University who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of persecution.

 

“We are not calling on others to participate because we don’t want to pay a high price,” he said by telephone from Tehran.

 

Some on campus dismiss such talk. “The media are used to exaggerating issues,” said Mahdi Eslami, a pro-government student. “I don’t feel there’s been any change in the atmosphere of universities.”

 

Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political science professor at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaei, a leading humanities university, said it’s not a police atmosphere at the university. Students are controlled, but not openly.

 

“For example, new students are put in separate dorms to shield them from older, more politicized students,” he said.

 

Iranian universities have historically played a leading role in times of turmoil.

 

Students were a powerful force in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the pro-U.S. shah but later became a bastion of dissent against clerical domination.

 

Dec. 7 is a traditional day for rallies commemorating the killing of three students during a 1953 anti-U.S. protest. Since the late 1990s they have served as pro-reform protests, often bringing clashes with security forces.

 

The June vote sparked demonstrations by hundreds of thousands claiming President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election was fraudulent. Security forces crushed those marches, and the opposition has had little success in reviving them.

 

But students have kept their movement alive with small demonstrations on many campuses every Tuesday.

 

Opposition Web sites say the government has brought hundreds of security forces to Tehran from the provinces to crack down on any demonstrations Monday.

 

Nearly 100 student leaders have been detained in the past weeks, human rights groups say. Many have faced Revolutionary Courts, and several have been ordered jailed for up to eight years, human rights groups say.

 

Amir Eslami, in the midwestern city of Hamadan, was jailed, released and went into hiding, but his body was found several days ago, according to the opposition Jaras Web site. The government has not confirmed the death.

 

Students now meet clandestinely and distribute newsletters by hand to avoid seizure by the universities’ herasat, said Mehdi Arabshahi, a 28-year-old postgraduate student.

 

“We’re in a state of war,” he said. “On the one hand, they’re trying to prevent us from protesting, on the other, the students go right ahead and hold gatherings and publish their newsletters.”

 

Arabshahi said he hid for a month after the election to avoid arrest, but was detained in October for 48 hours for meeting with students in a Tehran park. Arabshahi and two other student leaders were summoned to the Revolutionary Court on Wednesday to have their case looked at.

 

Goudarzi said the Basij militia has increased salaries for students, offering up to $400 a month plus $250 for every incriminating photo or piece of evidence against a student.

 

In the past, morality restrictions such as those on women’s dress have been somewhat more lax on campuses. But this semester, the herasat increasingly stop students and force them to sign forms admitting they broke the rules, said Elmira Ali Husseini, a physics postgraduate student at Sharif University.

 

Their signature can be used later by the prosecution if they are involved in protests, she said.

 

Female students are barred from campuses for wearing bright colors or too short a manteau - the overcoat that hides the female form, said Vahidmanesh, the economics student. She said her friends were turned away for wearing striped sweat pants under their overcoats - stripes are considered sexually provocative.

 

Another acquaintance was detained at a campus protest under the pretext that her hair showed from under her scarf - and then she was forced to sign a pledge to stay away from rallies, Vahidmanesh said.

 

Some classes considered too Western - such as Marxism - have been replaced by such courses as God and Philosophy, or Islam and Social Theory - ominous echoes of the cultural upheaval after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when books showing Western influence were banned and thousands of students and lecturers purged. In some English departments, the writings of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, are required courses.

 

“They’re just a waste of time and cost money, otherwise they are of no use to us,” said Nazzi, a student who declined to give her last name for fear of retaliation.

 

“The changes in the curriculum,” said Arabshahi, “will take the university back years and lead to another cultural revolution.”

 

Saying it like it is

Yesterday saw the last debate on European Affairs in the House of Commons before the next General Election, and by the look of it it was, as usual, very poorly attended and only by the usual suspects - many of whom happen to be extremely well-informed, we might add.

Labour MP Gisela Stuart gave a particularly good speech which touched on many important things, including David Cameron’s proposed ‘Sovereignty Bill’ and the so-called ‘referendum lock’, which she points out is pretty meaningless given that there will in future be no treaties to have referendums on.

The whole debate is worth a read but here are some of the more thought-provoking extracts of Gisela’s speech:

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby talked about what has happened to the word “subsidiarity”. My argument is that rather than argue about reclaiming powers, we should have a different presumption.

Subsidiarity has disappeared from the scene because it does not work. In the past 10 years, the Commission has only ever had one proposal rejected because it was deemed to breach subsidiarity-the zoo directive, which we tried to bring in during our presidency. That is hardly a great record. Every EU directive that comes forward ought to contain in the preamble proof that the measure cannot be implemented in nation states, and therefore has to be handled at EU level. That would change the whole argument and would mean that rather than people always having to defend what is done at EU level, the EU would make the case that the nation state cannot do certain things.

That point brings me to an issue that we never mention here. The debate is about European affairs, and we ought at some stage to talk about the nature of the nation state. I want to do that briefly today. What is our relationship? We say that Europe is great because we are all in favour of co-operation, but co-operation and political integration are two very different things. We saw this earlier when we talked about fiscal stimulus. That was not about political integration: it was about co-operation, and member states doing something at the same time.

The reason why I am so angry about the referendum is that with the passing of the Lisbon treaty, we have created a supranational institution. There is all the talk about rowing back, but it has gone. Forget it, folks; it has been sold. There is now a supranational institution that has never had the endorsement or consent of the 350 million people across the European Union, because referendums were either ignored or were rubbished on the basis that the issue was too complicated and people were too stupid to take part. That is an argument worth talking about. Governments should show leadership and take people to places that they do not yet know are good for them-but although political leaders have to adopt that leadership role on occasion, there is always the reality test of a general election, when a Prime Minister who takes the country in a direction that it disagrees with gets kicked out.

There is no mechanism in the EU that allows the people to be asked whether this new supranational institution is what they want. My suspicion is that they probably do not, but that is neither here nor there. I have become agnostic on this matter. I grew up in a federal state so I have no problem with federalism, but I also remember the Austro-Hungarian empire- [ Interruption. ] Not personally, of course, but I grew up with its heritage. That extremely authoritarian institution finally collapsed because it tried to replace national identity with ethnicity. It is always very bad when identity is represented through ethnicity rather than through institutions in the nation state, and we need to be extremely careful in that regard.

She continued:

I want to make two other points, and the first is about this place. We are kidding ourselves if we think that by voting on Select Committee Chairmen, setting up better visitor centres or going online and so on, we will achieve a deepening of parliamentary democracy. We are losing power every step of the way: we have not even begun to come to terms with how we deal with legislation coming out of Brussels, because merely being told more about it is very different from actually having power and influence over it.

We have devolved power to Wales and Scotland, but we did not think about what would happen to England as a result of that process. We sit in Westminster, but we have lost power on both sides and we have lost our purpose. I suggest that that is why the expenses scandal has been so damaging. We have failed to defend ourselves, individually and collectively, because we have lost our sense of purpose as an institution. The real challenge for the next Parliament, when it comes in after the election, is to remind itself that its function is not just to talk about things but to hold the Executive to account. We have singularly, totally and completely failed to do that in respect of Europe.

We couldn’t agree more.

Wagering on the ‘God particle’

Munich-based lecturer Alexander Unzicker is inviting LHC insiders and the rest of the world to place bets on finding the Higgs boson

Today on New Scientist: 4 December 2009

Today’s stories on newscientist.com, at a glance, including: why we shouldn’t release all we know about the cosmos, how pirates could scupper a climate warning system, and the electronic fink that will squeal if you drink

What Does An Independent Investigation Really Mean?: Detroit Free PressEditorial on the Assassination of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah

What Does an Independent Investigation Really Mean?

PANW Editor’s Note: Since the killing of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah there has been two demonstrations called in the city of Detroit. One at the federal building on November 5 and another outside the Renaissance Center when Attorney Eric Holder was speaking before the ALPACT dinner. MECAWI, who organized both demonstrations, called for a real independent investigation into the killing of Imam Luqman, which is different than what other groups have requested.

It appears that the notion of an independent investigation would include a review of the circumstance by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to see if their were violations of federal law. What MECAWI means by independent investigation would be a people’s commission of inquiry that would issue a report and demand sanctions and criminal charges against those who were involved in the shooting as well as the individuals who ordered the entire operation.

On December 3, the Detroit Free Press came out in favor of an independent investigation and this call seems to echo the same position that the Justice Department should review the case. The problem with this scenario is that the FBI carried out the infiltration of Masjid Al-Haqq, set up the warehouse and stolen goods where the Imam and other were lured to resulting in his assassination.

The FBI is under the Justice Department and Homeland Security. The Justice Department has specifically targeted the Muslim community in the United States for harrassment and prosecution on trumped-up charges. Therefore, it would not be credible for the Justice Department to essentially investigate itself. This is why MECAWI has called for an investigation outside the existing federal law-enforcement strucutures in the United States.

Below is the Detroit Free Press editorial from December 3, 2009 that calls for an independent investigation. This represents somewhat of a departure since the corporate newspapers printed some of the worst reports in the aftermath of the killing and arrest of the Masjid Al-Haqq members. This illustrates that the work of MECAWI in exposing the true role of the FBI historically and today has provided space for others to criticize the governments’ role in targeting the Muslim and African-American communities in the United States.

Abayomi Azikwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
December 3, 2009

EDITORIAL
Detroit Free Press

Imam killing needs independent investigation

Detroit’s Muslim community and many local leaders, including Mayor Dave Bing, have called for an independent investigation into the death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the imam shot by federal agents during a raid at a Dearborn warehouse. The U.S. Department of Justice should heed that call to clear questions harbored by Muslims around the world, as well as by many Detroiters, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Abdullah’s death on Oct. 28 may mark the first killing of a religious leader by U.S. government agents since David Koresh died at the Branch Davidian ranch outside Waco, Texas, in 1993. No one should assume government wrongdoing or impropriety, but the death of Abdullah, an African-American Muslim, has racial and religious overtones, especially in a community with a history of excessive police force. It has evoked the kind of skepticism, fear and anger that government should not ignore. Heavy-handed tactics by federal agents in the name of national security are not new. They were also employed against socialists and communists in the 1930s and black militants in the 1960s.

Muslim leaders contend that federal agents, not finding evidence of terrorist activity, often lure poor people into other illegal activities. The Justice Department — or even the House Judiciary Committee — should review these practices and, if warranted, recommend changes to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who suggested in a recent visit to Detroit that Abdullah’s death had aggravated community tensions. Local government agencies should also act openly. It didn’t help community relations that the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office informed CAIR, in response to a freedom-of-information request, that photos of Abdullah’s autopsy would cost $1,500. That makes government look as though it were hiding something.

No terrorism charges were brought against Abdullah, or any of the 11 mosque members indicted in the case. Instead, the government alleges that they conspired to traffic in stolen goods. An investigation should determine whether federal agents who shot Abdullah violated his civil rights, but it must also include a broader review of widespread government policies and practices regarding the use of informants to infiltrate mosques.

“Our government needs to show that there’s not a double standard: a rule of law for the broader public and another standard for Muslims,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan.

The FBI says its agents acted appropriately. Still, questions linger, not only about how Abdullah died but also whether federal agents inappropriately target Muslims and mosques. No American should harbor those doubts. They are, as Holder stated in Detroit, contrary to our Constitution and the government that created it. A thorough and independent review is the best way to dispel them.

Côte d’Ivoire: UN pitches in on nationwide polio immunization campaign

United Nations peacekeepers today airlifted doctors and vaccines to remote and inaccessible regions of Côte d’Ivoire today as the Government opened its latest campaign to immunize over 6 million children against polio.