The BRussells
Tribunal Channel
|
Support
Iraqi protests!
(20 February 2011)
 Stand in
support of the Iraqi people in their struggle against state terrorism
and repression, generalised corruption, a falsified political process
and its state apparatus, generalised lack and collapse of public
services, poverty and unemployment, systematic abuse of human rights by
the government and its militias, illegal contracts, treaties and a
constitution imposed under occupation, and foreign plans to destroy
Iraqi culture, economy and unity.
Read more.
Take action ! Support this statement.
*
What you won’t read in the
mainstream press regarding Iraq’s “National Day of Rage”
(Dirk Adriaensens, 25 February 2011)
*
DAY OF THE
MARTYR, 04 March 2011 - Second National day of Rage in Iraq. Western
media: deaf, dumb and blind
(Dirk Adriaensens, 04 March 2011) |
|
 Ghent
Charter in Defense of Iraqi Academia
(Richard Falk 04 Jan 2011)
The shocking portrait of what occupation has meant for academicians and
students is depicted by the Ghent Charter that has been endorsed by
prominent educators in Europe and elsewhere, including the Rector of the
University of Ghent. The BRussells
Tribunal has played a leading part in exposing these realities
afflicting Iraqi universities, and has organized a
seminar to take place in Ghent, Belgium, March 9-11, 2011, with the
title “Defending education in times of war and occupation.”
It is important that all of us, especially those paying taxes in the
United States to pay for this occupation, understand that our silence is
complicity. Especially those of us associated with teaching and research
in American universities bear an additional responsibility to exhibit
even now our solidarity with those who have suffered and are suffering
in Iraqi academic communities. We know that many faculty members have
been murdered since 2003 (over 500 confirmed cases), particularly those
who spoke out and acted against the occupation, and many more have fled
the country permanently. The departure of university personnel is part
of a wider exodus of middle class Iraqis, estimates are over two million,
leaving the country deprived of the sort of national social fabric
essential to avoid predatory forms of foreign economic exploitation of
the country. We who devote our lives to higher education realize the
importance of educated and dedicated young people for the wellbeing of a
country. If Iraq’s future is to be restored to some semblance of decency,
its institutions of higher learning will need to become safe and
hospitable for students and faculty.
In the meantime, read the Ghent Charter and weep! |
|
*Enforced
Disappearance: The Missing Persons Of Iraq
Dirk Adriaensens, 28 November 2010
 More
than 82 percent of displaced people are women and children under the age of
12 (IRCS, June 2008). UNHCR surveys in 2009 stated that 20% of IDPs and 5%
of refugee returnees reported children to be missing The total internally
displaced population as of November 2009 was estimated to be 2.76 million or
467.517 families. Conclusion: more than 93,500 children of internally
displaced families are missing. Moreover, many communities reported missing
family members (30% of IDPs, 30% of IDP returnees, 27% of refugee returnees)
indicating that they were missing because of kidnappings, abductions and
detentions and that they did not know what happened to their missing family
members. A rough estimate would therefore bring the number of missing
persons among the refugee population and the internally displaced after
"Shock and Awe" to 260,000, most of them enforced disappearances. One out of
five Iraqis is either a refugee or an IDP. When extrapolating UNHCR figures
to the remaining 80% of the Iraqi population, the total number of missing
persons since "Shock and Awe" could be more than half a million. Sheikh
Harith Al-Dhari, head of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars in
Iraq (AMSI) mentioned in an Al-Jazeera interview a few months ago that about
800.000 Iraqis are missing since 2003. He said that AMSI has meticulously
documented missing persons since 2003 and that he could prove this number
with names and events. |
 *
PRESS RELEASE
30 October 2010
WIKILEAKS IRAQ
WAR LOGS: LEGAL ACTION IS UNAVOIDABLE
The essence of our case was that the
accumulated pattern of harm, stretching over 19 years, revealed a
clear and specific “intent to destroy”, in whole or in part, the
state and nation of Iraq. We catalogued the purposive dismantling of
the Iraqi state and the imposition, incitement and engineering of
sectarian conflict. We also described the systematic destruction of
Iraq’s civil infrastructure, added to the massive use of depleted
uranium, which from 1990 onwards led to millions of excess deaths.
We outlined the use of disproportionate and indiscriminate force,
the use of internationally prohibited weapons such as white
phosphorus, and the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare.
And we identified the use of death squads and armed militias
associated with political forces promoted by and protected by
Washington, the terror that led to the forced mass displacement of
five million Iraqis, and the institutionalised regime of mass and
arbitrary detention and torture, along with blackmail, kidnapping,
rape and unfair trials, that characterised Iraq under US occupation.
[Spanish]
* INTRODUCTION
TO THE LEGAL CASE,
FILED BEFORE THE AUDENCIA
NACIONAL ON 6 OCTOBER 2009.
|
* Reports on iraqi
prisoners
Tens of
thousands of detainees held without trial in Iraq, many of whom were
recently transferred from US custody, remain at risk of torture and
other forms of ill-treatment.
New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful
detentions and torture in Iraq
details thousands of arbitrary detentions, sometimes for several
years without charge or trial, severe beatings of detainees, often
in secret prisons, to obtain forced confessions, and enforced
disappearances (Amnesty International
13 September 2010).
*
Read the full Amnesty International report in
PDF
*
Joint study on secret detention of the
Special Rapporteur on torture & other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and
protection of human rights & fundamental freedoms while countering
terrorism, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention & the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
(26 Jan 2010)
*
Urgent Appeal for releasing the prisoners detained in Iraq prisons.
World Association of Arab Translators and Linguists
(WATA)(11
March 2010)
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*
Dead: 19? Injured: 60? This is Israel
!
Appeal
of the BRussells
Tribunal
(31 May
2010)
-
Israel’s killing of 19? innocents with 60? more
injured must have maximal consequences
- Israel
impunity is a threat to all
Even for
eyes burnt witnessing human suffering, there is something shocking,
something impossible, about watching Israeli soldiers, armed and in gas
masks, fast-roping from helicopters onto an aid ship filled with civilians —
journalists, parliamentarians, human rights activists, mothers, doctors —
headed to Gaza to break the inhuman siege that keeps 1.5 million people
somewhere between life and death.
The Mavi
Marmara, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, was flying a white flag:
a universal symbol of non-violence. It was also flying the Turkish flag, in
international waters, giving it status as a sovereign extension of Turkey.
Regardless, Israel attacked. For what does Israel fight? Its existence, or
the continuance of a regime of collective punishment calculated to destroy
the Palestinians? Or are these the same thing? Dead: 19? Injured: 60? Who
gave the order? Will NATO react to an attack on one of its members?
READ MORE
Please show your
solidarity with the people of Gaza and the victims of Israeli killings by
signing this appeal at
http://www.petitiononline.com/GazaSol/petition.html
[Arabic]-
[Français]-
[Espanol]
- [Nederlands]
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The
Spanish
Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq (CEOSI)
will hold its first international, public and united meeting of the main
currents in the Iraqi resistance, those who to their project for the
full recovery of Iraq’s sovereignty add an integrated, democratic and
non-sectarian reconstruction of its institutions.
This meeting, which aims to encourage the convergence process of
the anti-occupation field and promote their
openness to the international community, will take place in
Gijón, Asturias, Spain, June 18-20, 2010,
under the title: International
Conference of the Iraqi Political Resistance.
This initiative will coincide with the beginning of the eight year of
the occupation of Iraq and will be held while Spain holds the presidency
of the EU.
Read more.
|
We demand that the
Belgian government immediately intervenes with the Iraqi authorities to
save the life of Oussama Atar,
a young Belgian, aged 26, who has been detained in Iraq for six years.
In the messages that he has sent us during the last years, via the Red
Cross, Oussama has never complained about his diabolical conditions of
detention. But, in the last few weeks, he started to send SOS messages
that his health is rapidly deteriorating: he loses blood and weight
visibly. Me and my family are extremely worried about the situation. He
is today in a grave and critical state. He needs the urgent medical
treatment that is being refused by the prison authorities. We ask that
the Belgian authorities intervene as quickly as possible to ensure that
Oussama receives immediate hospital treatment. We demand that the
Belgium government goes through the diplomatic channels so that Oussama
can receive medical treatment in Belgium and complete his sentence in
Belgium.
Oussama was arrested in the village of Ramadi in Iraq
for having illegally crossed over the frontier from Syria into Iraq.
This is the single act for which he has been reproached. Unjustly
condemned for this by a tribunal to 25 years in prison, a sentence
reduced on appeal to 10 years, he has been sent to several prisons, such
as the horrible Abu Ghraib
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*
IN OUR NAME
-
Iraqi Intellectuals in Solidarity
with al-Adab Journal
(April 2010)
 The
Publications Court in Beirut issued its verdict in the libel suit brought
against al-Adab Journal, fining Samah Idriss, owner and editor-in-chief of
the journal, and writer of the contested article, and ‘Aida Matraji, the
manager of the journal, the amount of six million Lebanese pounds ($4000)
each. The verdict imposes on the journal a fine of one hundred thousand
Lebanese pounds, to be paid jointly by Idriss and Matraji, as symbolic
compensation to the plaintiff. The journal will publish at its own expense
the summary judgment in its first issue following the verdict.
Fakhri Karim Wali, a senior advisor to the President in
the occupied Iraq, had filed a libel suit against al-Adab, Idriss, and
Matraji, as a result of an editorial entitled: “Critique
of ‘Critical’ Consciousness: Iraqi Kurdistan as a Case Study”
(Issue 5 - 6, 2007). Iraqi intellectuals who have experienced the
intellectual ordeal in the shadow of despotic rule and who continue to
contest the ‘liberalism’ of the new occupation, protest this unjust verdict
against al-Adab and its editor-in-chief and manager. In solidarity
with al-Adab, we have decided to
re-publish in full the editorial, subject of the above mentioned unjust
lawsuit, thus announcing our solidarity with its every word and with its
mission to expose the fraudulent left, the apologists for occupation, the
advisors to the President, and the enemies of freedom;
we also affirm our faith in al-Adab as an ally to the Iraqis and a
supporter of a free, independent and pluralistic Iraq, that resists
occupation and Zionism. |
|
Maliki’s election platform: 900 Iraqi
prisoners face summary execution
In the run-up to elections, Maliki
proposes executions to bolster his chances
Democracy in the new Iraq equals death
and repression
The current regime in Iraq
serves the US occupation: it is
the occupation that kills Iraqis
First endorsers:
Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, François Houtart, Eduardo Galeano,
Michael Parenti, James Petras, Denis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck,
Cynthia McKinney, Michel Chossudovsky, Amb. Saeed Hassan, Sabah
Al-Mukhtar, Ed Herman and many others
|
• To provide relief, assistance and support to individuals and
communities who are suffering from the effects of war and armed
conflict wherever occurring and
without discrimination on the grounds of nationality, racial origin,
religion, belief, age, gender or other forms of impermissible
differentiations;
• To promote the education of individuals and communities suffering
from the effects of war or armed conflict;
• To foster schemes for the relief of human suffering occasioned by
war or armed conflict;
• To provide for mechanisms or procedures in attainment of the above
purposes.
|
 *
PRESS RELEASE 7 October 2009
FOR JUSTICE FOR IRAQ:
LEGAL CASE FILED AGAINST FOUR US
PRESIDENTS AND FOUR UK PRIME MINISTERS
FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ
MADRID:
Today the Spanish
Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure
from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit
Spain’s laws of universal jurisdiction. Yesterday, ahead of the
change of law, a
legal case was filed
at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and
four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning
and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity,
and genocide in Iraq.
This case,
naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H
Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon
Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with
the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international
law.
Read the full press release.
[Spanish]
- [Arabic] |
Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a group of educators in
Washington on 25 July that his country plans to send over 50.000
students abroad over the next 5 years. The students will be studying
in the U.S. and London, supposedly to rebuild the country’s once
strong education system. A noble initiative at first sight, until
you look further behind the official smokescreen. There are no
references in Maliki’s speeches to the threats, discharges, forced
migration,
mass kidnappings
and assassinations of Iraqi academics. Nor is the destruction of
educational institutions, archaeological sites, the looting of Iraqi
musea, the
erasure of Iraqi, Arab and world heritage being mentioned. Further,
the Iraqi government has committed to fully fund $1 billion a year
to this program
and
will pay for tuition and fees, as well as room and board,
meaning
that Iraq is now sponsoring the US and UK universities.
Read more. |
Abdul Ilah Al-Bayaty,
Tariq Ali,
Harold Pinter,
Eduardo Galeano,
Dahr Jamail,
Henning Mankell,
Michael Parenti,
Felicity
Arbuthnot, Hans von Sponeck,
Haifa Zangana,
Nawal El Saadawi,
CEOSI a.o. |
|
*
IRAQI KILLING FIELDS :
the largest humanitarian
crisis on the planet
-
©opyright
U$A™
*
Partial list
of
460
Iraqi
academics murdered under
US occupation
(updated
08 June 2011)
-
[See
this List as PDF file]
*
Partial list of
338
Iraqi and
30
non-Iraqi media
professionals who died under US
occupation
(updated
15 May 2011)
-
Background articles
[See this List as PDF File]
*
2,000 Iraqi
physicians have been murdered
under US occupation
(11 April 2006)
*
Hundreds
of legal workers have left the country. At least
210
lawyers and judges killed since the US-led invasion in 2003, in addition to dozens
injured in attacks against them.
(30 April 2007)
*
Based on
studies done by local NGOs, at least
15,000
Iraqis have disappeared in the past four years of US occupation
(18 April 2007)
*
Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering
150 percent
since 1990. Some 122,000
Iraqi children died in 2005
before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths
were among newborn babies in the first month of life
(08 May 2007)
*
only 50 percent
of primary school-age children are
attending class, down from 80 percent in 2005. Approximately
1,500 children are
known to be held in detention facilities.
(Radhika
Coomaraswamy, U.N. special representative of the secretary-general for
children and armed conflict,
25 April 2008)
*
50,000
Iraqi refugees forced into prostitution
(24 June 2007)
*
Years of war, current
insecurity take toll on environment
(07 June 2007) -
Insecurity and lack
of funds prevent cleansing of polluted
sites
(19 April 2007)
*
8.000.000
Iraqis require immediate emergency aid, with nearly half of the population
living in absolute poverty.
*
4.000.000
people are lacking food and in dire need of different types of humanitarian
assistance.
*
Only
60% of the
4.000.000 people who depend on food assistance have access to rations from the
public distribution system, down from 96% in 2004.
*
The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water
supplies has risen from 50% to
70%
since 2003.
*
80%
of people in Iraq do not have safe access to effective sanitation.
*
Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the
US-led invasion in 2003 to
28%
currently.
(Oxfam
report 29 July 2007)
*
The war is costing
$720 million
a day or
$500,000 a
minute.
The money spent on
one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care
for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable
electricity.
(AFSC 21 Sep 2007)
*
More than
3.000.000
Iraqi refugees and
2.778.305
internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq. In Jordan: 700.000-750.000 - In Syria:
1.500.000-2.000.000 - In Egypt: 150.000 - In Iran: 100.000 persons - In
Lebanon: 40.000 - In the Gulf States: 200.000 - In Turkey: 10.000
- In the rest of the world: no estimates available.
(IRCO
01 July 2007)
*
Look at
Iraq today: democracy and human rights American
style
(06 June 2007)
*
Iraqi Red Crescent Organization: Report On
IDP’s In Iraq - Update 31 May
2007
[PDF] 26 pages -
June 2007
*
Statistics on
Refugees
(Updated
September 2007)
*
Comments on the Lancet Survey and other
mortality studies
(Updated
02 June 2008)
*
The
effects of the American use of prohibited weapons
on the health condition in Fallujah
(10 Dec 2007)
*
Christians in Iraq face
liquidation
(Sept - Oct 2008) |
 *
BRussells
Tribunal &
CEOSI
CAMPAIGN:
"Save Iraq's Academics"
*
10.000
signatories of petition to save Iraq's academics. Sign online now
*
Partial list of murdered Iraqi Academics
*
Principal endorsers
of this campaign:
Noam Chomsky, Tony Benn, Dario Fo, John Coetzee, Harold Pinter, Eduardo Galeano,
Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Denis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck, Bianca Jagger, Naomi Klein, Susan George,
John Pilger, Tonio Negri and many others.....
*
Madrid International
Seminar
-
Final Resolution
(April 2006)
*
The Jalili Report
[PDF]
(02 May 2006)
-
The
Jalili Report [HTML]
(Sarah Meyer)
*
Articles and
background information - Resources
*
Iraqi academics in the killing zone, Dirk Adriaensens
(02 Feb 2006)
*
Iraq’s education system
on the verge
of collapse
(Dirk Adriaensens, 18 April 2007)
*
Questionnaires for families of assassinated or threatened Iraqi
academics
*
Call for assistance in documenting and
registering assassinated Iraqi academics
(08 Dec 2006) - [Arabic]
*
Assassinated
Iraqi academics: Frequently Asked Questions
*
Action Needed Over Detention of Iraqi
Education Ministry Officials.
Unknown numbers murdered, dozen still illegally held
(BRussells Tribunal 22 Nov 2006)
|
"They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger…
they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They
ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they
hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains
but a desert, they call that peace."
Cornelius
Tacitus, De Vita Gnæi Julii Agricolæ cap. xxx (98 CE) in the Loeb
Library ed., vol. 35, p. 80 (S.H. transl.)
The
BRussells
Tribunal was a hearing committee composed of academics, intellectuals and artists
in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal, set up in 1967 to investigate war crimes committed during the
Vietnam War. The hearing was scheduled for 14-17th April 2004
at The Beursschouwburg and Les Halles in Brussels. It was presided by Professor François Houtart, who
participated in the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on US Crimes in
Vietnam in 1967, who is one of the
founding fathers of the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, and who currently
is a senior adviser to the President of the United Nations General Assembly
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann.
The Tribunal was directed against the war in Iraq and the
Imperial war policies of the Bush II administration. Its main focus was the ‘Project for the New
American Century’, the think tank behind this war, in particular three of the co-signatories of the mission
statement: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, as they are the physical link between the
discourse and the brutal practice of the New Imperial World Order as designed by PNAC.
Read
more...
"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as
conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men ... The
government of Iraq , and the future of your country, will soon belong to you. ... We will end a brutal regime
... so that Iraqis can live in security.”
General F. S. Maude, commander of the British forces, to the people of
Mesopotamia , 1917
The BRussells Tribunal:
Conclusions of the commission
(Brussels, 17 April 2004)
[
Dutch |
Français
|
English |
Arabic |
Spanish
|
Italian
|
Portuguese |
Russian
]
Overview
BRussells Tribunal on Indymedia -
Read
Also: The Ones Who Say NO
THE
ARAB WORLD IN REVOLT
*
KEEPING THE
SCORES
OF A BRUTAL
OCCUPATION
*
Report on the Palestinian prisoners’
reality during 2009, entitled “Behind the Sun”
The
Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) - Main Objectives
*
Stop Assassinations and Threats against
Academics in Iraq
[Spanish
version]
Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
by
Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public
Health, published in
The Lancet
(11 Oct 2006)
[PDF]
World Tribunal on Iraq
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