Tag Archives: Pakistan

Pakistani Authorities Accused of Trying to Cover Up Killings of Protesters

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“All records of dead and injured have been confiscated by authorities,” said one doctor. “We are not allowed to talk. Senior government officials are visiting the hospital to hide the records.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-27-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: Ateed ullah Khan/X

The Guardian reported Wednesday that at least 17 civilians in Pakistan were killed and hundreds more were wounded by army and paramilitary gunfire at protesters and one doctor in Islamabad claimed that authorities were attempting to cover up deaths.

“At least seven have died and four are in critical condition in the hospital,” according to the unnamed doctor, who said that on Tuesday night he treated over 40 patients, many injured by gunfire. “Eight more have been admitted to the hospital with bullet wounds.”

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NATO Announces Nuclear Drills as Nobel Goes to Atomic Weapon Abolitionists

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Disarmament advocate Beatrice Fihn stressed that the exercise is practice for “wiping out hundreds of thousands of civilians” with weapons that would also “flatten cities and poison survivors.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-11-2024 by Common Dreams

B-52 bombers. Photo: Public domain

The NATO military block announced Friday that its annual nuclear exercise is set to begin next week—news that arrived just as Japanese atomic bomb survivors who advocate for disarmament received the Nobel Peace Prize.

“There is bad timing, there is dropping a brick… and then there is this. Nice work,” the Geneva Nuclear Disarmament Initiative said in response to NATO Spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah on social media.

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Pentagon Announces ‘Long-Overdue’ Plea Deals With Tortured 9/11 Defendants

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“This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantánamo Bay detention center,” said one Amnesty International campaigner.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 7-31-2024 by Common Dreams

Amnesty International activsits demostrate for the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay outisde the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. in this undated photograph. (Photo: Amnesty International/Twitter)

Forced into a legal corner due to the torture of men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Pentagon on Wednesday announced it has reached plea agreements with three top 9/11 suspects.

The U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement that Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions, “has entered into pre-trial agreements” with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

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‘Ticking Time Bomb’: International Alarm as Poliovirus Found in Gaza Sewage

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“Detecting the virus that causes polio in wastewater heralds a real health disaster,” Gaza’s health ministry said.

By Edward Carver. Published 7-19-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: Dr. Renee Levant/X

Poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization said on Friday, following announcements from both the Israel and Gaza health ministries.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was found in samples taken on June 23 from sites in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

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‘Unconscionable’: Prosecution of Arundhati Roy Sanctioned Under Indian Anti-Terror Law

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“This is horrifying—a clear case of political persecution by an authoritarian government,” one of Roy’s publishers wrote.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 6-16-2024 by Common Dreams

Arundhati Roy at Harvard for a lecture in 2010. Photo: jeanbaptisteparis/flickr/CC

Delhi Lieutenant Gov. V. K. Saxena has sanctioned the prosecution of world-renowned Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy over comments she allegedly made 14 years ago regarding Kashmir, officials from his office said on Friday.

Saxena is a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), and Roy has been a vocal critic of Modi and what she has described as India’s “descent… into full-blown fascism” under BJP leadership.

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Bombings Kill Dozens in Pakistan on Eve of Contentious Elections

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As Pakistanis prepare to head to the polls with the country’s most popular politician behind bars on dubious charges, human rights groups sounded the alarm on a wide range of election-related repression.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-7-2024 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: YouTube

Dozens of Pakistanis were killed Wednesday in two bombings targeting political offices on the eve of highly contentious parliamentary elections from which the country’s most popular leader—who is jailed on what critics say are politically motivated charges—is banned.

The blasts both occurred in the southwestern province of Balochistan, homeland of the nomadic Baloch people, who also inhabit a large swath of southeastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. Government officials said the first bombing, which targeted independent candidate Asfandyar Khan’s office in the Pashin district, killed 18 people. A second blast approximately 80 miles away then killed at least 12 people at the Qilla Saifullah office of the Sunni fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which has close ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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Amazon ‘Failed to Protect’ Third-Party Workers in Saudi Arabia

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Investigations from several newsrooms and Amnesty International report exploitative contracts and unsafe living conditions for foreign workers at the company’s warehouses.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 10-10-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: amazon.sa

Amazon failed to protect contract workers in Saudi Arabia from human rights abuses that may have amounted to human trafficking.

That’s one of the findings from an Amnesty International exposé and combined reporting from NBC News, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and The Guardian, all published Tuesday. The investigations focused on men recruited from Nepal to work at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia, where they found themselves faced with low pay, unhealthy living conditions, and no job security. When they complained directly to Amazon managers, nothing changed.

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Tortured Guantánamo Prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh Unfit for 9/11 Trial, Says Military Judge

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“This decision by the military judge today does mark the first time that the United States has formally acknowledged the CIA torture program produced profound and prolonged psychological harm,” said al-Shibh’s lawyer.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-22-2023 by Common Dreams

Ramzi bin al-Shibh holds a document while posing for this 2010 photo. 
(Photo: International Committee of the Red Cross)

A U.S. military judge on Thursday found Guantánamo Bay prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh—who stands accused of being a key 9/11 organizer—unfit to stand trial because he suffers from mental illness his attorney says was caused by CIA torture years ago.

Air Force Col. Matthew McCall severed al-Shibh, a 51-year-old Yemeni, from the conspiracy case involving four other defendants who allegedly organized the cell of militants in Hamburg, Germany who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and flew it into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Al-Shibh had been charged as an accomplice in the case.

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400+ Actions to End Fossil Fuels Planned Around the World for Sept. 15-17

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“When we the people use our collective power we can win,” said one campaigner.

By Julia Conley. Published 9-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Extinction Rebellion

“September 15-17, 2023. Everywhere.”

Those are the dates and location of the international mobilization against fossil fuels set to take place this coming weekend, and the last word is hardly an exaggeration as organizers with the Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels report that more than 400 actions, marches, rallies, and other events have already been registered around the world.

More than 780 organizations have endorsed the day of action—up from 500 less than a week ago—and millions of participants are expected to rally from Cape Town, South Africa to Manila, Philippines and Lahore, Pakistan, as well as in dozens of cities and towns across the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history.

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On Nagasaki Anniversary, UN Chief Warns ‘Humanity Now Confronts a New Arms Race’

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“We will not sit idly by as nuclear-armed states race to create even more dangerous weapons,” he said, calling for abolishing such arms.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 8-9-2023 by Common Dreams

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Photo: UNclimatechange/flickr/CC

Nearly eight decades after the United States dropped an atomic bomb codenamed “Fat Man” on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday was among the voices around the world renewing calls for eliminating nuclear weapons.

In a message to the Nagasaki Peace Memorial on the 78th anniversary of the 1945 bombing, Guterres said that “this ceremony is an opportunity to remember a moment of unmatched horror for humanity.”

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