Mission & Justice

Mohammad Ghazal; 2/7/08

Intensive dialogue is called for between concerned authorities in the Kingdom to come up with recommendations to address the issue of abandoned children which is a social problem in Jordan, a report released by the Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS) indicated on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Public Security Department (PSD) Spokesperson Major Mohammad Khatib reiterated yesterday that the issue of abandoned children is not a phenomenon in Jordan. “This is alien to our community and the main reason behind it is not Jordanians but foreigners,” he told The Jordan Times. A recent PSD study, which compared the number of abandoned children over the past five years and the ratio against the total population, said the incidents did not constitute a trend and were individual cases.

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2/7/08

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have stormed the Egyptian gate at the Rafah crossing, clashing with security forces. Palestinian youth on Wednesday threw rocks at Egyptian soldiers, who responded in kind, keeping the crowd at bay with water cannons. At least six border guards were hurt in the exchange, Reuters news agency reported, citing an Egyptian police source. Television footage showed some Palestinians were also wounded. Egypt opened the crossing for two days to allow in Palestinians who need medical treatment not available in Gaza, and for Palestinians to return home.

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John Hooper; 2/7/08
Italy’s highest appeal court has ruled that it is acceptable to discriminate against gypsies on the grounds that they are thieves. The judgment comes amid a nationwide clampdown on gypsies, also known as Roma, by the Government of Silvio Berlusconi. Last week the Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, announced plans to fingerprint all of Italy’s Roma, including children. The ruling, which appears to provide judicial backing for the Government’s policies, was handed down in March but reported only on Monday. The judges overthrew the conviction of six defendants who signed a leaflet demanding the expulsion of Verona’s Gypsies in 2000.

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Linda S. Heard; 30/6/08

Sometimes I try to imagine what it must be like to be a Palestinian without a secure home, without reliable travel documents and without the rights most of us take for granted. But as someone who has a passport that opens most doors and the freedom to come and go at will it is difficult to put myself fully in the shoes of people who never know when the place they call home will be barred to them. Imagine waking up one day to be told you are no longer considered a citizen of your own country and have no automatic entitlement to see your parents or siblings ever again. Zeina Ashrawi, the daughter of political activist and academic Hanan Ashrawi, doesn’t need to imagine. A child of Jerusalem and a holder of a Jordanian passport stamped “Palestinian” as well as a Jerusalem identity card and an Israeli travel document, Zeina travelled to the US when she was 17 to attend school and college.

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1/7/08

A Palestinian journalist said from his hospital bed on Monday that he was abused and injured by Israeli security personnel on his way home to the Gaza Strip after receiving a journalism award in Britain. Mohammed Omer, who writes for the pro-Palestinian Washington Report, said he was strip-searched and detained for nearly four hours at the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge when he crossed from Jordan into the occupied West Bank, en route to the Gaza Strip, on June 26. “They wanted to humiliate me. I collapsed in tears… I had to throw up twice and I fainted twice,” Omer said. “They asked silly questions about everything I had done during my trip to London and Europe and they made fun of me.” An Israeli government spokesman declined immediate comment and said he would seek information about the incident. Omer, 24, received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, awarded to journalists who expose “establishment propaganda”, according to its website, at a ceremony in London on June 16.

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Rana Husseini; 1/7/08

The Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) on Monday launched a campaign to answer around 100 frequently asked questions by women about their legal rights. The one-year campaign, entitled “Waraqati” (My Paper) seeks to increase women’s awareness about their legal rights, as well as those of their children, in several fields. It is based on a list of 238 questions prepared by the JNCW on legal issues that was distributed to more than 600 people to gauge which questions the respondents considered the most important. The Women’s Studies Centre (WSC) at the University of Jordan then analysed the results and distributed its findings in a paper that was distributed to the press on Monday.

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Somini Sengupta; 29/6/08

Hamilton Court is a gated community for the moneyed middle classes. Within its stone walled boundary are a private school, health clinic and fitness club. A small army of security guards patrols its groomed lawns, ensuring the outside world does not intrude. It is just one of the exclusive enclaves that have blossomed across India in recent years, emerging on the outskirts of prospering cities. They allow residents to buy their way out of the hardships that afflict vast multitudes in this country of more than 1 billion. The 25-storey Hamilton Court in Gurgaon, a satellite city on the southern outskirts of Delhi, offers what the Government cannot - 24-hour electricity, running water and protection from law breakers.

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Haya Al-Manie; 28/6/08

I pondered a great deal over the story of a poor woman who lived in fear for over 14 years. The woman had been blackmailed for the entire period and had been pressured to hand to her blackmailer over SR800,000, which is an enormous amount of money. This was the price she had to pay for her security. I was happy to learn that the woman was not heavily involved with this man and that her contact with him was only limited to some pictures she had passed to him. While reading this piece of news, I was left to wonder who was responsible for her life of fear. Was it that she was ignorant when she was young and irresponsible? Was she in this situation on account of her family? Were the social welfare institutions to blame? I simply cannot imagine how a girl could live in such fear for over 14 years.

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Christopher Vasillopulos; 28/6/08

In his beautiful and profound novel, “Cry the Beloved Country”, Alan Paton wrote about the innumerable tragedies European imperialism implied for black and white South Africans. A powerful plea for reconciliation between the races, the oppressor and the oppressed, his beautiful book nevertheless told bitter truths about the brutal, racist regime and the often criminal and violent responses of the people it tyrannized. In the same spirit I offer this piece. It uses the same structure of a speech the murdered and martyred hero of the novel never lived to give. It is permissible for the Jews to have claimed a homeland in Palestine. It is not permissible for them to have evicted hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians in the process. It is permissible for the Jews to have gathered up the refugees in camps. It is not permissible to have kept them, who now are five million, there in abominable conditions for as much as 60 years.

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Sarah Smiles; 28/6/08

Kidnapped, chained, and force-fed salt - Aborigines were coerced by white explorers to help them find water in the desert on an expedition to cross Western Australia in 1906. Their knowledge of water wells was critical to the success of the expedition, led by WA surveyor Alfred Canning, who drove a herd of cattle from Halls Creek to Wiluna across terrain where many had perished before him. Today, researchers from the Australian National University are working with the local Martu people to document the rich indigenous heritage of the Canning Stock Route, inhabited for the past 25,000 years. The 1700-kilometre track boasts one of the country’s most diverse collections of Aboriginal art, which has wrongly been attributed to lost Dutch sailors in the past. Kangaroos and owl-shaped heads are depicted on rocks, including informative art such as maps of waterholes, which allowed tribes to communicate over large distances.

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