- 2 jan 2011
Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict
An anonymous group of students has created a document to express their frustration born of Hamas's violent crackdowns on 'western decadence', the destruction wreaked by Israel's attacks and the political games played by Fatah and the UN
The meeting takes place in a bare room in a block of flats in the centre of Gaza City. No photographs, no real names those are the conditions.
This is the first time that a group of young Palestinian cyber-activists has agreed to meet a journalist since launching what it calls Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change. It is an incendiary document written with courage and furious energy that has captivated thousands of people who have come across it online, and the young university students are visibly excited, but also scared. "Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our families at risk," says one of them, who calls himself Abu George.
Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza where more than half the 1.5 million population is under 18 make it clear that they've had enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!"
It goes on to detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute everyday life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel and Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected to power in 2006.
"Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. "We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!"
The text ends with a triple demand: "We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"
On Facebook, the group calls itself Gaza Youth Breaks Out. When the cyber-activists wrote the manifesto three weeks ago, they gave themselves a year to gather enough support before thinking about further steps. But their text has travelled around the world at an unexpected speed and has harvested thousands of supporters, many of them human rights activists, who say they are ready to help.
Now, the authors are dealing with the impact of a document that could be a turning point in the life of the Strip. "We did not expect this to be so big," one of them admits. Eight people three women and five men wrote the text. They are normal students, from the more secular elements of Gazan society. All declare themselves to be non-political and disgusted with the tensions and rivalries that divide Palestinians between Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, and Fatah, the more secular party which governs the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank. "Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our lives up," said one member of the group. "Politicians only care about money and about their supporters. The Israelis are the only ones benefiting from the division."
Two of the group have been detained by the Gazan authorities several times, accused among other crimes of "immoral" behaviour. They say that they have been abused in jail and claim that physical and psychological punishment is commonplace in Gaza's detention centres.
Another one obtained a scholarship to attend a workshop at an American university, but he says Israel did not issue a permit that would allow him to leave the Strip.
"We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at risk," says one, who wants to be called Abu Yazan. He adds: "In Gaza, you feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it."
These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza. Their Facebook page already has thousands of friends including, they say, many from the Strip.
The causes of frustration are legion. The Israeli blockade forbids Gazans to travel in and out of the Strip without a permit, which is difficult to obtain. For Gazan students who wish to study abroad, the most difficult part is not being accepted at a foreign university or getting a scholarship, but simply being able to travel.
Inside the Strip, things do not get much better. Israeli shelling which follows the launching of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants is part of their everyday life. Power cuts and ruinous sanitary conditions are among the side-effects of the embargo suffered by Gaza's inhabitants.
With high unemployment in the Strip and little access to other job markets after graduation, many feel that they have reached a dead end. Some keep studying and accumulating degrees and foreign languages, which they learn via the internet, hoping for better days to come. Others kill their time smoking hookahs with their friends day after day. There is an increasing number who rely on drugs to cope with their conflict traumas and frustrations.
Going out, meeting friends in cafés let alone clubs or discotheques or attending cultural events has become an increasingly complicated task as Hamas cracks down on western "decadence".
In Gaza there are no theatres and few concerts aside from the Islamic musical performances organised by the Hamas authorities. In the places where young men and women are allowed to meet, considered an "oasis" by the less conservative youth, the police are quick to interrogate mixed couples suspected of not being married or engaged.
The "last straw" for the writers of the Gaza manifesto came a month ago, when Hamas closed Sharek, an internationally financed organisation offering training and summer activities for thousands of adolescents and young people. Sharek had also became a hang-out place for the more liberal-minded in Gaza. Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement condemning its closure. "Hamas authorities in Gaza should allow an organisation that helps children and youth to reopen, and penalise officials who have harassed its workers," it said.
According to Ihab Al Ghusain, a spokesman for the Hamas Ministry of the Interior, the problems highlighted by Gaza's disaffected youth are sometimes the result of over-zealous officials. "There are no laws prohibiting men and women sitting together in public places in Gaza," he said. "But some policemen at their own initiative interrogate the couples. Those policemen should be punished."
He says that proof of the government's commitment to Gaza's young generation is that it has declared 2011 the Year for the Youth. But the authors of the youth manifesto are unlikely to be persuaded by such symbolic initiatives. The group is currently investing most of its time and energy in debating new strategies to pursue a web-based platform for change. The new year may yet become one for the youth of the Strip, but perhaps not in the way Hamas intended.
The Manifesto
"Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!
"We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in...
"We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.
"There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.
"We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.
"ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"
http://bit.ly/dJ9KNm 9 jan 2012, 13:24 , Respect -
Maria 4 jan 2011
Don't distort our speech!
by gazaybo
Many activists reject our movement and consider us as some Zionist machinery because in the manifesto, we've been denouncing Hamas among others. It's always amazing to see the shortcuts people's minds can take and how good they are at condemning without even trying to understand. We'd like to remind all our goal: yes we are frustrated and tired of being oppressed, killed, humiliated and kept from even leaving to study in other countries, yes we denounce political parties governing us because they didn't help in anything, but we denounce ALL of them, not ONLY Hamas. We are TIRED of the status quo, from all sides. Political parties have all had the time and chances to BRING THE CHANGE, but we haven't seen anything yet.
We're NOT calling for a political coup, let's be clear on this. We're young people who want to work for the PEOPLE, we denounce the misery we live in, we denounce their division, and reject their fight, because they are not helping us. But more than Fatah and Hamas, who remains Palestinians just like us, ABOVE ALL we denounce the Occupier & its puppet the International Community who fails, day after day, in its duty to impose sanctions on Israel.
Our followers, readers, and those who are not supporting us yet must keep in mind THIS message: we have ONE enemy which is the Zionist Occupier. Hopefully this call will shake our political leaders, wake them up and remind them that they are responsible of us! Hopefully they will realize that what we want is UNITY, and NO MORE DIVISION, because it makes Israeli terrorism's impact on our lives even worse.
Our call is a call for SOLIDARITY, a call for PEACEFUL ACTION; we are holding out our hands & waiting for you to complete the bond. Make sure this is read, help us work for a better solution, HELP US MAKE IT!
And Please note this, the Gaza Youth Breaks Out Team have been banned from posting anything on the Facebook page; we want you to go there and flood the page with your love to Palestine so those who misinterpreted our message can leave us.
Love and respect from Gaza,
http://bit.ly/gXrytB 9 jan 2012, 13:24 , Respect -
Maria 5 jan 2011
New Facebook Pages Policy Why we can't post
I have been blocked from using a feature.
Facebook has policies to stop behavior that other users may find annoying or abusive. Even if you did not have this intention, Facebook systems have determined that you were repeatedly using the same feature in a short period of time. Since you did not adhere to previous warnings, a temporary block was set on your account. Here's what you should keep in mind about your block:
* This temporary block will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
* Attempting to use this feature while you are blocked can extend the block.
* We cannot lift this block for any reason, so please be patient and refrain from using this feature for a few days while waiting for this block to be removed.
* Once you are allowed to use this feature again, you must significantly slow down or stop this behavior. Further misuse of site features may result in more blocks or your account being permanently disabled.
Unfortunately, Facebook cannot provide any specifics on the rate limits that are enforced. The threshold at which you are warned is not a specific number, but rather determined by different factors, such as speed, time, and quantity.
Impossible for us, after that, to post anything on our page. Even when we commented on fans wall posts, the wall post would be removed by Facebook. First, we thought of a censorship, but after investigating, we found out that, to release themselves from having to monitor pages they consider as spam means, such as I <3 Sleep or I <3 Mum that get 5 million fans in a couple of days, Facebook has set new terms and conditions:
Special Provisions Applicable to Pages
1. Pages are special profiles that may only be used to promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor (including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities).
2. You may only administer a Facebook Page if you are an authorized representative of the subject of the Page.
3. Pages can only post content and information under the everyone setting.
4. When you publish content or information to your Page we have no obligation to distribute your content or information to users.
5. If you use a Fan Box widget off of our site to promote your Page, others will be able to copy and place the widget elsewhere.
6. You may not place a Fan Box widget in an advertisement.
7. If you collect user information on your Page, Section 9 of this Statement also applies to you.
8. If you display advertising on your Page, Section 11 of this Statement also applies to you.
9. You may not establish terms beyond those set forth in this Statement to govern the posting of content by users on a Page you administer, except you may disclose they types of content you will remove from your Page and grounds for which you may ban a user from accessing the Page.
10. You will restrict access to your Page in order to comply with all applicable laws. For example, if your Page includes content not suitable for minors, you will use your Page to block minors from accessing your Page.
As explained here by a blogger, fan pages are no longer Fan pages they are Brand pages. And only the official owners of the brand can use those pages. Hence if you're not an official brand/political figure/spokesperson or so, and if your page gets too many fans in a short period of time, Facebook removes your publishing rights and turn your page to a Community page, belonging to the fans.
Honestly, we don't really know if we'll be able to reply to the wall posts anytime soon, but there is no doubt that the page shall be maintained for the publicity it brings to the movement. We encourage you to join us on Twitter as well, and interact with us by any possible mean. We have to keep the bond!
Stay tuned.
http://bit.ly/hv6nRc
Israeli Facebook groups may face investigation for inciting racism
Deputy attorney general requested police open investigation into groups "Death to all Arabs", and "Protest in Umm al-Fahm against the Islamic Movement".
The deputy attorney general requested on Wednesday that police investigate two Facebook groups for allegedly incinting racism.
The groups are called "Death to all Arabs" and "Protest in Umm al-Fahm against the Islamic Movement".
"Death to all Arabs," which has 170 members, explicitly calls for acts of violence to be carried out against Arabs and has supportive words for violent acts against Arabs. The Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan told police to investigate the group for inciting both violence and racism.
Under the "group description" section, it says, "We need to kill them one by one. Dead Arab= Good Arab." The group had obviously reached other users, one of who posted "Death to Jews" on the group's wall.
The second group, "Protest in Umm al-Fahm against the Islamic Movement," was organized ahead of the right-wing march in the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. The march, which took place in October of last year, was held to protest the participation of a leader of the Islamic Movement in last May's Gaza-bound flotilla.
Sheik Ra'ad Salah, who heads the Islamic Movement's northern branch, accused the Israel Navy commandos who stormed the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, killing nine Turkish citizens, of deliberately trying to kill him.
Users wrote on the group's wall "death to Arabs" and "Mohamed is a pig."
In both cases, Nitzan requested that police go to Facebook and ask that they do away with the offending groups.
http://bit.ly/dRNYt9 9 jan 2012, 13:24 , Respect -
Maria 6 jan 2011
Gaza Youth Breaks Out responds to their critics
Gaza Youth Break Out have issued a statement in response to the critics of their "manifesto for change." Some of those criticisms can be found in the comments of the two posts we've had on the statement here http://bit.ly/eNsocw and here http://bit.ly/dYiip5 . The following was posted on Facebook by "the Gaza Youth Breaks Out Team" http://on.fb.me/heLtIE and is titled "Don't distort our speech!":
Many Arab/Muslim activists reject our movement & consider us as some Zionist machinery because in the manifesto, we've been denouncing Hamas - among others. It's always amazing to see the shortcuts people's minds can take and how good they are at condemning without even trying to understand. We'd like to remind all our goal: yes we are frustrated and tired of being oppressed, killed, humiliated and kept from even leaving to study in other countries, yes we denounce political parties governing us because they didn't help in anything, but we denounce ALL of them, not ONLY Hamas. We are TIRED of the status quo, from all sides. Political parties have all had the time and chances to BRING THE CHANGE, but we haven't seen anything yet.
We're NOT calling for a political coup, let's be clear on this. We're young people who want to work for the PEOPLE, we denounce the misery we live in, we denounce their division, and reject their fight, because they are not helping us. But more than Fatah and Hamas, who remains Palestinians just like us, ABOVE ALL we denounce the Occupier & its puppet the International Community who fails, day after day, in its duty to impose sanctions on "Israel".
Our followers, readers, and those who are not supporting us yet must keep in mind THIS message: we have ONE enemy which is the Zionist Occupier. Hopefully this call will shake our political leaders, wake them up and remind them that they are responsible of us! Hopefully they will realize that what we want is UNITY, and NO MORE DIVISION, because it makes Israeli terrorism's impact on our lives even worse.
Our call is a call for SOLIDARITY, a call for PEACEFUL ACTION; we are holding out our hands & waiting for you to complete the bond. Help us work for a better solution, HELP US MAKE IT!
And Please note this, the GYBO team have been banned from posting anything on the page; we want you to go there and flood the page with your love to Palestine so those who misinterpreted our message can leave us.
Love and respect from Gaza
- Abu Yazan
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/gaza-youth-breaks-out-responds-to-their-critics.html 9 jan 2012, 13:24 , Respect -
Maria 9 jan 2011
U.S. orders Twitter to hand over WikiLeaks records
Reuters A U.S. court has ordered Twitter to hand over details of the accounts of WikiLeaks and several supporters as part of a criminal investigation into the release of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents.
The December 14 subpoena obtained by the Department of Justice and published by online magazine Salon.com on Friday said the records sought from the microblogging website were relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. It ordered Twitter to provide account information on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking Pentagon documents made public last year by WikiLeaks. Read Article
U.S. orders Twitter to hand over WikiLeaks records
(Reuters) - A U.S. court has ordered Twitter to hand over details of the accounts of WikiLeaks and several supporters as part of a criminal investigation into the release of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents.
The December 14 subpoena obtained by the Department of Justice and published by online magazine Salon.com on Friday said the records sought from the microblogging website were "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."
It ordered Twitter to provide account information on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking Pentagon documents made public last year by WikiLeaks.
The information sought by the government includes all connection records and session times, IP addresses used to access Twitter, email and residential addresses plus billing records and details of bank accounts and credit cards.
The subpoena included the accounts of WikiLeaks supporters Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks volunteer and member of Iceland's parliament.
"WikiLeaks strongly condemns this harassment of individuals by the U.S. government," WikiLeaks said in a statement issued to Reuters by its London lawyer, Mark Stephens.
Iceland's Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson told Icelandic media on Saturday his government planned to lodge a protest on Monday with the U.S. ambassador in Reykjavik.
Speaking on state radio, Skarphedinsson said the U.S. authorities' behavior was unacceptable and his government would do everything in its power to protect Jonsdottir.
The U.S. government is examining whether criminal charges can be brought against Assange for helping to make public hundreds of thousands of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that embarrassed Washington and several of its allies.
WikiLeaks said three of the four individuals targeted by the Department of Justice had never worked for WikiLeaks and were private citizens who supported its public disclosure work voluntarily as activists or politicians.
Two of them were instrumental in helping WikiLeaks make public the Pentagon video that showed a U.S. helicopter crew firing on Iraqi civilians, the statement said. WikiLeaks is instructing its U.S. lawyers to oppose the subpoena, he added.
Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland's foreign relations committee wrote on Twitter that she was seeking legal advice and had spoken to Iceland's minister of justice, who was looking into the case.
Speaking to Sky News on the telephone from Reykjavik, she said the U.S.'s actions were outrageous.
"I have not conducted any criminal activity. I find it to be troublesome because the vice president of the United States has labeled WikiLeaks as a cyber-terrorist organization," she said.
The subpoena gave Twitter Inc three days to provide the records and ordered the San Francisco-based company not to inform the users under investigation. http://reut.rs/i7pnmV
http://bit.ly/fkYs4I
Facebook damages not worth benefits
A Le Monde diplomatique article criticizes the Facebook social networking website calling it a sickly-sweet diet of moderate transgression and monitored freedom.
The article written by Philippe Riviere starts by counting some of the positive points of the network including its security measures and user friendly format.
Facebook offers a cozy cocoon to its members, who can use it to communicate without being flooded with spam, he wrote in his Facebook: the magic mirror article.
Riviere also believes that interactions on Facebook are always positive and that there are various safeguards to protect users.
For example if you are traveling and log on from an unusual location, you have to submit to a (playful) interrogation, based on photos, to prove your identity, his article read.
The world's largest website, however, can sometimes be arbitrary, Riviere said, adding that some sensitive pages are occasionally suspended and then reinstated without any explanation.
One of these pages belonged to a support group for Bradley Manning, the American soldier who was accused of passing military secrets on the Iraq war to Wikileaks.
One of the security measures which Facebook provides its users with is reporting nuisance messages to prevent spamming. Facebook suspends the nuisance user's account after receiving the report.
According to Riviere, many users such as activists have used this maneuver to get their political adversaries suspended.
The article also accused Facebook of occasional censorship, blocking links to file-sharing, artistic and political websites - and sites such as Seppukoo.com, which tells users how to delete their information and leave Facebook.
According to Le Monde diplomatique, Facebook has 500 million subscribers, of whom 50 percent log on every day, for a total of 700 billion minutes every month.
While Facebook guarantees that only friends can see a users' personal information and images an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed in November 2010 that some of the biggest game operators on Facebook held the personal data of gamers and their friends.
Facebook, however, decreed a "zero tolerance" policy on data brokers claiming that it "has never sold and will never sell user information."
Internet tycoons have now started to abolish user anonymity in a plan to "civilize" the free Internet, which they see as a lawless zone.
"Show us 14 photos of yourself, and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the Internet? You've got Facebook photos!" Riviere quoted Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt as saying at the Techonomy conference on August 4, 2010.
"In a world of asymmetric threats, true anonymity is too dangerous. ... You need a name service for humans ... governments are going to require it."
If the exposition plan succeeds, divulging a user's real identity will be the least prerequisite for using the Internet.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159368.html 9 jan 2012, 13:24 , Respect -
Maria 12 jan 2011
FACEBOOK TRYING TO DEACTIVATE THE TRUTH
In Defense of Uruknet!
Tonight's post is about defending one of our colleages, comrades, friends, and allies. Tonight is about defending Uruknet whose blog is dedicated to providing information from the Middle East.
For those of you who don't know who Uruknet, please have a look at http://www.uruknet.info/. This blog is one of those that I personally consider one of the invaluable ones out there (a comprehensive list of those I read regularly will follow at a later date).
What has happened today will likely not come as a surprize to many of you. As it turns out Facebook deleted/deactivated/froze Uruknet's account/profile. This falls into a greater trend of limiting/censuring/disabling peace/Palestine solidarity activists and this has to stop!
So here is what I thought we should do. Uruknet managed to set up a group on Facebook. The url is
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uruknet/142018729188512. If you have a Facebook account and feel so inclined, please go there and like this page. If you have a blog, please do the same and also link (if possible, I still have to look into this) to this group.
We need numbers for this to work! Please help out with this and in any other instance activists are censured for their very important work!
~Sofia Smith
http://bit.ly/fuzN76