Post-Snowden, UN's Ben Emmerson Tells Inner City Press of “Conceptual Censorship" in US Debate, Foreign Fighters Question UNanswered

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 23 -- When UN human rights rapporteur Ben Emmerson held a press conference on his report on mass surveillance on October 23, Inner City Press asked him to review the Obama administration's and its Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's response to the spying revelations by Edward Snowden and others, and if any dangers are posed by the “foreign fighters” resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in September. (The latter question was not answered.)

  Emmerson began diplomatically, calling the PCLOB's reports “worth reading,” but then said that the debate and proposal legislation is confined to the “detailed fringes.” He said the key question is whether the right to privacy simply will not apply to the means of communications most in use today, given government's appetite for surveillance.Video here and embedded below.

  He said as long as governments -- like that of the United States -- won't disclose their surveillance programs, the debate is subject to “conceptual censorship.”

  The UN set aside the first question for the old UN Correspondents Association, which asked a softball question leading Emmerson to reply, “read the report.” (It has been online for some time, here.) 

 The new Free UN Coalition for Access objects to set-asides, and to UNCA's function as the UN's Censorship Alliance, having tried to order Inner City Press to remove factual articles from the Internet, and thengetting Google to block from its search leaked copies of anti-Press complaints filed with the UN, here. We'll have more on this.

First Look's "The Intercept" has revealed that the US National Security Agency and FBI spied on at least five Americans, all Muslims, and used place-holder code names like "Raghead," click here for that. 

   Those spied on included a Republican candidate for the Virginia legislature, Faisal Gill; Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor; lawyer Asim Ghafoor; Nihad Awad of CAIR; and "Agha Saeed, a former political science professor at California State University who champions Muslim civil liberties and Palestinian rights."

 It's shameful, but who can stand up to the United States?

  The United Nations' Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has already said he thinks Snowden "misused" information, as Inner City Press reported here.

  Back on March 14 when the US delegation to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva took the floor, it was a full court press. Of the elephant in the room, NSA spying, the speaker from the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice used a single line: DOJ is "monitoring" a number of private actions. You don't say.

  The head of the US delegation, Mary McLeod, said but did not explain why the US Administration has "no current expectation to become a party to the optional protocol" to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights -- which the US says does not apply to its actions outside of its borders. 

The session closed with a slew of questions: Walter Kalin asked why the US deports people to Haiti even amid the cholera epidemic -- for which, Inner City Press notes, the US has said the UN should be immune. 

  The US repeated that argument on July 7, which Inner City Press has covered here. Watch this site. 

   

Syria Tells UN of 146 Dead "Terrorists" from 19 Countries, Amid Gaza & DRC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 21 -- During the last of Security Council kabuki theater about Gaza and the Congo, the issue of Syria has largely fallen off the UN's map.

On Wednesday alongside statements on Gaza and ceasefires, the Syrian Mission to the UN filed another letter with the Council, this time naming 143 "Foreign and Arab individuals who were killed in Syria while carrying out terrorist activities."

Inner City Press has previously obtained and published Syria letters, for example of 108 who'd been killed. 

  But Syria's November 21 list contains more nationalities, including "Qatari, Saudi, Tunisian, Egyptians, Sudanese, Libyans, Afghani, Jordanians, Turks, Yememis, Iraqi, Azerbaijani, Chechnya, Kuwaitis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Algerians, Chadian and Pakistani."

  Chechnya, of course, is not a country. Among the names on Syria's list are Nihat Sagdic, M. Ollaz Kuvdish and Kalbind Dovca.

  Meanwhile some point out that the French-requested resolution on the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo casts an ever stranger light on that country's and others approach to Syria. 

  If it is wrong for other countries in a region to fund or equip rebels in another -- as Rwanda and Uganda are alleged to have helped the M23 -- what of the assistance to Syrian rebels?

The answer might well be a comparison of Syria's Bashar al Assad and DRC's Joseph Kabila. But this still admits that there is no principle at work: it is simply a political decision, of liking one rebel group and disliking another. We'll have more on this.

In Syria's List of 108 Foreign Fighters, Traffic in Arms & People, Al Qaeda

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 20 -- Syria on October 19 turned in to the UN Security Council a list of "108 foreign nationals who were arrested by the Syrian authorities" on charges of terrorism. Inner City Press on October 19 obtained the October 19 cover letter and list, and put them online here.

  The list includes 20 from Lebanon, a dozen Iraqis, 44 Tunisians, nine Jordanians and nine Palestinians; the rest are Libyans, Syrians or of dual nationality.

  There are allegations of bomb-making, erecting false police roadblocks, and kidnap for ransom. The finger is also pointed at the "An-Nahda Salafist party" in Egypt as being built up by Al Qaeda.

  A sample, 33rd out of the 108: Mohamed Houssine Faress -- "joined armed group" and contributed weapons -- and fighter and journalist -- trafficking from Lebanon. Alleged kidnapper.

Back in May, Syria turned in a list of 26 foreign fighters, on which Inner City Press also first reported.

  Since then, the Security Council has had much to say about terrorism, and armed groups with external support, most recently in a Friday afternoon, French-drafted Presidential Statement condemning any outside support to an armed group - M23 - in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  In that conflict, the UN and its Group of Experts make much of uniforms and contested ID cards which they say prove the foreignness or outside support of armed groups. So how does the Council respond to a list such as Syria has submitted? Watch this site.

Syria UN List of Foreign Fighters Has Libyan Busboy & "Terrorists" From Tunisia

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 12 -- Amid suicide car bombings in Damascus, German Ambassador to the UN Peter Wittig while condemning the bombs on May 10 told the press that Bashar al Assad's "failure to comply" had "fueled" this. 

 

  An hour later Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told Inner City Press that 26 foreign fighters arrested in his country came from Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt and Jordan. Now Inner City Press has obtained Syria's list, translated into English, and puts it online here.

  Most of the 26 "detained Arab nationals" on the list are Tunisians described as entering Syria through Turkey and "using arms against Syrian Arab Army forces in response to fatwas issued by takfiri religious figures in Tunisia."

  Several are described as having previously been imprisoned for terrorism and even "pardoned and freed after the Tunisian revolution."

  One was arrested after being solicited to go to Iraq for similar fighting. The car bombs in Damascus, while blamed by some on the government, are reminiscent of the carnage that became a daily occurrence in Iraq.

They are listed as students, engineers, farmers and drivers; one counterfeiter and a smuggler of "narcotic pills" from Lebanon; even a restaurant worker from Libya.

  Ja'afari on May 10 described a ship of weapons from Libya meant for fighters in Syria; he told Inner City Press that the UN mission UNIFIL didn't stop it because "UNIFIL is only to protect Israel."

  What will happen with these names, and these people? Several are alleged to be members of Al-Qaida. Yesterday, Inner City Press wrote about the Al Qaida sanctions committee and its various listings. Will these individuals be listed? And what of the referenced killed fighter from Belgium, the UK and France? Watch this site.