Feature Archives
Mon Sep 14 2009 (Updated 09/18/09)
Maya Wind and Netta Mishly from the Refusenik Group "Shministim" at UC Berkeley
On Wednesday, September 16, Maya Wind and Netta Mishly from the refusenik group "Shministim" spoke at the MLK, Jr. Building at UC Berkeley. Maya Wind and Netta Mishly both signed the 2008 Shministim Letter: a declaration by Israeli high school students that they would not enlist in the IDF to occupy Palestinian territories and rule over Palestinian life. Since military service is mandatory for Israeli Jews upon completing high school, Maya, Netta, and many of the dozens of teenagers who signed the letter have been sentenced to military prison, sometimes for multiple terms.
Ayman T. Quader, writes: "every time, she tries to understand what happened to her, she asks herself: what was my fault?, what’s going to happen to me in my tent? Ilham, a 30 years old mother of 6, lives in Al-atatra district ,in the northern part of the Gaza strip. The Israeli war (in 2006) had a huge impact on her, it destroyed her house, her parent’s house and killed her brother."
On August 18th, the Israeli Ministry of Defense informed American activist Tristan Anderson’s family and legal counsel that it considers his shooting during a nonviolent protest in the West Bank village of Nil’in, which left him critically injured, an “act of war,” absolving the soldiers responsible from any liability under Israeli law. Anderson was shot directly in the forehead with a high-velocity tear gas canister by Israeli forces on March 13th, 2009, suffering several condensed fractures and necessitating several life-saving surgeries.
Sun Jul 12 2009
4th of July Anti-Torture Demonstration
Over the July 4th traffic on Interstate 80, “torture victims and detainees” staged a banner display on the University Avenue overpass in Berkeley. World Can’t Wait has demonstrated on this overpass action every 4th of July since 2006. This year the focus was on the torture state forged under Bush – and now being continued and refined by Obama – as witnessed by the thousands who passed the display. The act of civil disobedience slowed northbound traffic along I-80.
Wed Jul 8 2009 (Updated 07/12/09)
Showdown With A Torture Judge
Cynthia Papermaster and Susan Harman write: "Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee was confronted by three torture accountability activists in a Pasadena courtroom who called out to him to resign for giving legal approval to interrogation techniques amounting to torture. He was so surprised that he stopped and listened to the three women, Cynthia Papermaster, Susan Harman, and Dianne Wright while they told him he is unfit to be a judge and should resign."
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, June 28th, a demonstration will begin at Vandenberg Air Force Base to protest the U.S. launch of a Minuteman III nuclear missile. The target of the rocket is the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, South Pacific.
Mon Jun 1 2009 (Updated 06/05/09)
National Day of Resistance to U.S. Torture
On May 28th in San Francisco, World Can’t Wait, National Lawyers Guild, Code Pink, the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, and National Accountability Network gathered at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to demand that Judge Bybee be disbarred and prosecuted for codifying specific torture tactics and for giving high Bush administration officials immunity protections from both civil and criminal suit.
Anti-War:
23