Members of The Park Slope Food Co-op will vote next month on whether to hold a referendum on boycotting products made in Israel. The vote follows a three-year battle that began when Hima B., one of the co-op’s 15,500 members, proposed supporting the BDS movement; it has since proven to be a polarizing issue. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, a global Israeli boycott movement, aims to end what supporters describe as an “apartheid system against Palestinians.” The vote will be held on March 27 at Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene. Proponents of the referendum believe that is consistent with the co-op’s history of boycotting regions or corporations “that have exploited or have discriminatory practices.” Two educational events for members with questions about the boycott have also been planned.

Opponents of the referendum, known as “More Hummus Please,” believe that it is “misguided, discriminatory and smacks of anti-Semitism,” and some have threatened to leave the co-op if the referendum is passed. Progressive Voices for Peace in the Middle East (PVPME), an opposition group, is sponsoring a workshop on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with a panel that will include Michael Waltzer (Board of Directors, Americans for Peace Now), Brooke Goldstein (Director, The Lawfare Project), Zudhi Jasser (Founder and President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy), and Yona Shem-Tov (Executive Director, Encounter). Details for the event are as follows:

Date: Sunday, March 4, 2012

Time: 2:00 PM

Location: Old Reformed Church (Carroll Street, 7th Avenue / entrance at 729 Carroll Street), Lower (ground floor) Hall

Efforts to censor the Internet through bills - SOPA and PIPA (previously discussed here) – may not have succeeded, but another round of debate may just soon erupt with a new cyber-security bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 

Reid’s push is seen by some as an effort by Democrats to broadly expand the authority of executive branch agencies over the Internet just as SOPA and PIPA were seen as efforts to expand the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.  While SOPA and PIPA were attempts to improve the ability of the DOJ to combat copyright infringement on foreign sites, the new bill will attempt to increase regulation of cyber-security matters over civilian networks.

Increasing the regulatory authority of the Department of Homeland Security may also be on the horizon with a recent bill in the House – the Promoting and Enhancing Cyber-security and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act of 2011 or PrECISE Act. The goal of the bill is to aid DHS in fighting cyber-attacks.

The Daily Caller notes that “reasons for the rush may include Democrats’ desire to pass cyber-security legislation before November elections”, and appears to be “another attempt by the Democrats to expand the power of the federal government over the Internet in less than two years. Past efforts include the House Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, and the Federal Communications Commission’s so-called 'net neutrality' regulation.”

In Egypt, secular politician Naguib Sawiris is being sued for blasphemy for tweeting an image of Mickey and Minnie Mouse in a beard and burka – joking that even cartoons will have to wear Islamist garb if they ever come to power in Egypt.

The trial begins on February 11 and raises free speech issues with regard to what is legitimate political speech when a political party is also a religious party. Sawiris, it should be noted, is also a Coptic Christian billionaire who actually has the resources to be a formidable candidate should there be open media access to all politicians equally. 

Sawiris is also co-founder of the Free Egyptians (al-Masryeen al-Ahrar) party.

Using Human Rights as a Weapon Against Democracy

One after another, public institutions and private organizations devoted to the defense of human rights are bringing those rights into wholesale disrepute. Is that a problem? It is, when the cases are spurious. It is, too, when a court's definition of human rights routinely contradicts the views of ordinary people, democratic parliaments, and duly constituted national courts.

Lawfare and the ACLU

The ACLU and the rest of the legal left have failed to persuade several Congresses and two Administrations to agree to their anti-terror policies. So, instead, they are suing former officials in civilian court to harass them and damage their reputations. It's shameful stuff and, if it succeeds, it would have the effect of making Pentagon officials look over their shoulder at potential lawsuits every time they had to make a difficult military or interrogation decision.

After the Arab Spring: Blasphemy in Tunisia

Extremists attacked people rallying to support TV executive Nabil Karoui, who was on trial for blasphemy for violating  "sacred values" and "disturbing public order" for airing Persepolis. Persepolis is an award-winning animated film about the 1979 Iranian revolution that depicts God as a bearded old man. The attackers believe that the film violates Islamic values forbidding the depiction of God.

The Debate over Internet Censorship Continues in India

There are many things about China that India would love to emulate. Attitudes to freedom of expression should not be one of them. India's slower growth is often defended as a price worth paying for freedom and democracy. But censoring Salman Rushdie and censuring Jay Leno doesn't say much for India's tolerance levels.

Given micro-blogging site Twitter’s global reach, many free speech advocates were a little unnerved this week as the company announced that some tweets may be censored out of respect to local laws within a given nation.

Other reporters were less surprised at Twitter’s announcement since it came after billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's estimated $300 million investment into the company last month. Twitter, known for its role in the Arab uprisings and the 2009 Green Movement in Iran, has had noticeably less influence in Saudi Arabia (SA) itself. SA has much stronger censorship filters across its media, including the Internet and now, evidently, Twitter. But citizens of Muslim-majority countries are far from the only victims of this censorship:

Apparently not really interested in censoring any tweeter, Twitter has an easy workaround of its own censorship policy: Change your country location on your account.

A press release from a student organization highlighted the London School of Economics (LSE) decision to enforce a new censorship policy after a secular humanist organization published a cartoon depicting Jesus and Muhammad having a drink at a pub together.

In response to the cartoon being posted, students at LSE forced through a motion denouncing "Islamophobia," defining the term as “a form of racism expressed through the hatred or fear of Islam, Muslims, or Islamic culture and the stereotyping, demonisation or harassment of Muslims, including but not limited to portraying Muslims as barbarians or terrorists, or attacking the Qur’an as a manual of hatred[.]"

Open and empirical political and philosophical debate is the cornerstone of critical thinking that students must be able to engage in actively and peacefully. Student publications are one of the most important arenas in which to do this. At times, this includes creative speech – art, cartoons, parody, etc.

If LSE actually cares about maintaining intellectual integrity on its campus, it would advocate debating ideas with ideas – for example, a retort within the publication that published the cartoon by those opposed to the cartoon. The opposing students would then be forced to articulate what they are actually upset about. None of the issues they listed in their own motion are necessarily even occurring in the cartoon at issue:

• Hatred or fear of Islam, Muslims, or Islamic culture
• Stereotyping, demonization or harassment of Muslims
• Portraying Muslims as barbarians or terrorists
• Attacking the Qur’an as a manual of hatred

To support Raheem Kassam and the Student Rights organization fighting this motion click here.

Censoring Facebook in India

A Delhi court is asking 22 social networking websites, including Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, to remove material deemed offensive to the religious sentiments of Muslims and Hindus. The move is being supported by some prominent politicians. As of today, these providers have until February 6 to file a compliance order with the court confirming removal of offensive sites.  http://yourjewishnews.com/14903.aspx

Stop Online Piracy Act Update

The debate continues over access to copyrighted material on the internet via the Stop Online Piracy Act/E-PARASITE Act (SOPA) as the House Judiciary Committee returns from its winter recess this month. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes that "the Stop Online Piracy Act/E-PARASITE Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) are the latest in a series of bills which would create a procedure for creating (and censoring) a blacklist of websites." These reintroduce the "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) substantively. COICA was previously blocked in the Senate. EFF notes that while the push to pass these kinds of bills attempts to curb copyright infringements abroad, the overbroad language of these bills "allow for removal of enormous amounts of non-infringing content including political and other speech from the Web."

Austrian Woman Fined for Questioning Islam

Last month, an Austrian judge upheld the conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for denigrating "religious teachings of a legally recognized religion in Austria," namely Islam. In a three-part seminar in early 2011, Ms. Sabaditsch-Wolff had discussed the marriage of Islam's prophet Mohammed to Aisha and questioned whether he was a pedophile. As a result, she was found guilty and fined despite the court's confirmation that she did not make the "offending" comments maliciously. In Austria, denigration of a faith has a lower burden of proof than hate speech. http://europenews.dk/en/node/50702

One Year After Salman Taseer's Murder: Blasphemy Laws in Action

As the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) continues to push for the censoring of criticism of Islam and Islamism in the West, Pakistan observed the one-year anniversary of politician Salman Taseer's murder last week. Taseer was killed for advocating the repeal/reform of Pakistan's blasphemy laws. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/syed-ali-abbas-zaidi/pakistan-islam-radicalism_b_1029983.html

Lawfare as "Maximum Disruption"

Interview about Canada's #1 Proponent of Lawfare:  Richard Warman
http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2011/12/ezra-levant-and-michael-coren-discuss-canadas-1-lawfare-warrior/

Ecuador Silences Government Criticism Through Lawfare

Filed on March 21, 2011, President Correa's complaint against El Universo and its former columnist requested three-year jail terms and 80 million dollars in damages. It was prompted by a column by Palacio on February 6, 2011 headlined "No to lies!" about the President's response to a mutiny by police officers on September 30, 2010. http://en.rsf.org/ecuador-president-s-lawsuit-ends-with-jail-21-07-2011,40675.html

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is hosting its tenth session of The Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court (“the Assembly”) at the United Nations' headquarters in New York City this week.

Its meetings, which will end on December 21, 2011, will focus on organizational elections, including the selection of a new Prosecutor to replace Luis Moreno-Ocampo and six new judges. These new hires, according to Human Rights Watch, will continue to "bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind- war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide," the three crimes the ICC is currently given authority to adjudicate under the Rome Statute.  As The Lawfare Project has noted in the past, the jurisdiction and intent of the ICC, as well as its susceptibility to lawfare, is a much-debated issue, especially given that the court's reach may often unduly interfere with a nation’s sovereignty.

On December 12, Washington Post columnist Marc. A. Thiessen highlighted partisan attempts at ICC jurisdiction by attacking Amnesty International's call to have G.W. Bush arrested earlier this month for alleged human rights violations, while ignoring rendition policies under the previous Clinton administration. The column is facetiously entitled, “Arrest Bill Clinton!”

Support of the ICC varies widely around the world.  As of September 2011, 116 states are members of the court and 139 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.

The G.W. Bush administration stated it would not join the ICC and the Clinton administration refused to submit the Rome Statute for Senate ratification out of fear that the court would be used as a political tool against the United States. The Obama administration, on the other hand, has re-established a relationship with the court. In the meantime, calls for global arrest warrants, as the one Amnesty International called for earlier this month, could increase in the future.

Last week, Amnesty International called on Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia to arrest former President George W. Bush in anticipation of his visit to these nations in the coming days. Amnesty International accuses G.W. Bush of authorizing the unlawful use of torture, including the practice of waterboarding, as an interrogation technique at detention facilities after 9/11 in connection to the U.S. War against Terrorism.

"Amnesty has neither the jurisdiction nor the mandate to issue arrest warrants," said one Ethiopian official, dismissing Amnesty’s request as Bush arrived in Addis Ababa to attend the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA 2011) on Sunday, December 4.

To date, there have been no successful prosecutions against the US for its alleged use of torture under the Bush administration. Moreover, the doctrine of complimentarity dictates that an international tribunal, or any state claiming universal jurisdiction, must first defer to local proceedings. Only when local proceedings are deemed inadequate can a foreign court assert universal jurisdiction.

Given there is ongoing litigation regarding varying alleged torture allegations arising from US military decisions post 9/11, Amnesty International’s call is terribly premature and seems to be politically motivated. Two cases, as examples, include Vance v. Rumsfeld, 653 F.3d 591 (7th Cir. 2011) and Doe v. Rumsfeld, 2011 WL 3319439 (D.C. Dist. Ct. 2011).

While universal jurisdiction may mean well—i.e., provide a global avenue to protect as many men and women against human rights abuses—it can also, alternatively, be used as a political tool to fuel ideological battles in foreign courts with no connection to the purported human rights violation. As a result, many critics of universal jurisdiction see it as an attack on a nation's sovereignty. Some critics would also consider universal jurisdiction ripe for abuse by lawfare proponents. 

The legality of waterboarding during a time of war continues to be debated in the United States and abroad. It appears to have been legal domestically in the years directly after 9/11. The CIA did not ban waterboarding until 2007 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees at detention centers like Guantanamo Bay were protected under the Geneva Conventions (yet did not rule on the issue of whether the technique was in fact legal). The Senate passed a ban on water-boarding in 2008. While Amnesty International finds G.W. Bush guilty of torture (sans trial), a fundamental principle of liberal democracy is due process; an element of which dictates that one cannot be found guilty of a crime if the underlying action was not itself illegal at the time it was carried out. 

Considering the continued political dissent today in the United States over the matter, it is not likely that we will be coming to any definitive legal conclusions in the near future about this practice. The current Republican candidates are split over whether water-boarding is torture, indicating that some would attempt to reinstitute it if elected president.

For any international organization like Amnesty International to dictate the direction of any nation’s domestic policies, especially as they relate to its national security and foreign policy needs, overreaches its mission significantly. 

As a human rights organization, it is well within Amnesty International's mandate to investigate and expose human rights abuses, but it is not within their mandate to be judge and jury as well on those same matters.