500+ Anti-War Actions Planned Across the US
t r u t h o u t | Press Release

Wednesday 15 March 2006

Marking three years since the US-led bombing and invasion of Iraq began, peace groups across the United States are holding anti-war actions March 15-22. United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the nation's largest anti-war coalition, is coordinating the local events as part of a nationwide week of action to end the Iraq war.

With more than 500 events planned in all 50 states, the anti-war movement will take to the streets to send a clear message to Congress and the White House: After three years of a failed policy, the Iraq war must end. It's time to bring all the troops home.

According to a CBS poll released Monday (3/13/06), 67% of the US public thinks the Iraq war has not made the US safer, and 59% wants to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. The White House continues to ignore the majority opposition to the war, which has already cost the lives of more than 2,300 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis. After three years of war, Iraq is wracked by violence and threatened with the prospect of civil war, Iraqi civilians are suffering from a lack of basic services, including electricity and clean water, and women's rights are being eroded.

"How many more people need to die before the US government changes course? We've already spent $250 billion on the war, but things in Iraq keep getting worse. Instead of approving another $72 billion for war, Congress should be figuring out how much money will be needed to bring our troops home now and take care of them when they get here," said Leslie Cagan, UFPJ National Coordinator.

The week of local actions will include protests outside Congressional offices, peace marches and rallies, interfaith services, candlelight vigils, and nonviolent civil disobedience. From Tucson, AZ, to Boise, ID, to Fayetteville, NC, to Buffalo, NY, communities will call for an immediate end to the war in Iraq.

During the week of action, veterans and military families will unite their call for peace with hurricane survivors' call for justice on a five-day march and caravan from Mobile to New Orleans. Four Latino veterans and military families have begun a 241-mile march for peace from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Francisco. Other highlights of the week include: a National Day of Local Media Protest on Wednesday, March 15; a National Day of Youth and Student Action Against the War on Thursday, March 16; Local Actions to Keep the Pressure on Congress on Monday, March 20; and a Global Call for Nonviolent Resistance to End the US-Led Occupation of Iraq on Monday, March 20. For a full list of US and international actions, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org.

United for Peace and Justice is the largest US peace and justice coalition with more than 1,400 member groups under its umbrella. Since its founding in October 2002, UFPJ has spurred hundreds of protests and rallies around the country, including the largest demonstrations against the Iraq war.

-------

500+ Anti-War Actions Planned Across the US
t r u t h o u t | Press Release

Wednesday 15 March 2006

Marking three years since the US-led bombing and invasion of Iraq began, peace groups across the United States are holding anti-war actions March 15-22. United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the nation's largest anti-war coalition, is coordinating the local events as part of a nationwide week of action to end the Iraq war.

With more than 500 events planned in all 50 states, the anti-war movement will take to the streets to send a clear message to Congress and the White House: After three years of a failed policy, the Iraq war must end. It's time to bring all the troops home.

According to a CBS poll released Monday (3/13/06), 67% of the US public thinks the Iraq war has not made the US safer, and 59% wants to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. The White House continues to ignore the majority opposition to the war, which has already cost the lives of more than 2,300 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis. After three years of war, Iraq is wracked by violence and threatened with the prospect of civil war, Iraqi civilians are suffering from a lack of basic services, including electricity and clean water, and women's rights are being eroded.

"How many more people need to die before the US government changes course? We've already spent $250 billion on the war, but things in Iraq keep getting worse. Instead of approving another $72 billion for war, Congress should be figuring out how much money will be needed to bring our troops home now and take care of them when they get here," said Leslie Cagan, UFPJ National Coordinator.

The week of local actions will include protests outside Congressional offices, peace marches and rallies, interfaith services, candlelight vigils, and nonviolent civil disobedience. From Tucson, AZ, to Boise, ID, to Fayetteville, NC, to Buffalo, NY, communities will call for an immediate end to the war in Iraq.

During the week of action, veterans and military families will unite their call for peace with hurricane survivors' call for justice on a five-day march and caravan from Mobile to New Orleans. Four Latino veterans and military families have begun a 241-mile march for peace from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Francisco. Other highlights of the week include: a National Day of Local Media Protest on Wednesday, March 15; a National Day of Youth and Student Action Against the War on Thursday, March 16; Local Actions to Keep the Pressure on Congress on Monday, March 20; and a Global Call for Nonviolent Resistance to End the US-Led Occupation of Iraq on Monday, March 20. For a full list of US and international actions, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org.

United for Peace and Justice is the largest US peace and justice coalition with more than 1,400 member groups under its umbrella. Since its founding in October 2002, UFPJ has spurred hundreds of protests and rallies around the country, including the largest demonstrations against the Iraq war.

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http://wiki.uniteddiversity.com/AnotherWorldIsBlossoming

The systems and institutions upon which we rely for our well-being and survival are at risk of massive failure. Ecosystems everywhere are in decline. The age of cheap plentiful oil is over. Food and energy shortages are on the horizon.

Few are aware of the full nature and extent of our predicament and, of those that are, many feel powerless to do anything about it.

Corporate media manipulates our minds while the monetary system continues to fund plundering unelected presidents and plunge the world into an ever-increasing spiral of debt.

But all is not lost. There IS another way.

In fact, Another World Is Blossoming...

Communities across the World are beginning to self-organise and share resources in order to
take back control of their lives and build hope for a sustainable future.

Another World Is Blossoming events will raise awareness about our predicament, inspire collective action for change and launch the Synergy Community Fund.

With films, music, debate and more participants will be empowered with knowledge about the state of the world, what pioneering groups are doing about it and how they can join in.

Together We Have Everything we need to Create the World We Want.

The events will take place throughout March 06 in venues across London as part of the NODE London Season of Media Arts. They are being co-organised and collectively marketed by participants of a number of groups, including;

uniteddiversity - http://uniteddiversity.com
Creative Forum - http://www.creativeforum.org
The Synergy Project - http://www.thesynergyproject.org
Peace Not War - http://www.peace-not-war.org
You and your mates?

Events taking place as part of the season:
See also http://nodel.org/projects.php?ID=163

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/mums-the-only-women-for-coalition/2006/03/03/1141191845936.html?page=2
[complete]

Mums the only women for Coalition

By Adele Horin
March 4, 2006
Page 1 of 2 | Single page

IT WAS a throwaway line from the chameleon Peter Costello, and who knows if he meant it. Having assumed the posture last week of a right-wing anti-Muslim bigot, he shifted to moderate mode this week to champion the cause of women. "We must look at how to improve opportunities for women to create the most female-friendly environment in the world," the Treasurer told the National Press Club.

It is ironic Costello's remarks coincided with the release of a new report that showed Australia had slipped to its lowest-ever ranking in an international league table of women's representation in national parliaments.

Female representation in the House of Representatives is going backwards because the Coalition parties have failed to put forward women candidates. The Treasurer's concern about being "women-friendly" might start with his own party.

For all the indignation at Labor's preselection bunfights, for all the carry-on about its domination by the trade unions, the ALP still has a much better record than the Coalition in promoting women in its ranks. Women make up more than one-third of Labor's members in the House, compared with 20 per cent of the Liberal's. Similar maths apply to female representation in state parliaments. Labor does much better. The National do even worse than the Liberals.

Under the Howard/Costello Government, Australia has slid to 29th on the league table published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union to show the proportion of women MPs in lower houses of parliament. New Zealand is in 15th place, the place Australia occupied in 1999.

The number of women in the House fell in the 2004 election for the first time since 1980, and is now 24.7 per cent. We do better than Canada, Britain and the US but our track record is poorer than the Nordic countries (more than 45 per cent of MPs in Sweden are women), Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain, as well as countries such as Afghanistan, Rwanda and Burundi.




--


http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
[complete]

Pay too much and you could raise the alarm

By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.

So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.

And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."

He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.

What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that "everything changed after 9/11" thing.

But not Walter.

"We're a product of the '60s," he said. "We believe government should be way away from us in that regard."

He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

--

------ Forwarded Message
From: Carlos Roque
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 10:19:03 -0500
Subject: Fwd: Arts in Danger

Dear friends,

I am taking the liberty to forward you this email from my dear friend Rifky Effendy, an Indonesian curator based in Jakarta.
Protests against an artwork on view at the CP Biennial in Jakarta and the subsequent closing of the Biennial seems to be part of an uprising movement to impose Islamic rule on Indonesia. Now, the artist himself, people involved in the making of the artwork, and the CP Biennial curator are all risking long term prison sentences for their involvement with something which should not be considered a crime.
Please read the following text.

Yours truly,
Carlos


Begin forwarded message:


From: Rifky Effendy
Date: February 26, 2006 12:58:01 AM EST

Subject: Arts in Danger


Dear Friends,
I would like to invite you to support us, please check
below. Please spread this info.
Thank you.

Best
Rifky
JKT


http://pinkswing.wordpress.com/
http://senirupaindonesia.blogspot.com/

article:
Navel gazing ruled out as Indonesians button up

By Mark Forbes Herald Correspondent in Jakarta
February 25, 2006

taken from:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/24/1140670261932.html

ROCKING in a pink swing fashioned from the cab of a
pedal-driven rickshaw, Agus Suwage felt at peace. He
had just installed his Pinkswing Park exhibit at
Jakarta's international biennale and was surrounded by
massive panels with multiple pictures of a near-naked
man and woman frolicking in a utopian park - a world
away from thoughts of religious furore, public
condemnation and possible imprisonment.

The softly spoken, bespectacled 47-year-old seems an
unlikely martyr, his only concession to the battle now
enveloping his life is a peaked camouflage hat with a
skull and crossbones button pinned to its front.

Within days of November's exhibition launch, Islamic
fundamentalists had shoved Suwage to the forefront of
their struggle to redefine Indonesia by descending on
the biennale, forcing its closure and demanding
prosecutions. At first police claimed his work
blasphemed the story of Adam and Eve, then last week
they told Suwage he faced five years in jail for
producing pornography.

The same groups staging violent demonstrations against
the West over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad are
targeting pornography in their battle to transform
Indonesia into a strict Islamic nation. And they are
winning: parliament is set to introduce a sweeping
anti-pornography law.

Expected to be passed by June, the law imposes a rigid
social template; couples who kiss in public will face
up to five years' jail, as would anyone flaunting a
"sensual body part" - including their navel - and
tight clothing will be outlawed.

Most women's groups are horrified, entertainment
industries believe it could destroy them and Bali's
embattled tourism authorities are alarmed at the
prospect of sunbathing tourists being arrested.

Mainstream Islamic organisations are warning of moral
decay and backing the bill, while politicians, wary of
alienating Indonesia's Muslim majority, are condoning
the growing anti-porn movement.

Plans to introduce Playboy's soft porn to the
Indonesian market next month have become another focus
of rowdy demonstrations, with protesters portraying
the magazine as a symbol of the decadent West's attack
on Islam. Playboy's publishers are proposing a bizarre
compromise, no naked women will be featured -
Indonesians, at least, will be able to say they only
buy it for the articles.

In Jakarta, police have seized hundreds of thousands
of "erotic" magazines - including FHM and Rolling
Stone - and DVDs, after an edict from police chief
Sutanto to "eradicate pornography".

The Islamic Defenders Front spearheads the anti-porn
protests. It took two days to track down its leader,
Habib Riziek, this week - he was at police
headquarters, seeking information about "his men"
arrested for allegedly attacking the US embassy in
Jakarta last week. Porn, including artworks such as
Suwage's, contributes to moral delinquency, Riziek
claims. "We don't care about the technicality of the
picture," he says. "What we care is that the picture
is publicly exhibited and it is pornography and it
would damage morals." Suwage believes his work
captured attention because one of the models,
Anjasmara, is a popular soapie star. The two models,
photographer Davy Linggar and the curator of the
biennale, Jim Supangkat, are also facing criminal
charges.

Suwage is increasingly bitter about Supangkat's
reaction to the protest. After hundreds of
demonstrators arrived at the exhibition, a panicked
Supangkat ordered the offending panels to be covered
with white cloth. Other artists draped their own works
in solidarity and Supangkat closed the biennale,
permanently.

Suwage believes his prosecution is linked to pressure
to pass the anti-porn law and the desire of
fundamentalists to impose Islamic rule on Indonesia.
Suwage, who is afraid of prison, says he is determined
to fight.

Based at a small cafe gallery in Jakarta's backpacker
precinct, Suwage and a motley collective or artists
are mobilising against the new law. "From this case,
we make a manifesto for art against the pornography
bill. It's very dangerous for freedom of _expression
but it also threatens other aspects of society."
Riziek remains emphatic the bill is essential to
"guard the nation's morality" against pornography,
which extends past explicit photographs to "anything
that could arouse sexual desire".

Balkan Kaplale heads the parliamentary committee
finalising the pornography bill and is confident it
will become law this year.

It would halt the publication of magazines such as
Playboy, he says. " Playboy would place a time bomb in
Indonesia, what guarantee is there it would not arrive
in the hands of our children? Playboy is American
magazine. Please, don't play this game with
Indonesians, we have dignity."

Indonesians also have sensuality, says leading
feminist and university professor Gadis Arriva. "Women
here have always dressed sexily and in tight clothes,
this law is something very alien to us, we have
barebreasted women in Bali and Papua, this is part of
our culture."

In Bali, the head of the government's tourism
authority, Gede Nurjaya, agrees. Traditional Balinese
art and dance could become illegal, he believes. He is
concerned prohibitions against kissing and revealing
bodies could be imposed against foreigners, destroying
Bali's faltering tourism industry.

Arriva says most women's groups oppose the bill. "Most
of it restricts women, what they wear, how they act.
It even creates a board that would go around
monitoring women's behaviour."

The new law would also gag a flourishing emergence of
young female writers, who write openly about
sexuality. "It states it is illegal to express any
sexual desire, even imagine sex - how do you prove
that?" asks Arriva.

She sees the anti-porn movement as part of an agenda
to reshape Indonesia, with pornography a symbol of
Western culture to the many Muslims who believe
globalisation aims to destroy their culture. Adrian
Vickers, Professor of Asian Studies at the University
of Wollongong, agrees the debate is "part of whipping
up a moral panic about Western decadence eroding
Indonesian culture and morality", with the potential
to push Indonesia towards an Islamic state. "Given
anxieties about terrorism, a more Islamic Indonesia
could see Australia very much as the enemy," he warns.

A closed society looms, says Suwage. "There would be
no freedom, it will have a big impact for us, for
artists, but it will go everywhere. I don't believe a
picture can change a person's morality. Morality
starts from the individual, from inside, not from
dogma."

with Karuni Rompies


















**********************************************
Carlos Roque
267 Lincoln Place, #5C
Brooklyn, NY 11238 U.S.A.
Cell: 917 302 2299

http://www.carlosroque.info

From: "Ben Saul"


I'm writing to summarize my views on the new sedition laws, which came
into force in mid-January:


1. For many decades, Australia has had crimes of sedition in the federal
(and state) criminal law. The offences have not been prosecuted for over
50 years because they were, until recently, widely thought to be
inappropriate in a modern democracy which values freedom of expression
and opinion - even in the absence of a bill of rights in Australia. The
old sedition offences were also discredited because of the way in which
they were applied - initially to target enemies of the monarchy, and
later to target political opponents more generally, including
communists.

2. By dusting off and modernizing Australian sedition laws, the
government has given a green light to prosecutors to go after people who
make seditious statements. Thus, while Australia has had sedition laws
on the books for a very long time, the new sedition laws are more likely
to be used because they have been renewed and revalidated by the
government.

3. In my view, archaic sedition offences, even if modernised, have no
place in the modern criminal law. Much of the conduct covered by the
five new sedition crimes can already be prosecuted in Australia by
applying the existing criminal law of incitement to commit an offence to
other existing offences such as treason, treachery, terrorism, electoral
offences and a range of other security crimes and ordinary criminal
offences. It is well accepted in the criminal law that if a person
incites (that is, encourages or instructs) another person to commit a
crime, they should be liable to prosecution, even if the other person
does not go on to commit the crime incited. This is because such
statements may lead to serious social harm, which the criminal law has
an interest in preventing. (Of course, it is much easier to accept a law
prohibiting incitement to murder, and less easy to accept a law
prohibiting incitement to merely shoplifting, as in the Rabelais case in
the 1990s. Yet, the law presently allows the prosecution of incitement
to any crime whatsoever, and the penalty is typically half of that which
attached to the crime incited).

4. On the other hand, the new sedition law makes it easier to prosecute
people because a person need not intend a public disturbance or public
disorder to occur, lowering the threshold for convictions. Moreover,
whereas the crime of incitement is committed only where a person urges
another to commit a crime, sedition can occur where a person urges
"violence" (which is not always criminal) or even where a person urges
someone merely to assist countries or groups fighting Australia.
Prosecuting statements which lacks a proximate connection to a specific
offence is an unjustifiable and inappropriate interference in freedom of
expression. While it is sometimes necessary to limit free expression to
prevent greater harm to life and liberty, the new sedition offences,
especially in the absence of a statutory human rights framework,
unjustifiably interfere with legitimate free speech and freedom of
religious expression.

5. The two offences of urging others to engage in conduct assisting
those fighting against Australia is not limited to prosecutions against
Australian citizens, but can apply to anyone in the world. Thus, if
Australia illegally invades another country - as I and many other
international lawyers believe it did in 2003 - then those who take up
arms in self-defence against Australian forces - as they have a right to
do under international law - can be prosecuted as criminals under
Australian law. This interferes directly in international humanitarian
law (or the law of war), under which those fighting lawfully in an
international armed conflict have a right to combatant immunity (meaning
that they should not be prosecuted merely for participating in
hostilities, unless they have committed a war crime) and POW status (ie,
not to be treated as criminals). This is not merely of theoretical
interest, but threatens the safety of Australian soldiers themselves. If
soldiers fighting Australians believe they will not be treated as POWs
but will be prosecuted as criminals, they have less incentive to obey
the laws of war themselves; every incentive to evade capture at all
costs; and reason to treat captured Australian forces in the same way.

6. In principle, the third new offence of inter-group or communal
violence is a welcome protection for the rights of groups in the
community, and partly reflects Australia's international human rights
obligations to legislate against racial and religious hatred. However,
the offence is too narrowly drafted and has no place in either
counter-terrorism legislation or sedition offences. The offence is more
appropriately placed within anti-vilification law. The difficult
question is whether only statements which encourage violence against
racial or religious groups should be criminalized - or whether
statements which severely ridicule, insult, humiliate or degrade another
race or religion should also be criminal (think, perhaps, of the Danish
cartoons in recent weeks). If the latter (wider) approach is followed,
there is a danger of resurrecting the old Christian offence of blasphemy
and extending it to protect all religions, thus sacrificing free speech
in a democracy to protect the feelings of members of a religion.

7. The good faith defences in the law are anachronistic and fail to
protect a range of worthy human speech that falls outside limited
constitutional protections for political and religious speech. Some of
them require that criticisms of the government be constructive and thus
may not protect malicious or satirical speech. A new defence for
journalists - for statements published in good faith and in the public
interest - is also too narrow, since it allows judges to second guess
journalists as to whether the publication of violent messages is "in the
public interest" - surely something journalists themselves are better
placed to establish.


SUMMARY OF NEW SEDITION OFFENCES

The first two new sedition offences occur where a person encourages
another to violently overthrow the Constitution or any Australian
government, or to violently interfere with federal elections.

The third new offence is where a person urges a racial, religious,
national or political group to use violence against another group, where
the violence threatens the 'peace, order and good government' of the
Commonwealth.

The fourth and fifth new offences involve urging a person to assist
organisations or countries fighting militarily against Australia



Best wishes
Ben

Dr Ben Saul
Faculty of Law
The University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney NSW 2052, Australia