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I am found of what happens in Middle East. Here I recollect and comment such eventsa.
The Iraq War Was Not A Media Failure (by Media Lens) - 20-mar-2013
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how to buy Microsoft shares in Hong Kong March 19, 2013 - ...The Iraq war showed how the "free press" is structurally hard-wired not to obstruct US and UK regimes bent on war. The corporate media – entrenched in the irrational and dangerous assumption that it should accept frameworks of debate laid down by "mainstream" political parties – took key illusions seriously. As a result, the fraudulent discussion about Iraqi WMD raged on and on with the real world left far behind. And this was no passive media "failure"; it was an active, resilient determination to promote "the view from Downing Street" and Washington. In 2002 and 2003, hundreds of Media Lens readers and other media activists – including journalists, academics, lawyers and authors – sent many hundreds of rational, referenced emails to newspapers and TV stations. Time and again, their crucial evidence and sources were simply ignored. The idea that coverage of the Iraq war represented a terrible "failure" for the corporate media is an exact reversal of the truth. Iraq was a good example of how these media consistently excel in their structural role as defenders of powerful interests...
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Every Building in Baghdad that Falls, Crushed and Broken to the Ground…. (by Felicity Arbuthnot) - 20-mar-2013
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buy Uber shares March 19, 2013 - In 1998, beloved, gentle, intellectual friend Mustafa, spoke to me from Baghdad, his voice cracking as he described the damage of the four day Christmas and Eid blitz on his country — damage to Munstansarya University, thought to be the world’s oldest; the 9th century Abbasid Palace with its great arches, which recreate themselves — reflections in shadows, created by the inspiration of the inspired nearly a thousand years ago. The list went on and on. Barely a month later, Mustafa was dead. He died on 17 January, anniversary of the start of the First Gulf War. All who knew him said he died of a broken heart, destroyed by his inability to any longer protect his family and the city he loved so much...
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Not a Failure: Iraq War Was a Premeditated Crime and Iraqis Still Deserve Truth and Justice (By: Kevin Gosztola) - 20-mar-2013
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how to invest in Uber shares March 19, 2013 - "The moment of truth has arrived and military operations to disarm Iraq have begun," Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in a US State Embassy cable sent out to all diplomatic and consular posts on March 20, 2003 and published by WikiLeaks. "More than 30 nations have joined with the United States to free the Iraqi people and defend the world from the grave danger posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. At this time of trial and danger, I want to commend and thank every member of the State Department family. Each day, you serve our country with pride, courage and sacrifice. In the days ahead, I know I can count on your continued dedication and devotion to country."
By the time that cable was sent out, it had been months since invading Iraq had become a foregone conclusion. And Powell himself helped to ensure there would be little the world could do to stop the administration of President George W. Bush from going to war when he delivered a speech before the United Nations Security Council on February 5....
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Of Hope and Pain: Rachel Corrie’s Rafah Legac (By Ramzy Baroud) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 -'Hi Papa .. Don’t worry about me too much, right now I am most concerned that we are not being effective. I still don’t feel particularly at risk. Rafah has seemed calmer lately,’ Rachel Corrie wrote to her father, Craig, from Rafah, a town located at the southern end of the Gaza Strip.'Rachel’s last email’ was not dated on the Rachel Corrie Foundation website. It must have been written soon after her last email to her mother, Cindy, on Feb 28. She was killed by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003. Immediately after her painful death, crushed beneath an Israeli army bulldozer, Rafah embraced her legacy as another 'martyr’ for Palestine...
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IDP's finding little refuge in Iraq
More than one million displaced Iraqis continue to languish without government aid. (Dahr Jamail) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 -... Dahfer Hamid, an unemployed construction worker who is married with three young children, lives in an abandoned lot in Baghdad where he has constructed a make-shift home from bricks, pieces of wood, and metal that he has collected. The smell of raw sewage wafts in from outside into his dwelling. Piles of garbage swarming with flies surround where he lives, along with rusting car frames, old refrigerators, and scrawny chickens scavenging for food. Like Haifa, Dahfer fled his town during the horrendous sectarian violence of 2007 that wracked Iraq, and came to Baghdad. "We lived in a mixed area of both Sunni and Shia, but the Mehdi Army [Shia Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia] started killed Sunnis in our area," he explained to Al Jazeera. "My neighbours were killed, and after they knocked on my door to ask if I was Sunni or Shia, I told them I was from the area and they left."Fearing for his life, Dahfer fled the same day, after watching militiamen kill a local Imam. Iraq’s Ministry of Manufacturing owns the land where he now lives, and periodically sends someone to tell them to leave. But Dahfer, along with hundreds of other families in the area, have no place else to go...
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The Lie That Got Us In: The Bush Administration Knew There Were No WMDs in Iraq (John Glaser) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 - ...So even if Duelfer is correct and the Bush administration truly believed their own assessments of Iraqi WMDs, the most authoritative intelligence concluded they were not an imminent threat to the United States. The administration went to war anyways. That makes the war a preventive war, which falls into the category of war crimes and incriminates the Bush administration regardless of what they truly believed about Iraq’s WMDs.My argument is not just the opposite of Duelfer’s. I do believe the Bush administration lied about Iraqi WMD. But I think the truth goes far beyond that: if the Bush administration really did believe Saddam had WMDs, they never would have invaded. That is to say, it was the fact that Iraq had no WMDs that was crucial to the decision to go to war...
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Baghdad slammed with bombings (The Common Ills) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 - Somewhere Donald Rumsfeld is muttering, "Freedom is messy." In the real world, shock as Baghdad is again slammed with bombings leaving many dead and many injured. Peter Beuamont reports, "Baghdad was convulsed by a deadly wave of explosions as terrorists detonated up to nine explosions in the course of a few hours on Tuesday morning on the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion." AFP offers, "In all, at least 15 car bombs were set off, including two by suicide attackers, along with multiple roadside bombs and gun attacks, officials said." ... AP, The Voice of Russia and the Telegraph of London all report the death toll has already risen to 56...Of course, Baghdad wasn't the only location for violence today. All Iraq News reports a Mosul home invasion -- the home of local candidate Wajih al-Jihaishi -- and the home invasion left his son injured, chieftain Nadhim Mahmoud al-Bijari was shot dead outside his Mosul home, a Mosul sticky bombing left two people injured, and a Babel suicide bomber targeted the Iraqi army headquarters killing 2 soldiers and injuring nine more...
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Trained Killers, from the Americas to Afghanistan (by Kelley B. Vlahos) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 - For most Americans the death squads and torture chambers that killed thousands in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the 1980’s are difficult to understand and easy to forget because, aside for an apology by President Bill Clinton in 1999 – the United States has never fully acknowledged nor taken responsibility for its role in them. So, aside from some outstanding reporting by American and foreign journalists to the contrary, the mainstream has treated this dark period of U.S foreign policy as a sidebar story, and continues to do so until this day. What do the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have to do with any of this? Well, it’s simple. Since we’ve never really learned from our history, as they say, it was doomed to repeat. In fact, as we transition out of Afghanistan as a conventional military force, myriad reports suggest the CIA will continue to train and support local militias and paramilitary "counterterrorist" teams, embedded no doubt with U.S Special Operations Forces, long after we’re allegedly gone...
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The less Obama does on this visit, the better (Larry Derfner) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013- Given the likely options, I’m glad Obama is coming here tomorrow to do nothing rather than to try to revive the peace process. Today, reviving the peace process, Obama-style, would mean coercing Mahmoud Abbas to enter negotiations with Netanyahu in return for nothing, or next to nothing, such as a token prisoner release, some musical chairs with a few checkpoints and a vague statement of good intentions. And for that, Netanyahu would get what he very much wants: "peace negotiations" with no end, which would provide diplomatic cover for his terribly right-wing, settlement-crazy new government. At the same time, Abbas would be constrained from taking any more "unilateral actions" like going to the U.N., or to The Hague, or seeking any advantage outside the framework of negotiations opposite Bibi Netanyahu and under the auspices of the United States, otherwise known as Israel’s lawyer...
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Sheikh Jarrah family fears eviction (Ma'an news) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 -- An 82-year-old grandfather and his family are awaiting an Israeli Supreme Court decision that could evict them from an East Jerusalem home they have lived in since 1964. Ayyoub Shamasnah, 82, lives with his wife, children and grandchildren in a two-room 65-square-meter house in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood targeted by Jewish settlers who have already evicted several Palestinian families. The Shamasnah family moved to Sheikh Jarrah after they were displaced from Qatanna village during the creation of Israel in 1948. They initially paid rent to Jordanian authorities, who were responsible for East Jerusalem until 1967 when Israel occupied the city...
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Maliki's Iraq: Rape, executions and torture (Dahr Jamail) - 20-mar-2013
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March 19, 2013 - Heba al-Shamary (name changed for security reasons) was released last week from an Iraqi prison where she spent the last four years."I was tortured and raped repeatedly by the Iraqi security forces," she told Al Jazeera. "I want to tell the world what I and other Iraqi women in prison have had to go through these last years. It has been a hell." Heba was charged with terrorism, a fate faced by many Iraqis who are detained by security forces. "I now want to explain to people what is occurring in the prisons that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki and his gangs are running," Heba added. "I was raped over and over again, I was kicked and beaten and insulted and spit upon." Heba's story, horrific as it is, unfortunately is but one example of what a recent report from Amnesty International refers to as "a grim cycle of human rights abuses" in Iraq today...
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Rachel Corrie’s legacy highlights continuing role of bulldozers that crush Gaza (Joe Catron) - 20-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - US President Barack Obama’s impending visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank lent urgency and focus to the Rachel Corrie Cultural Center for Children and Youth’s annual commemoration on Saturday of its namesake’s death a decade ago. "Ten years ago, a beautiful American girl arrived in our town," 12-year-old Heba Saqir said at the rally in Rafah, reading a letter addressed to Obama. "Ten years ago, Mr. President, that girl, Rachel Corrie, was run over by an Israeli military bulldozer, one that was made in the United States and paid for by the American government....
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Holding Harvard's Crimson Accountable (by Stephen Lendman) - 20-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - Harvard's motto is "VERITAS." It's shield and class rings display it. At issue is anti-Palestinian bias. Harvard Political Review (HPR) explained. It's separate from Harvard's Crimson. HC's the nation's oldest continuously published college newspaper. It began as a fortnightly. For decades it's been a daily.It was founded in 1873. Past editors included Franklin Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy. Undergraduates staff it. Some pursue journalism careers. HPR calls itself "America's preeminent undergraduate journal of politics and public policy." It's "nonpartisan." It's "written and published entirely by Harvard undergraduates." Harvard's Institute of Politics provides help...
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Syria News - March 18, 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos) (Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos) - 20-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - By the end of Monday the LCC managed to document 129 martyrs , among them 15 women and 18 children: 46 martyrs we reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 36 in Aleppo most of them from Marjeh neighborhood; 19 in Homs; 8 in Daraa; 7 in Deir Ezzor; 5 in Idlib; 3 in Hama; 2 in Sweida; 2 in Lattakia; and 1 in Hasakeh. The Committees have documented 409 points of bombing in various Syrian cities and towns. Aviation bombardments by warplanes counted in 23 points in various regions. Scud bombing counted in 5 points, Shelling using Surface-to-Surface missiles counted for in 4 points, Explosive barrels were used in 5 points . Shelling using cluster bombs was recorded in Khirbit Ghazaleh in Daraa, while the vacuum bombs were recorded in Idlib. Artillery shelling counted in 136 points; mortar shelling counted in 135 points; while rocket shelling counted for 99 points on various parts of Syria...
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Al-Sweady Inquiry: Iraqi men 'mutilated' after Iraq War battle (BBC News) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 -The first Iraqi to speak at an inquiry into the alleged murder and abuse of Iraqi detainees by British soldiers claims he saw "mutilated" bodies in the aftermath of the incident. Mizal Karim al-Sweady told the inquiry injuries suffered by his son Hamid appeared to include signs of torture. The inquiry is examining whether UK soldiers mistreated and killed Iraqis after the Battle of Danny Boy in 2004. Mr al-Sweady, one of 15 Iraqis flown to the UK give evidence at the Al-Sweady Inquiry, said the bodies were returned with a "combination of injuries" including "eyes missing, tongues cut out [and] teeth removed". His son Hamid, whom the inquiry in London is named after, is thought to be one of the detainees who was killed...
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Russell Tribunal accuses Israel of apartheid violations (Middle East Monitor) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 -The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) demanded on Sunday that the ICC investigate crimes against humanity being committed by Israel in the Palestinian occupied territories.The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which was created in 2009 to look into the various accountabilities that have led to the continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the non-application of UN resolutions, held its fourth hearing in Brussels. The Tribunal recommended that the UN General Assembly reconstitute the UN Special Committee against Apartheid and convene a special session to consider the question of apartheid against the Palestinian people...
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A funeral in Aboud marks the uprising of the Palestinian countryside (by Allison Deger) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - Mohammed Asfour's burial earlier this month in the village of Aboud near Ramallah was not a national event. The 23 year-old student of Bethlehem University and lover of sports may not be memorialized outside his small village, yet Asfour's March 8th funeral was a turning point. His death, caused by a rubber bullet to his temple shot two weeks before by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), is a landmark in the escalating tensions between Israeli forces and the Palestinian countryside. "Now the angels wash his clothes. If you smell the flag you are going to know what I speak of," said the deceased's cousin Loubna Asfour, 29, while motioning to a flag crumpled on a mattress that sat bare on the floor...
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Drones news round-up (By Chris Cole) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - It wasn’t that long ago that an article about the use of drones in the mainstream press was a rare occurrence. Now so much is happening that it is difficult to keep up with all the news about drones. Over the past two weeks important developments have taken place on a number of fronts so we thought a general news round-up would be helpful. UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, visited Pakistan last week as part of the UN investigation into the impact of drone strikes and targeted killing on civilians ...
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Ever More Shocked, Never Yet Awed
Iraq War Among World’s Worst Events (by DAVID SWANSON) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - ...As documented in the full report, by the most scientifically respected measures available, Iraq lost 1.4 million lives as a result of OIL, saw 4.2 million additional people injured, and 4.5 million people become refugees. The 1.4 million dead was 5% of the population. That compares to 2.5% lost in the U.S. Civil War, or 3 to 4% in Japan in World War II, 1% in France and Italy in World War II, less than 1% in the U.K. and 0.3% in the United States in World War II. The 1.4 million dead is higher as an absolute number as well as a percentage of population than these other horrific losses. U.S. deaths in Iraq since 2003 have been 0.3% of the dead, even if they’ve taken up the vast majority of the news coverage, preventing U.S. news consumers from understanding the extent of Iraqi suffering....Birth defects, cancer rates, and infant mortality are through the roof. Water supplies, sewage treatment plants, hospitals, bridges, and electricity supplies have been devastated, and not repaired. Healthcare and nutrition and education are nothing like they were before the war....
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AFRICOM Prepares for more Conflicts in Mali, Nigeria and Somalia (Silent Crow News) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Northern Mali is a direct threat to US national security interests according to Major General Carter F. Ham during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on March 15th, 2013. Ham said that although there have been progress in AFRICOM’s mission; new threats have emerged this year that is a strategic importance to the United States and its allies. According to American Forces Press Service of the U.S. Department of Defense: "The general said three violent extremist organizations are of particular concern in Africa: al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, active in northern and western Africa; Boko Haram in Nigeria; and al-Shabaab in Somalia." ....However, the real threat to "US national security interests" in Africa is not AQIM, Boko Haram or al-Shabaab, it is China’s demand for natural resources for their growing economy. The US and France plan to counter the threat along with Africa’s puppet government’s that will pose a challenge to China’s economic and diplomatic influence in the region....
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Video: Dozens of Activists Remove Sign Depicting Obama in Bethlehem (Palestine News Network) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - On Monday 18th March, dozens of young Palestinians and activists in Bethlehem governorate removed a sign that portrays the picture of the US President Barack Obama, few days before his visit to Bethlehem and Ramallah within his tour to the Middle East. Dozens of activists removed the sign placed on top of one of the buildings near the Nativity Church in Bethlehem and raised banners that confirm the Palestinian rights for freedom and independence. They also chanted slogans that denounced the US support for the Israeli policies...
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Iraq contaminated with 35 thousand tons of uranium (Shafaq News) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - Iraqi experts and specialists announced that Iraq is contaminated with 35,000 tons of enriched uranium. Muthanna Mahmoud Shaker, the secretary of the Iraqi Association for common diseases, said that "there is now 35 thousand tons of enriched uranium in Iraq."The American forces had demanded several international companies to clean up 311 sites contaminated with uranium spread in many parts of Iraq, particularly in Najaf and the Northern Badia but despite the work of these companies it is still in a serious situation. Shaker explained that "uranium is still active for 4 million years"...
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Israeli police arrest Jerusalem students in crackdown on Palestinian campus movement (Yara Sa'di) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - The repression of the Palestinian student movement at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has intensified since Israel’s attacks on Gaza last November, as four Palestinian students were arrested in the past month.On 6 March, Israeli police brutally attacked and arrested three Palestinian students shortly after a peaceful demonstration in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes which was held at the campus’ entrance.Palestinian students at the university have been organizing weekly demonstrations in support of Palestinian political prisoners on and just outside campus. The 6 March protest was larger than previous demonstrations, with a turnout of more than 70 students....
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Jabhat al-Nusra is a threat to us, says Israeli Army Chief (Naharnet) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 -Israel’s military chief Benny Gantz said on Monday that "terrorist" groups fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad alongside other insurgents were becoming stronger. "The situation in Syria has become exceptionally dangerous. The terrorist organisations are becoming stronger on the ground. Now they are fighting against Assad but in the future they could turn against us," Gantz said...
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Exile in Gaza is not the victory we want for our heroic prisoners (Shahd Abusalama) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - "It doesn’t matter if he goes to Gaza," said Zahra Sharawna, Ayman Sharawna’s mother. "To be freed is the most important thing." I understand how these words could come from a mother who fears for her son’s life. She, driven by her motherly emotions, simply wants him to live, even if many Israeli apartheid checkpoints separate her from him. But I must question was that actually the victory that Ayman Sharawna’s hunger strike aimed to accomplish, to get out of prison alive regardless of release conditions? I don’t think so...
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Women on hunger strike for the "Old Prisoners" (By Leona Vicario) - 19-mar-2013
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March 18, 2013 - Sawsan and Nasim Shaheen are two sisters that began their hunger strike together on February 20 in a tent in front of the United Nations building in Ramallah. They have joined the Palestinian hunger striking prisoners in order to demand the liberation of political prisoners incarcerated by Israel. The youngest one, Sawsan, is thirty four and subsists to this day only on water and salts. "I came to knock on the [UN] door to say 'Wake up, we have prisoners," she said. "Many of them have been in prison for 22 to 25 years. I know that all the hunger strikes are important but for me, on the personal side, the pre-Oslo prisoners are more important because they have lost their lives inside the Israeli jails. Imagine yourself into a prison, any prison, when you are a child or a teenager. After that, you are forty, fifty, sixty…Where is your life?"...
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