SchNEWS In Graphic Detail - NEW BOOK OUT NOW
Back Issues
SchMOVIES
Feature Articles
Contacts and Links
DIY Guide
Archive
About Us
Subscribe
Search :   
Copyleft - Information for direct action - Published weekly in Brighton since 1994

Home | Friday 12th August 2011 | Issue 783

Back to the Full Issue

UAE HAVING A LAUGH

Over 70 well known comedians and authors are to lead a campaign during the festival to free the five civil rights activists detained in the Middle East. Ahmed Mansoor (a blogger), Nasser bin Ghaith (a lecturer), Fahad Salim Dalk, Ahmed Abdul Khaleq and Hassan Ali al-Khamis (online activists) all face up to 5 years imprisonment for breaking the UAE’s stringent code of conformity. The country’s penal code basically prohibits slandering the President, or any of its supreme (you don’t get a choice to vote for me) council, or defacing the flag or any national emblem.

Amnesty will ask audiences during the fringe to sign up to a global petition that is campaigning for the activists to be freed through texts messages or postcards. The organisation believes their case is particularly significant considering the fact they were imprisoned for actions before the Arab spring reached full flow. Their crime was supporting a petition challenging the ruling families in the UAE to stop making membership in the Emirate’s federal council so restricted. Strictly speaking they had posted on online forums that have since then been closed down and replaced with travelling advice (no better way to take your minds off things than a little holiday, eh?).

Fringe old timer, Ed Byrne said, “People have a right of free speech and for the UAE five that right is being denied.” Well that is the polite way of putting it.



 
THE POSTING OF COMMENTS ON THIS STORY HAS BEEN PROHIBITED BY A MODERATOR

Subscribe to SchNEWS: Send 1st Class stamps (e.g. 10 for next 9 issues) or donations (payable to Justice?). Or £15 for a year's subscription, or the SchNEWS supporter's rate, £1 a week. Ask for "originals" if you plan to copy and distribute. SchNEWS is post-free to prisoners.

A brief history of the Dragon Festival and Cigarrones travellers site, southern Spain.
The Cigarrones travellers’ site is one of several communities which have sprung up near Orgiva in Andalucía, Spain, in recent decades. Coming to the southern tip of Europe to escape the repression against travellers in Britain and elsewhere, they have carved out a life of avin’ it autonomous anarchy – despite increasing attention from tinpot local authorities who act like Franco is still in. Since 1997 the site has held the annual Dragon Festival - now arguably one of the most significant free festivals in Europe – but this is also under attack. Here is a brief history written by a resident of Cigarrones:
SchNEWS interviews Canadian journalist and military historian Gwynne Dyer about the dire warnings for a post-climate change world in his book 'The Climate Wars'
Report from US-Mexico border about the narco wars whose connections go right up to the president
One year after the military coup in Honduras which ousted the leader and installed a neo-liberal cabal, grassroots groups across the country are aligning to create a popular movement.
SchNEWS interviews Richard Stallman – hacker, founder of the Free Software movement and activist for digital-software-information freedom...
From Kemp Town to Kabul, as SchNEWS interviews Al Jazeera journalist Medyan Dairieh about his take on the war...
An eyewitness account from Phnom Penh, as Cambodia faces its largest forced displacements since the time of the Khmer Rouge.
The future of Titnore Woods is threatened as Tesco and Worthing Council gang up to build upon the ancient woodland...
Who are the far-right English Defence League, and what are their strategies?
With the murder of Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova in Chechnya, we look at the Russian-backed despotic regime in Chechnya.
At the last minute the Big Green Gathering festival in Somerset was pulled due to legal pressure - SchNEWS looks at the events and factors that led to this.
The president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, is removed and sent into exile after a military coup d'etat.
This year marks the 24th anniversary of the infamous police attack on travellers on their way to Stonehenge in an incident now known as the Battle Of The Beanfield.
SchNEWS looks how deep the financial problems are for the banks and the British Govt, and how they won't learn from their errors.
Given a more optimistic environment after Obama's announcement that he's going to close the Guantanamo prison camp, SchNEWS interviews ex-detainee, Omar Deghayes, to gauge his reaction.
Eyewitness accounts from British activists on the ground during the wanton attack on Gaza by Israel in January 2009.
Somali pirates roaming the Gulf Of Aden, hijacking - amongst other ships - a Saudi oil supertanker. How is it possible? What geo-political context is giving rise to these latter-day pirates?

SchNEWS, c/o Community Base, 113 Queens Rd, Brighton, BN1 3XG, England
Press/Emergency Contacts: +44 (0) 7947 507866
Phone: +44 (0)1273 685913
Email: mail@schnews.org.uk

@nti copyright - information for action - copy and distribute!