Madush Underworld and free market economy

 2019-02-15 

he arrest in Dubai of Makandure Madush and a few others wanted here in Sri Lanka for drug trafficking and murder, first made stories in media giving credit to different persons for the “meticulously planned” arrest.Since then, not only the mainstream media but social media too, worked overtime to churn out speculative, juicey stories.
Making stories on bits and pieces of information picked from often unconfirmed sources and pieced together and dressed for the gossip hungry urban palate.
Meanwhile, Ranjan Ramanayake and JVP MP Bimal Rathnayake alleged UPFA Matara District MP Niroshan Premaratne is one who is responsible in laundering black money for Madush.
In a Facebook post, MP Ramanayake gave some details of MP Premaratne’s business in Battaramulla and calculated the investment as Rs. 8 billion posing the question:
“From where did he get that money?”

JVP MP Ratnayake claimed MP Premaratne had attended the funeral of Makandure Madush’s father and said, those who attended the funeral should be investigated.
All this prompted MP Niroshan Premaratne the first-time Parliamentarian to make an explanatory statement in Parliament that mainstream media paid little attention to, but drew chilling slanders in social media.
His statement made on Friday, February 8 nevertheless raises many issues that should be placed for social dialogue on a larger political canvass.
The JVP MPs slander people whom they dislike, and hence are sectarian politicians-was MP Premaratne’s conclusion.
The statement made by MP Bimal Ratnayake about MP Premaratne attending Madush’s father’s funeral was such a slander.
Niroshan Premaratne gave a very reasonable explanation as to why he was at the funeral; one born, bred and living in the same village.
“My conscience would not allow me to avoid a funeral in the neighbourhood where I grew up from my childhood, whoever Madush is” said Premaratne.
It is not just one single black guy in a family that matters, but all others in the family with whom one has been a villager that matters.
That was Niroshan’s explanation and I would agree with adding that in this very primitive political culture, politicians never miss a funeral, especially in their own area.
On the ‘Trendy’ business in Battaramulla, while details given by MP Ranjan Ramanayake cannot be consumed in whole, explanation by MP Niroshan Premaratne is also not convincing.

From all that he said about his poverty-stricken family and his siblings still living in poverty, his income as a TV Presenter would not by any length of imagination provide him with the financial capacity to rent a building paying key money and a rent of Rs.500,000 per month.
To keep it closed for six months still paying the monthly rent with no income out of it, demands a clear answer. From what I know of this young and ambitious youth who was employed by ITN recommended by the then Minister of Media Mangala Samaraweera, he was into the business while still an employee of the ITN.
He is supposed to have serviced a chain of small hotels with Vade and handled advertising privately.
Most advertising contracts came from Weerawansa’s Ministry during the Rajapaksa era.
His claim that he obtained a loan to start a business from the Parliament branch of BoC on a conditional transfer of a land deed which was on his name from a friend in Battaramulla is not an impossible task today, in this country.
Being a politician and one who was also a TV Star provide good influencing power in our pitifully dependent soap culture, a privilege the ordinary Citizen cannot count on.

With details provided by him last Friday in Parliament about his shop ‘Trendy’ in Battaramulla, a relevant State authority can and should now begin investigations into his business.
That said, let us also remember what we conveniently forget when it comes to those giant businessmen, who are not seen in politics.
Most ambitious youth use whatever influence they can muster to manipulate themselves into business.
Clean or not, right or wrong, manipulating to get a foothold in business is nothing new in this enormously free and corrupt market economy. 
Some crash to the bottom while a few end up as business giants.

We have corporate sector leaders whose beginnings have been far more dubious and mysterious than Niroshan Premaratne’s.
We have men manipulating the stock market, who came to business as sidekicks of another with some social capital.
We have ‘errand boys’ who now run businesses worth billions of rupees a month. None, honest and clean, for sure.
Most now finance political parties and run wonderfully decorated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects too.
None would dare ask them now, from where and how they obtained money to begin their businesses. Nor would they tell their true story. 
That is no more relevant and that is what this falteringly corrupt free market economy is all about.
It is the system established on a festering and corrupt open market economy that has turned out the filthy rich since 1978 and would continue to do so.
The underworld and hard drug business is only a part of it with only the tip of the iceberg partly visible. In a system that is wholly corrupt vertically and horizontally, God Fathers don’t parade publicly.

It is within this massive degrading waste dump we demand ethics and morals from MPs on the basis, we as people elected them.
That too when the underworld can be cited and not when the Central Bank bonds, EPF investments, Government tenders for massive constructions and heavily funded projects could have bigger underhand deals.
We don’t want to accept the decency in politics we tout, is fake. This fake political decency does not allow independent, impartial investigations to a finish. 
Madush may enjoy that luxury if the trials are transferred to Colombo.
There lies the reason why we need to talk about alternatives to this whole filthy system.

For such discourse, there are important issues in Niroshan Premaratne’s statement that beg social attention but go unnoticed and ignored.
He questions this Sinhala Buddhist society still living with feudal caste divisions. Caste differences are consciously and arrogantly nurtured within Buddhist Sangha Nikayas (Sects), within the Southern trader community and within political parties.
MP Premaratne gives details of how he was insulted and discredited by two leading candidates in Matara District at the 2015 August elections, who put out posters Premaratne said, with direct reference to his caste and posed the question “Do you want to call this fellow Sir?”
In electoral politics, caste is not only played out that way but played out to gain votes too.
As the tirelessly researched publication titled Caste and Family Politics in Sri Lanka by Janice Jiggings documents, caste groups in ruling Governments had used their power to promote “their own interests”.

Since the first Parliamentary elections in 1947 to date, caste has been and is a political factor even the Left political parties accommodated.
Though with a cosmopolitan society in Colombo District, electorates like Colombo East, Dehiwala and Moratuwa have different dominating castes that decide the preferential vote.
From below the Corporate Sector down to the trade associations in most urban towns, they assemble according to caste, not openly spoken about.
They often revolve around a Buddhist temple of their caste and in the area. This reality is consciously left unspoken in society to pretend we are now a modern society.
Visually we are modern in how we dress, eat and use new technology. In content and spirit in how we arrange that life, we are primitively feudal and superstitious too. Obviously, our politics is primitive and feudalistic too.

The other serious question this novice MP Premaratne posed in his statement in Parliament was:
“Why isn’t this Parliament, this society, discussing the reasons for the emergence of underworld criminals?”
He had his own explanation about Madush. The explanation, in short, said Madush comes from a broken family. His mother a JVP activist was shot dead by State Security forces during the 88-90 JVP insurgency and thereafter his father moved out with a second wife, leaving the children homeless.
MP Premaratne thus accused the JVP of their irresponsible-politics that left a broken home.
But the emergence of a brutal underworld on hard drug business is not just about Madush. It is more about unrestricted markets that allow imports and exports for bigger and bigger profits.
About making huge profits that can be both legal and illegal, rarely questioned by society unless there is a scandal to share as a juicey story.
His allegation that this society was not concerned in understanding issues, in searching for reasons for tragedies and working out answers accordingly, is a stubborn fact.

As he said, the war is now over, but the thousands of devastated lives are not being looked into for its reasons.
“No one wants to know why Prabhakaran emerged, what were the reasons for Prabhakaran to emerge, to know how those reasons could be understood to find answers,” he said.
His credibility apart as a member of Weerawansa’s party the Sinhala racist NFF, his allegation remains valid. Southern politicians and Sinhala racists believe, Prabhakaran is the beginning and the end. That needs no reasoning.
Thus, his allegation on social and political irresponsibility remains valid with all issues that urban society is lazy to dissect and search for answers.
That explains our patchwork remedies. Feudalistic mindset and living by the day in a heavily competitive free market that’s corrupt to the core. It is time we wake up with this probing question “How do criminals emerge despite punishments?” Certainly, no one is born a criminal.

The need to engage in ‘Urban Research’

Dr. Janaka Wijesundara -‘UOM Urban Lab’- ‘Center for Cities’ University of Moratuwa-Friday, February 15, 2019

Today we all are experiencing the growth of cities worldwide. In a way, we can say that we are beneficiaries of the developments under rapid urbanization, we being so connected to the structured urban services and meeting with the other needful facilities in living. However, it is a question whether such facilities are there for all irrespective of social and administrative boundaries such as the neighbourhood, village, township, city, country and then the region. Currently, 50% of the global population is at the fringe of these so-called urban areas and their standards of living are much below the appropriate levels.

According to the United Nations (2018), more than 60% of world’s population is expected to live in urban areas by 2030 and the rate will touch the 70% by 2050 creating more densified cities around us. This is a serious situation that will be faced in the near future and the worst scenario, as forecasted by United Nations is over 90% of this urban growth by 2050 will occur in cities and towns of the developing world, mostly in Africa and Asia delivering huge social, economic and environmental transformations.

Although cities evolved into ever bigger ones through spontaneous developments in the past against which the planners lamented, today the desire is to make cities larger and larger. On the one hand, the modern luxuries, culture, education and health-care are available and can be provided more effectively only in cities. On the other, more rewarding employment and leisure are also available where people conglomerate; the cities. This is the wrong turn that the world has taken and proceeds on.

Under this pressure, urban sustainability has become more challenging due to a lack of resources. Again there are two paths here that can be understood. The ‘developed countries’ who have money will not get affected by the negative impacts of any development or loss of resources as they can spend adequately to retrieve their needs. But the developing countries cannot afford it and they always become the victims.

Unplanned expansions of cities

Generally, the rapid and often unplanned expansions of cities expose more people and other economic assets to the risks of disasters, many types of vulnerabilities and the adverse effects of the climate change, etc. and exerts pressure on freshwater supplies, sewage, the living environment and public health.

zTherefore, it is our duty to consume resources without compromising future generations’ luxury to consume them.

When we look at our own context, the Sri Lankan government has now embarked on a programme to create more functional and sustainable cities ranging from small to mega. Colombo’s Megapolis may not be a built-from-scratch but aspires to ‘stitch together’ the places that already exist and re-make them. Undeniably, present places will be transformed and it is here that the ideas of ‘place-making’, and ‘place-enabling’ have real relevance. The historic preservation and smart city concepts are also a concern in this regard. Recently, Sri Lankan cities experience a number of disasters in settlements and mitigation from them is a task. Therefore, importance has to be given on these aspects in the proposed Mega City planning and ongoing urban development policies in Sri Lanka. It is also seen that in recent times, the government planning and development institutions have been unable to engage in such areas of needs in urban management and their involvements are mostly limited into top-down planning interventions, also mostly implemented by introducing with feeble or rather unpractical planning and development control mechanisms. Further to this, it shows that there are no proper strategies worked out so that the local authorities would be strengthened with technical and professional capacities to improve the local public service.

Considering the above, the need to engage in urban researches in a more scientific and practical way has been highlighted and accordingly, a unique centre for researches on cities called ‘UOM Urban Lab’ – ‘Centre for Cities’ has been initiated by the University of Moratuwa to fill this gap.

The urban lab is one of the leading research centres in Sri Lanka which plays a major role in aforementioned grey areas in the national level of development as newfangled research, advisory and guiding centre.

‘UOM Urban Lab’ – ‘Centre for Cities’ is an interdisciplinary research arm of the University of Moratuwa. It draws together the research and outreach energies of scholars of architecture, urban design, planning, conservation, environmental management, transportation, construction and facilities management, housing, landscape, real estate, land use surveying, urban economics, statistical modelling and urban studies.

National and international research

The ‘UOM Urban Lab’- Centre for Cities is anchored by the researchers in the University of Moratuwa in the Departments of Architecture, Planning, Building Economics, Integrated design, IT, Transportation and Logistics, Civil Engineering and provides a focus for urban researchers across the university with the international collaborative university partners.

Particularly, this urban lab has a strong intention to promote awareness and knowledge on different aspects of cities, strengthen the national and international research collaborations with government, industry and community organisations to share knowledge and research experience on the issues facing in future cities, facilitate the inter-university and inter-institutional activities among related academic and professional institutions as a central coordinating body, create platform for research, debate and dissemination of information and information exchange, pioneer the development of a more diverse and creative approach to the reinterpretation, reuse and manage the existing tangible and intangible urban resources and serve the public, its connections and interdisciplinary relations to serve the public through research on high density and megacities.

As part of this research work, our research lab has created a platform for research scholars to present their research articles in annual international research conferences such as ‘Cities, People, Places’ (ICCPP) and I3SC. Along with that, the bi-annual international research journal called ‘Cities, People, Places’ is also committed to developing social media as the means of informing contemporary urban conditions.

In addition to the research articles, the UOM Urban Lab wishes to engage in public awareness activities and conduct training programmes and workshops on the related subject areas.

The ‘UOM Urban Lab- Centre for Cities’ has merged its plans with the current tangible and intangible urban issues, grey areas of planning, urban management and regulations etc. at the hands of policymakers and practitioners in order to strengthen the alternative futures of our cities.

Released prisoner embraced by strangers in Gaza

Ahmed Khris, now in Gaza, hasn’t seen his family in Jordan for 17 years.Mohamed Hajjar

Ola Mousa - 12 February 2019

Joy filled the home of Ahmed Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Khris’ family late last year. Separated for years from Ahmed, a long-time prisoner, family members prepared themselves in December for his return.

The anticipated reunion in Baqaa refugee camp, just north of the Jordanian capital Amman, however, was not to be.

Ahmed was jailed because of his involvement in what became known as the Karine A affair. The Karine A was a boat carrying weapons that was intercepted by Israel in the Red Sea during January 2002.

After nearly 17 years of imprisonment, Israeli authorities sought to isolate Ahmed, now aged 54, by sending him to the Gaza Strip last month. Rather than meeting his family, Ahmed was embraced by former prisoners in Gaza.

Ahmed was born in Baqaa, though his family is originally from Ajjur village, northwest of Hebron in the West Bank. They were were ethnically cleansed from Ajjur by invading Israeli forces in July 1948.

Ahmed has three sons: Mohammed, Youssef and Yasser.

Gaza is not entirely unknown to him as he did work there for the Palestinian Authority’s navy beginning in 1995. Still, Gaza is not where his family lives.

“State of suffering”

Ahmed’s wife, Fatima Dawood, was saddened that she could not be there for his release. Other moments, however, have proved far more difficult. “I live,” she told The Electronic Intifada, “in a state of suffering.”

Up until 4 pm on 3 January, the family awaited Ahmed’s return from Megiddo prison in Israel. He was supposed to travel towards Amman via the Allenby Bridge that separates the occupied West Bank from Jordan. But then an official with the department of prisoners affairs in Gaza called and broke the news that Ahmed was instead deported to that territory.

Mohammed spoke for all: “We felt sorrow. We were deprived from visiting and seeing our father for 17 years as we hold Jordanian documents.”

Israeli occupation forces didn’t allow Ahmed’s family to visit him despite his engaging in a hunger strike and repeated applications submitted to Israeli prison authorities.

Ahmed, who spent most of his imprisonment in Ramon prison, was released along with Riyad Salah Qasrawi who had the same sentence of 17 years, but served his time in a different jail.

The captain of the Karine A, Omar Akawi, 61, remains behind bars. He was handed a 25-year sentence.

Ahmed entered Gaza through Erez, a checkpoint controlled by the Israeli military. He doesn’t have any relatives in Gaza and consequently has been hosted at Akawi’s home in al-Maqousi, an area in the western part of Gaza City.

Torture

Palestinians in Gaza recall the enormous military power imbalance that, like today, existed between them and Israel in 2002.

At that time, Ahmed says, a group of Palestinian marine officers secured weapons from Arab patrons, but the operation failed when the Israeli military took over the ship as it made its way through the Red Sea.

Four of the men on board were put on trial. Lebanese citizen Salem al-Sankari was released first in January 2004.

Eight Egyptian sailors who had been on the ship were also arrested. The sailors were released in October 2002 and stated that they had endured physical and mental torture during their time in captivity.

Ahmed, for his part, described to The Electronic Intifada severe mistreatment during interrogation and being placed in solitary confinement to extract information from him. Physical torture was applied as well as psychological pressure with threats to arrest his family if he didn’t provide further details about the operation.

“I was thinking of my pregnant wife, my son Yasser who is now 17 years old, and the future of my sons if they were harmed. However, I was steadfast when I remembered our right to defend our land and dignity,” Ahmed said.

Israel alleges the ship was loaded with weapons provided by Iran. The vessel was seized in January 2002 by Israeli commandos. There were reportedly anti-tank mines, missiles, rockets and two tons of explosives on board.

Ahmed says legally and practically, Jordan isn’t responsible for him since at the time of his arrest, he was registered as a holder of a Palestinian identity card. Since his release, he has applied for Jordanian documents in order to leave Gaza and see his family.

More than one month following his release, Ahmed continues to wait for the long-anticipated reunion.

Ola Mousa is an artist and writer from Gaza.

Mavi Marmara survivors condemn Israeli group's interference in ICC probe

Activists accuse Israeli NGO of 'smears' as they seek Israel's prosecution for deadly Gaza flotilla incident in 2010

Protesters hold placards about Mavi Marmara in October 2016 during protest outside Istanbul courthouse (AFP)

By Alex MacDonald- 13 February 2019 

Activists who survived a deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010 have slammed efforts to block the prosecution of Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the incident.

Comoros requested in May 2013 that the ICC investigate the killings of 10 Turkish and Turkish-American activists and injuries sustained by others when Israeli forces boarded the Mavi Marmara vessel as it attempted to break the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.

While the case has stalled amid attempts by Israel to derail the prosecution, the Israel Law Centre made an official submission to the ICC last month stating that pursuing a case against Israel would "bring the court's reputation into disrepute".

The Israeli group, known as Shurat HaDin, also described the passengers of the Mavi Marmara as "radical activists".

As victims of this horrific attack, we remain steadfast in our belief that the ICC will push forward with an investigation into what we believe are appalling crimes

- Alexandra Lort Philips, UK activist aboard the Mavi Marmara

Alexandra Lort Philips, a British citizen who was aboard the flotilla, said on Wednesday that the Israeli group's comments amount to "smears".

"As victims of this horrific attack, we remain steadfast in our belief that the ICC will push forward with an investigation into what we believe are appalling crimes handed out to decent humanitarians," she said at a news conference in London.

"Yet we abhor the attempt to influence and [pressure] the court through what can only be described as accusations of a highly political nature [and that] have no legal basis and are without foundation."

Shurat HaDin aims to use legal means to fight boycotts of Israel. The group "is utilising court systems around the world to go on the legal offensive against Israel's enemies", it says on its website.

Israel, which is not a signatory of the ICC, also has repeatedly attempted to block potential prosecutions over what happened on the Mavi Marmara, which had 581 passengers on board when it set off from Antalya, Turkey, towards Gaza in 2010.

That effort continues despite a 2014 judgment by the ICC, which stated that the court had "a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed by some members of the Israel Defence Forces". The ICC reaffirmed that finding in 2017.

Still, the probe has been closed and reopened repeatedly, with ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda given a 15 May 2019 deadline to hand down a final decision. Bensouda has repeatedly argued the case did not merit investigation.

'Israel does what they want'

The ship was owned by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish charity banned in Israel after the Israeli government accused it of funneling money to Hamas.

According to Shurat HaDin's submission, "hardcore IHH activists were armed to the teeth" on the Mavi Marmara and attacked Israeli soldiers with knives and wooden poles.

However, Mavi Marmara activist Osama Qashoo said on Wednesday that the items had been for domestic use.

The knives, for example, were used in the kitchen, he said.

Remembering Mavi Marmara: 'We really believed we would reach Gaza'

Read More »

Qashoo told Middle East Eye that the political climate globally and the rise of US President Donald Trump's vehemently, pro-Israeli administration has made it more difficult for Palestine advocates around the world.

"I think Donald Trump and [US National Security Adviser] John Bolton aren't good news for human rights activists. It's not good news for protesters; It's not good news for freedom," he said.

"However, I think the system as a whole is changing into the hands of citizens who are actually sincere and committed to their message, so I think justice will prevail in the end."

Another activist, Laura Stuart, said there has been a lack of support from the British government in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara incident.

"'Israel does what they want' - That's literally what they said. So in other words [London] couldn't really help us," she told MEE.

12-year blockade

The Mavi Marmara was attempting to break the ongoing blockade of Gaza Strip, which was imposed by Israel following the election and subsequent takeover of the coastal Palestinian territory by Hamas.

Thousands of Palestinians have been killed during Israeli military operations in the territory since that time, including a 2014 war in Gaza that killed at least 2,200 people, mostly civilians.

A number of flotillas have attempted to break the blockade by sea since 2010. However, the Israeli navy has routinely blocked such efforts, including last month, when it intercepted a vessel off the Gazan coast.

Mavi Marmara activists held a news conference in London Wednesday (Alex MacDonald/MEE)

At Wednesday's news conference, Stuart said the Israeli authorities took all the activists' belongings when they boarded the Mavi Marmara, including hours of video and photographic evidence detailing events on board the ship.

Those items have yet to be returned, she said.

Stuart said the activists were invited to the UK Foreign Office for a meeting following the incident.

Still, aside from some activists having lost their passports, she said it "didn't feel that they were interested at all in our story or what had happened to us, or how they might hold the Israelis to account for their actions".

Stuart, who said she has since been banned from both Egypt and Israel as a result of her campaigning, said all she was told by Alistair Burt, UK minister of state for the Middle East, was that the UK's travel advice stated it was "very dangerous" to travel to Gaza.

"I did say to him [that] the lack of action by the British government in holding Israel to account and holding them to international laws means that civilians like us will always continue to take what actions we can," she said.

Turkey-Israel agreement

Turkey broke off diplomatic ties with Israel in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara killings.

In 2015, those relations were restored after Israel promised to compensate the victims to the tune of $20m and allow Turkey to advance projects in the Gaza Strip.

The move was condemned by IHH at the time as "unacceptable".

On Wednesday, Phillips said the Israeli Law Centre's submission to the ICC made reference to an "understanding" between Turkey and Israel reached in 2013.

She said that agreement, which has not been publicly disclosed, was not binding on the activists.

"If an understanding between the two states exist, we hereby declare that that understanding also has no binding effect on us in any way whatsoever," she said.

Labour MPs warn Corbyn: back a second referendum or we quit

Labour leader struggling to balance conflicting forces in his party over Brexit
Corbyn has been the target of anger over Labour’s stance on Brexit. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Heather Stewartand Jessica Elgot-Wed 13 Feb 2019

Jeremy Corbyn faces up to 10 resignations from the Labour frontbench if he fails to throw his party’s weight behind a fresh attempt to force Theresa May to submit her Brexit deal to a referendum in a fortnight’s time, frustrated MPs are warning.

With tension mounting among anti-Brexit Labour MPs and grassroots members, several junior shadow ministers have told the Guardian they are prepared to resign their posts if Corbyn doesn’t whip his MPs to vote for a pro-referendum amendment at the end of the month.

Corbyn has been struggling to balance the conflicting forces in his party over Brexit, as the clock ticks down towards exit day on 29 March..

Many party members and MPs would like him to take a lead in seeking to block Brexit before time runs out – but some frontbenchers are equally adamant they could never support a referendum.
Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite union and a close ally of Corbyn, risked stoking the conflict in the party on Wednesday when he argued that stopping Brexit was “not the best option for our nation”.

“My view is that, having had a 2016 referendum where the people have voted to come out of the EU, to try and deflect away from that threatens the whole democratic fabric on which we operate,” he told Peston on ITV. “I’m saying that in reality it is not the best option for our nation.”

The party’s conference policy, thrashed out in a late-night meeting chaired by the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, suggests that if it has failed to secure a general election “Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote”.

And it includes the line: “If the government is confident in negotiating a deal that working people, our economy and communities will benefit from they should not be afraid to put that deal to the public.”

Since the prime minister’s deal was overwhelmingly rejected by parliament last month, Labour has continued to engage with the government after Corbyn initially declined a meeting with May.
The pair exchanged letters last week setting out their respective Brexit positions, and senior Labour figures met ministers on Tuesday.

Starmer and the shadow Cabinet Office minister, Jon Trickett, were accompanied by Corbyn’s close advisers Seumas Milne and Andrew Fisher as they met the Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, and May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington.

A Labour party spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer and Jon Trickett had a frank and serious exchange with Stephen Barclay and David Lidington following Jeremy Corbyn’s five-demands letter to Theresa May.

“Starmer and Trickett set out Labour’s five demands and pushed the government to change its red lines.” Senior Labour sources said they believed the meeting had gone well, and expect a follow-up session to be held next week. But anti-Brexit MPs believe it is time to shift the policy towards supporting a referendum, as May has rejected Labour’s advances by continuing to rule out a customs union.

Some see Starmer as the most likely champion for their cause inside the shadow cabinet. Other key figures, including Trickett and the Labour chair, Ian Lavery, are more sceptical.

Attention is focusing on plans made by the Labour MPs Phil Wilson and Peter Kyle, under which parliament’s endorsement of a deal would be made subject to the public’s approval, echoing the model pursued for the Good Friday agreement.

“That’s where the action is,” said one backbencher. There could also be a straightforward “people’s vote” amendment when May brings an amendable vote to MPs on 27 February.

Several frontbenchers, including the shadow Treasury minister, Clive Lewis, and the shadow business minister, Chi Onwurah, will speak at a Love Socialism, Hate Brexit rally at parliament before the vote on Thursday. The rally is being promoted by the pro-referendum group Another Europe is Possible.

Lewis previously quit as shadow defence secretary in order to rebel against the triggering of article 50, but has since returned to the Labour frontbench.

He said last week: “I’m on the frontbench because I live in hope that the party will get to the bit of our conference policy where it supports a people’s vote.”

Even some shadow frontbenchers opposed to a second referendum are coming to the view that the party needs a “cathartic moment” to whip for a new referendum and prove that the plan has no parliamentary majority, with more than 20 Labour MPs likely to oppose. One sceptical shadow minister said the February deadline would be the time for “peak agitation”.

Tensions over the party’s Brexit policy have been simmering since Corbyn made his offer of a Brexit compromise in a letter to May last week, prompting former leadership candidate Owen Smith to suggest he could quit the party if Labour eventually backed a Brexit deal.

Anger spilled into the open on Wednesday. The MP Neil Coyle claimed the party was losing members and councillors, and could yet lose MPs over its Brexit policy.

Venezuela is a land of pride, of patriotism

by Anwar A Khan-Feb 12, 2019

Feb 12, 2019

Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal state in the north part of South America. The country has built its economy on oil, as Venezuela owns the largest oil reserves in the world.This is the land of Simon Bolivar, this is the land that took its army and liberated Latin America some hundred years ago. It is land of pride, of patriotism. Simon Bolivar was a revolutionary who played a key role in liberating several Latin American countries – including Venezuela – from the rule of Spain in the early 19th century. He spearheaded a number of successful military campaigns against the Spanish.

The demand on the sovereign, independent government of Venezuela headed by Nicholas Maduro to step down from a foreign power posed to be a world-village headman and his sidekicks isnothing but temerity. It is also irremissible! That the situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is very dire goes without saying. Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to seek a change in government in a sovereign state. The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law. It is very usurious! Think of the other way round. If any other country tries to meddle into the internal affairs of that state, would it endure such an audacity?

The liege states like Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Canada… of that rapscallion state have issued ultimatum for new elections in Venezulea which tantamounts to what an old proverb says, “All thieves are cousins.” Political experts also have warned, however, that picking sides in Venezuela’s political conflict runs contrary to international law. UN human rights expert IdrissJazairy expressed concern in a statement about the sanctions being imposed by the US on Venezuela’s national oil company in an attempt to oust Maduro. The country’ president Nicholas Maduro has disdained EU ultimatum including its boss Donald Trump and his lieutenants’ so-called postulation.

The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has said that the Bolivarian Government has always been open to dialogue with the Venezuelan opposition and also denounced that the United States government has promoted a coup d’état in the Caribbean nation. “Nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not,” Arreaza told a special session of the United Nations Security Council. “Europe, putting yourself at the tail of the United States? Not even the United States, but of the Donald Trump government? From where do you get the power to issue deadlines or ultimatums to a sovereign people? From where do you come up with such interventionist and, I would even say, childish action?,” he has said.

Like all other independent and sovereign nations, the people of Venezuela are able to freely and securely decide about their future. No one should dare to dictate them. Russia, China and Turkey… have firmly taken the side of Maduro’s government. And that is a welcome move! 

Russia’s UN ambassador, VassilyNebenzia, has opposed the UN meeting on Venezuela, saying it did not represent a threat to international peace and security. He has accused Washington of attempting “a coup d’etat”, a chargeMaduro also has levelled at his opponents. Many people have died in protest-related violence in Caracas. Maduro said he has written to the Pope for help to facilitate and strengthen dialogue to resolve the impasse, with tension having been heightened since Trump has suggested the US military might intervene. Maduro and his government also have said they would resist any such move, as he repeated claims that the US president wanted to turn his country into “a new Vietnam”. “Europe and the world need to know that the White House has been taken over by an extremist,” he has further said. He also has mentioned, “It is like the KluKluk Klan arrived in the White House and Donald Trump is the head of the KKK. He’s surrounded by a group of people they call the Venezuela team.”

Maduro has claimed that Mike Pence, the US vice president; John Bolton, national security adviser to Trump; and the secretary of state Mike Pompeo are all part of the “supremacist” group. He has said theydedicate themselves daily to conspire against Venezuela including the option of a military coup. In a warning to Trump over potential military intervention, he has said, “The Venezuelan people, and our armed forces, the Bolivarian National Army – we won’t let them take an inch of our national territory.” Russia is one of the few foreign powers to have spoken out in his favour, with the Kremlin having condemned European countries for recognisingGuaido as acting president. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, has said, “The move was an attempt to legitimise usurped power and would not result in a peaceful, effective and lasting settlement of the crisis the Venezuelans are going through”.

On January 23 last, the Venezuelan opposition generated a series of expectations and tensions on the street. At the moment, the country is calm despite the coup that the United States has promoted from the vanguard, with all its spokesmen dedicated to this task. The coup d’etat is being defeated gradually.

The breakdown of diplomatic relations with the United States is contemplated in the Vienna Convention, it is expected that in the coming times US diplomats and consular officials leave the Venezuela. In any case, if a different scenario is presented, Venezuela will demand that they leave, but do not expect hostility from Venezuela.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister has said that the good offices of the brother countries of the region in mediating through the dialogue in Venezuela will be welcome. “We will be willing to activate and preserve it to be more effective than the one of the Dominican Republic”, he has said.

Likewise, the Foreign Minister also pointed out that a few days ago Juan Guaidó himself met with the president of the National Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello. In December 2018 and in all these months there were proposals on both sides to reach political agreements, but then the opposition consulted with Trump’s spokesmen and ended up rejecting”, he added. The Venezuelan diplomat lamented that “right-wing presidents in Latin America, including Macri, receive orders from Washington”, this in relation to the recent pronouncements of those countries that recognise the unconstitutional act of self-proclamation of Guaidó.

But Venezuela is a country of dialogue and peace. It is calm and at peace, unlike what some media are trying to show. There is a coup d’etat that is led by the US government and in particular by the US administration headed by Donald Trump, but the National Government will face the coup attempts. One may consider as humorous the self-proclamation of the deputy to the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, and this disdainful act stresses that it lacks legality.

Some countries have supported the US interventionist position in Venezuela due to pressure from Washington and Venezuela’s response to those states will be proportional, although Venezuela’s confrontation is mainly with the United States, the main sponsor of the coup. Maduro government is willing to dialogue without any conditions and within the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution, it is denouncing that the opposition supported by the United States does not want to talk. The government of President NicolásMaduro has repeatedly called the opposition to a dialogue. In that sense, he said that “we have opened the doors to meet wherever they want” because a dialogue will be the most logical and important political pulse to solve the crisis in the country.

Similarly, both the President and FM have denied that there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, to denounce that the Venezuelan economy has been disrupted because of the sanctions and the US blockade. They have also asserted that the alleged humanitarian aid is an absurdity and a theater show on the part of the United States and the enemies of Venezuela. In that sense, they have recalled that in 1960 Washington announced that there was a humanitarian crisis in the Dominican Republic and took advantage of the situation to deploy 8,000 US soldiers and overthrow the democratically elected president, Juan Bosch.

President NicolásMaduro has taken seriously the US threat to have all the options on the table, indicating that the National Government has prepared for any scenario. The Bolivarian National Armed Forces are preparing anti-imperialist military in the face of this threat. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister has pointed out that the government presided over by NicolásMaduro has as main task to defend the people of Venezuela, as well as the integrity and independence of the country and will not let foreign actors dictate orders to the people.

In the same way, he has expressed the confidence of the Venezuelan Executive in the people and in the FANB of Venezuela. He has asserted that Venezuela will succeed and will not let the interventionist attempts and the coup d’état to triumph. He also has considered Trump as the symbol of the capitalist system and said that Venezuela’s resistance and its victory over imperialism will encourage other countries to confront Donald Trump and not let their governments to be subjugated by the US. The Venezuelan diplomat has considered the support of the allies of great importance and mentioned that in the Security Council of the United Nations, countries such as Russia, China, among others, supported the National Government against the United States and its allies.

He has recalled that the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez, established relations of brotherhood with several countries, including Iran and Russia, and assured that Venezuela values these strategic relations.

Delivering a speech at the UN General Assembly earlier, Jorge Arreaza said Trump had used the UN platform to declare war. “As if he were the world’s emperor President Donald Trump used this rostrum built for peace to announce war, the total destruction of member states, the application of coercive unilateral and illegal measures,” Arreaza said. “Today we must report to the world that our people have been directly threatened by the President of the United States.”

This quadruplet of terror of Whitehouse stretching from Washington, D.C. to Caracas and many other parts of the world is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of self-willed intervention in the internal affairs of other independent and sovereign countries. So, the greater international community should excoriate in the most abrasive language against the uncalled for and unwarranted meddlesome actions of Washington establishment into Venezuelan internal affairsand the internal affairs other nations of the world to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in the world.

-The End –

The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.

Judge rules that Manafort deliberately lied to Mueller’s team during cooperation

The former Trump campaign chair may now get a tougher sentence.

Paul Manafort on the morning of June 15, 2018. He was sent to jail later that day. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

By Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com  Feb 13, 2019

Evidence suggests that Paul Manafort deliberately lied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team after he had agreed to cooperate, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

After dueling filings and arguments from prosecutors and the defense over the past few months, Judge Amy Berman Jackson sided with Mueller’s team on three of the five areas in which they’d accused Manafort of lying.

Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chair, has already been convicted of financial crimes in Virginia and has pleaded guilty to other charges in Washington. He was not charged with new crimes related to these alleged false statements.

But now, Jackson will take these purported lies during cooperation into account when she sentences Manafort for the DC crimes on March 13 — and they may well spur her to give him a tougher sentence.

The wrangling between Mueller’s and Manafort’s teams about the alleged lies provided a fascinating glimpse into the investigation, revealing both deeper Russian ties and more shady financial behavior from Manafort. We learned that Mueller is claiming:

• That Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of his who the FBI thinks has “ties to Russian intelligence” (a Mueller prosecutor said this topic goes “very much to the heart of” their larger investigation)
• That in 2017 and 2018, Manafort worked with Kilimnik to advance to promote a “Ukraine peace plan” (aimed, it seems, at settling the Russia-Ukraine conflict on terms favorable to Russia)
• That $125,000 paid out from a pro-Trump Super PAC to a political media firm during the campaign was later used to help pay Manafort’s legal fees
• That Manafort changed his story about a matter another Justice Department office is investigating — one that seems to involve the Trump campaign or administration

Mueller did not, however, use this dispute to give any sort of larger assessment on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia or the president himself.

How we got here

To recap: Manafort was indicted by Mueller in two venues, Virginia and Washington, DC. He was charged with tax violations, bank fraud, lobbying, and false statements — but he was not charged with any crimes related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Last August, Manafort was convicted at his first trial, in Virginia. Then he struck a plea deal in DC to avert the second trial — and committed to cooperating with the government.

Manafort’s apparent “flip” appeared to be a major turning point in the Mueller investigation. It seemed as if Mueller now had a cooperator who had close ties to both Trump and Russia (the latter because Manafort worked for Ukraine’s pro-Russian political faction for many years).

So from September to November of last year, Manafort was questioned by Mueller’s team a total of 12 times, and also appeared to testify before Mueller’s grand jury twice. He was reportedly asked about a plethora of topics.

But eventually, Mueller’s team concluded that Manafort was repeatedly lying to them — and on November 26, they accused him of breaching his cooperation agreement.

What Mueller and Manafort’s attorneys have been arguing over

Because of the way the plea deal was structured, Manafort’s guilty plea and the related forfeiture of much of his wealth remained in place.

But Manafort’s team did dispute that he had deliberately lied, arguing that there was a combination of memory failures and mix-ups from Manafort and misunderstandings from the special counsel’s team.

Now, the government only had to meet a very low bar to find Manafort in breach of the agreement — basically, they just had to come to the good-faith conclusion that he lied.

However, the judge overseeing Manafort’s case in DC, Amy Berman Jackson, had her own reasons for wanting more details. She said she wanted to assess the government’s evidence about these alleged lies, because she wanted to weigh this as a factor in Manafort’s sentencing. (Meaning she might want to give Manafort a harsher sentence if she was convinced he lied.)

So in a series of partially redacted filings and then at a sealed hearing on February 3, prosecutors and the defense squared off, with Mueller’s team arguing that there was a pattern of deliberate lies from Manafort, and the defense claiming it was all a series of misunderstandings and unintentional misstatements.

An important technical note is that Jackson did not have to find that it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Manafort lied, the traditional standard for criminal conviction by a jury. She only had to rule on whether “a preponderance of the evidence” suggested Manafort lied — a lighter standard. The alternative was to rule that Mueller had “failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence” that Manafort lied.

Five topics where Mueller accused Manafort of lying

To make the case that Manafort lied during cooperation, Mueller’s team singled out five topics in particular.

None of the topics, so far as we know, directly involve President Donald Trump. In particular, the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer that Manafort attended is absent from the list. Roger Stone, Manafort’s longtime friend, is also not mentioned. We should not necessarily read too much into these omissions, though — Mueller’s team made clear that the five were not necessarily the only topics Manafort lied about. They are:

1) The $125,000 payment: In 2016, Manafort had helped set up a pro-Trump Super PAC and installed a longtime friend to run it. That Super PAC paid millions to a political ad-buying firm — and that firm then used $125,000 to help pay Manafort’s legal bills in 2017. Manafort then told Mueller’s team three different stories about where that money came from.

What was going on here? Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann offered an “educated guess” during last week’s hearing. Though the details are redacted, he seemed to be suggesting there was a kickback “scheme” of some kind involved, potentially involving Manafort himself. If true, would potentially mean that Manafort was siphoning off money donated to Trump’s Super PAC.

Weissmann said he wasn’t certain of this, but he was certain that Manafort kept lying about the payment. Manafort’s team argued his story didn’t change all that much.

Judge Berman Jackson ruled in Mueller’s favor here.

2) Conspiring with Kilimnik to tamper with witnesses: Last June, Mueller charged Manafort and Kilimnik (the associate with purported ties to Russian intelligence) of conspiring to obstruct justice. He accused the pair of encouraging witnesses to give a false story regarding their work for the former government of Ukraine. And when Manafort struck his plea deal a few months later, he admitted this charge was true.

However, Mueller’s team says that after the deal was struck, Manafort backtracked on this story and told them that Kilimnik did not actually knowingly commit a crime. Here, Weissmann suggests, Manafort “went out of his way” to “not want to provide any evidence that could be used with respect to Mr. Kilimnik.”

After Manafort had a discussion with his lawyers, though, he reverted to the story he told during his plea deal. So the defense claimed this was a misunderstanding that was quickly corrected.

Judge Berman Jackson sided with Manafort’s team here, finding that the special counsel’s office “failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence” that Manafort lied on this topic.

3) Manafort’s interactions with Kilimnik from 2016 to 2018: Mueller’s team said that between 2016 and 2018, Manafort had a series of interactions with Kilimnik regarding a supposed “peace plan” for Ukraine, and that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik in 2016. Many of these details are redacted (and we only know it’s about polling data because of a redaction error by Manafort’s lawyers).

But in a tantalizing statement, Weissmann told the judge that an August 2, 2016, meeting between Manafort and Kilimnik “goes to the larger view of what we think is going on” and “goes to the heart of what the Special Counsel’s Office is investigating.” It’s a meeting of the sitting Trump campaign chair “at an unusual time” with someone the FBI thinks has “a relationship with Russian intelligence,” Weissmann said.

The purpose of the “peace plan,” it seems, would have been to help settle the Russia-Ukraine conflict on terms favorable to Russia, and then allow the lifting of sanctions on Russia.

Initially, Manafort said he only briefly discussed this with Kilimnik, in 2016, but dismissed it as a bad idea. But Weissmann says the evidence was in favor of the idea and continued to work with Kilimnik on it all the way up to early 2018.

Then there’s the sharing of the polling data with Kilimnik, who then shared it elsewhere. Manafort’s motivation here remains unclear — was he currying favor with oligarchs in hopes of future business, or was he sharing data that could inform Russia’s election interference efforts? (Manafort’s team disputed that he shared the data at all and said Rick Gates, a Mueller cooperator, was making this up.)

Judge Berman Jackson ruled in Mueller’s favor here.

4) Another DOJ investigation: Weissmann said Manafort also provided information relevant to a (redacted) investigation carried out by another Justice Department office — but, again, changed his story to get a particular person off the hook. We don’t know what this is about, but references in the hearing transcript suggest it relates to the Trump campaign or administration somehow. Judge Berman Jackson ruled in Mueller’s favor here.

5) Indirect contacts with the Trump administration: Mueller’s team said Manafort claimed never to have been in direct or even indirect contact with any sitting Trump administration official, but that at the very least, there had been some indirect contacts. (Manafort’s team said they were misconstruing some communications.)

Judge Berman Jackson sided with Manafort’s team here, finding that the special counsel’s office “failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence” that Manafort lied on this topic.

What does it all mean?

For one, Manafort’s plea deal clearly wasn’t the game-changing Mueller probe development that some hoped for. Prosecutors have made clear they think he was of no real use as a witness, and that they think he was still hiding the truth from them on many topics.

But the back-and-forth has revealed new areas of the investigation. In particular, the accusation that Manafort shared private Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik during the campaign is arguably the closest Mueller has come to alleging outright collusion.

Still, there are are a variety of potential explanations for what happened there. Manafort could have handed over the data without Trump’s knowledge — or with it. Manafort could have handed it over in hopes of impressing wealthy Ukrainian patrons — or he could have been providing data that would aid the Russian government’s election interference efforts.

As for Manafort’s own future, it’s been widely speculated that he’s hoping for a pardon from President Trump, and Mueller’s team even said in court that this could be a potential motivation for his false statements. Trump has conspicuously declined to rule out such a move.

For now, though, the former Trump campaign manager remains in jail, where he’s resided for eight months. His sentencing in Washington will take place on March 13, and his sentencing in Virginia currently has no scheduled date.

How Dareen Tatour found a “magic pen” in Israeli prison

From left, PEN International chair Jennifer Clement, prize winners Gioconda Belli and Dareen Tatour, and Oxfam Novib director Michiel Servaes. Hans Paul Alting von Geusau

Adri Nieuwhof -12 February 2019

Four months after her release from an Israeli prison, Palestinian poet and photographer Dareen Tatourreceived the Oxfam Novib PEN Award for Freedom of Expression in The Hague in January.

Oxfam Novib, the Dutch affiliate of the international charity Oxfam, said it awarded Tatour the prize to highlight “the growing repression of critical voices in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Nicaraguan writer and journalist Gioconda Belli and Italian journalist Roberto Saviano also received the prize that was first awarded in 2001.

After a three-year ordeal of prosecution, jail and house arrest, Tatour was sentenced last August to five months in prison for a handful of social media posts and a poem titled “Resist, my people, resist them.”

She was convicted by an Israeli court of “incitement to violence” and “support of terrorist organizations.”

The literary freedom group PEN International said that she had been targeted by Israeli authorities “for peacefully exercising her right to free expression through poetry and activism,” and had demanded that all charges against her be dropped.

Tatour always maintained her innocence, defending her social media activity and poetry as forms of protest against Israel’s crimes.

She spoke to The Electronic Intifada after the 17 January event.

Sense of victory

“I felt a sense of victory over the occupation because they tried to silence my voice and prevent me from writing poems,” Tatour says when asked about the award ceremony, though she confesses to “contradictory feelings.”

“Suddenly I found myself in front of people, reciting poems. It had a strong impact on me,” she adds. “I couldn’t separate between the pain I felt from my time in prison and the joy” of being at the ceremony.

“I tried to convey this feeling to the people in the room,” she says. “They helped me to be there in that victory.”

She credits the blogger Yoav Haifawi who consistently reported on her trial, and PEN International, for sustaining her through her ordeal.

“Their support strengthened me to continue,” she says. “I will stay grateful forever.”

Strip-searched

International attention to the persecution of a relatively unknown Palestinian poet turned Tatour into a symbol of Israel’s assault on freedom of expression.

This can have consequences for her treatment by Israeli officials, which she experienced during her journey to the Netherlands.

“Everybody passed through the main entrance without a problem but I was picked out by a female officer who took my ID card and started to interrogate me,” she recalls of her treatment at Tel Aviv airport.

“I arrived at 1:10am and then they asked me ‘what time is your flight.’ I said at 5am. The officer asked, ‘why are you so early? You must have a reason to be so early.’”

After many questions, Tatour then waited for her friend Ofra Yeshua-Lyth who would accompany her on the trip.

“Every seven minutes an officer came and asked me where I am going,” Tatour says. “I wanted to draw some money so I looked for an ATM. The guard followed me all the time. Then Ofra came.”

It didn’t end there. At the X-ray machine, the security staff did not like that Tatour was carrying camera equipment.

“They strip-searched me. They took me to a separate room.”

Ofra was ordered to leave.

“I had to take off my jacket, my shoes, scarf – everything,” Tatour recalls.

They even confiscated the hairpin Tatour used to hold her headscarf.

“All the time I was scared that they wouldn’t let me go.”

“In the airplane, I had a feeling that I was free, but still I harbored the feeling of being afraid,” she adds.

Poet in Arabic language

Tatour, now in her mid-thirties, has been writing poetry since she was 9 years old.

“I felt the need to express what I feel inside me and to put it on paper.”

One time in the second grade, the teacher asked her class what they would like to be when they grow up.

“Most students said doctor, lawyer or engineer. I said I want to write. I remember this as an important moment,” Tatour says.

“I write about what I feel, whatever I see and whatever touches me. My life now is a piece of paper and a pen.”

Last year, Israel’s so-called Nation-State Law – which has been likened to apartheid-era legislation in South Africa – stripped the Arabic language of its official status.

That was a direct attack on the 1.5 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel.

But when asked in which language she writes, Tatour replies without hesitation: Arabic.

Magic pen

In prison, Tatour says, the guards denied her requests for writing materials.

“You, especially you, will not have a pen and paper,” she recalls them saying.

“But I invented a magic pen,” Tatour says with a big smile. “I had a severe headache in al-Jalameh prison. The guard gave me a yellow paracetamol tablet. I held it in my hand and imagined it as a pen. I wrote with the tablet on the wall but it left no traces.”

“I felt cold and started to play with the zipper of my sweater,”

By accident she pulled the slider off the zipper.

“I looked at it and tried to write my name on the wall with it,” she says. “It worked!”
“My headache disappeared and I kept the tablet in my pocket because it had inspired me. I was saved by the tablet. The tablet was my magic pen.”

Tatour wrote two poems on the wall. She titled the first “Feminist impressions tattooed on the wall of a cell,” and the second, “A poet behind bars” – both have been translated to English.

During her trial, Tatour was jailed for three months before being sent to house arrest. After she was sentenced to five months following her conviction, she was sent back to prison to spend the remaining two months behind bars.

“I was back in the same cell and the poem was still there,” she says laughing. “I asked for a sweater to repeat the trick with the slider of the zipper to write on the wall with my magic pen.”

“I wrote all that happened to me on that wall, from the moment I entered prison to when I came back, and the three years of house arrest.”

She also added the poem “Resist, my people, resist them” to the wall.

Feminist poet

“I am a feminist,” Tatour says, adding that she has found inspiration from other women poets.

Two of her main influences are Palestine’s Fadwa Touqan and Iraq’s Nazik al-Malaika
“Of course I read Mahmoud Darwish and other poets but I relate more strongly to Touqan and al-Malaika,” she says.

“Some people say that I am like Darwish but I don’t like that at all because I am Dareen,” she observes. “I respect Mahmoud Darwish a lot, but I don’t want to be compared with him.”

Others, she says, dismiss her work, but Tatour insists it has its place.

“We don’t have many Palestinian female poets who have written about the resistance,” she says.

“Fadwa Touqan was the first and I am the second. I will never reach what Mahmoud Darwish achieved. He is a giant.”

When asked to capture who she is in a few words, Tatour replies: “alienation, exile from a homeland, I feel I am a home by myself, a pen and camera, loneliness, love, human.”

The audience at the award ceremony was moved when Tatour read her poem, “My freedom”:

My freedom
They closed the door on me in a cell
They locked the handcuffs
Tightened the grip
They banned the light from coming in, and it grew darker
So I drew a bulb on the walls
They wiped the wall and seized my firefly
So the sun in my eyes glowed in the night
They covered my eyes, and gagged my mouth
And I let the poetry in my heart light it up
And I ignited the feelings within my soul
The lantern of my poems erased the darkness
They can tie my hands with chains, but they won’t imprison the pulse of life within me
My freedom
My freedom
My freedom
They’ll never kill that feeling inside me