Earth: Mostly Harmless

The price of education?

November 19, 2006 on 12:12 am | No Comments
Categories: human rights, law, university
Tags: brutality, california, education, human rights, law, mostafa-abatabainejad, police, taser, ucla, united-states, university

Laura brought this to my attention: worrying stuff in the current difficult civil rights climate. The video included below appears to show Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, being violently restrained and shocked with a taser gun after refusing to show staff his I.D. card in the UCLA library. Tabatabainejad is arrested, and refuses to stand up. He is tasered again. The cycle is repeated several times until a final confrontation in the library lobby results in cops (now in greater numbers) dragging Tabatabainejad away.

Several students admirably take up Tabatabainejad’s cause, repudiating the officers’ advances, and (as the video proves) recording the events so that ample evidence now exists for a high-profile lawsuit.

Laura writes:

The questions I would ponder are:

1) Would the reaction on the part of the security staff had been as fierce if the student was white and/or female?

2) Were the actions of the student and the police influenced by the large number of students gathering to see what was going on?

I’d be interested to know what you think.

It’s a shocking video, and a brutal indictment of the police involved and the climate of hysteria which exists in some circles in the U.S. regarding Arab-Americans.

More: Detailed coverage from Andy Sternberg; BoingBoing’s first and second post on this; Pictures of Friday’s student protests at UCLA over this incident; UCLA chancellor’s response

I have included Laura’s post below, along with the video of the arrest. Don’t watch if you’re squeamish.

I originally saw this video posted on kensei’s journal. It shows a student being tasered by security staff at a university library. Apparently it is policy for people to be IDed in the library after 11pm for the safety of the students.

Personally I’m wondering if this incident would have happened if the student was white. Or female for that matter.

Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War

December 27, 2004 on 12:26 pm | No Comments
Categories: law, law, copyright and drm, politics
Tags: central-intelligence-agency, cia, clandestine, jet, law, politics, renditions, terrorism, torture, united-states, washington-post

This story’s about the CIA’s policy of clandestine ‘renditions’, that of transferring terrorist suspects to outwith the USA, where constitutional and legal protections don’t apply, and someone else can do the ‘dirty work’, i.e. aggressive interrogation or torture. We already know that a lot of this goes on, with Egypt being a favoured destination for suspects, but this story is unique in that it identifies one of the particular planes used in these forced transportations, even down to the plane’s tail number.

Interrogation under torture is one of those things which is very easy to condemn but equally hard to present alternatives to, especially in situations where ’suspects’ may be prepared to die to hide what they know. Yet while I can see the dilemma facing the CIA and the Bush Administration, it is truly a shame to see a free nation going to these lengths to circumvent the legal protections Americans and others have worked hard to preserve.

Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War (washingtonpost.com):

“The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers.

The plane’s owner of record, Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., lists directors and officers who appear to exist only on paper. And each one of those directors and officers has a recently issued Social Security number and an address consisting only of a post office box, according to an extensive search of state, federal and commercial records.”

(Via The Washington Post. Registration required)