The Jungle of Calais

"At dawn today, riot police moved into The Jungle and rounded up the migrants despite dozens of human rights activists who tried to block their way. They denounce the raid as a media stunt they would drive the migrants underground making them easier pray for traffickers. The Jungle of Calais might be closed, they say, but the steady flow of migrants to Northern France will continue and simply bubble up somewhere else. "

-NPR News

On September 22, French police bulldozed a makeshift village in the port city of Calais that had been set up and inhabited by immigrants. I heard the story on NPR last week and it piqued my interest.

Although I haven't had a chance to confirm it yet, I believe that this is where Aram was living before he was arrested trying to get into the UK.

The AP story is here and you can listen to the full story from NPR here.

Green Briefs 15-19

I took a long weekend from work and with that I took sometime away from the internet in general.

It was nice. As it turns out, there isn't that much to miss out on over a long weekend. I actually read a book (which I will discuss later).

The Green Briefs, however, did not take the same break I did. Take a moment to catch up.

For 07/01/09
For 07/02/09
For 07/03/09
For 07/04-05/09

Green Brief #13 and #14

"Tehran's notorious Evin prison is reportedly packed to capacity now and security
forces are housing the detained in football stadiums. So many people are put in
Tehran’s prisons that prisoners only have standing space. Reports say guards are
preventing prisoners from sleeping by keeping them standing all night. Amnesty
International today warned that the opposition leaders arrested in Iran were at
risk of being tortured. "

For 06/29/09
For 06/30/09

Green Brief #12

"11. Insurance companies are shunning people. They're being told that the
government has told them not to talk to rioters. This is after people went to
insurance companies after the destruction of property or death of a loved one. "

For 06/28/09

Green Brief #11

I intend to keep posting these briefs as long as NiteOwl continues to write them.

It seems some sources in the US media are already questioning whether the "revolution" has already been silenced.

"It's easy to sit around and blog about how hard people are fighting, or how hard
reporters are actually reporting, but honestly: we really have no idea what kind
of energy it takes to do so. Moving the ground beneath one's feet, let alone
that of an entire government's, can't be easy. Maybe they just needed a weekend
off, maybe there's more to come tomorrow, or maybe this game's already been
called. Whatever it is, it isn't looking good for anybody who hasn't already
aligned themselves with Iran's re-ignited regime."

Two (of many) interesting notes from the brief:

3. Iran's paramilitary Basij are carrying out brutal nighttime raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians in an attempt to stop nightly protest chants, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also said the Iranian authorities are confiscating satellite dishes from private homes to prevent citizens from seeing foreign news.

9. Amnesty International confirms on CNN: people disappearing from hospitals. Hundreds of people missing.

For 06/27/09

For the full article from Human Rights Watch click here.

The Neda Question

The following is from Salon.com:

For the last question at his press conference yesterday, Obama was asked by CNN's
Suzanne Malveaux about his reaction to that video and to reports that Iranians
are refraining from protesting due to fear of such violence. As Obama was
answering -- attesting to how "heartbreaking" he found the video; how "anybody
who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust" about the
violence; and paying homage to "certain international norms of freedom of
speech, freedom of expression" -- Helen Thomas, who hadn't been called on,
interrupted to ask Obama to reconcile those statements about the Iranian
images with his efforts at home to suppress America's own torture
photos ("Then why won't you allow the photos --").

The President quickly cut her off with these remarks:

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, Helen. That's a different question.
(Laughter.)

The White House Press corps loves to laugh condescendingly at Helen
Thomas because, tenaciously insisting that our sermons to others be applied to
our own Government, she acts like a real reporter[...]

The premise of Thomas' question was compelling and (contrary to
Obama's dismissal) directly relevant to Obama's answers: how is it
possible for Obama to pay dramatic tribute to the "heartbreaking" impact of that
Neda video in bringing to light the injustices of the Iranian Government's
conduct while simultaneously suppressing images that do the same with regard to
our own Government's conduct?

Green Brief #10 and A Beat It Cover

As the media focusses on Michael Jackson's death, let's not forget about Iran.

"The government is continuously attacking and arresting Iranians who are using twitter to get the message out to the world. Several of our sources have so far been arrested or have stopped using twitter altogether, yet the remainder have
pledged to continue until the last minute. Amidst the somber mood, some
emotional moments can also be seen. One Iranian tweeted: "I would rather
our Iranian youth were tweeting about Michael Jackson than having 2 face this death & horror. Lets set them free to do so."

For 06/26/09

Let's give MJ his due, too.

I have a hard time choosing my favorite Michael Jackson song, so here's Angie's covered by some guy on French tv.



(For Angie)

Green Brief #8 and #9

"As of yet, the claim by Mainstream Media that there was a massacre at
Baharestan cannot be confirmed. (At the time of the writing of this brief, many
have retracted their previous statements and some have actually began to kill
the story that was used to increase viewership of US TV networks...) "

For 06/24/09
For 06/25/09

Green Brief #6 and #7

For 06/22/09
For 06/23/09

Green Brief #5

"8. The Writers’ Association of Kordistan, the Human Rights Campaign of
Kordistan and some other prominent people have also called for a strike in
Kordistan province on Tuesday. "

For 06/21/09

Green Brief #4

"I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources and have
tried maximally to avoid listening to media banter. What I have compiled below
is what I can confirm through my tweets to have happened in the past day and in
the past week in Iran. Remember, this is all from tweets. There is NOTHING
included here that is not from a reliable tweet. No news media outlets have been
used in the compilation of this short brief as I would like to call it."

For 06/20/09

Green Brief #3

"But still, fully half of the sources who were used in compiling the past two
Green Briefs and this Brief have gone quiet, left Tehran or have been arrested
as their identities are being found by the government. "

For 06/19/09

Second Green Brief

Last night I posted an update from NiteOwl at AnonymousIran.

I'm going to keep posting them here.

For 06/18/09

Iran vs. a Fly

Guess which one gets more coverage from the US media?

I've been following the post-election situation in Iran on Twitter and some other online sources and it's amazing how little is actually known about the situation on the ground.

According to ADN Kronos (an Italian news agency that focusses on the Middle East to which I've linked many times before), two prominent Iranian artists presented documentation purporting to prove that Ahmadinejad came in third in the elections.

According to the Guardian, the man who provided them with that document was killed in a suspicious car accident a couple of days ago. (scroll down to 11am update)

And then, there's this from someone called NiteOwl.

15. Several eye-witnesses have seen non-Iranian Arabs waving
Hamas/Hezbollah flags around the protests. These reports have been fully
confirmed and are NOT a rumor spread by Israel.
(Read the whole thing here.)

I don't know how true any of this is, but it certainly all seems well within the bounds of reason. I'm just passing it along.

Oh, and Jalal Talabani became only the second head of state to acknowledge Ahmadinejad's "victory" and to congradulate him. Very disappointing Mam Jalal, very disappointing.