65 Anracho-Punks Sent to Re-Education Camp in Banda Ache

Indonesia Punk Crackdown Leaves Youths Unchanged

By FAKHRURRADZIE GADE 12/20/11 06:38 AM ET

SEULAWAH, Indonesia -- Mohawks buzzed and noses free of piercings, dozens of youths march in military-style for hours beneath Indonesia's tropical sun – part of efforts by authorities to restore moral values and bring the "deviants" back into the mainstream.

But the young men and women have shown no signs of bending.

When commanders turn their backs, the shouts ring out: "Punk will never die!" Fists are thrown in the air and peace signs flashed. A few have managed briefly to escape, heads held high as they are dragged back.

Sixty-five young punk rockers arrived at this police detention center last week after baton-weiling police crashed a concert in Aceh – the only province in this predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million to have imposed Islamic laws.

They will be released Friday, after having completed 10 days of "rehabilitation," from classes on good behavior and religion to military-style drills aimed at instilling discipline.

Nineteen-year-old Yudi, who goes by only one name, says it's not working.

He tried unsuccessfully to shake off police when they took an electric razer to his spiky mohawk. At the sight of his hair scattered in the grass, he recalls, tears rolled down his face.

"It was torture to me."

"I can't wait to get out of here," he added. "They can't change me. I love punk. I don't feel guilty about my lifestyle. Why should I? There's nothing wrong with it."

His girlfriend, 20-year-old Intan Natalia, agrees.

Her bleach-blond hair has been cut to a bob and dyed black and she's been forced to wear a Muslim headscarf.

"They can say what they want, but I like life as a punk," she says. "It suits me."

Two young men hated it so much at the detention center, they tried to escape.

They almost succeeded, pretending they had to go to the bathroom, then fleeing to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.

Police found them strolling the streets nine hours later and brought them back.

It was just after midnight.

"They said they missed their parents, but it's pretty clear they were lying," said local police chief Col. Armensyah Thay. "They didn't go home. How could they? They've been living on the streets."

The crackdown marked the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh, which, unlike other provinces in the sprawling archipelagic nation, enjoys semiautonomy from the central government.

That was part of a peace deal negotiated after the 2004 tsunami off Aceh convinced separatist rebels and the army to lay down their arms, with both sides saying they didn't want to add to people's suffering.

More than 230,000 people were killed in the towering wave, three quarters of them in Aceh.

DA dropping death penalty against Abu-Jamal

Written by KATHY MATHESON

Wednesday, 07 December 2011

PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors on Wednesday abandoned their 30-year push to execute convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther whose claim that he was the victim of a racist legal system made him an international cause celebre.

Abu-Jamal, 58, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison.

Flanked by police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision two days short of the 30th anniversary of the white patrolman's killing.

He said that continuing to seek the death penalty could lead to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals, and that some witnesses have died or are unavailable after nearly three decades.

"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."

Abu-Jamal was originally sentenced to death. His murder conviction was upheld through years of appeals. But in 2008, a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing on the grounds that the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in two months ago, prosecutors were forced to decide whether to pursue the death penalty again or accept a life sentence without parole.

Williams said he reached the decision with the blessing of Faulkner's widow, Maureen.

"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," the district attorney said.

Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, welcomed the move.

"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."

According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.

Over the years, Abu-Jamal challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, the instructions given to the jurors and the accounts of eyewitnesses. He also complained that his lawyer was ineffective, that the judge was racist and that another man confessed to the crime.

His writings and radio broadcasts from death row put him at the center of an international debate over capital punishment and made him the subject of books and movies. The one-time journalist's own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," depicts prison life and calls the justice system racist.

He garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement, with hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turning out for court hearings in his case.

His message resonated on college campuses and in Hollywood. Actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to call for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense.

Faulkner's widow labored to ensure her husband was not forgotten.

"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," she said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."

Amnesty International, which maintains that Abu-Jamal's trial was "manifestly unfair and failed to meet international fair trial standards," said the district attorney's decision does not go far enough. Abu-Jamal still has an appeal pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over the validity of ballistics evidence.

"Amnesty International continues to believe that justice would best be served by granting Mumia Abu-Jamal a new trial," said Laura Moye, director of the human rights group's Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Members of Philadelphia's police community stood with Williams and Maureen Faulkner as the decision was announced. Former police union president Rich Costello blasted the courts for ordering a new sentencing hearing.

"Where do Maureen and the Faulkner family go for a reduction in their sentence?" Costello said. "For 30 years now, they have been forced to suffer grief, anguish, abuse, insults, intimidation, threats and every other sort of indignity that can be visited on a family already in grief."

Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned the death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty. The widow also vowed to fight any special treatment for Abu-Jamal behind bars, saying he should be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.

"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons." -- (AP)

Third Veteran Hospitalized after Police Abuse at Protests

Tohono O'odham Veteran remains hospitalized after being pepper sprayed by police at ALEC

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Tohono O'odham Veteran David Ortega remained hospitalized Wednesday night after being pepper sprayed at the protest of the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. Doctors are undertaking tests to see if Ortega had a heart attack or stroke after police repeatedly fired pepper spray on the peaceful protesters.

"It was like a cloud of pepper spray," Ortega said Wednesday night recovering in a Scottsdale hospital. "I was carrying the Veterans for Peace flag when another person was hit directly in the face with pepper spray. I rushed to the front to help him, like I always do as a Peacemaker."

Ortega said the pepper spray was fired at them several times. Ortega began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains and was hospitalized. Ortega has been serving as a Peacemaker at Occupy Tucson in recent weeks. He is known nationally as a Peacemaker at Indigenous rights events. He is the third veteran to be hospitalized after police brutality in recent weeks.

Scott Olsen, Marine and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was shot in the head by a police projectile at Occupy Oakland. Olsen is still struggling to recover his speech. Then Kayvan Sabeghi, 32, also a veteran, was beaten by police, arrested and jailed the night of the shutdown of the Port of Oakland. He suffered a ruptured spleen.

During Wednesday's peaceful protest, Tohono O'odham youth Alex Soto was hit directly in the face with pepper spray by the police.

Indigenous Peoples, including O'odham and Navajos resisting relocation at Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation, are now gathered in Scottsdale will continue their protest and resistance of the corporate influence of ALEC. They announced plans for Thursday.

Dozens of protesters were attacked by police with pepper spray on Wed. Seven people were confirmed arrested so far in a day of action against ALEC, protesters said in a statement.

On Wednesday, starting at 8 a.m., hundreds marched and converged on the Kierland Westin Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, where ALEC is attempting to hold its annual States and Nation Summit.

“We will continue to use diversity of tactics to send the message to ALEC members that the we are watching and we will not stand for the further destruction of our communities and environment that ALEC members push into law in order to fill their own pockets," stated Alex Soto of O’odham Solidarity Across Borders.

“The amount of force that police are using to protect ALEC’s corporate interests reveals how corrupt this system is," Soto said.

The resisters said, "Behind closed doors of ALEC meetings, thousands of state politicians and hundreds of powerful transnational corporations come together to create laws that advocate for, among other things, the desecration of Indigenous land through eco-cide and the growing dragnet of incarceration that sweeps up immigrants and people of color, all for the profit of global corporations, like SB1070. "

Additional actions are planned through December 3.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1
4pm: March at Freeport McMoran
Converge at Freeport McMoran, Downtown Phoenix, AZ.
Decentralized Actions at Various Sites
Locations throughout the valley All day
Rally against ALEC influence on Arizona Politics organized by Arizona at Work
Speaking Event w/ Lisa Graves, Publisher of ALECexposed.org
6pm: At OccupyPhoenix
Full schedule located at: www.azresistsalec.wordpress.com/schedule/