Translation

.يولد جميع الناس أحرارا متساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلا وضميرا وعليهم أن يعامل بعضهم بعضا بروح الإخاء‎
FoxLingo German Spanish French Arabic Czech Greek Hungarian Italian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovenian Thai Turkish

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Anti-gay crime trend rocks city


By CYRIL JOSH BARKER
Shock is still being felt across the city as the saga of a heinous anti-gay crime in the Bronx continues to unfold.

On Tuesday, a 10th man was arrested in connection with the alleged attack against four men in the Bronx. The suspect, Jose Dominguez, 22, turned himself in.


Dominguez is just one of several men arrested and accused of being involved in an attack on the gay men in the Morrisania section of the Bronx on Sunday. Police say the attackers were members of the Latin King Goonies gang and discovered that a gang initiate was gay.

The alleged incident took place in an abandoned house where the suspects allegedly sodomized and beat the 17-year-old recruit. The suspects also beat and sodomized another 17-year-old boy because he was gay as well as a 30-year-old gay man. The suspects beat the 30-year-old victim, then stole money and a television from his brother’s apartment.

Details of the alleged torturing are even more startling due to the fact that a small bat and plunger handle were used to sodomize the victims. Reports indicate that one of the younger victims was forced to burn the 30-year-old man with a cigarette.

News of the attack sent shockwaves across the city because of a recent surge in anti-gay-related incidents. Last week, a gay man was beaten at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar famed for being the location where the gay rights movement started.

Additionally, two gay men were recently attacked on Ninth Avenue and 25th Street after they were seen kissing.

The incidents have even bled over into the political realm. New York gubernatorial candidate and Republican and Tea Party darling Carl Paladino made offensive comments about homosexuals during a meeting with members of the Hasidic Jewish community. He called the gay lifestyle unacceptable but later apologized for his remarks.


“Let me be clear, these incidents are completely unacceptable,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week. “They’re intolerable in a city in which tolerance is what defines us. They’re unacceptable in a city in which embracing our differences is what makes us strong.”

Openly gay City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has made repeated statements about the anti-gay crimes, which appear to be a trend in the city. She has also noted the recent suicides among gay youth across the nation due to bullying.

“The recent deaths across the country that have happened as a result of anti-LGBT bullying are truly heartbreaking,” said Quinn. “As the loss of these innocent young lives reminds us, we must remain diligent in our efforts to combat bullying and promote tolerance. Just as children can learn bigotry and intolerance, so too can they learn to value diversity and acceptance.”

Sunday, October 10, 2010

NYC leaders condemn ‘vicious’ attack on 3 gays

NEW YORK — Outraged city leaders said Saturday that the city wouldn’t tolerate the “vicious” hatred that had apparently caused a street gang’s alleged beating and torture of three men because they were gay as an eighth suspect in the beatings was arrested.Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that several of the suspects had made statements implicating themselves in the crime, which occurred in a neighborhood where residents said homosexuality is both common and tolerated.

Asked if the men had expressed any remorse for what they had done, Kelly said “I wouldn’t call it remorse.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was “sickened” by the violence, that police said included sodomizing one of the men with a plunger handle and hourslong torture of others. The attack came amid heightened attention to anti-gay bullying following a string of teen suicides attributed to it last month around the country.

“Like many New Yorkers, I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened by the anti-gay bias that contributed to them,” the mayor said. “The heartless men who committed these crimes should know that their fellow New Yorkers will not tolerate their vicious acts, or the hatred that fuels them.”

The suspects arrested Thursday and Friday were identified as Ildefonzo Mendez, 23; David Rivera, 21; four 17-year-olds, Steven Caraballo, Denis Peitars, Nelson Falu and Bryan Almonte; and Brian Cepeda, 16. All face charges including robbery, assault and unlawful imprisonment as hate crimes; Mendez, Rivera and Falu were additionally charged with committing a criminal sex act.

The eighth suspect, Elmer Confresi, 23, of the Bronx, turned himself in on Saturday. Kelly said that a lawyer representing the ninth suspect had arranged for his client to turn himself in, but never showed.

The suspects were awaiting possible arraignment Saturday, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said.

Bryan Almonte’s stepmother, Carmen, told The New York Times that the teen was hospitalized Friday night after going into diabetic shock during his arrest. She said his father died three months ago.

“Bryan is not a bad kid,” she told the newspaper. “If he was there, he didn’t do anything.”

Cepeda was interested in becoming a police officer, said his mother, Ada Cepeda.

“He’s not rude; he’s quite intelligent,” Cepeda told the Times. “I’m a realist. It’s not that my son is a saint. But I doubt he would do that.”

Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay, and trapped and brutalized the men on Oct. 3-4.

Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.

Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too, police said. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, and other elected officials went to the empty brick townhouse where the attacks took place Saturday and passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the remaining suspects.

“People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individulas do not represent their neighborhood,” said Quinn. “They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated ... could happen here.”

Gay men and women lived openly in the neighborhood, and while residents were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the suspects, some said they hadn’t previously targeted homosexuals.

“I was friends with all of them,” said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the neighborhood.

“They were chill. There was no beef,” she said Saturday. “I had no idea they had no heart.”

Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.

The girls said the young men were “the nicest ever.” Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.

Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened.

Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack, “the next day,” but said that, like other young people in the area, “We don’t talk to cops. We don’t like them.”

The victims, authorities said, didn’t call the police either.

“How can people do something like that?” asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.

He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.

abandoned home that served as a clubhouse — and allegedly a torture chamber — for a street gang accused of trapping and brutalizing three gay men sits in a neighborhood where homosexuality is both common and tolerated, residents said.

Gay men and women lived openly, and while neighbors were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the group of young men alleged to have been involved in the attacks, some said they hadn’t previously targeted homosexuals.

“I was friends with all of them,” said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the Bronx neighborhood.

“They were chill. There was no beef,” she said. “I had no idea they had no heart.”

New York City leaders continued to express outrage Saturday over the attacks, which police say took place over several hours on two nights. Seven suspects were arrested on Thursday and Friday. One was arrested Saturday and one is still at large.

Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay.

Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.

Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.

Five City Council members and other elected officials visited the block Saturday and stood outside the empty brick townhouse where the attacks had taken place.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the two suspects still being sought. She and her colleagues were joined by area ministers, civic leaders and residents, who marched in solidarity with the victims.

“People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individuals do not represent their neighborhood,” said Quinn. “They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated ... could happen here.”

The first of the attacks happened in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. The next two began the next night, and lasted into the early hours of Oct. 4.

Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place Saturday, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.

The girls said the young men, who ranged in age from 16 to 23, were “the nicest ever.” Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.

Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened. Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack “the next day,” but said that, like other young people in the area, “We don’t talk to cops. We don’t like them.”

The victims, authorities said, didn’t call the police either.

Residents on the block said they were shocked by the violence.

“How can people do something like that?” asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air-conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.

He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.

A spokesman for the Bronx sistrict attorney said the seven suspects in custody were awaiting arraignment Saturday on charges that would include abduction and sodomy as a hate crime.

2 arrested in anti-gay beating at famed NY gay bar - Boston.com

A patron at the Stonewall Inn, a powerful symbol of the gay rights movement since protests over a 1969 police raid there, was tackled to the floor and beaten in an anti-gay bias attack over the weekend, authorities said.

Two men were arrested in the early Sunday beating, which came little more than a day after a group of male friends bidding an affectionate good night to each other were attacked in another anti-gay assault elsewhere in Manhattan, prosecutors said.

The attacks came amid heightened attention to anti-gay bullying following a string of suicides attributed to it last month, including a New Jersey college student's Sept. 22 plunge off the George Washington Bridge after his sexual encounter with a man in his dorm room was secretly streamed online.

But the attack prosecutors described at the Stonewall Inn especially galled and saddened gay rights advocates, some of whom wondered whether a place known for a defining moment in the history of gay rights might spur a new push for tolerance.

For the Stonewall's owners, the episode was a sharp and upsetting contrast to its legacy.

"We at the Stonewall Inn are exceedingly troubled that hate crimes like this can and do still occur in this day and age. Obviously the impact of these men's violent actions is even deeper given that it occurred on the premises of the Stonewall Inn," an owner, Bill Morgan, wrote in an e-mail.

The victim was using a restroom at the Greenwich Village bar around 2 a.m. Sunday when a man at the next urinal, Matthew Francis, asked what kind of an establishment it was, prosecutors said. On being told it was a gay bar, Francis used an anti-gay slur and told the victim to get away from him, assistant district attorney Kiran Singh said.

"I don't like gay people. Don't pee next to me," Francis added, according to the prosecutor.

Francis, 21, then demanded money, punched the victim in the face and continued beating him after a co-defendant blocked the door, tackled the victim and held him down, Singh said. The victim was treated at a hospital and was released, she said.

Francis said nothing at his arraignment Monday. A defense lawyer said Francis wasn't the aggressor and that the episode wasn't motivated by bias.

"Mr. Francis is not a violent person. Nor did he try to rob anyone," said the attorney, Angel Soto. "There may have been a fight, but it certainly wasn't a hate crime."

Francis was held on $10,000 bond. His co-defendant was awaiting arraignment.

Just before midnight Friday, several male friends hugging and kissing each other good night in Manhattan's gay friendly Chelsea neighborhood were confronted by a group of more than five people who used an anti-gay epithet and told them to go home because "this is our neighborhood," according to a court document filed by prosecutors. Two other men lashed out with fists as Andrew Jackson hurled a metal garbage can into one victim's head, prosecutors said.

Jackson, 20, was arraigned over the weekend on hate crime assault and other charges. His lawyer, Anne Costanzo, declined to comment Monday.

The Stonewall Inn became a rallying point for gay rights in June 1969, when a police raid sparked an uprising in an era when gay men and women were often in the shadows. Stonewall patrons fought with officers, and several days of demonstrations followed, in an outpouring that became a formative moment in the gay rights movement.

"The riots at Stonewall gave way to protests, and protests gave way to a movement, and the movement gave way to a transformation that continues to this day," President Barack Obama said at a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month reception at the White House in June 2009.

The Stonewall riots' influence also is reflected in the names of some gay resource organizations, including student groups at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa.

For the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which works to combat attacks on gays and others, assaults like this weekend's remain all too common problems. But the attack at the Stonewall Inn reverberates with a particularly disturbing resonance, executive director Sharon Stapel said.

"Even in a bar like the Stonewall Inn, which started a huge part of the gay rights movement -- even the Stonewall Inn is not immune to this sort of violence, despite all of the work that they do to create a safe and tolerant atmosphere," Stapel said. "It's incredibly sad."

But she said she hoped the incident and the atmosphere of concern about anti-gay harassment would spark new conversations about how to respond.

The Stonewall Inn has raised money for the Anti-Violence Project and other groups, and managers strive to make the bar inclusive, Morgan said.

"We do our best to run a nice, welcoming establishment where anyone can and should feel safe," he said.

NYC leaders condemn ‘vicious’ attack on 3 gays- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut

NEW YORK — Outraged city leaders said Saturday that the city wouldn’t tolerate the “vicious” hatred that had apparently caused a street gang’s alleged beating and torture of three men because they were gay as an eighth suspect in the beatings was arrested.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that several of the suspects had made statements implicating themselves in the crime, which occurred in a neighborhood where residents said homosexuality is both common and tolerated.

Asked if the men had expressed any remorse for what they had done, Kelly said “I wouldn’t call it remorse.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was “sickened” by the violence, that police said included sodomizing one of the men with a plunger handle and hourslong torture of others. The attack came amid heightened attention to anti-gay bullying following a string of teen suicides attributed to it last month around the country.

“Like many New Yorkers, I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened by the anti-gay bias that contributed to them,” the mayor said. “The heartless men who committed these crimes should know that their fellow New Yorkers will not tolerate their vicious acts, or the hatred that fuels them.”

The suspects arrested Thursday and Friday were identified as Ildefonzo Mendez, 23; David Rivera, 21; four 17-year-olds, Steven Caraballo, Denis Peitars, Nelson Falu and Bryan Almonte; and Brian Cepeda, 16. All face charges including robbery, assault and unlawful imprisonment as hate crimes; Mendez, Rivera and Falu were additionally charged with committing a criminal sex act.

The eighth suspect, Elmer Confresi, 23, of the Bronx, turned himself in on Saturday. Kelly said that a lawyer representing the ninth suspect had arranged for his client to turn himself in, but never showed.

The suspects were awaiting possible arraignment Saturday, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said.

Bryan Almonte’s stepmother, Carmen, told The New York Times that the teen was hospitalized Friday night after going into diabetic shock during his arrest. She said his father died three months ago.

“Bryan is not a bad kid,” she told the newspaper. “If he was there, he didn’t do anything.”

Cepeda was interested in becoming a police officer, said his mother, Ada Cepeda.

“He’s not rude; he’s quite intelligent,” Cepeda told the Times. “I’m a realist. It’s not that my son is a saint. But I doubt he would do that.”

Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay, and trapped and brutalized the men on Oct. 3-4.

Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.

Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too, police said. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, and other elected officials went to the empty brick townhouse where the attacks took place Saturday and passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the remaining suspects.

“People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individulas do not represent their neighborhood,” said Quinn. “They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated ... could happen here.”

Gay men and women lived openly in the neighborhood, and while residents were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the suspects, some said they hadn’t previously targeted homosexuals.

“I was friends with all of them,” said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the neighborhood.

“They were chill. There was no beef,” she said Saturday. “I had no idea they had no heart.”

Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.

The girls said the young men were “the nicest ever.” Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.

Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened.

Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack, “the next day,” but said that, like other young people in the area, “We don’t talk to cops. We don’t like them.”

The victims, authorities said, didn’t call the police either.

“How can people do something like that?” asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.

He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.

abandoned home that served as a clubhouse — and allegedly a torture chamber — for a street gang accused of trapping and brutalizing three gay men sits in a neighborhood where homosexuality is both common and tolerated, residents said.

Gay men and women lived openly, and while neighbors were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the group of young men alleged to have been involved in the attacks, some said they hadn’t previously targeted homosexuals.

“I was friends with all of them,” said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the Bronx neighborhood.

“They were chill. There was no beef,” she said. “I had no idea they had no heart.”

New York City leaders continued to express outrage Saturday over the attacks, which police say took place over several hours on two nights. Seven suspects were arrested on Thursday and Friday. One was arrested Saturday and one is still at large.

Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay.

Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.

Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.

Five City Council members and other elected officials visited the block Saturday and stood outside the empty brick townhouse where the attacks had taken place.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the two suspects still being sought. She and her colleagues were joined by area ministers, civic leaders and residents, who marched in solidarity with the victims.

“People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individuals do not represent their neighborhood,” said Quinn. “They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated ... could happen here.”

The first of the attacks happened in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. The next two began the next night, and lasted into the early hours of Oct. 4.

Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place Saturday, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.

The girls said the young men, who ranged in age from 16 to 23, were “the nicest ever.” Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.

Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened. Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack “the next day,” but said that, like other young people in the area, “We don’t talk to cops. We don’t like them.”

The victims, authorities said, didn’t call the police either.

Residents on the block said they were shocked by the violence.

“How can people do something like that?” asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air-conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.

He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.

A spokesman for the Bronx sistrict attorney said the seven suspects in custody were awaiting arraignment Saturday on charges that would include abduction and sodomy as a hate crime.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Israeli Police Given Protection for Killing

By Mel Frykberg
SHUAFAT, Occupied East Jerusalem, Oct 6, 2010 (IPS) - A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead -- often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke -- a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.

Father of five, 38-year-old Ezzidine Al-Kawazba from Hebron became the latest Palestinian casualty to die at the hands of the Israeli security forces in disputed circumstances. The policeman who shot Al-Kawazba alleged that his weapon went off "accidentally" and that he "didn't mean to kill the labourer."

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab Minister of the Israeli Knesset, condemned the shooting. "Once again Israel's police officers and border police shoot and kill an Arab in cold blood. This time it was a father to many children who was trying to enter Jerusalem to find work for his livelihood.

"Again the automatic false claim was made that a Palestinian tried to take a Border Policeman's weapon. Will the police force, once again, rally behind this murdering officer? Will he, too, gain the status of a hero that killed another Arab?"

Earlier, IPS attended the funeral of Sameh Sarhan from East Jerusalem after he was shot dead by an Israeli security guard, who claimed self-defence, outside the illegal Israeli settlement of King David in occupied East Jerusalem. Video evidence taken at the scene contradicted the security guard's version of events. Sarhan's killing sparked a week of riots.

The latest killing in Issawiya came as two Israeli soldiers were convicted by an Israeli military court of using Palestinians as human shields during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza December 2008-January 2009, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilian.

The soldiers were convicted of offences including inappropriate behaviour and overstepping authority for ordering an 11-year-old Palestinian boy to search bags suspected to have been booby-trapped.

The Israeli police have said they are investigating the two latest shootings. However, a lack of confidence in the integrity of police investigations when security force members are involved in the killing of unarmed Palestinians has been backed by several Israeli rights groups.

The Israel Democracy Institute is due to release a report accusing the Israeli police of "bias in analysing evidence" in relation to three Israeli-Arabs shot dead by police during the October 2000 riots (the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifadah, or uprising) in northern Israel. Thirteen Palestinians were shot dead and hundreds were injured.

The study investigates the circumstances which prompted then Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz to follow the state prosecutor's recommendation to close the inquiries into the deaths of three men on the basis of lack of evidence.

Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined files containing dozens of pieces of accumulated evidence.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that according to the investigators, "the study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen, and the prosecution, did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analysing the evidence."

Several months ago Israeli policeman Shahar Mizrahi, who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian motorist who he claimed was a car thief, was sentenced to an original 15 months imprisonment. This was later doubled to 30 months on appeal when an Israeli court found the killing unnecessary as the officer's life was not in danger as he had claimed.

Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel's internal security minister, and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. "I won't merely support a pardon bid, I'll lead it," added Aharonovitch.

Israeli police gave Mizrahi more than 42,500 dollars for legal expenses in the initial criminal case, and a further 50,000 dollars for his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported earlier in the year that only "six percent of investigations yielded indictments against Israeli soldiers who harmed Palestinians."

Another Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem released a report last month 'Void of Responsibility: Israel Military Policy not to investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers'.

In the report B'tselem stated that "at the beginning of the second Intifadah, the Judge Advocate General's Office announced that it was defining the situation in the Occupied Territories as an 'armed conflict', and that investigations would be opened only in exceptional cases, in which there was a suspicion that a criminal offence had been committed.

"This policy, which led to a significant drop in Military Police investigations of homicide cases, ignored the varying character of the army's actions in the Occupied Territories, and treated every act carried out by soldiers as a combat action, even in cases when these acts bear the clear hallmarks of a policing action." Meanwhile, another Palestinian mosque near Bethlehem was torched and vandalised on Sunday night by Israeli settlers. A number of copies of the Koran were reported destroyed. Clashes then broke out between Palestinians and the settlers. Israeli soldiers subsequently arrived and forced the settlers to retreat, but none were arrested.

Several West Bank mosques have been subjected to settler vandalism and arson attacks since last year. Others have had anti-Arab and anti-Muslim graffiti scrawled on their walls. The Israeli authorities have not charged anyone.

Israeli Police Given Protection for Killing

By Mel Frykberg
SHUAFAT, Occupied East Jerusalem, Oct 6, 2010 (IPS) - A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead -- often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke -- a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.

Father of five, 38-year-old Ezzidine Al-Kawazba from Hebron became the latest Palestinian casualty to die at the hands of the Israeli security forces in disputed circumstances. The policeman who shot Al-Kawazba alleged that his weapon went off "accidentally" and that he "didn't mean to kill the labourer."

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab Minister of the Israeli Knesset, condemned the shooting. "Once again Israel's police officers and border police shoot and kill an Arab in cold blood. This time it was a father to many children who was trying to enter Jerusalem to find work for his livelihood.

"Again the automatic false claim was made that a Palestinian tried to take a Border Policeman's weapon. Will the police force, once again, rally behind this murdering officer? Will he, too, gain the status of a hero that killed another Arab?"

Earlier, IPS attended the funeral of Sameh Sarhan from East Jerusalem after he was shot dead by an Israeli security guard, who claimed self-defence, outside the illegal Israeli settlement of King David in occupied East Jerusalem. Video evidence taken at the scene contradicted the security guard's version of events. Sarhan's killing sparked a week of riots.

The latest killing in Issawiya came as two Israeli soldiers were convicted by an Israeli military court of using Palestinians as human shields during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza December 2008-January 2009, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilian.

The soldiers were convicted of offences including inappropriate behaviour and overstepping authority for ordering an 11-year-old Palestinian boy to search bags suspected to have been booby-trapped.

The Israeli police have said they are investigating the two latest shootings. However, a lack of confidence in the integrity of police investigations when security force members are involved in the killing of unarmed Palestinians has been backed by several Israeli rights groups.

The Israel Democracy Institute is due to release a report accusing the Israeli police of "bias in analysing evidence" in relation to three Israeli-Arabs shot dead by police during the October 2000 riots (the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifadah, or uprising) in northern Israel. Thirteen Palestinians were shot dead and hundreds were injured.

The study investigates the circumstances which prompted then Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz to follow the state prosecutor's recommendation to close the inquiries into the deaths of three men on the basis of lack of evidence.

Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined files containing dozens of pieces of accumulated evidence.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that according to the investigators, "the study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen, and the prosecution, did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analysing the evidence."

Several months ago Israeli policeman Shahar Mizrahi, who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian motorist who he claimed was a car thief, was sentenced to an original 15 months imprisonment. This was later doubled to 30 months on appeal when an Israeli court found the killing unnecessary as the officer's life was not in danger as he had claimed.

Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel's internal security minister, and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. "I won't merely support a pardon bid, I'll lead it," added Aharonovitch.

Israeli police gave Mizrahi more than 42,500 dollars for legal expenses in the initial criminal case, and a further 50,000 dollars for his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported earlier in the year that only "six percent of investigations yielded indictments against Israeli soldiers who harmed Palestinians."

Another Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem released a report last month 'Void of Responsibility: Israel Military Policy not to investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers'.

In the report B'tselem stated that "at the beginning of the second Intifadah, the Judge Advocate General's Office announced that it was defining the situation in the Occupied Territories as an 'armed conflict', and that investigations would be opened only in exceptional cases, in which there was a suspicion that a criminal offence had been committed.

"This policy, which led to a significant drop in Military Police investigations of homicide cases, ignored the varying character of the army's actions in the Occupied Territories, and treated every act carried out by soldiers as a combat action, even in cases when these acts bear the clear hallmarks of a policing action." Meanwhile, another Palestinian mosque near Bethlehem was torched and vandalised on Sunday night by Israeli settlers. A number of copies of the Koran were reported destroyed. Clashes then broke out between Palestinians and the settlers. Israeli soldiers subsequently arrived and forced the settlers to retreat, but none were arrested.

Several West Bank mosques have been subjected to settler vandalism and arson attacks since last year. Others have had anti-Arab and anti-Muslim graffiti scrawled on their walls. The Israeli authorities have not charged anyone.