Former Green Party 2008 presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney at the Free Mumia rally in Philadelphia on April 19, 2008.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Cynthia McKinney and the Kidnapping of the Spirit of Humanity
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney returned home today after 6 days being held by the government of Israel while attempting with 21 colleagues to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza on the vessel, the Spirit of Humanity.
“Don’t sign Miss Cynthia don’t sign!” So chanted a boisterous group of Palestinian teens and pre-teens in Beirut’s Shatila Refugee Camp demonstrating support for the Freegaza Humanity boat abductees on the 4th of July.
The students understood that those illegally arrested while in International waters had been offered a “get out of Jail Free” pass if they confessed in writing to violating Israel’s territorial waters.
The Spirit of Humanity boat, trying to bring emergency humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, was the topic of a lively discussion during a Sabra Shatila Foundation summer school civics lesson on “International law and the Question of Palestine”. The students were interested in the plight of some of their relatives and countryman in Palestine and the continuing siege of Gaza. Some had just finished their Baccalaureate exams and were wondering how they could continue their education given the severe impediments the government of Lebanon places on Palestinian civil rights, and their post exam relief seemed to energize them for the discussion.
A couple of the students had met Cynthia during her recent visits to Lebanon. When they learned that as a Congresswoman, she had introduced articles of impeachment against Bush, was a consistent anti-war voter during her twelve years in Congress, and that no member in Congress had achieved a more consistent, principled, voting record of issues of civil and human rights, including Palestinian rights, they really connected with the subject of the Freegaza aid boat, the Spirit of Humanity and her travails. “Those supporters of Palestine should not accept a false confession and should stay in Jail if necessary. They are patriots” was a commonly expressed sentiment.
The students understood that in refusing to sign the Israeli government prepared “acknowledgement/confession” the Freegaza group acted consistent with International Law. They learned that territorial waters, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is a belt of coastal waters extending at most twelve nautical miles from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of the state, although foreign ships (both military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it. They learned from media reports that in any case the Humanity was in International waters and that consequently Israel had no right to molest it.
The class adjourned sharing a general consensus that the Spirit of Humanity, enjoyed and will continue to enjoy on every subsequent humanitarian voyage, these freedoms as well as other internationally lawful uses of the sea within contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, and on the high seas. Needless to report, were it possible for them, the whole class would like to be on the next Freegaza boat.
Special UN Rapportteur, Richard Falk, condemned from Geneva Israel’s seizure of the Freegaza boat, Humanity, carrying relief aid for the Gaza Strip "unlawful" and said its blockade of the territory constituted a "continuing crime against humanity". Falk said the move was part of Israel's "cruel blockade of the entire Palestinia n population of Gaza" in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting any form of collective punishment against "an occupied people".
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a Report this this week in which it claimed that Israel was also halting entry to Gaza of building materials and spare parts needed to repair damage from its 22-day invasion late last December.
Israel unsuccessfully sought (since no one apparently signed) to avoid international capability for its criminal conduct against the Humanity group by getting their victims to sign a statement agreeing that they violated Israeli territorial waters.
The claim that the Humanity was sailing in a “closed military zone” is also bogus. Since its 1967 aggression, Israel has used an obscure 1858 Ottoman Lands Law to create “closed military zones” in order to steal thousands of acres of Palestinian land using complex ‘legal’ and catch-22 bureaucratic measures. These ‘special security areas (SSAS) were designed to meet Israel’s expansionist goals and are now being applied by the Israeli government to International waters. The Humanity had every right and indeed responsibility to reject Israel’s transparent efforts at expanding its control of the high seas. The freegaze boat, the Humanity, enjoyed and will continue to enjoy on every subsequent humanitarian voyage, these freedoms and other internationally lawful uses of the sea within contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, as well as on the high seas.
Reflecting this obligation, the LOSC reserves the high seas for ‘peaceful purposes’. Only Military activities that are consistent with the UN Charter are allowed within the ‘peaceful purposes’ for which the high seas are reserved. Israel’s actions on June 30, 2009, reflecting its three year siege of Gaza, clearly did not meet the international standard of ‘peaceful purposes’ and its crimes against the Humanity boat group are part and parcel, as Professor Falk noted, of its continuing crimes against Humanity itself.
Israel's false arrest and false imprisonment of Journalists on board the Humanity contravened its international legal obligations, imposed by international customary law as well as statutory enactments. The Johannesburg Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information of 1995, an amalgam of general principles of international law and customary international law, states that the government of States that would interfere with the work of Journalists bares the "burden of demonstrating the validity of the restriction.” The blanket ban instituted by Israel in November 2008, as its prepared its assault of Gaza and its response did not meet this standard nor did the arrests of Journalists on board the Humanity, including Al Jazeera’s Othman Al-Battiri and cameraman Mansour Al-Ibbi, and Press TV’s Cynthia McKinney.
Israel was required to give the journalists on board the Humanity respect for their life, property and personal dignity based on General principles of the international law relating to the protection of human rights including Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols as well as international practice of States and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Journalists on the Humanity were civilians and they share the rights of any member of the civilian population and must be treated as such. Abducting, falsely arresting and falsely imprisoning a journalist is prohibited as are acts or threats of violence, psychological pressure and intimidation in order to pressure them into signing ‘confessions’ or summary ‘convicted’ without a due process court proceeding. Israel’s treatment of journalists on the Humanity grossly violated these international norms.
The International Covenant for the Protection of Journalists (ICPJ), an NGO based in Geneva, condemned the Israeli arrest of Humanity’s journalists and International Lawyers Sans Frontiers has asked the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Arab Federation of Journalists (AFJ), as well as the Palestinian Syndicate of Journalists and the Israeli Association of journalists to start an immediate investigation into the Israeli arrest of the journalists.
Cynthia Mckinney, without support from her own government, stood up for the principals on which her country was founded 233 years ago and spent Independence Day inside a foreign jail. All people of peace and good will salute her and her colleagues who sailed the Freegaza Spirit of Humanity with the universal message of self determination.
Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org
McKinney released, returning to United States
By RHONDA COOK, LARRY HARTSTEIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Cynthia McKinney’s mom said she’s learned that her daughter is on the way home.
Leola McKinney said a friend who contacted the U.S. Embassy in Israel reported that the former congresswoman was released from Israeli custody and taken to Ben Gurion International Airport.
“We finally got word that she was released,” Leola McKinney said late Sunday afternoon. “We don’t know what time she is supposed to fly out. All we know is that they took her to the airport.
“I would be more relieved when I know she’s on the flight,” Leola McKinney added. “But I am relieved that she’s away from there.”
McKinney had been in custody since Tuesday, when she and 20 others were swept up by the Israeli Navy while allegedly trying to sail through a navy blockade. The group says it was attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza.
McKinney and the rest of her group could have been released soon after they were taken into custody but they refused to sign a document admitting they violated Israel’s blockade, according to McKinney’s parents. The group was due to appear in an Israeli court Sunday.
Leola McKinney said she had no information about the court hearing.
Leola McKinney said she had not spoken with her daughter since shortly after she was taken into custody.
Cynthia McKinney and other members of the “Free Gaza Movement ” left Cyprus Tuesday on the Greek-registered ship Arion.
Their ship was stopped when they tried to pass through the Israeli Navy’s security blockade at Ashdod. The group was taken into custody and their ship was seized. Israel officials promised to deliver by ground all of the humanitarian supplies that were on the boat.
Family, friends and supporters say Cynthia McKinney believed she was in international waters and was free to pass.
“The Israelis hijacked us because we wanted to give crayons to the children of Gaza,” Cynthia McKinney said in a recorded statement delivered via telephone and posted on the internet site YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkPvzSZRuDo].
The office of the Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta said in a statement released Friday, “According to Israeli law Ms. McKinney and her fellow crew members were suggested to sign a form acknowledging their deportation… Since Ms. McKinney has refused to do so, she is expected to appear before an Israeli judge on Sunday, July 5, and afterwards be returned home as soon as possible.”
Civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, head of the Atlanta-based Coalition for the People’s Agenda, said he and others have spoken by phone with the Consulate General of Israel.
“Whatever happened, there was no harm done,” Lowery said. “She was not carrying munitions, but medicine. We hope Israel will show compassion and release her and let her go on to deliver the much-needed medicine to the Gaza Strip. … If she were carrying guns, that would be a different thing. [But] she was carrying humanitarian aid.”
Israeli officials blame McKinney and her group for the controversy, saying they were looking for confrontation to attract publicity. The officials note that Palestinian Authority and the rest of the international community had agreed to the off-shore blockade to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified by the U.S. and European Union as a terrorist organization.
Leola McKinney said the trip would have received no “publicity if they had been allowed to deliver supplies to Gaza. They [Israel] made an issue out of it by taking the boat and escorting them into Israel.”
Billy McKinney, Cynthia McKinney’s father and a former state legislator, said his daughter was only trying to show “the devastation in Gaza… Anybody who has a humanitarian spirit would not want to see those people live in those conditions.”
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2009/07/05/mckinney_israel.html
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