text:
Human Rights in Algeria Since the Halt of the Electoral Process
|Human Rights Watch
|Publication Date
|27 February 1992
|Cite as
|Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in Algeria Since the Halt of the Electoral Process, 27 February 1992, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/45c9abf12.html [accessed 24 May 2016]
|This report provides an overview of human rights developments since the declation of a 12-month state of emergency on February 9, 1992, after factions of the Algerian participated in a military coup of the government.
|This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
The declaration on February 9 of a 12-month state of emergency culminated a month of mounting human rights abuses in Algeria since the ruling authorities cancelled the second round of parliamentary elections. During that month, security forces rounded up hundreds of members of the Islamic Salvation Front (le Front Islamique du Salut, or FIS), and opened fire on demonstrators in cities around the country, killing more than 50 persons as of February 9.
Neither the authorities nor the FIS have revealed the number of persons arrested. However, those seized include most of the top officials of the FIS as well as imams (preachers), mid-level officials, and several party members who were elected to local government posts in 1990 or to parliament during the first round of elections on December 26. Many have been arrested on charges that violate their right to free expression and association. These include violations of decrees that forbid gatherings near mosques or using mosques for political purposes, and offenses related to criticizing the regime or disseminating FIS communiqués urging disobedience to the regime.
Middle East Watch deplores the de facto coup of January 11, which was staged to prevent the FIS from consolidating its strong showing in the first round of elections. Middle East Watch also condemns the massive crackdown which has ensued, including the indiscriminate roundups of suspected FIS members and the arrests of 12 journalists. We urge the present regime to act to lift the state of emergency and allow the democratic process in Algeria to resume without delay. We urge the release of FIS leaders Abdelkader Hachani and Rabah Kebir, arrested in late January for acts of peaceful expression, as well as all those who have been arrested for offenses involving nonviolent speech or association.
While condemning the coup, Middle East Watch and the Women's Rights Project of Human Rights Watch are nevertheless highly critical of positions taken publicly by FIS leaders that are hostile toward democracy and equal rights for women. We also deplore the acts of intimidation and sometimes violence carried out in recent years by Islamists – whose links to the FIS are not always apparent – against persons, often women, who do not conform to their notions of propriety.
The troubling positions of the FIS do not, however, justify the annulment of elections that the party was likely to win. Such a blatant violation of the Algerian people's right to political participation could have been justified only by persuasive evidence that a FIS parliamentary victory would have posed a clear, imminent and substantial threat to fundamental human rights. The current regime has failed to make such a case, while at the same time itself engaging in massive human rights abuses. (The policy of Middle East Watch toward interruptions of the democratic process is outlined on pages 16 and 17.)
Middle East Watch also condemns the escalation of violence against policemen by suspected Islamist activists. At least nine members of the security forces have been reported killed in ambushes and knife attacks since the coup d'état. One police officer was killed and two wounded during an armed attack on a surveillance post outside Algiers early on January 19. On February 8, two police officers were reportedly knifed to death while attempting to carry out an arrest in Bordj Menaiel, east of Algiers. Two days later, suspected Islamists with automatic weapons killed six police officers in an ambush in the Casbah of Algiers.
Prelude to the Cancellation of Elections
On December 26, the FIS won 189 of the 231 seats that were decided in the first round of elections for Algeria's 430-seat parliament. It was the first multiparty election for that body in Algeria's 30-year history as an independent nation.
The vote was to have been held on June 26, 1991, but a massive strike by the FIS in May to protest gerrymandering of districts led to clashes with security forces, the imposition of a state of siege and postponement of the vote.
A total of 49 parties took part in relatively unfettered campaigning during the weeks preceding the elections, holding rallies, distributing party literature, and debating their programs. The FIS participated despite the detention since June of its leader, Abbasi Madani, and his deputy, Ali Belhadj, on charges of inciting and organizing an armed insurrection against the state.
According to the official results, 59 percent of Algeria's 13.2 million male and female registered voters cast ballots. The FIS won 47.54 percent of the vote and 189 seats, the National Liberation Front, which monopolized power in Algeria since independence, won 23.52 percent of the vote and 15 seats, and the secularist Socialist Forces Front won 7.45 percent of the vote and 25 seats. The other 46 parties that fielded candidates were eliminated. Of the more than 5,700 candidates about 58 were women. Only one, Fatima Kartout of the Socialist Forces Front, won enough votes to qualify for the second round.1
Although some irregularities were reported, including ballot-tampering and the intimidation of voters by FIS supporters at some polling stations, evidence has not been produced to indicate that such acts took place on a large scale.
The margin of victory for the FIS virtually assured the party of capturing a majority in the second round of elections. With its candidates leading in about 140 of the 199 districts that remained to be decided, the FIS stood a good chance of winning the 98 additional seats required to attain a two-thirds majority, the amount needed to ratify constitutional amendments. The constitution, however, gives the president wide powers, including sole authority to introduce and promulgate constitutional amendments, and responsibility for foreign, defense and law-and-order policy.
The election results created panic within sectors of the government and the public that feared that a FIS victory would prove disastrous to the country. Some advocated a halt to the electoral process, claiming, among other justifications, that a FIS victory would endanger the future of democracy and human rights in Algeria. Such fears were based on statements made by FIS leaders, acts of intolerance and violence carried out by Islamists against those accused of "improper" behavior, and the policies pursued by FIS-controlled municipal governments. These concerns about the FIS are discussed later in this report.
President Chadli Benjedid resisted pressure to cancel the elections. He declared his commitment to the democratic process and his readiness to work alongside a FIS-dominated parliament. However, the pressure continued to grow. Complaints of voting irregularities in 145 districts, most of them won by the FIS, were submitted to the government-appointed Constitutional Council, and rumors of an impending intervention by the army began to mount.
On January 11, before the Constitutional Council could rule on the election fraud charges, President Benjedid announced his immediate resignation and the army took up positions in the capital. Since the coup, the Constitutional Council has been silent on the question of election fraud, and the allegations remain unproven.
Benjedid's letter of resignation alluded to what leaders of the new regime would soon confirm directly: that the purpose of the coup was to block the victory of the FIS. His letter stated in part, "We are living through a pluralistic democratic process that is characterized by numerous excesses and tendencies clashing with one another. Thus, the measures taken and the routes that must be taken to solve our problems have now reached a point beyond which it is no longer possible to proceed without gravely harming national cohesion, the preservation of public order, and national unity."2
On January 12, the High Security Council, a presidential advisory body, announced it was "taking charge temporarily of all matters that could affect public order and state security." The Council is dominated by the military, most notably by Minister of Defense Gen. Khaled Nezzar. The other members are Prime Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali, Minister of Interior Gen. Larbi Belkheir, Foreign Affairs Minister Lakhdar Brahimi, Minister of Justice Hamdani Benkhelil, President of the Constitutional Council Abdelmalek Benhabyles, and Army Chief-of-Staff Gen. Abdelmalek Guenaizia.
The Council's first act was to cancel the second round of legislative elections, citing "the impossibility of continuing the electoral process." The Council announced no plans for a presidential election.
The cancellation of elections was denounced on January 13 by the leaders of the two main opposition parties: Abdelkader Hachani of the FIS, and Hocine Aït Ahmed of the Socialist Forces Front. The same day, the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, the country's oldest independent human rights organization, denounced the "brutal and unjustified interruption of the democratic process" as tantamount to "a military coup."
On January 14, the Council announced the creation of a new body, the High State Council (HSC), which would assume presidential powers until no later than December 1993, when the term of Benjedid would have expired. Seeking legitimacy for the coup, the regime recruited Mohamed Boudiaf, a hero of the Algerian war of independence who had been living in exile since the 1960s, to head the HSC, which included only one military official, Gen. Nezzar, rather than the three in the High Security Council. The other members were Ali Kafi, head of an organization of veterans of the independence war, Tejini Khaddam, rector of the Paris mosque, and Human Rights Minister Ali Haroun.3
While some officials denied that the coup was directed at stopping the FIS,4 Haroun minced no words in portraying it as an anti-FIS move, carried out to save democracy and human rights. On January 15, he told France's Antenne-2 Television network,
As human rights minister, I believe that when an exceptional situation in a nation's life occurs, at that point it is a question of defending the whole of this nation, because what threatened us after 15 January was an Islamic state, as is seen in certain countries that I do not want to name here. I say that I defend human rights by doing what is necessary so that my country will not undergo the situation that is being experienced in certain countries in the Middle East and East Africa.5
Further comments by Haroun were broadcast by Antenne-2 the following day:
The FIS, which has at least shown some honesty and frankness in this area, said that it is not democratic, that it is against democracy, that it does not want democracy. It has said that when it takes power there will be nor more elections; there will be the Shura, the religious men who meet together and decide on your behalf. The FIS says there will be no democracy. It says there will be no elections. It says it would use the elections to gain power. Afterwards there would be no more elections.
As a minister of human rights, my question is: Who is there to defend the notion of human rights? Am I going to allow a situation where, in a month or two, people will no longer have any rights? I cannot do that. There are currently men in Algeria who are assuming their responsibilities. There is a great part of the population that feels reassured. We are going to take the time to set up real institutions to lead this country toward real democracy – not some pretext of using a democratic process that ends up killing democracy.6
The Crackdown on the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)
While denouncing the new regime as unconstitutional and urging civilians and soldiers not to recognize its authority, senior FIS officials urged calm and avoided calls for violence in their statements and communiqués. In a sermon at ash-Shafi' mosque in suburban Algiers on January 14, Hachani vowed that the "FIS will remain within the legal framework without renouncing its plan for an Islamic state." He called on Algerians to "keep calm," while urging them "to defend their choice and plans, and to reject all plots attempting to hijack their will and delay the process of change."7
The following day, Hachani insisted at a press conference that his party would "pursue the implementation of its program in a peaceful manner and reject the use of violence," adding that there was no question of abandoning "its plan to install an Islamic state."8 The appeal for calm continued through the end of the month. Hachani told worshippers at the Friday prayer January 17: "I ask you for vigilance and to avoid all provocation."9 Following Hachani's arrest, FIS foreign affairs spokesman Rabah Kebir called on the faithful on January 24 to "pray in calm, go out again in calm, and to give no one the opportunity to rejoice in the misfortune of a Muslim."10
While the leadership carefully avoided explicit calls for violence, there were clearly splits within the FIS about tactics. Scattered confrontations with security forces began two days after the cancellation of the elections, and escalated as it became apparent that the government's aim was to decapitate the leadership of the FIS and destroy the party as a political force.
On January 14, security forces carried out the first mass arrests of FIS members and supporters since the cancellation of elections. The Police announced the following day the arrest of 133 persons "in Afghan dress" – the nickname for the loose-fitting white tunics favored by FIS members – near ash-Shafi' mosque outside Algiers for "acts of intimidation and ostentatious provocations."11 Security forces set up checkpoints to turn back or detain men who, on the basis of their appearance, they suspected of heading toward the main FIS-controlled mosques. They stopped pedestrians, and removed passengers from automobiles and buses.
Many of those arrested were later released without charge. Algerian law allows the police to hold a person for investigative purposes for 48 hours; after that period, they can obtain one 48-hour extension from a state prosecutor. However, with Thursday and Friday considered holidays, persons arrested on Wednesday night do not have to be brought before a prosecutor until Sunday.
The regime also moved to challenge FIS control over the thousands of mosques that are not under state control. A published report that clearly expressed the official view stated, "It is contrary to the law and the wishes of the majority of the faithful that the 5,000 or so mosques that do not have accredited preachers have become veritable propaganda centers and official headquarters of the FIS."12
Several decrees were issued by national and local officials restricting activities at mosques. On January 22, the governor of Algiers banned all street gatherings, targeting the practice of worshippers filling the streets adjacent to mosques to hear sermons broadcast on loudspeakers.13 On the same day, the regime announced a ban on all "political" activities in mosques. Police unplugged or removed the outdoor speakers from numerous mosques, and troops armed with tear gas and live ammunition ringed the surrounding streets to enforce the ban on gatherings.
Enforcement of the new decrees led to massive arrests of FIS clerics, members and sympathizers, as well as to an increase in clashes. In Algiers, Constantine, Oran, Batna and other cities, security forces arrested pro-FIS imams after sermons that were deemed objectionable. A total of 42 FIS imams were arrested between January 17 and 25 and remanded in custody, according to the police.14 Others went into hiding. The government appointed clerics to fill some of the empty pulpits. At as-Sunna mosque in the Bab al-Oued neighborhood of Algiers, one of the two preeminent FIS pulpits, the FIS imam went into hiding at the end of January and was replaced by a government-appointed preacher. The FIS imam, Abdelkader Moghni, had been elected to represent Bab al-Oued in the December elections. He was reportedly arrested on February 7.
Almost daily, the police reported the arrest of FIS imams for delivering "inciting" or "insulting" sermons. On January 18, an imam in al-Maitar, near Boussaada, a city 150 miles southeast of Algiers, was arrested for "inciting citizens from the mosque to rebel against institutions of the state," according to the police.15 In Dar al-Baidha on the outskirts of the capital, security forces arrested an imam on January 31 for delivering "virulent sermons and statements insulting and attacking institutions of the state and its senior officials."16
Resistance to the operations of the security forces intensified. The first fatal clash since the cancellation of elections occurred on January 29 in the capital, when security forces attempted to prevent what an official statement described as "a political meeting" in an-Nasr mosque. The Algérie Presse Service reported one death, while the FIS reported two. Far more serious violence broke out the following week in Batna, when security forces battled Islamists protesting the imprisonment of two imams convicted for "incitement to rebellion and using places of worship for political ends." Medical sources reported more than 20 killed and 100 wounded in Batna between February 4 and 7; official sources put the numbers at 13 killed and 66 wounded.17
FIS Leaders Arrested
The regime has also moved systematically to round up the party leadership. The first to be seized was Abdelkader Hachani, who had been deputized last summer by imprisoned FIS leaders Madani and Belhadj to head the party. Hachani had been jailed most recently on September 27, after giving a sermon in as-Sunna mosque, on charges of "attacking institutions" and "incitement to violence." He was released one month later after the charges were dropped.
On January 22, police arrested Hachani on the basis of a complaint from the Ministry of Defense that a communiqué appearing in that day's al-Khabar newspaper "called for rebellion in the army." The communiqué was signed by Hachani and dated January 18. Entitled "Call to the National Popular Army," it read, in part,
The FIS has not stopped trying doing whatever it could to save Algeria from sliding toward a confrontation between the people and the army....The army belongs to Algeria and Islam" [and is] the shock troops of God for defending Islam and a Muslim Algeria....The National Popular Army [ANP] has committed itself before God, the people, and the world to protect the Constitution and to permit no one to seek power outside the framework of a free and popular choice. It is inconceivable that it would submit to the wishes of a junta that defies the Shari'a, the choice of the people, and the Constitution.
The ANP faces a difficult test: should it side with the people, who give it men and equipment in time of peace and of war, or should it side with a clique of leaders whose livelihood is despotism and arrogance on earth, and who do not hesitate to send the homeland's defenders to murder the homeland's children?
The ANP has a historic responsibility to defend the unity of the country, its security and stability. It can accomplish this only by renouncing its allegiance to despots...and by the sincere defense of Islam, the cement of the nation; of the integrity of the territory of Algeria; and of the people's choice, which was expressed in the elections of 26 December.
[The FIS] salutes a Muslim army that resists taking part in a war among Muslims, the causes of which have been wholly fabricated by the ruling clique that treats people as minors, made itself their regent, and confiscated their right to self-determination.
[The FIS] salutes the vigilant army that refuses to let the plotters against the army, the people and Islam provoke a confrontation.
This communiqué appeared as an advertisement in al-Khabar and was then posted on walls in mosques and in public places around the country. The state-run Algérie Presse Service has reported many arrests of persons accused of posting the communiqué.
Hachani has been remanded in Serkadji civilian prison awaiting formal charges. According to Abdennour Ali Yahia, one of Hachani's lawyers, the FIS leader may also face charges in connection with sermons in which he allegedly called on soldiers to disobey orders from the regime.
Middle East Watch calls for the immediate release of Hachani, as well as those who were arrested for posting the communiqué, on the grounds that the writing and the dissemination of the communiqué are acts of nonviolent expression. While the communiqué bearing Hachani's signature may be regarded as an attempt to persuade soldiers to disobey their orders, its appearance in newspapers and in public places does not create a danger of lawlessness that is imminent. It does not amount to incitement and should be considered protected advocacy.
On the same grounds, Middle East Watch calls for the release of another top official of the FIS, foreign affairs spokesman Rabah Kebir, who was arrested on January 28. Kebir was widely seen as the de facto leader of FIS after the arrest of Hachani, despite the naming of Othman Aissani as provisional leader. Kebir was arrested shortly after releasing an open letter to Mohamed Boudiaf, the head of the High State Council. The letter and a subsequent communiqué signed by Kebir accused the military of hiding behind Boudiaf to disguise its seizure of power. They likened the voiding of the election results to the French colonialists' rejection of Algerian independence, and condemned the government's announced plan to create a consultative council composed of Algerian personalities from various sectors.
Kebir was brought before a judge the following day and remanded in prison on charges of inciting rebellion against the authorities, according to Ali Yahia, a member of his defense team. Kebir and Hachani are currently in Serkadji civilian prison. They have not been brought to trial.
The police are now reportedly seeking another FIS official, Abderrazak Redjam, for having issued a communiqué urging foreign businessmen not to invest in Algeria because of the coup d'état. This, too, in Middle East Watch's view, constitutes protected advocacy.
Twelve Journalists Arrested
After the riots of October 1988 shook the one-party rule of the National Liberation Front, the Algerian press developed quickly into one of the freest in the Arab world. Algerians suddenly received wide coverage of social ills, government corruption and divergent political views, despite the continued state monopoly over broadcasting and influence over much of the printed press.
That progress has been reversed by the arrests in January of 12 journalists, the confiscation of one newspaper, and, most recently, the imposition of state-of-emergency restrictions.
Middle East Watch protests the arrests of the twelve journalists. The actions for which they have been charged – publishing articles attacking state institutions or printing the FIS communiqué urging disobedience within the army – are acts of protected expression.
The crackdown on the Algerian press began on the evening of January 22, when police entered the editorial offices of al-Khabar (The News), an independent Arabic-language daily, and arrested eight journalists. The reason given by the police was al-Khabar's publication that day of the FIS communiqué calling on the National Popular Army to disobey the regime, and a "malicious" report which said that the Republican Guard had resigned.
Five of the eight journalists were released the following day. However, three senior staff members, Director Mohammed Sellami, Editor-in-Chief Zaidi Sekia, and Assistant Editor-in-Chief Abdelhakim Belbatti, were brought before a judge and released only on January 25 after being charged with offenses under the penal and information codes.
A young woman who witnessed the arrests in the newsroom told the Paris daily Libération, "When the police came they did not choose, they took with them everyone who happened to be in the editorial office at that moment. I avoided arrest because I fainted." One of the journalists released after being held one day recalled, "We had not even been aware of the publication of this ad [containing the communiqué]. It had been arranged by the advertising department, not the editorial department. We are not Islamists. We have journalists of all opinions. Our paper is moderate."18
Sellami, Zekia, and Belbatti have been charged with violations of article 96 of the Penal Code and articles 86 and 87 of the Information Code of 1990. These repressive articles give authorities broad authority to punish journalists. Article 96 of the Penal Code states, in part, that whoever distributes or disseminates for propagandistic purposes material "of a nature to harm the national interest will be punished by imprisonment of six months to five years and a fine of 3,600-36,000 dinars.19 Articles 86 and 87 of the Information Code make clear why that code has been called the "Penal Code Part Two" by some journalists. Article 86 provides prison sentences for persons who publish or deliberately spread "erroneous or misleading information of a nature to harm the national order or national unity." Article 87 holds journalists responsible for unlawful acts that they may inspire. It deserves to be quoted at length:
The inciting by any media of information to crimes or misdemeanors against state order or national unity in cases that lead to consequences shall subject the director of the publication and the author of the offending article to penal sanctions as accomplices to the crimes and misdemeanors that are committed. If the provocation bears no actual consequences, the director and the author will be punished by imprisonment of one to five years and a fine of 10,000 to 100,000 dinars, or one of the two.
The trial of the al-Khabar journalists has not begun.
On January 23, the day after the raid on al-Khabar, security forces arrested two senior staff members of al-Balagh (The Message), a pro-Islamist Arabic weekly. The two, Editor-in-Chief Abdelaziz Laayoun and Director Mohamed Adnidni, were charged with "offenses against institutions" for publishing articles critical of the military and a cartoon captioned, "The army has betrayed Muslims and taken the side of the communists."
The two organs of the FIS were next. On January 25, police surrounded the offices of the Arabic-language al-Mounqidh (The Saviour) and seized copies of the latest issue. The police later said it was confiscated because it contained inflammatory articles against state institutions. Three days later, Salah Gouami, the director of the newspaper, was arrested, and the editor-in-chief, Abdelkader Aiassat, was being sought.
On January 27 Fouad Delleci, editor-in-chief of the French-language FIS organ al-Forqane (The Qur'an), was arrested on charges of "attacking state institutions and inciting rebellion in the army." A warrant was also issued for al-Forqane's director.
Both al-Mounqidh and al-Forqane had been banned for three months during the state of siege last year, after authorities accused them of publishing articles "calling for civil disobedience and violence and incitement to commit crimes and offenses against the public order and state security." With the suspension of the FIS as a party under the state of emergency, al-Mounqidh and al-Forqane will presumably cease publication or go underground. Their journalists have not yet been brought to trial.
Foreign journalists have also come under pressure as the police have sought to keep the press away from disturbances. On January 31, police prevented photographers and television crews from filming clashes near as-Sunna mosque. On January 24, security forces prevented 12 journalists, including two Algerians, one Frenchman, five Spaniards, and four Turks, from interviewing FIS sympathizers near al-Kubba mosque in suburban Algiers. They were taken to a police station for questioning and, according to the Agence France-Presse, four of the Spaniards, all correspondents for Spanish dailies, were ordered to leave the country by the following day.
Excessive Force by the Security Forces
As of February 9, over 50 Algerian civilians have died and hundreds have been injured since January 29 in clashes with security forces around the country. Many of these confrontations have occurred as Islamists have attempted to block the arrests or trials of preachers, and as security forces have attempted to disperse gatherings near mosques.
The troops include police, special anti-riot forces and soldiers. While lawyer Abdennour Ali Yahia, who heads the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, credited the security forces last month with showing more restraint than in the riots of October 1988, when an estimated 500 civilians were killed, the casualty levels in February indicate that the troops are resorting to excessive force in confronting demonstrators who are unarmed or armed only with stones. Over 50 protesters have been killed by gunfire while not one member of the security forces has been reported killed in the clashes with protesters. This is prima facie evidence that the forces are using disproportionate force.
With the declaration of the state of emergency, and the recent spate of fatal attacks on police by armed assailants, Middle East Watch is concerned that troops will increase the level of force they use against unarmed demonstrators. When the army was last called out to put down demonstrations during the state of siege of June 1991, scores of civilians were killed. The official tally was 55 deaths and 326 injured; the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights said over 300 had been killed.
Concerns about FIS Positions on Democracy and Women's Rights
While condemning the coup d'état and the indiscriminate crackdown on the FIS that the current regime has carried out, Middle East Watch and the Women's Rights Project of Human Rights Watch are highly critical of some of the FIS' positions toward internationally recognized human rights. These positions, although they have been revealed more through policy statements than a record of governance, reveals an antipathy toward the right of women to equal treatment under the law, and ambivalence toward the right of people to participate democratically in the political process.
The FIS was founded in early 1989 and became in September of that year the first legalized Islamist opposition party in the Arab world. The party has made clear its intention to turn Algeria into an Islamic state20 and apply Islamic law, the Shari'a. Its political program, however, has remained somewhat vague. Alongside statements by senior leaders that a FIS government would respect civil liberties and tolerate opposition voices, many statements by FIS officials cast doubt on their commitment to upholding the rights of all citizens.
The FIS can be judged also by its conduct at the local government level since 1990, and by its alleged complicity in acts of intimidation and aggression carried out by Islamists against citizens whose behavior they deem improper. At this point, Middle East Watch and the Women's Rights Project do not have sufficient data to judge the FIS in these areas.
FIS statements on the party's commitment to the democratic process have been inconsistent and ambiguous. A prominent party campaign slogan has been "No to the Charter,21 no to the Constitution, yes to the Qur'an and to the Traditions [based on the Prophet Muhammad's sayings]."
Acting head of the FIS Abdelkader Hachani told his followers on January 17:
We say to you [Algeria's new rulers], Our constitution is the Koran and the Traditions, but we will go down the path of your constitution, not because we believe in it, but because we would give you a pretext [to crack down if we disregarded it.]22
Two weeks earlier, Imam Abdelkader Moghni, a FIS leader and successful candidate in the parliamentary elections, told an audience at as-Sunna mosque:
Islam is light. Why do you fear it? It is in democracy that darkness lies. Those who refuse the light want to create injustice in society. The Islamic state is not a monster. It is tolerance. The Islamic state will make a pearl out of women, not the plaything she is now....Individual liberties will be respected in the general interest, but liberty must not be confused with permissiveness."
FIS's deputy chief, Ali Belhadj, has been more blunt about his impatience with multiparty democracy: "If the Berber activist expresses himself, the communist expresses himself, along with everyone else, then our country will became a battleground of diverse ideologies in contradiction with the hopes of our people."23
At the same time, FIS leaders have attempted repeatedly to reassure Algerians that the election that put the party in power would not be Algeria's last. Speaking to an Italian newspaper, Abdelkader Hachani presented a vision of a tolerant society:
[I]f an Islamic state were to be established in Algeria, all freedoms would be guaranteed. Ulterior motives have been unjustly ascribed to the FIS. It has been condemned even before it has come to power. The fact that there has been no repression in those places where we won municipal elections last year is disregarded. Other parties' officials have retained their posts. They include even women who do not wear the veil....Our line of conduct is aimed at education. We have a very clear program which we want to achieve through education and persuasion. Algerian women are Muslims, yet they do not like to wear the veil, because they are victims of the government and the influence exerted by the European media, which instill a fear of the Islamic system in their hearts. But women enjoy all rights under Islam. If women worldwide were thoroughly acquainted with Islam and its values, they would reject any other system and embrace ours.
Asked whether the FIS would allow other parties to exist, Hachani replied:
No less than 60 parties have been active here in Algeria in recent years. But the elections have reduced these to three. The others can be said to have been disbanded. In any case, within the framework of our own values and our own civilization, several parties will be allowed to exist. Politics will be enriched by this.24
Thus, even when presenting the FIS at its most tolerant, Hachani's comments hardly embrace the right of women to choose their lifestyle or an unfettered right of all persons to form political parties and movements.
The record of the FIS in local government since June 1990, when its candidates were elected to govern more than half of Algeria's municipalities, provides little hard evidence that fundamental rights would be trampled upon should the party control the national parliament. Local governments have implemented such measures as closing bars, banning "decadent" music and the sale of alcohol, enforcing dress codes, restricting sports programs for girls, and segregating schools, beaches and other public places by gender.25 They have met with uneven success in carrying out their agenda, due to the political dynamics in each district and impediments imposed by the national government. To Middle East Watch's knowledge, however, no gross violations of fundamental rights, such as the wholesale dismissal of women from government jobs, have taken place.
On the rights of women, the FIS attaches a high priority to segregating the sexes in schools and workplaces, and restricting women's sports. It intends to maintain if not toughen Algeria's family code, which imposes a unilateral duty on a wife "to obey her husband and to accord him his due as head of the family" (Art. 39), and discriminates against women in terms of the right to enter into and dissolve marriage, inheritance, and other matters.
The FIS has called home the "natural" place for women, and has blamed their presence in the workforce for exacerbating Algeria's unemployment problem. At present, an estimated 350,00026 women work in salaried jobs in a country of 16 million people. To Middle East Watch's knowledge, the FIS has not presented a plan for removing them from the workforce.
The FIS's conception of the role of women has caused much anxiety in Algeria's women's movement. The party's success in the first round of elections prompted a call by the prominent Independent Association for the Triumph of Women's Rights on December 30 to stop the FIS in the second round, and a demonstration by several hundred women in Algiers on January 9. Many women's rights activists welcomed the cancellation of the second round of elections.
The FIS also has its women supporters. The heavy turnout of women voters in some districts on December 26, after a law that enabled men to vote by proxy for women relatives was invalidated, is credited with helping to strengthen the showing of the FIS. There have been women's demonstrations in support of the FIS since the cancellation of the elections.
In advocating the rights of women in a country such as Algeria, in which religiously-based customs are followed by a large segment of the population, Middle East Watch is guided by international human rights covenants that have gained wide acceptance and are binding on all governments. Prominent among these is the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, which Algeria has ratified. (Algeria is not a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.) Article 23 of the Covenant requires States Parties to "take appropriate steps to ensure equality of rights and responsibilities of spouses as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution." Article 26 requires that "the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground," including gender.
Thus, Middle East Watch opposes the Family Code of Algeria because it codifies clearly discriminatory practices. Middle East Watch also opposes any state-sponsored discrimination against women in hiring or employment.
Middle East Watch is also concerned by the numerous incidents that have been reported in recent years in which Islamists have attacked or intimidated women because they objected to their style of dress, their holding a particular job, living alone, or going out in public without male escorts. Women have been surrounded, threatened, cursed, spat upon, and even assaulted in these incidents, which, fortunately, appear to have declined over the past year.
The role of the FIS in these incidents is not clear. Middle East Watch does not have the data to know how often the perpetrators are members or sympathizers of the FIS, which is one among many Islamist groups in Algeria. To our knowledge, the FIS leadership has done little to denounce or discourage the assaults on women.
Middle East Watch also deplores the fact that the FIS has not renounced houdoud punishments for certain crimes. FIS leaders have said they favor making the Shari'a the law of the land, but have been evasive about whether this would include the amputation of the hands of thieves or the stoning of adulterers, punishments that in the view of Middle East Watch violate the prohibition of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Speaking to a French reporter, Abbasi el-Madani said,
Islamic justice cannot be implemented except in an Islamic state that is able to provide all of its citizens with a decent standard of living. Before amputating the hand of a thief, educate him first, give him proper housing, a job, and the means of living an honest life. First the state must be reformed: that's the objective of our movement.27
Even more disturbing than this evasive answer was an exhibition of political posters sponsored by FIS in Algiers in early January. Among the posters on display were ones that endorsed the application of Islamic houdoud laws of amputation of the hand for theft and stoning for adultery.28
Condemning the Halt of the Electoral Process: A Statement of Middle East Watch's Principles
In condemning the interruption of the electoral process in Algeria, Middle East Watch is guided by a set of principles employed by all of the divisions of Human Rights Watch in evaluating such interventions wherever they may occur.
Middle East Watch is aware that the regime that cancelled the electoral process in Algeria, and many of those who supported their move, justified the action by claiming that a government dominated by the FIS would trample democracy and human rights. As a human rights organization, Middle East Watch endorses one principle underlying this argument, namely that no government may be permitted to violate fundamental rights, even if that government is freely chosen by a majority of the population. This principle is enshrined in Article 5 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, which Algeria has ratified.
While the actions and pronouncements of the FIS to date give some grounds for such a concern, we nevertheless believe that the preponderance of evidence fails to justify so drastic an action as the cancellation of the elections and the crackdown that has ensued, with all its accompanying human rights abuses.
Below is a list of the seven principles employed by Human Rights Watch in assessing interruptions in the democratic process, and a summary of how they apply to the Algerian case.
1. The right of people to take part in self-government through free and fair elections is a fundamental human right, enshrined in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Because of the importance of that right, its abrogation can be justified only in exceptional circumstances that meet the criteria set forth in the following six principles. The December 26 elections were recognized by many observers as generally free and fair, both in the balloting itself and in the openness of the campaign process that preceded it. Complaints of fraud and irregularities were filed in early January, but the staging of the coup preempted any ruling on the complaints, and they remain unproven.
2. The fundamental rights of citizens must be protected against infringement either by the election process itself or by the representatives of the people freely and fairly chosen by elections.
3. The electoral process may be suspended only in circumstances of a public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed and then only to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.
4. Such circumstances would include an emergency that poses a clear, imminent and substantial threat to those fundamental rights of citizens that may never be suspended under international law.
5. In order to constitute such a threat, the violations of fundamental rights must be of great magnitude. Isolated cases, by themselves, do not constitute so clear and imminent a threat as to warrant the suspension of electoral rights. In the Algerian context, principles two through five require an effort to predict the consequences of a FIS majority in parliament. Without minimizing the possible dangers of a FIS victory to fundamental rights, the evidence of the danger remains largely speculative and therefore insufficient to justify such a blatant violation of the people's right to choose their representatives.
Certainly, statements made by FIS leaders on restricting the rights of women and questioning the value of multiparty democracy give cause for concern. Nevertheless, allowing successful FIS candidates to be seated in parliament is not tantamount to the realization of their program; they would have had to contend with opposition from an executive branch that wields broad powers under the constitution, and powerful sectors of civil society.
6. The burden of demonstrating that there is an imminent threat to fundamental rights that warrants the suspension of electoral rights rests with those proposing suspension. In proclaiming an emergency, the evidence demonstrating that this is strictly required by the exigencies of the situation should be publicly disclosed. Government officials have repeated slogans that the FIS is anti-democratic and Iran-inspired but has not disclosed persuasive evidence to prove that its parliamentary victory posed an imminent threat to rights or to the life of the nation. Given the speculative nature of the government's allegations, its burden of proof is particularly high and has not been met.
7. The suspension of rights in the face of an emergency that threatens the life of a nation may never be carried out by means that themselves violate those fundamental rights that may never be suspended. As this report documents, the suspension of the elections has led to the massive violation of human rights, including the indiscriminate arrests of members of the FIS, the use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators, and violations of the right to free expression.
[1] She is profiled in le Quotidien d'Algérie of January 12, 1992.
[2] Le Quotidien d'Algérie, January 12, 1992.
[3] Haroun was named deputy minister of human rights in June 1991. In October the post was raised to full ministerial level.
Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi told al-Hayat daily on January 20, 1992, "You asked whether that was done to confront the FIS. No. It was done in a bid to prevent developments which the country unanimously considered dangerous." The resignation of Benjedid "was the beginning of the attempt...to alter the democratic course in order to safeguard constitutional and legal practices, if possible." As reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Near East and South Asia Daily Report, January 24, 1992 [hereinafter FBIS].
[5] As reported in FBIS, January 17, 1992.
[7] Agence France-Presse, January 15, 1992.
[8] El-Watan, January 16, 1992.
[9] Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Fundamentalists in Algeria Ask Followers to Stay Calm," The New York Times, January 18, 1992.
[10] Agence France-Presse, January 24, 1992.
[11] El-Watan, January 16, 1992.
[12] El-Moudjahid, January 22 and 23, 1992, cited in Marc Yared, "Algérie: Bataille contre les islamistes," Jeune Afrique, January 30, 1992. Some estimates have placed the number of mosques under FIS control as high as 8,000 out of a total of 10,000 in Algeria. Francis Ghilès, "Algeria Again at the Crossroads," Middle East International, January 24, 1992.
[13] The governor's decree stated:
areas around mosques and the roads and streets adjacent to them cannot under any circumstances be used as an extension of the mosques themselves. Any manifestation [demonstration] around mosques is absolutely prohibited, whatever the day or the hour. The use of public streets, sidewalks, roads, public squares, spaces, and slip roads is exclusively reserved for the traffic of pedestrians and vehicles. Any request to occupy public places should be submitted for the prior authorization of the governor. [Algiers Radio in French, as reported in FBIS, January 23, 1992.]
[14] Agence France-Presse, February 3, 1992.
[15] Agence France-Presse, January 20, 1992.
[16] Al-Hayat, February 2, 1992 and le Monde, February 2-3, 1992
[17] José Garçon, "Le FIS déclare la guérilla au pouvoir," Libération, February 8-9, 1992; Georges Marion, "Les violences ont gagné de nombreuses villes d'Algérie," le Monde, February 9-10, 1992.
18 Gilles Millet, "Le pouvoir verrouille les mosquées," Liberation, January 24, 1992.
19 At the official rate, there are approximately 22 dinars to the U.S. dollar. The dollar fetches about twice that amount on the black market.
20 Speaking at as-Sunna mosque on January 3, Hachani said that the FIS "will not abandon its plan to build an Islamic state, and its success in the first round of parliamentary elections was a step in this direction, toward the restoration of the Caliphate." Agence France-Presse, January 3, 1992.
21 A reference to Algeria's national charter.
22 David Hirst, "Algiers Militants Urge Care at the Gates of Victory," The Guardian, January 18, 1992.
23 Jacques de Barrin, "`L'islam dans sa totalité,'" le Monde, January 15, 1992.
24 Interview published in L'Unità of January 20, just before his arrest. As reported in FBIS, January 28, 1992.
25 See Georges Marion, "`Ordre moral' islamique en Algérie," le Monde, July 17, 1990; Gilles Millet, "Relizane, un village à l'heure du FIS," Libération, July 2, 1990.
26 Agence France-Presse, December 21, 1991.
27 Philippe Aziz, "Algérie: le pouvoir en péril," le Point, April 30, 1990.
28 Agence France-Presse, January 7, 1992.


text:
It started out with a couple of liberal policy wonks. One on each coast.
Along the way, Elizabeth Edwards — sensitized by her own experiences as a cancer patient — helped propel it into presidential politics during her husband's campaign.
The idea of a government medical plan to compete with private insurance might have been just a footnote in an academic paper. Instead it has followed an unlikely path to center stage in the national health care debate. Many Democrats insist any legislation must include a public option, while nearly all Republicans are against it. President Barack Obama seems uncomfortably stuck in the middle.
A look at the roots of the idea shows that the policy experts who proposed early versions believed the government plan would become one of the largest insurers in the country. But Obama and other candidates saw it as a compromise between rival Democratic factions. One side wants Medicare-for-all, while the other prefers to subsidize coverage through private insurance plans — as Massachusetts has done. The debate within the party still rages, with Obama in the crossfire.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was the first Democratic presidential candidate to propose a public option as part of his health care plan, unveiled in 2007. Behind the scenes, his wife, Elizabeth, was a strong advocate of his decision.
In an interview, Elizabeth Edwards said that as the daughter of a Navy captain, she grew up with government health care and found it dependable. Later in life, her sojourn in the medical world as a breast cancer patient opened her eyes to the travails of people who had no insurance, or whose coverage turned out to be unreliable.
"I met people who were constantly coming up against one problem or another," Edwards said. "Even people like me, who have health care, know someone who has been through some misery because they couldn't afford the health care they needed."
Before the 2008 presidential campaign, chances were slim that lawmakers one day would consider government coverage for middle-class workers and their families. Liberals had talked for years about expanding Medicare to cover not just seniors, but all Americans. That's all it seemed to be — talk.
Then in 2001, political scientist Jacob Hacker proposed a plan he called "Medicare Plus." Employers could choose either to offer private insurance or pay a payroll tax to finance coverage for their employees through a health plan modeled on Medicare. Hacker, now at Yale University, retooled his proposal early in 2007 as the presidential campaign geared up. It caught on with core Democratic constituencies.
"The unions fell in love with Jacob's idea," said health economist Len Nichols of the New America Foundation.
Hacker said he wanted to bridge the gap between Democrats who supported a single payer plan like Medicare-for-all and those who wanted to preserve the employer coverage that has served most Americans for a half century.
"I tried to provide a case for seeing common ground between those two positions," Hacker said. "There's certainly a strong political argument that single payer is not feasible. Threatening (employer) coverage is a political nonstarter, and moving all health care spending onto the public budget is virtually impossible in the current fiscal climate."
Nonetheless, he said estimates showed his public plan would end up covering about half of workers and their families — gaining a powerful position in the market.
On the other side of the country, a Berkeley health policy professor had come up with the idea of a head-to-head competition between a government plan and private plans. Helen Halpin proposed such a scheme in 2002 for California, a state with a history of failed attempts to remake its health care system. The following year, she retooled the plan as a national proposal.
Called the CHOICE Option, Halpin's plan would let people decide whether they wanted government coverage or a private plan.
"May the best model win," Halpin said. "Depending on the preferences of the population, the system could evolve to single payer, but it would be a totally voluntary transition." Her bet: The government plan wins.
Edwards' health care adviser, Peter Harbage, said he was familiar with both Halpin's idea and Hacker's proposal, and they were discussed in the campaign's deliberations.
"What Helen had here was the idea of choice, and choice as an option," said Harbage, now at the Center for American Progress. "The catch phrases people are using today were part of her paper."
Edwards decided on his health care plan after the campaign set up a private teleconference debate that featured two independent policy experts. One argued for a government-run system, while the other defended a market-based approach like Massachusetts has.
"We were both walking around with phones," said Elizabeth Edwards. "I was listening in." After the debate, her husband decided to go for the market-based approach — with a public option added.
Later on, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton adopted the public plan. The idea remains popular with the public: a Kaiser Family Foundation poll this week found 59 percent of Americans support it.

subset: commoncrawl


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College Basketball Picks – Wisconsin Badgers To Challenge North Carolina Tar Heels in ACC/Big 10 Clash
Written by North Shore Sports, Inc.
Here at Bookmaker Sportsbook, we"re always keeping a close eye on the hardwood, and this week, we"re set to make our college basketball picks in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge clash between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Wisconsin Badgers.
NCAAB Betting Online:
On Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 9:30 ET, the North Carolina Tar Heels (5-1, 3-2 ATS) and Wisconsin Badgers (6-0, 3-0 ATS) will get it on at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, NC. Here at Bookmaker Sportsbook, our college basketball picks for this duel are all set! The telecast will be shown nationally on ESPN and ESPN3.com.
It is clear that the team that wins the tempo battle in this game is going to have the upper hand for your college basketball betting picks. North Carolina"s games are averaging 159 points per game this year, while Wisconsin"s game are only at 112.2 points per game. Even more specifically, the battle to watch is the Tar Heels" offense (#6 at 88.0 points per game) versus the Badgers" defense (#1 at 39.2 points per game).
We know that UNC is going to have the ability to do a lot with its frontcourt. The reason that a ton of people make college basketball wagering picks on the Tar Heels is because of John Henson, Harrison Barnes, and Tyler Zeller. This trio has been good for over 46 points and over 20 boards per game between them, and they are all shooting at least 47.6 percent from the field.
The Badgers have the bigs to counter this threesome though, as they will count on Jared Berggren, Jordan Taylor, and Mike Bruesewitz to play tough defense.
Taylor has gotten off to a bit of a slow start this year at 11.0 points and 5.0 boards per game, but both Berggren and Ben Brust are making up for it. These two have helped the Badgers put together a perfect start to the season for those making college basketball odds picks on them. Brust is averaging 12.8 points per game, while Berggren has been good for 12.3 points and 5.3 boards per game.
Wisconsin is built on its defense, but the team is averaging 73.0 points per game thus far on the campaign, and it is a fantastic shooting outfit. The Badgers are knocking down 49.4 percent of their shots from the field, while converting at a remarkable 47.2 percent clip from beyond the arc (#3 in the country). Even if North Carolina starts to run the ball up and down the court, Wisky has the shooters to be able to keep up.
College Basketball Betting Pick – The Tar Heels won the only game that these two teams have played in recent memory, taking an 88-82 decision back in the 2005 NCAA Tournament. The Badgers were able to stick inside of the 9.5-points that day, and we tend to think that we see the exact same story line come to fruition on Wednesday night.
Making college basketball picks is often difficult, especially if you don"t have the right sportsbook on your side to give you the best prices. Take advantage of our great NCAA basketball lines at Bookmaker Sportsbook and knock down a three pointer in the clash between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Wisconsin Badgers today!
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Limited time offer Bonus code: GP25


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Advanced Checks and Balances using the EmailDirect Interface
Tags: Automation, engagement, frequency, Inactive Subscribers, Inbox, re-engagement, segmentation, send schedule, subscriber behaviors, subscribers, Welcome Emails, Welcome Series
As always, you've taken the time to cross all your 't's and dot all your 'i's, but what happens the one time you forget to cross an 'f' or dot a 'j'? Have you set up safeguards and do you understand the tools at your fingertips to minimize and prevent an email marketing catastrophe?
Here are some helpful suggestions from the mind of an Email Marketing Consultant that can prevent the fall of your email marketing dynasty.
Time Delays
Time heals all things, and can prevent knee jerk mistakes or automated … Continue Reading


text: Funk Volume's Dizzy Wright drops a new track entitled Red Balloons produced by labelmate DJ Hoppa. The song is dedicated to 3-year-old Ryan Saldana who was struck and killed last Friday in front of a family members home. His mother, Jacqui, was a well known blogger who ran the blog Baby Boy Bakery. Social Media caught on to the story when blogger Alissa Circle originating the hashtag #redballoonsforryan to spread the word about the traffic story. People all around the US have been letting red balloons fly high in the sky in honor of the young child death. Dizzy also mentions the nearly 300 girls who were abducted from their school in Nigeria by Islamic extremists last month singing, "bring them babies back in Nigeria." Nice to see artists shedding lights to issues around the world instead of pointless beefs like we've been seeing all week.


text:
Abington Heights student charged in bomb threat
SOUTH ABINGTON TWP. - An Abington Heights High School student called in a bomb threat Monday morning because he thought school would be canceled due to a snowstorm and had not done his homework, police said.
Kullen Hosier, 18, 112 Ashbury Drive, South Abington Twp., called the school's main office around 8:30 a.m. and said a bomb would go off inside the building in 30 minutes, South Abington Police Chief Robert Gerrity said.
Police found no bomb. They traced the call to a pay phone at 1121 Northern Boulevard and identified Mr. Hosie through surveillance footage.
Police charged Mr. Hosier with terroristic threats, false alarms to an agency of public safety and disorderly conduct. A preliminary hearing is set for Monday at 10:45 a.m.
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Side Effects Dir. Steven Soderbergh, USA | Open Road Films | Cast: Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta Jones | 84% Fresh | New York Times: "While the plot may be predictable (and more than a little preposterous) in retrospect, Mr. Soderbergh handles it brilliantly, serving notice once again that he is a crackerjack genre technician." | Soderbergh Q&A at Film Society of Lincoln Center
Lore Dir. Cate Shortland, Germany | Music Box Films | Cast: Saskia Rosendahl, Ursina Lardi, Kai-Peter Malina | 86% Fresh | A.V. Club: "If nothing else, Shortland gives Rosendahl a star-making platform on par with Cornish's in "Somersault": She's a magnetic screen presence who subtly conveys not only the struggle and guilt inherent to her situation, but also a residue of hate that's carried over from her parents. The actor, like her character, shoulders a heavy burden."
Caesar Must Die Dirs. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, Italy | Adopt Films | 90% Fresh | Portland Oregonian: "For a movie with such a brisk pace -- it clocks in at just 76 minutes -- Caesar Must Die has surprising depth, particularly when it comes to the strong performances by the actors, many of them Mafiosi serving time for drug trafficking and murder." | Our review
Porfirio, Dir. Alejandro Landes, Colombia | Karma Films | Cast: Porfirio Ramirez, Jarlinsson Ramirez, Yor Jasbleidy Santos | 60% Fresh | Village Voice: "Landes's tone is never salacious or exploitative, nor for that matter pandering or sentimental. This is a sui generis work—warm, sporadically funny, deeply human, and altogether beguiling."
Identity Thief Dir. Seth Gordon, USA | Universal Pictures | Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Jason Bateman, John Cho, Amadna Peet | 24% Rotten | Los Angeles Times: "The heart of this film is on the road with Bateman and McCarthy. If not for their brilliance, Identity Thief would be running on empty."


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The Maharashtra government has put on hold its decision to delist onions and potatoes from agricultural produce market committees (APMCs). The government on Monday decided that onions and potatoes will be delisted from APMCs in due course while a parallel mechanism is created for farmers in the interim.
Milind Akare, MD, Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board, told FE that the government feels farmers and APMCs need sufficient time till an alternate mechanism can be worked out. Meanwhile, market committees will continue to function as before, auctioning onions and potatoes until the new system is in place, he said.
The state government has also decided not to impose any stock holding limits on onions and potatoes under the Essential Commodities Act on the grounds that the majority of the stocks are with farmers and not traders. This decision was taken after the Centre directed various state governments to impose stock holding limits on onions and potatoes after the fluctuation in prices.
State agriculture minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil convened a meeting of the chairmen of APMCs and other stakeholders to take decisions on three issues, including onions and potatoes in the Essential Commodities Act, the denotification of onions and potatoes from APMCs and the minimum export price (MEP) for onions.
Both traders and mathadi or headload workers in Maharashtra have been up in arms against the Centres move to bring onions and potatoes under the Essential Commodities Act and delist them from the APMCs. They had decided to chalk out their agitation plan on July 17 in Mumbai but that has been called off after Vikhe Patil asked APMCs to function as before. Maharashtra has around 305 APMCs and onions are a main source of revenue for some 83 APMCs; potatoes are sold in 22 APMCs across the state.
The mathadi union has some 8 lakh mathadi workers. At APMCs Vashi site, over 25,000 mathadi workers are engaged in loading and unloading.
Akare said APMCs in the state will continue to deal on onions and potatoes in a normal manner until the parallel mechanism evolves for the benefit of farmers. The government will soon issue mass-scale direct procurement licences to farmer self-help groups in Maharashtra soon and will assist these in capacity building and direct marketing of the commodities, he said.
The APMCs were established for the benefit of the farmers and therefore what happens to the APMCs is a subordinate issue, he added. The marketing


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Harokopos, Efthimios (2003) A Critique of Recent Claims of a Solution to Zeno's Paradoxes. UNSPECIFIED. (Unpublished)
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In a recently published paper it is concluded that there is a necessary trade off of all precisely determined physical values at a time for their continuity in time. This conclusion was based on the premise that there is not a precise instant in time underlying a continuous dynamical physical process. Based on the conclusion stated above, it was further asserted that three of Zeno's paradoxes were solved. In the short critique following it is demonstrated that the conclusions in the paper were due to a non sequitur fallacy made in the reasoning employed. Causality issues found in the conclusion made are also explored. Both the conclusion and alleged solutions to Zeno's paradoxes are then termed invalid.
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|Zeno's Paradoxes, Time, Indeterminacy, Discontinuity, Classical Mechanics, Cosmology, Philosophy of Science
|Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
General Issues > Science vs. Pseudoscience
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Causation
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
|Depositing User:
|Efthimios Harokopos
|Date Deposited:
|15 Aug 2003
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|07 Oct 2010 11:11
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text:
Re: Question on Mail Stuck in InBox
- From: "Steve Cochran" <scochran@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 08:08:55 -0400
Make sure you have updated your version of Vista to Service Pack 2. That will fix issues with stuck messages. Then if you still have troubles, then compact and repair the database using my Windows Mail Utility (www.oehelp.com/WMUtil/) and see if that fixes things.
"John Lane" <JohnLane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:131D9015-8DCD-41DF-A6DB-22C4D0033D87@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Have Win Vista and Windows Mail. Have messgae stuck in Inbox. Deleted InBox.
folder in User/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsMail. Reopen Mail and message
are still there. Look in InBox folder and all message are now gone, however.
Where is Mail really getting it's messages from? Thanks.
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text:
3D-Coat 3.7 updates thread
Posted 07 May 2012 - 02:05 PM
3DC options:
Brush pressure levels number = 2047
Brush sensitivity = 1
Pen depth dependent on pen pressure = On (Pen icon showing instead of mouse icon)
Brush options = All off or set to 0 except zero pressure radius (0.15) and depth modulator (1)
Wacom driver options:
Tip feel = slider in the exact middle
Tilt sensitivity = Normal
If Draw and Clay are set so that depth is dependent on pen pressure (pen icon showing) I get the blobiness others are seeing. If I set it so that the mouse icon is showing, the stroke is perfectly smooth. With LiveClay however, it doesn't matter which icon is showing and strokes come out terrible with either mode selected. My actual mouse seems to work fine though and overall performance is quite good with large brushes on high poly meshes so far as frame rate goes. It's just the quality of the stroke that seems to be off.
Another issue I'm seeing is that there doesn't seem to be any pressure variation detected at all. All pen strokes act as if I'm drawing with a mouse (ie: constant pressure). I used the Wacom Tablet Properties to check and the test bar does vary depending on how hard I press, so I know it's not a driver issue. Here are my current system specs:
3.7.11 x64 DX CUDA || Windows 7 SP1 x64 || Nvidia GTX460 v296.10 || Intel Core i7 875K @ 3.7 GHz || 8GB DDR2 Memory || 3DConnexion SpaceMouse Pro v3.15.2 || Wacom Intuos4 v6.1.7-3
PS: I've been making sure to set my levels to 2047 each time I restart 3D Coat since it doesn't seem to want to remember this setting. Hopefully others are remembering to do this too and additionally making sure the pen icon is showing and not the mouse one which could give the false impression nothing is wrong.
Edit: Attached an image of LiveClay. Left one is pen stroke, right one is mouse stroke.
4.5.12A x64 DX CUDA || Windows 7 SP1 x64 || Nvidia GTX670 v353.30 || Intel 3770K @ 4.5 GHz || 16 GB DDR3-1600 || SpaceMouse Pro v10.2.6 r1934 || Intuos4 v6.3.13
Posted 07 May 2012 - 03:48 PM
Testing paramaters
DX version...
Draw Brush
I million polygon sphere
First brush in e-panel (radius and depth)
Make a slow brush stroke, no remove stretching enabled, no spacing, last top default alpha on right.
Result---- bumpy strokes
Now hold down the W key for wireframe mode. Keep holding down the W key as you make a slow stroke.
Result--- The stroke is improved quite a bit...
Do the same test with a medium speed stroke.
The video was interfering with the strokes a little some I am putting up screencaps...
The slow strokes on the left in the picture shown is without wireframe mode on. The right strokes are with wireframe on as I make the stroke
Same with the medium speed stroke.
The first picture shows the medium stroke speed with and without wireframe mode on while brushing.
The strokes are improved quite a bit with wireframe on when you are brushing the stroke, seen very clearly in the
medium speed stroke.
The blobbing effect pretty much goes away.
On the slow strokes on the right, the varying of the stroke is what I would consider hand jitters effecting the stroke as it does not appear on the medium stroke speed..
If someone could test and confirm this, it would be greatly appreciated...
Posted 07 May 2012 - 04:45 PM
Frequently asked questions
Brushing improvements thread
Posted 07 May 2012 - 05:34 PM
no spacing, no remove stretching enabled
I am using a Radeon video card.
Edit. When you make your brush radius small the bumps do return somewhat... Larger radius works better....
Edit 2 It appears a little buggy, I was starting to get some bumps on larger strokes and light pressure creating more bumps...
Edit 3 I tested with wireframe mode on while brushing and in the GL version your brush strokes are improved also... (see 2 post above)
OK, will wait for next upload for further testing...
Posted 07 May 2012 - 06:33 PM
lol BeatKitano - thanks, although I'm so busy that I don't have a lot of time for personal work these days! Nice speed-sculpt, BTW.. :]
John Kearney
Posted 07 May 2012 - 06:39 PM
@Zeddicus: About the pressure level not saving, I think this may be linked to a compatibility option in the wacom driver's panel:
Try deactivating that, saving and see if it reloads properly.
It was already off, so instead I turned it on and then ran 3D Coat afterwards. When I went into the preferences, I discovered it had changed to 1023 all on it's own lol. Pressure once again works like it's supposed to as well (ie: variable instead of constant). It seems clear to me that 3D Coat lacks compatibility with newer Wacom tablets and may partly explain why Andrew isn't seeing the same issues (Intuos3 has 1024 levels, while newer models have 2048). Hopefully this is something Andrew plans on fixing with his next release. Thanks for pointing that option out, BeatKitano!
PS: The 3.7.11 GL x64 version has the same bumpy brush issues here too btw, so it's not just you.
Edit: In both the DX and GL versions the problem with LC seems linked to pressure. If I make light strokes, they turn out pretty smooth. The harder I press, the worse they get though.
4.5.12A x64 DX CUDA || Windows 7 SP1 x64 || Nvidia GTX670 v353.30 || Intel 3770K @ 4.5 GHz || 16 GB DDR3-1600 || SpaceMouse Pro v10.2.6 r1934 || Intuos4 v6.3.13
Posted 07 May 2012 - 07:42 PM
If I use the DX version, I get a lot of bumpiness in various brushes in surface mode (especially the Draw brush).
Posted 07 May 2012 - 10:24 PM
Something about the pressure, I get good results with the pressure compatibility checked (in the tablet properties) and a value of 1023 in 3DC's Preferences.
With pressure compatibility unchecked and a value of 32000 in 3DC's Prefs the response of the tablet is even better.
One more thing no one mentioned before, the InflateClay Brush is broken
You have to move your mouse or pen, otherwise the brush wont inflate. In versions before you just had to press left mouse button or press your pen down
and the brush worked. I tired everything (airbrush, use falloff, checked and unchecked), nada. Please fix it cause I like this brush.
Specs: i950, GTX460 v295.73, W7 SP1 x64, 3DC 3.7.11 Cuda, 16GB Ram, Intuos4 v6.3.1 w3
Posted 08 May 2012 - 02:14 AM
Anyways GL does as others mention feel better until i get to higher volume resolution when i found myself switching back to DX to continue. But did enjoy sculpting with it again with better sensitivity, Keep going Andrew, Thanks for your efforts,
quick sculpt -
Check out my channel on vimeo Here
Posted 08 May 2012 - 04:52 PM
"The Wind In the Willows", Chapter 7 "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn"
Posted 08 May 2012 - 04:57 PM
- many brushes updated:
Voxel: grow/airbrush/build
Surface: Draw/Clay/Builup/Expand/Extrude/Gum/Rapid/Rapid2/Scratches/Scratches2/Mud/Mud2
LC: LiveClay/BuildClay/CreaseClay/TubeClay/Smudge/InflateClay/FlattenClay/GeneralBrush
- Absolute brush was essentially updated - now it is compatible with LC brushes and works more smoothly in terms of surface shape.
- a bit more multithreading in LC brushes (but not completely multithreaded).
Frequently asked questions
Brushing improvements thread
Posted 08 May 2012 - 05:16 PM
"The Wind In the Willows", Chapter 7 "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn"
Posted 08 May 2012 - 05:38 PM
Also I don't know do I like it that brush pressure default was changed into "Brush pressure only affects draw depth" needs more testing...
Posted 08 May 2012 - 05:43 PM
(I still need to set it to 200-300 depth tough).Flattenclay feels great too...smoothing also feels much faster (strange,ts not in your list of changed stuff)
On my side it very feels like the best sculpting level 3DCoat has reached since it started.I hope it will work for everybody.Its really day and night from a few days ago to me.It feels like the sculpting portion of the software made a one year leap foward...
(Now if we could make custom brushes that would be cool,brushes presently do not store anything when using Duplicate fonction:to be able to make custom brusheswe need those setthings to be stored and remembered:
interpolate on/off,Alpha(pen)+pen options,falloff,depth,radius,smoothing value,E-panel mode,Invert tool action on/off,+all brush specific settings,
"The Wind In the Willows", Chapter 7 "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn"
Posted 08 May 2012 - 05:53 PM
you are the cruel one,mr. monster computer ..with your rig I would do some serious damage using 3DC.
Cruel Artman... still downloading.
"The Wind In the Willows", Chapter 7 "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn"
Posted 08 May 2012 - 06:02 PM
"The Wind In the Willows", Chapter 7 "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn"
Posted 08 May 2012 - 06:02 PM
Posted 08 May 2012 - 06:15 PM
More testing underway...
Now, waiting for the Linux build...
Posted 08 May 2012 - 06:21 PM
John Kearney
Posted 08 May 2012 - 06:22 PM
I opened thread for brushing feedback, let us continue to discuss brushing there:
Frequently asked questions
Brushing improvements thread
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text:
Crime in Connecticut: The Story of Alex Kelly
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The story of Alex Kelly is one of the most interesting, the most socially important of our time. Kelly, a high-school student in an upper-class family in suburban Connecticut was accused in 1987 of raping and threatening girl classmates. As the trial approached, with fear of prison hanging over him, Kelly fled the country. He stayed at large some ten years with the assistance of his parents before being apprehended and returned to the US (not coincidental to the time of his passport's expiration).


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Stocks Lose Half Of Last Week's Gains With AAPL Back Under $600 Billion Market Cap
With bond-traders amiss - no doubt all celebrating the indigenous people of our great nation - volumes were dismal and so was any evidence of a BTFD mentality in risk. AAPL, amid the biggest three-day slide in almost six-months, saw pullbacks to VWAP sold immediately (signaling more institutional biased selling) ending very close to a 10% correction from its highs. This weighed on Tech (obviously) which was the worst performing sector and dragged Nasdaq (and the S&P) lower. In general equities stayed in sync with risk-assets on the day (we note that TLT's move implies around a 4-5bps compression in yields at the long-end of the Treasury curve) though the lack of liquidity made the relationships noisy. Low volumes, low range, a premature ramp in the last hour that gathered no momentum left S&P futures having retraced 50% of their low-to-high swing of last week. Gold and Oil decoupled early then recoupled late, ending the day down but outperforming the implied weakness from USD strength (EUR weakness balanced JPY and AUD strength on the day). Copper and Silver ended the day down 1.4%. VIX 'outperformed' equity weakness and pushed a notable 0.8 vols higher back over 15%.
S&P futures have retraced half of the linear up-trend gains from last week now - though today's volume provides little confirmation... ES volume around 40% below average...
FX markets were relatively dispersed today with Cable (GBPUSD) weakest (along with the EUR) while AUD and JPY outperformed... USD ended 0.37% stronger...
The dispersion in FX was also evident in the last few days volatility in FX carry pairs relative to stocks (where it seems the FX markets have been the lever - because AAPL is broken - to move stocks higher)...EURJPY vs ES...
Oil was partnered with Gold early, flip-flopped down to play with Silver for much of the European day, then recovered to play with Gold for the rest of the day... Oil and Gold ended the day down 0.25% (still better than USD-implied weakness)...
With Treasuries closed, TLT suggested 10Y yields fell around 4-5bps...
across asset-classes (that were open), risk was generally highly correlated - though the 'jigglyness' (which is a technical term only a PhD could comprehend) was rather notable - as we suspect the algos were dominating and notable to find a trend to grab on to... Confirming the algo-based view of today is the fact that average trade size was its lowest in almost five months...
AAPL is struggling (as we noted earlier) - but notably intraday - we are seeing something we haven't really seen in the last few months... VWAP being faded (i.e. institutional sell orders...) amid the biggest three-day drop in almost six-months.
Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context
Bonus Chart: The 'Gundlach' Trade is handsomely back in the money - with NatGas up 19.6% while AAPl is only up 9.3% since inception...
Bonus Bonus Chart: Many have noted the rally in the Dow Transports - and used it as evidence that all is well and those silly-billy Dow Theorists had it all wrong all along. However, two things are noteworthy:
1) The Dow Transports remains massively underperforming... and non-confirmatory... and we have seen this pattern before - earlier in the year..
2) The recent rally looks more like a pairs trade to us! Since QEternity, The Dow Transports and Russell 2000 have diverged notably and then converged today! We suspect this means an end to the 'technical' buying pressure for the Trannies...
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I am sure the mutual funds I own aapl in are doing fine.
The NASDAQ100 is diverging from the SP500 and DJIA - in other words, the 'Q' is falling faster.
This could be the beginning of the turn down for markets - long overdue.
The DOW algo lifting games seem to be over. I would be targeting your favorite DOW stock for short sales now. Mine is Disney...and soon enough Exon, too.
Check out the Contracts.
The only asset I worry about more than AAPL is silver this week. (Downarrow time)
Dude, you could go on a buying spree then!
But, it would probably be too hard to find any @ 1$/ozt.
I have some of those new antelope canadians on the way, and some kookaburros (sic).
I woud like to find some of the canadian bears, but my usual supplier is out.
Somebody suggested Gainesville Coins, but I have a cheaper supplier.
The Robot Algo's are moving in and out of sectors and individual stocks.
Stretch it out a little in human time and it looks like waves, roller coasters, convergence and divergence.
They are hitting the short, medium, and long term ups and downs by being in front of everything and everyone of every time frame and dimension.
FED is feeding them some fine clean stable 220v, everyone else on batteries and brown 120v.
Who owns the robots? Those who own the FED.
F AAPL and their middle men. Boycott them until they build their product(2) in the US. The world doesn't need more Chinese junk.
So Jobs died of cancer, and ZERO insurers will cover telecoms for this... all over the world there is backlash against this... the giant awakes
S&P was negative all day over here:
WTI looks pretty interesting again:
HFTs were all over this as most were sidelined awaiting Alcoa and China (shanghai index and USD bids). Oil is bid as Iran and Israel are dying to blow each other up. Iran denies drone, blames Israel on the cyberwar front, hacking into oil refineries etc. A paranoid nation against a Islamic nut-case nation backed into a corner = War is my Sheppard http://youtu.be/PKs1ctp91FI
Volatility will hit like a freight train
looks like asia just layed a bulltrap, bad bet this lot will boost stocks on open. PBOC just pumped some cash into their banks.
that is bearish. something is up


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May 20, 11 •
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These graphics are wonderful! Shaped sort of like a triangle because the elderly population is so small, this population pyramid for Egypt illustrates a youth bulge of men and women who are 15 to 29. The "bulge" represents 28% of the...... [read more]
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First Human Subject Dosed in Phase 1a Study of ch-mAb7F9
The first subjects have been successfully dosed in InterveXion's Phase 1a clinical safety study of ch-mAb7F9 in healthy human volunteers. Expected enrollment is 40 subjects in this escalating dose protocol covering doses from 0.2-20 mg/kg. InterveXion expects to complete dosing by fall and have preliminary data in early 2013.


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