Get with the Pakistani and Yemeni governments’ drone programs, which are supported by the US government, or get abducted, incarcerated, convicted, tortured, murdered, or some combination of the above. A disturbing article from Waqas Mirza, at antiwar.com:
Early last year, Pakistani anti-drone activist Kareem Khan received an unannounced visit at his Rawalpindi home from over a dozen unidentified men, some in police uniforms. He was subsequently abducted without being offered any explanation and, over the course of the next nine days, interrogated about his anti-drone work and tortured. After a local court ordered Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to produce Khan he was released and told not to speak to the media.
Khan was due to travel to Europe to testify before parliamentarians about a December 2009 U.S. drone strike on his North Waziristan home that killed his brother and son along with a local stonemason staying with his family. He had also filed a case against the Pakistani government for its failure to investigate the deaths of his family members.
There is a long history in Pakistan of irksome journalists and activists being disappeared, tortured, or killed by the state. Kareem Khan’s abduction and torture, however, is not just another example of the criminality of the Pakistani state. It also reveals a broader pattern concerning the U.S.-led War on Terror and its global consequences.
Over the past thirteen years the U.S. has been involved in a perpetual war that includes covert operations spanning the globe, at times pursued unilaterally and other times in collaboration with local regimes. These operations require extreme secrecy, preclude all attempts to redress grievances, and ultimately uproot any semblance of democratic accountability. The intimidation, torture, and even murder of journalists and activists seeking to document and publicize these policies are crucial components of an embedded imperative to secrecy. While legal and human rights groups in the United States argue for more transparency on covert operations and drone strikes, it is usually forgotten that challenging secrecy in targeted areas involve much deadlier stakes.
In Pakistan the need to silence journalists and critics is largely prompted by the necessity of hiding the state’s collaboration with the U.S. drone program. Its history can be traced back to one of the first U.S. drone strikes in the country’s tribal areas in December 2005 that reportedly killed a total of six people including al-Qaeda member Hamza Rabia and two children.
http://original.antiwar.com/waqas_mirza/2015/05/25/the-cost-of-secrecy/
To continue reading: The Cost of Secrecy
Reblogged this on Starvin Larry and commented:
“In Pakistan the need to silence journalists and critics is largely prompted by the necessity of hiding the state’s collaboration with the U.S. drone program.”
Coming soon to your city or town.