Arab MK stripped of further parliamentary privileges for role in Gaza flotilla

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/arab-mk-stripped-of-further-parliamentary-privileges-for-role-in-gaza-flotilla-1.373859
Arab MK stripped of further parliamentary privileges for role in Gaza flotilla
Balad MK Hanin Zuabi will no longer be allowed to address Knesset or vote in committee debates; last year, she lost her diplomatic passport, entitlement to aid for legal assistance, and right to visit countries without ties to Israel.

By Jonathan Lis
Tags: Israeli Arab Gaza flotilla


Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi will be stripped of her right to address the Knesset and to participate in committee votes until the end of this parliamentary season, the Knesset Ethics Committee ruled on Monday.

The decision to penalize Zuabi, a lawmaker from the Balad party, comes in the wake of her participation in the Gaza-bound flotilla last year. Zuabi, who sailed on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, had already had certain parliamentary rights revoked by Knesset last July.


MK Hanin Zuabi.

Photo by: Tomer

Bangladeshi US congressman takes aim at profiling

Bangladeshi US congressman takes aim at profiling

By Shaun Tandon | AFP –
US Representative Hansen Clarke speaks during an interview in Washington, DC. Clarke …

US Representative Hansen Clarke, a Democrat representing Michigan, is assisted
Since entering Congress in January, the Detroit-based congressman has made it his mission to try to stop racial profiling in the United States, using his position as a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
The 54-year-old comes to the issue from a unique dual vantage point. His mother was African American, a community that has long protested against racial profiling by law enforcement.
"After 9/11, South Asians had some experience of what African Americans have had to go through for centuries here," Clarke, his voice animated, told AFP in an interview in his office.
"I'm aware of, too, the threat against our country," he said. "When you profile somebody, that's not effective because you're devoting attention and resources toward a group of people who probably more than likely are not a threat."
Clarke's district -- Michigan's 13th -- is majority African American and a stronghold of the Democratic Party, with President Barack Obama winning some 85 percent of the vote in 2008. Clarke ousted a Democratic incumbent, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, in a primary election last year.
Clarke sees himself both as South Asian and African American; he takes his surname from his mother, who was a guard at a crossing for schoolchildren. Making his background even more diverse, Clarke's wife is of Korean ancestry.