PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS

In Hebron, this IDF soldier pulls a small boy from kindergarten and subsequently arrested him.

By Stephen Lendman

28 March, 2010
Countercurrents.org

“Under current military orders in the West Bank,

the following activities are defined

as threats to the security of Israel:

putting up political posters,

writing political slogans,

participating in demonstrations and

belonging to any political party.”

The numbers vary, but range at any time from over 7,000 to 12,000 or more. In April 2008, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel cited 11,000, including 345 children and 98 women. Over 1,000 suffered from chronic or other diseases. Around 150 were seriously ill from heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, and 195 or more Palestinians died or were killed in prison since 1967.

As of January 2009, Adalah said about

"22,500 individuals were imprisoned or detained in Israeli prisons; around 70% (or 15,750 are) Arabs." Included are 9,735 Palestinians, nearly 80% classified as "security." Of these, 570 were administrative detainees, uncharged by order of an administrative official, not a judge.

Another 20 were so-called "unlawful combatants" under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law (UCL), saying they're not entitled to POW status under international law because they either took part in hostilities against Israel (directly or indirectly) or belong to a force carrying them out. No proof is needed, only "a reasonable basis for believing" the designation is accurate, and under UCL, detentions can be permanent, without trial or judicial fairness.

According to the Addameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association, since 1967, "over 650,000 have been detained by Israel," about 20% of the total Occupied Territory (OPT) population and 40% of the male population. Most are held in Palestine, but many thousands in Israeli civil and military prisons, in violation of numerous Fourth Geneva provisions, including Article 49 stating:

"....forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons (including prisoners) from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive."

This applies to OPT prisoners, most of whom are political victims of militarized oppression, or in other words, guilty of being Palestinian. In addition, Fourth Geneva states protected persons shall be detained in the occupied territory and, if convicted, serve their sentences therein.

OPT arrests and detentions come under about 1,500 military regulations for the West Bank and over 1,400 for Gaza. The IDF commander issues orders, but new ones aren't revealed until implemented because they're issued any time for any reason, often arbitrarily and capriciously.

Israeli prisons and military detention facilities are mainly located within Israel's 1948 borders. They include five interrogation centers, six detention/holding facilities, three military detention camps, and about 20 prisons where OPT Palestinians are held.

Israeli policemen beat and arrest women at a demonstration held by the feminists who were in support of six activists from the group who were arrested from their homes by the police.

A secret Facility 1391 (Israel's Guantanamo) at an unknown location is notorious for using severe torture. Gilboa Prison, north of the West Bank, is also believed to administer extreme treatment.

"The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power's territory is illegal under international law and constitute a war crime."

On June 7, 1967, Military proclamation No. 1 justified them "in the interests of security and public order," weasel words meaning anything. Since then, over 2,900 orders were issued, gravely harming Palestinians' welfare. "These orders serve as justification every time the Israeli authorities arrest a Palestinian...."

They can be held for extended periods, interrogations lasting up to six months, during which time torture, abuse and other degrading treatment is commonplace, against the great majority in custody.

Unless they know Hebrew, most have no idea of what is being said to them and that continues into the trials should they have one. Add torture and chances are good the young one, or adult, will admit to a crime they had no knowledge of. This is a frequent occurrence. Also, because the Jewish custom is to have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah which makes the child an adult, around 12 or 13, Palestinian children over that age are automatically treated the same as adults.

Muslims are very private about their bodies.

This is an example of humiliation and degradation by Islamic standards.

After interrogation, Palestinians can be detained administratively without charge or tried in military courts where "military orders take precedence over Israeli and international law."

Under Military Order 1530, months may elapse between being charged and trial. The entire process is structured to deny due process and judicial fairness, unlike for most Jews in civil courts.

Activists, protesters and human rights defenders are especially at risk. In July 2008, Israeli authorities, by military order, closed the Nafha Society for the Defense of Prisoners and Human Rights. It's one of several organizations representing Palestinian detainees in Israeli courts and advocates for them in prisons and detention centers.

Mother and wife with a photo of their detained loved one.

Currently, Israeli security forces, politicians and extremist groups are targeting ISRAELI human rights groups in response to their support for the Goldstone Commission report. All computers and files are confiscated, often people arrested and time to serve, although t not under so severe conditions as the Palestinians. This includes many teens who refuse to serve in the army. These all need our support and admiration for standing tall in such an extremely repressive society. Among those affected are:

~ B'Tselem

~ Adalah

~ Breaking the Silence

~ the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI)

~ Yesh Din

~ the Centre for the Defence of the Individual

~ the Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli (PACTI)

~ the Israel Religious Action Centre

~ Physicians for Human Rights ~ Israel

~ Rabbis for Human Rights, and

~ the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) that condemned the practice in a February 8 press release stating:

PCHR condemns the continued persecution of international human rights defenders in the West Bank....and the deportation of international activists from the country."

On February 7, PCHR learned that Israeli security forces entered Ramallah and al-Bireh, storming an al-Bireh apartment building and arresting Spanish journalist Ariadna Jove Marti and Australian student Bridgette Chappell.

The resilient Palestinian spirit in action.

They were taken to Ofer Prison pending their deportation, citing expired visas as pretext. The two women are International Solidarity Movement activists known, according to an IDF spokesman, "for being involved in illegal riots that obstruct Israeli security operations."

Other activists were also arrested, Israel now issuing tourist visas only to 150 selected NGOs operating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including Oxfam, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders. However, they'll be excluded from Area C under Israeli control, comprising 60% of the West Bank, thus hampering their work and imposing additional hardships on Palestinians.

PCHR condemned the action and recommends that international civil society and human rights organizations, bar associations, and international solidarity groups continue exposing suspected Israeli war criminals and pressuring their governments to prosecute them according to provisions of international law.

The extremist Netanyahu government won't tolerate criticism or censure nor its expansionist West Bank plans, including making all Jerusalem exclusively Jewish. His cabinet introduced a Knesset bill prohibiting organizations from receiving funding from foreign political institutions unless registered with the Registrar of Political Parties.

They must then provide details about all "foreign political entity" donations, the source, amount, purpose, commitment made for its use, and more, as a way to harass and make the process more cumbersome.

The bill's supposed purpose is to:

"increase the transparency and to correct lacunas (empty spaces or missing parts) in the law regarding the funding of political activity in Israel by foreign political entities (where such activity is defined as being) aimed at influencing public opinion in Israel or one of the branches of government in Israel regarding any element of Israel's domestic or foreign policy."

In fact, it's to stifle free expression,

dissent and activism,

the way police states do it,

how Israel always treats Palestinians,

now increasingly toward outspoken Jews

and international human rights organizations as well.

Saadi Al-Najar, a 25-year-old Palestinian held
without trial or charge has lost eyesight
in his left eye due to deliberate medical neglect

Conditions in Israeli Prisons

Israel willfully and systematically violates international humanitarian law, including Common Article 3 applying to the four Geneva Conventions, requiring:

"humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, specifically prohibit(ing) murder, mutilation, torture, cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment (and) unfair trial(s)."

Fourth Geneva's Article 4 calls "protected persons" those held by parties to a conflict or occupation "of which they are not nationals." They must "be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention." They're entitled to full Fourth Geneva rights. Prisoners of war under Third Geneva have the same rights and those under Common Article 3.

Israel willfully denies them. Under the 1971 Israeli Prison Ordinance, no provision defines prisoner rights. It only provides binding rules for the Interior Minister who can interpret them freely by administrative decree. For example, it's legal to intern 20 inmates in a cell as small as five meters long, four meters wide and three meters high, including an open lavatory, and they can be confined there up to 23 hours daily.

An April 2009 PCHR press release said thousands of Palestinians "continue to suffer in Israeli jails" under horrific conditions, including:

~ severe overcrowding;

~ poor ventilation and sanitation;

~ no change of clothes or adequate clothing;

~ sleeping on wooden planks with thin mattresses, some infested with vermin; blankets are often torn, filthy and inadequate; hot water is rare and soap is rationed;

~ at the Negev Ketziot military detention camp, threadbare tents are used, exposing detainees to extreme weather conditions; in summer, vermin, insects, scorpions, parasites, rats, and other reptiles are a major problem;

~ Megiddo and Ofer also use tents; in addition, Ofer uses oil-soiled hangers;

~ for some, isolation in tiny, poorly ventilated solitary confinement with no visitation rights or contact with counsel or other prisoners;

~ no access to personal cleanliness and hygiene; toilet facilities are restricted, forcing prisoners to urinate in bottles in their cells;

~ inadequate food in terms of quality, quantity, and dietary requirements;

~ poor medical care, including lack of specialized personnel, mental health treatment, and denial of needed medicines and equipment; as a result, many suffer ill health; doctors are also pressured to deny proper treatment, some later admitting it;

~ extreme psychological pressure to break detainees' will;

~ widespread use of torture, abuse, cruel and degrading treatment;

~ women and children are treated the same as men;

~ NGOs like Physicians for Human Rights ~ Israel and the ICRC are deterred from aiding detainees;

~ denied or hindered access to family members and counsel;

~ imposed conditions link visits:

"with the overall security situation, requiring that prisoners must not be security prisoners and that persons applying for visits must not have a security record, requiring that visitors be first-degree relatives and that brothers or sons applying for visits must be under the age of 18."

Women demonstrating for the right to see their loved ones.

Treatment of Gazans Arrested

During and After Operation Cast Lead

On January 28, 2009, a complaint to Israel's Military Judge Advocate General, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit, by seven Israeli human rights organizations, cited degrading and appalling conditions in which detainees, including minors, were held.

Before transfer to the Israel Prison Service, they were held for many hours or days in pits dug in the ground, handcuffed and blindfolded, under extreme weather conditions. No sanitation was provided and limited amounts of food. Some, in fact, were held in combat areas, in violation of international law prohibiting their exposure to danger.

After removal from pits, some were held overnight in a truck, handcuffed, with one blanket for two people in winter. Others were kept for extended periods in the rain with little food or water. Incidents of extreme violence and humiliation were also reported that continued after prison transfers.

Legal Department Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PACTI), Bana Shoughry-Badarne, said:

"Israel's indifference to its moral and legal obligations to detainees is particularlyobjectionable in view of the fact" that the IDF completely ignored "the basic rights of the detainees and captives" under international law, violations committed against every detainee held.

Since July 2007, Gazan families have been denied access to their relatives in Israeli prisons. Non-Israeli Palestinian lawyers can't represent them in military courts. Travel restrictions impede all lawyers. Meetings with their clients aren't confidential, and most prisoners have no access to an attorney.

In 2006, B'Tselem issued a report titled, "Barred from Contact: Violation of the Right to Visit Palestinians Held in Israeli Prisons," citing obstacles families face to visit their relatives. They include difficulties obtaining required permits and "grueling journeys" of up to 24 hours, the result of long distances through numerous checkpoints plus delays.

This "arbitrary and disproportionate policy not only infringes the right to family visits, it also results in violation of other rights and principles of international humanitarian and human rights law, as well as domestic Israeli law."

In January 2010, Adalah addressed the same issue stating:

On December 9, 2009, "Israel's Supreme Court (HCJ) decided that the state has no obligation to allow family visits for Gazans detained in Israel."

Writer Grietje Baars, a UK lawyer, said the HCJ rejected petitions by detainees, their relatives and Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, claiming that "Israel's rights as a sovereign state" lets it deny "foreigners" entry in violation of international law ~ a clear act of persecution.

Under Article 7(g) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (HCJ), crimes against humanity include:

"Persecution (meaning) the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity."

In a previous decision, the HCJ held that:

"It is a firmly established precept that the human rights to which a person is entitled simply by being human remain even when he is detained or imprisoned, and the fact that he is incarcerated cannot serve to deprive him of any right."

Denying them defies that ruling, and the fact that hundreds of Gazan detainees in Israel are held indefinitely without trial, are in virtual isolation, and can only send their families occasional messages through ICRC representatives.

Petitioners call banning visits "collective punishment" under Fourth Geneva's Article 33 stating:

"No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties....are prohibited."

Doing so (along with torture and other forms of abuse) aims to break their spirit to get them to cooperate or confess to crimes they didn't commit.

Baars concluded:

"Aside from the right to have their rights hououred and protected, and to live their lives in dignity and freedom, the Gazans and the Palestinians in general, have the right to an effective judicial remedy. Without domestic enforcement of international law, the onus is on the international community to fulfill these rights and uphold the rule of law, internationally, for the benefit of all."

The international community's failure to comply with international law lets Israel violate its provisions freely. Unless changed, Israel's lawlessness will continue unchecked, a no longer to be tolerated grim prospect.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/

http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/

Reader, please note that the Israeli government is beginning to come down hard on any Israelis who show a desire to go against the party line. As I have said again and again to those who label the foolish antisemitic charge at me, as with ANY race or culture, there are good, bad, indifferent, artists, poets, healers, murderers, etc etc.

It is the nature of the culture itself which type is nurtured and which is downtrodden. And so it is with Israel. Israel is not labeled an international bully for nothing, but that does not mean every single Israeli agrees with the status quo any more than every American supports its huge war machine. I have said again and again, what and who I am against are Zionists, Talmudists and those who support them, whether through action or complicit silence.

ISRAEL USES PALESTINIANS AS GUINEA PIGS FOR DRUG TESTING

PALESTINE PRISONERS, SHARED SUFFERING, SHARED STRUGGLE, SHARED ASPIRATIONS

WORLD WAR III ~ IT'S HERE!

By Chuck Burr

April 27, 2009

Simulposted with Culturequake

We are just not using nuclear weapons. Resource war, class war, drug war, gang war, terror war, trade war, plus war on all other species is global. Is this the culture you want to say you belong to? Is your lifestyle worth it?

When you look at anything from our modern culture, think of war. Car, computer, toaster, light bulb, money, water, food, population, government, media ~ think of war. The more people, the more competition, the more war. Modern Taker culture is inseparable from war.

Our culture was founded on war 10,000 years ago when one group of people in the fertile crescent decided they had a better way to live, population growth supported by totalitarian agriculture-based civilization. It is now almost universally accepted that civilization is unsurpassable and must continue at all costs.

The world now wastes over $1 trillion on military spending. When you add in everything the US spends on present defense, debt on past defense spending, off-budget covert operations, death benefits, injured veteran’s benefits, national guard employment opportunity costs, we spend almost half the total federal budget on the military.

More importantly though, think about the 175 million people who lost their lives to war in the last century. Several times that many were injured ~ mostly civilians.

War Did Not Exist Before our Taker Culture

Some assert that pre-agricultural revolution or Paleolithic man waged war. However, the archeological evidence does not support this. The work of Marija Gimbutas revealed that Old Europe towns and villages had no military implements or even artwork ~ there is a difference between hunting and warring implements. Towns and villages were sited for their aesthetics and access to crops not defensibility. Artwork frequently depicted the goddess as a universal religion.

There is also some confusion as to time periods, much of the warfare referred to as our prehistory is actually post-agricultural revolution within the last 10,000 years. Archeological references to war only start appearing as waring tribes such as the Kurgans started invading from the east.

Lastly, there is confusion between war and the Erratic Retaliator strategy that Leaver peoples employed. This strategy allowed you to give it back to your neighbors as good as they gave it to you. If you had not heard from them in a while, you could surprise them so they knew you have not gotten soft. Later you have a powwow to make up and trade. After all, it’s not good to inbreed within your own tribe too much, so maintaining relations with your neighbors was important for more than trade. Yes, some were injured and even died, but this was far short of war.

Competition Requires War

We are taught since first grade that competition is good, greed is good. Competition most efficiently allocates resources, and enables the best and brightest to rise to the top. Without competition we would not have a man on the moon or this computer. You know, I can live without this computer. I would probably be better off, and the time will come for it to go. At some point I will have written enough and will just be a permaculture farmer and educator.

Darwin’s natural selection or survival of the fittest has contributed to a misunderstanding of how the world really works. Ecosystems survive through mutually beneficial cooperation not competition. If nature was based solely on competition, there would only be one survivor at the top of each food chain niche instead of the 30 million species alive today.

It is physically impossible to have concentration of resources, material or financial, without war. Competition implies by definition that there will always be a winner and loser, someone at the top and many at the bottom. For the US to consume more in total and per capita than any other national in the world, we must have the largest military in the world. McDonald’s goes where McDonald-Douglas goes (now Boeing).

The simplest way to put it is to envision what can be made, grown, and traded just from current local sunlight. If you cannot make it from local sunlight, you have to exploit and concentrate or take from somewhere else. If you cannot make a modern stick-frame home and everything that goes in it just from local sunlight, you need to get it’s components and the energy that it takes to build and maintain it from someplace else. It is simple laws of physics.

Excessive Competition is War

War also comes in the form of occupation, building a railroad to send the occupier’s people in and to send natural resources out as China has done to Tibet and the US is doing in Iraq for oil but not colonization. Tibetan’s will soon be a minority in their own country.

Globalization is now a common form of low level class warfare. When the IMF and World Bank make loans, it forces the small third world countries to open their markets and sell their natural resources in order to pay back the loans. Local farmers who had saved seeds for centuries are forced to go deeply into debt and buy seed and other inputs from Monsanto. Diversity in the food varieties we eat has disappeared. Free trade agreements enable large producers to leverage their size to put local farmers, manufacturers, and merchants, out of business.

If every American had to live and work to survive in the third world for just one year, things would change overnight.

Our culture has also waged an unending war on the ecosystem that we call nature. In short, our single species is responsible for the single largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs died 65 million years ago.

War is Externalized and Invisible

It is a common belief of those in the first world that we do not live in a state of war. Most would say, “my child does not resort to fisticuffs on the soccer field, we have some crime yes, and the war in Iraq is winding down.” There is however a low-level pervasive conflict being waged with everything from banks to bombs and religion to rifles. The financial crisis today is a war by the banks against the rest of the world to maintain their system of profit and control.

Those in power have found that they can make more money short of large-scale war. A regional conflict here and there to keep people in line is acceptable, “but we are not going let things get out of hand like we did the last couple times.” Banks make money loaning money to both sides. Corporations make money selling guns and support to both sides.

The externalities of never-ending grinding competition are hidden. No one sees the destruction they cause by pushing their cart down the store isle or by shopping online: the exploitation, civil war, resource extraction, habitat destruction, watershed pollution, are invisible to the consumer.

FOR AN EXCELLENT VISUAL PRESENTATION ON THESE ISSUES, PLEASE WATCH THE STORY OF STUFF BY ANNIE LEONARD . THIS IS A VERY FAST MOVING 20-MINUTE INTERACTIVE STORY OF STUFF. AMUSING AND INFORMATIVE AND VERY WATCHABLE.

It would be amazing to see a time-lapse simulation of what happens around the world over the lifetime of just one first world consumer. To see the trees fall, animals raised and slaughtered, top soil lost, and marine life die. Then imagine accelerating the simulation by adding more and more people. People need to connect the dots further out over both time and geography.

What is the Solution?

Sometime I wish that everyone who believes that war is a necessary evil could be moved to some place to duke it out. Or, that I could take my family some place peaceful based on original Leaver culture where cooperation and consensus have replaced competition. But there is no place left to go.

I am just as guilty as everyone else in our Taker culture. I have now realized what I have been doing and am starting my long journey to change my lifestyle. One problem is that modern culture gives us no real alternatives. We have to make the alternatives we need. Shopping at a natural food store and a grocery store has the same affect. Get over going green. We have to become the change we want to see.

The future lies with new cultures. If modern culture was going to end poverty, hunger, war, and environmental destruction, it would have done so by now. As long as it grows, the problem grows. Things seemed fine when there were fewer of us, but now we have grown to the edge of the planetary cage. From now on, competition and war will intensify exponentially as resources dwindle and population grows.

The Bottom line is that if we want the luxuries we have, we are going to have to live with war. We will force exploitation on others we do not see. Start talking to your friends from this perspective. Start asking yourself, “is our lifestyle is worth it?”

Our generation is basically stuck where and how we are. Since the last couple world wars, we blew the cheap energy and resources on the suburbs and expanding our population. But, we still have the opportunity to change the course for our children if we change their education now.

We can go green and buy a little more time and space for more people, but it is a wash. We have to level with our kids and tell them the truth that we are locked in our own cultural prison, and they have to not make the same mistakes we did and to find a way to walk away. Its the old do as I say not as I do parents' dilemma.

Maybe we have to renounce our religion of materialism and embrace each other. We may have to completely flip our world view that instead of the world belonging to us, maybe we belong to the world. Give support to get support instead of making things to get things.

Maybe this is what the future looks like, hobbit houses. This treehouse was built on our farm by Dan Shinerock from the It’s a Burl Gallery in Kerby, OR. Dan walked up to the tree for the first time, engineered the treehouse, drew a sketch of it, did a materials takeoff, and calculated the cost all in an hour and a half. He built the treehouse in four days including decks and stairs you do not see here. Compare that to building a modern home or even just remodeling one.

I am not suggesting that everyone start living in a treehouse, but I would suggest every first world person consider giving away most of their “stuff” so what is left would fit in a treehouse. Just food for thought.

I’ll talk more about some realistic solutions in the future such as how a greenhouse can not only feed you, but also heat your home in the winter and cool you in the summer. Or, how an old world KachelOfen can both keep your family warm in the winter and bake everything from pizza to cinnamon rolls with just one firing a day. There is hope, we just have to think outside of our cultural box.

I believe one should empower the positive aspects of their beliefs, for instance, “Peace Now!” instead of “No War!” However, I felt it was worth taking a stand on this issue and shining a light where we are afraid to look.

My point is that the destructive behavior of our culture, whether high level warfare or low level environmental destruction, happens globally at all levels, and is inherent within our culture. War and Taker culture are inseparable, is this the culture you want to say you belong to?

An individual cannot end war overnight,

but an individual and start the discussion.

Here is a movie I made at the 2003 Peace March in Washington, D.C. to try to stop the Iraq War. There was nothing like the of feeling being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people who share your feelings. We are everywhere.

Visit www.culturequake.org to learn more about the book Culturequake: The Fall of Modern Culture and the Rise of Earth Culture and the blog. ©2009 Chuck Burr LLC

Notes:

Fritjof Capra
Landscapes of Learning: Experiencing ecological relationships and community is the key to ecoliteracy, Resurgence, Sept/Oct 2004, p 8

Murray Bookchin
The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy, p. 91

War Resisters League
Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

Norman D. Livergood
America, Awake!, p. 108

Peter Starck
World Military Spending Topped $1 Trillion in 2004

Marija Gimbutas
The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe

Free Tibet
The Gormo-Lhasa railway

Jim Merkel
Radical Simplicity: small footprints on a finite Earth, p. 9

Chuck Burr
Fall of the American Empire

John Cavanagh and Jerry Mander
Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible

Dan Shinerock
It’s A Burl Gallery

VANCOUVER ISLAND ~ MY HOME

I feel privileged to live where I live ~ there is no other way to put it. The air is as clean as the ocean breezes can make it, the skies magnificent. We can actually see stars and constellations at night. From my window where I sit now, over the rooftops I see the ocean and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. Rain or shine, the view is magnificent. So I thought I would share parts of my island home with you all. Some of the following are my own photos; some are borrowed. Enjoy the trip.


These stairs lead up to my friend's old home up on Chesterman Beach near Tofino. Terribly slippery when wet, very dangerous with eager dogs frisking about one's ankles, but oh so very lovely. Like much of the home itself, these stairs are a combination of local natural products and milled wood.


From the bottom of those steps, the surf roars to exclusion of all else, deafening, but oh, so refreshing! The power of the water causes the ground to shake with each thunderous wave. I never failed to awaken early refreshed and ready to walk the beaches with the dogs! You walk through the bushes pushing branches of dew dripping leaves to the side, and there, stretching before you into the distance, are mile after mile of beautiful beaches begging for exploration.

I shot this sunset one August evening on Chesterman Beach..

This is a lovely winding pathway along the shore of Denman Island, another beautiful universe away from the world. Each island has its own distinct culture of inhabitants who have escaped the humdrum world to live a different type of existence.


These smiling ladies share a large organic apple and fruit farm and make a respectable living selling their produce, including this very nummy juice from their roadside stand. There are roadside stands selling just about everything from the hundreds of small farms scattered around the islands. Every community also has its own weekly farmer's markets where growers and artisans sell their wares.


This is the most common sight in BC ~ the ferries that keep our islands connected. Originally built as part of the highway system, in the past few decades the ferries have been privatized and the cost of such transport has become prohibitive for many people. It certainly does add to the cost of living. This is Active Pass and the natives in this area hear the horns 24 hours a day. When I travel, I prefer to land in Vancouver so that on the ferry home I have time to be grateful for living in such a special place so far from many of the horrors of the world.


On one of the Queen Charlotte islands can be found this rare subspecies of bear, the Kermode, a genetic variation of the common black bear. The natives called this rare beautiful beast "The Spirit Bear". Imagine seeing one such animal materializing out of the mists and heavy dark winter rains: it could seem to be truly a creature of another world. The Kermode has been receiving international attention since logging interests threatened to destroy their home.


This could be an early morning in any one of thousands of such coves around the Islands. The only sounds are the gentle lapping of the water and the raucous croaks of ravens, perhaps the small shrill of an eagle floating overhead. A few friendly seals might be hanging around waiting for scraps! Some lucky mornings you will be gifted by the sight of a pod of orca swimming by.


This is another beautiful forest grove in Sir Francis King Park, a lovely forest retreat on the outskirts of Victoria.


Heavy rain forest is something you just have to experience. This shot from somewhere around Tofino captures a bit of the dark ethereal beauty of the lower ground levels.


This is a lovely little inlet somewhere on Hornby Island. These sheltered inner passage Islands, between Vancouver Island and the mainland are usually much calmer than the wild and windy west side facing the Pacific.


All around the island, on any beach removed from "civilization" you will find glorious tide pools crammed with little universes of ocean life. This is from Chesterman Beach on the West Coast.


In the Carmanagh forests they have created a humane way to get to the bottom of the hills causing minimal damage to the environment. It is also much easier for parents with small children.


This merry bubbling little stream in the Carmanagh Valley is truly exquisite. There are thousands of such magical feeling glens. It is quite easy to rest in such a place for hours. Lean back on a mossy log, close your eyes, breathe deeply and become one with the forest about you, the sounds, the scents, the energy of life, Allah's gift to us all.


So there I was, snapping photos of a white swan in the estuary when I heard a snuffle behind me. Slowly I turned to see this shaggy black bear, hungry after winter hibernation and eagerly looking for food about 20 feet uphill from me. Abandoning my best sunglasses where I had put them, avoiding eye to eye contact, I smoothly but quickly slipped into my car and got this shot before he began to walk towards me. Black bears are very common on the Island. Caution is necessary because every year there is at least one bear mauling or death ~ usually unnecessary if the human had followed a few rules.


Here is an old bridge I found along a backroad on the west side of the Island around the Cowichan River.


This is the foot of the street where I last lived. The Dallas Road/Clover Point walk along the sea shore is very popular amongst residents and often chockablock with all ages out strolling, jogging, flying kites, or watching the "crazies" playing on their airborne surfboards in wild weather.


Seals and sea lions are very common sights along the city beaches. In the winter their barking is almost deafening at times.

Stairs such as these are found all along the walkways to access the beaches.

This is Holland Point, one of the local little beaches, and playgrounds for the kids. I liked to take the kids down there after school on the way home, just to let off a bunch of little kid steam!


The whole city is surrounded by beaches such as this one. Many are sandier and more people friendly however. The tide pools in the rocks are just wonderful little worlds to study with small children! I must have spent months on these beaches when my babies were young enough to be excited by seaweed and building driftwood houses. Oh, and the occasional dead seal!


Many people live at this set of docks downtown called Fisherman's Wharf. With this locale, Barb's Place has the freshest fish n chips around, of course. I find it a tad too cool to sit and eat there 3/4 of the time.


Here is a little corner of paradise in the middle of the city, Beacon Hill Park, a lovely retreat full of cultivated gardens and natural wildlife.


Beacon Hill is also the annual home of a very large nesting heron population. Every spring upwards of 120 families build their nests right in the middle of the city. They may not return next year because this spring a "rogue" bald eagle came in one day and killed most of the young in an inexplicable fury. The protests of the alarmed parents rang out all over the city deafening even traffic for a few moment. Usually the nesting eagles might only take a few herons a year so this might throw the balance off.


A few years ago heavy winter winds blew over a tree that had nested eagles in the city for 80 years or so. When they were cleaning up the debris they found at least 100 collars and tags for small dogs and cats long since missing!


It is in this lovely corner of the park that ~ on one sunny afternoon ~ my second daughter took her first steps.


An albino peacock in the park struts his stuff for the ladies. These noisy birds constantly escape the park and found wandering our streets and yards!


This is another delightful spring grove in Beacon Hill Park in its full glory, very beautiful as you can see. This is where many familes take their our old parents to stroll on Sundays and for nice outings.