The blog Green is the New Red notes Feb. 5 that environmental activist and mother of two Marie Mason was sentenced to 21 years for her role in an arson attack 10 years ago at a Michigan State University biotech lab—in which nobody was injured. The FBI nonetheless hyped the case as "domestic terrorism." Lansing's WLNS TV reported that the town was on "high alert" following FBI warnings that Animal Liberation Front "terrorists" might attend the sentencing at the federal courthouse. Three days earlier, an FBI press release announced guilty pleas from four young men who carried out racist assauls on New York's Staten Island the night of Barack Obama's election victory. As we noted, one of the victims, a teen-aged Liberian immigrant, had his scalp ripped open with baseball bats. The press release informs us that another, "whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American," was run over with a car and remained in coma for weeks. Three of the men received 10-year terms; a fourth who held out before copping a plea received 12 years. Mason, like the Staten Island thugs, also copped a plea—but on significantly harsher terms.

On Feb. 4, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County marched shackled immigrants in black-striped jail uniforms through the streets of Phoenix from the Durango Jail to a new Tent City he has erected to hold them, surrounded by an electric fence. The degrading spectacle was a blatant publicity stunt to promote Arpaio's new Fox Reality Channel TV program. Meanwhile, Arizona's ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano, the new Homeland Security secretary, has called for a review of immigration enforcement measures—including 287g, which allows local police to enforce federal civil immigration law. Maricopa County has entered into a 287g agreement with the federal government that gives Sheriff Arpaio broad powers to detain immigrants—whether or not they are accused of committing criminal offenses.

Jonathan Freedland writes for The Guardian, Feb. 4:

As British Jews come under attack, the liberal left must not remain silent
It should be perfectly possible to condemn Israel's brutal action in Gaza while taking a stand against antisemitism
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11 2001 and July 7 2005, a noble impulse seized the British liberal left. Politicians, commentators and activists united to say to their fellow citizens that, no matter how outraged they felt at the loss of civilian life they had just witnessed, they should under no circumstances take out that anger on the Muslim community. Progressive voices insisted that Muslims were not to be branded as guilty by association, just because the killers of 9/11 and 7/7 had been Muslims and had claimed to act in the name of all Muslims.

Venezuelan investigators announced Feb. 8 the arrest of seven police agents and four civilians in connection with the Caracas synagogue attack. The Venezuelan public prosecutor's office said the civilians included at least one security official from the synagogue. "These people were apprehended during raids carried out between Saturday and the early hours of Sunday in different parts of Caracas. They will all be charged by the Public Prosecutor's office," the office said in a statement.

The journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush, will face trial on Feb. 19 for assaulting a visiting head of state, with a maximum 15-year prison term, Iraqi officials have announced. Muntader al-Zaidi's lawyers lost an appeal to have the charge against him reduced to that of insulting Bush, rather than assaulting him. (Reuters, Feb. 8)

Officials in Iraq's Kirkuk province charge that twice in the last two weeks the US military violated the security agreement signed in November by attacking criminal suspects without coordinating with Iraqi forces. In the first episode last month, US soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk after the wife reached for a pistol hidden under a mattress, according to US and Iraqi accounts. The couple's 8-year-old daughter was wounded. The shooting was reported at the time, but the charges of failure to coordinate emerged on Feb. 6—hours after a US raid in which a 58-year-old man was shot dead outside Kirkuk. (NYT, Feb. 7)

US forces shot two Shi'ite pilgrims the night of Feb. 7 as they walked to Karbala for the Arbaeen holy day, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The victims were a man and a woman, and the man later died of his injuries, the official said. Reports from witnesses said an eight-year-old girl was killed. The US military admitted to the accidental discharge of a weapons. The Interior Ministry said the shooting took place east of Diwaniya, about 110 miles south of Baghdad. Two other pilgrims were killed on Sunday in the Qahira district of Baghdad by a roadside bomb. (NYT, Feb. 8; CNN, AP, Feb. 7)

A UN official said Feb. 5 that Spain's Law of Political Parties violates fundamental freedoms in the name of counter-terrorism. According to Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the law criminalizes as "support of terrorism" conduct that does not relate to any kind of violent activity.