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Category: Human Rights

  • Whistleblower accuses Foreign Office of ‘censoring’ warning of Sudan genocide

    Exclusive: Analyst claims UK officials deleted alert to threat of genocidal violence by paramilitaries to protect UAE

    Warnings of a possible “genocide” in Sudan were removed from a UK risk assessment by Foreign Office officials, according to a whistleblower whose testimony raises fresh concern over British failures to act on the atrocities unfolding in the war-ravaged country.

    The threat analyst said they were prevented from warning that genocide could occur in Darfur by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials in a humanitarian risk assessment collated days after Sudan’s brutal civil war erupted in April 2023.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Gaza Reveals How Britain Is Run

    British history. Its political system has utterly failed to confront a genocide.

    Rather, that system has allowed the British establishment to be complicit in one of the worst horrors of our time — Israel’s two-year offensive against Palestinians, complete with ethnic cleansing, systematic attacks on schools and hospitals, and crimes against humanity.

    Now, under a current supposed ceasefire, Israel is still killing Palestinians and their plight in Gaza remains dire, as the world sees the extent of the mass destruction visited on them.

    Throughout the attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, British leaders have actively cooperated with Israel in their military, trade and diplomatic policies.

    The post Gaza Reveals How Britain Is Run appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Sabrina Carpenter calls White House video ‘evil and disgusting’

    Pop star Sabrina Carpenter has hit out at the White House using her music in a video promoting ICE — i.e. the American Gestapo:


    Squandered

    There was a moment after Donald Trump’s second election when the cowardly American media outlets kowtowed to Trump. Seemingly, they thought that Trump hadn’t just won the White House; he’d also won the culture:

    Now, after less than a year back in power, Trump has completely squandered the ill-deserved respect he had. As such, celebrities like Carpenter clearly see no down side to speaking out against him. And fair play to Sabrina, she didn’t hold back.


    To give you an idea of how bad things are for Trump:

    The video Carpenter took offence to was promoting the US Immigration and Customer Enforcement agency (ICE). When people describe ICE as a ‘Gestapo’, it’s because they run around in masks abducting people off the street and causing trouble:


    Oh, and the Tories’ Kemi Badenoch plans to emulate this in the UK because, of course, she does:

    Blonde VS blonde

    Given that Trump is a petty, vindictive narcissist who spends too much time on social media, he’ll no doubt respond to Sabrina at some point. As with everything he, it’ll only makes his polling worse…still…we can’t imagine that exchange going well for him.

    After all, this is the guy who’s currently trying to convince people who are feeling the pinch that the concept of ‘affordability’ is a “Democrat scam”:

    Featured image via Sabrina Carpenter

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UN Report: Israel Maintains ‘De Facto State Policy Of Organized Torture’

    The UN Committee Against Torture has released a new report accusing Israel of employing a “de facto state policy” of torture in an “organized and widespread” manner.

    The report highlights how Israel does not have any legislation criminalizing torture, adding that Israeli law protects officials from culpability.

    “The committee was deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment during the reporting period, which had gravely intensified since 7 October 2023,” the UN report said.

    The post UN Report: Israel Maintains ‘De Facto State Policy Of Organized Torture’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A ‘forgotten hero’ against Imperial Japan, but the legacy of ‘Bintao’ Vinzons is being revived

    COMMENTARY: By David Robie

    Vinzons is a quiet coastal town in the eastern Philippines province of Camarines Norte in Bicol. With a spread out population of about 45,000. it is known for its rice production, crabs and surfing beaches in the Calaguas Islands.

    But the town is really famous for one of its sons — Wenceslao “Bintao” Vinzons, the youngest lawmaker in the Philippines before the Japanese invasion during the Second World War who then took up armed resistance.

    He was captured and executed along with his family in 1942.

    One of the most interesting assets of the municipality of Vinzons — named after the hero in 1946, the town previously being known as Indan — is his traditional family home, which has recently been refurbished as a local museum to tell his story of courage and inspiration.

    “He is something of a forgotten hero, student leader, resistance fighter, former journalist — a true hero,” says acting curator Roniel Espina.

    As well as a war hero, Vinzons is revered for his progressive politics and was known as the “father of student activism” in the Philippines. His political career began at the University of Philippines in the capital Manila where he co-founded the Young Philippines Party.

    The Vinzons Hall at UP-Diliman was named after him to honour his student leadership exploits.

    Student newspaper editor
    He was the editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, the student newspaper founded in 1922.

    At 24, Vinzons became the youngest delegate to the 1935 Constitutional Convention and six years later at the age of 30 he was elected Governor of Camarine Norte in 1941 — the same year that Japan invaded.

    In fact, the invasion of the Philippines began on 8 December 1941 just 10 hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbour in Hawai’i.

    The invading forces tried to pressure Governor Vinzons in his provincial capital of Daet to collaborate. He absolutely refused. Instead, he took to the countryside and led one of the first Filipino guerilla resistance forces to rise up against the Japanese.

    His initial resistance was successful with the guerrilla forces carrying out sudden raids before liberating Daet. He was eventually captured and executed by the Japanese.

    The bust of "Bintao" outside the Vinzons Town Hall.
    The bust of “Bintao” outside the Vinzons Town Hall. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    The exact circumstances are still uncertain as his body was never recovered, but the museum does an incredible job in piecing together his life along with his family and their tragic sacrifice for the country.

    One plaque shows an image of Vinzons along with his father Gabino, wife Liwayway, sister Milagros, daughter Aurora and son Alexander (no photo of him was actually recovered).

    A family of Second World War martyrs
    A family of Second World War martyrs . . . their bodies were never recovered. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    According to the legend on the plaque:

    “Wenceslao Vinzons with his father disappeared mysteriously – and were never see again. The Japanese sent out posters in Camarines Norte expressing regret that on the way to Siain, Quezon, Vinzons was shot while attempting to escape. ‘So sorry please.’

    “The remains of the body of Vinzons, his father, wife, two chidren and sister have never been found.”

     

    The Japanese Empire as portrayed in the Vinzons Museum. Video: APR

    Imperial Japan showcase
    One room of the museum is dedicated as a showcase to Imperial Japan and its brutal invasion across a great swathe of Southeast Asia and the brave Filipino resistance in response.

    A special feature of the museum is how well it portrays typical Filipino lifestyle and social mores in a home of the political class in the 1930s.

    The author, Dr David Robie (red t-shirt) with acting curator Roniel Espina
    The tourist author, Dr David Robie (red t-shirt) with acting curator Roniel Espina (left), Tourism Officer Florence G Mago (second from right) and two museum guides. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    When I visited the museum and talked to staff and watched documentaries about “Bintao” Vinzons’ life, one question in particular intrigued me: “Why was he thought of as a ‘forgotten hero’?”

    According to acting curator Espina, “It’s partly because Camarines Norte is not as popular and well known as some other provinces. So some of the notable achievements of Vinzons do not have a high profile around in other parts of the country.”

    Based at the museum is the town’s principal Tourism Officer Florence G Mago. She is optimistic about how the Vinzons Museum can attract more visitors to the town.

    “We have put a lot of effort into developing this museum and we are proud of it. It is a jewel in the town.”

    The Vinzons family home
    The Vinzons family home . . . now refurbished as the town museum under the National Historical Institute umbrella. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump ‘wouldn’t have wanted’ second strike on Caribbean boat survivors

    US president says he will look into reports US military was told to conduct follow-up attack on suspected drug vessel

    Donald Trump has said he will look into reports that the US military conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack.

    The US president also said on Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike on the vessel during the incident on 2 September – the first publicised operation in a series of attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington says are aimed at combatting the drug trade.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Four Papuan activists jailed on treason charges – NZ advocate says ‘abuse of law’

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific reporter

    Four Papuan political prisoners have been sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment on treason charges.

    But a West Papua independence advocate says Indonesia is using its law to silence opposition.

    In April this year, letters were delivered to government institutions in Sorong West Papua, asking for peaceful dialogue between Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto and a group seeking to make West Papua independent of Indonesia, the Federal Republic of West Papua.

    Four people were arrested for delivering the letters, and this triggered protests, which became violent.

    West Papua Action Aotearoa’s Catherine Delahunty said Indonesia claims the four, known as the Sorong Four, caused instability.

    “What actually caused instability was arresting people for delivering letters, and the Indonesians refused to acknowledge that actually people have a right to deliver letters,” she said.

    “They have a right to have opinions, and they will continue to protest when those rights are systematically denied.”

    Category of ‘treason’
    Indonesia’s Embassy based in Wellington said the central government had been involved in the legal process, but the letters fell into the category of “treason” under the national crime code.

    Delahunty said the arrests were in line with previous action the Indonesian government had taken in response to West Papua independence protests.

    “This is the kind of use of an abuse of law that happens all the time in order to shut down any form of dissent and leadership. In the 1930s we would call this fascism. It is a military occupation using all the law to actually suppress the people.”

    Delahunty said the situation was an abuse of human rights and it was happening less than an hour away from Darwin in northern Australia.

    The spokesperson for Indonesia’s embassy said the government had been closely monitoring the case at arm’s length to avoid accusations of overreach.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tucker Carlson ‘tuckered out’ with Donald Trump and Israel – insights for New Zealand rightwing politics

    COMMENTARY: By Ian Powell

    The origin of the expression “tuckered out” goes back to the east of the United States around the 1830s.

    After New Englanders began to compare the wrinkled and drawn appearance of overworked and undernourished horses and dogs to the appearance of tucked cloth, it became associated with people being exhausted.

    Expressions such as this can be adapted, sometimes with a little generosity, to apply to other circumstances.

    This adaptation includes when a prominent far right propagandist and activist who, in a level of frustration that resembles mental exhaustion, lashes out against far right leaders and governments that he has been strongly supportive of.

    Tariq Ali
    Tariq Ali . . . reposts revealing far right lament. Image: politicalbytes.blog

    This came to my attention when reading a frustrated far right lament reposted on Facebook (27 November) by British-Pakistani socialist Tariq Ali.

    If anything meets the threshold for a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, this one did.

    The lament was from Tucker Carlson, an American far right political commentator who hosted a nightly political talk show on Fox News from 2016 to 2023 when his contract was terminated.

    Since then he has hosted his own show under his name on fellow extremist Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). Arguably Carlson is the most influential far right host in the United States (perhaps also more influential than the mainstream rightwing).

    He is someone who the far right government of Israel considered to be an unshakable ally.

    Carlson’s lament

    The lament is brief but cuts to the chase:

    There is no such thing as “God’s chosen people”.

    God does not choose child-killers.

    This is heresy — these are criminals and thieves.

    350 million Americans are struggling to survive,

    and we send $26 billion to a country most Americans can’t even name the capital of.

    His lament doubled as a “declaration of war” on the entire narrative Israel uses to justify its genocide in Gaza. But Carlson didn’t stop there. He went on to expose the anger boiling inside the United States.

    Donald Trump
    President Donald Trump . . . also the target of Carlson’s lament. Image: politicalbytes.blog

    The clip hit the US media big time including 48 million views in the first nine hours. Subsequently a CNN poll showed that 62 percent of Americans agree with Carlson and that support for Israel among Americans is collapsing.

    But Carlson went much further directly focussing on fellow far right Donald Trump who he had “supported”.

    By focussing the US’s money, energy, and foreign policy on Israel, Trump was betraying his promises to Americans.

    This signifies a major falling out including a massive public shift against Israel (which is also losing its media shield), the far right breaking ranks, and panic within the political establishment.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene
    Marjorie Taylor Greene . . . another prominent far right leader who has fallen out with Trump. Image: politicalbytes.blog

    It should also be seen in the context of the extraordinary public falling out with President Trump of another leading far right extremist (and conspiracy theorist) Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. In addition to the issues raised by Carlson she also focussed on Trump’s handling of the Epstein files controversy.

    Far right in New Zealand politics

    The far right publicly fighting among itself over its core issues is very significant for the US given its powerful influence.

    This influence includes not just the presidency but also both Congress and the Senate, one of the two dominant political parties, and the Supreme Court (and a fair chunk of the rest of the judiciary).

    Does this development offer insights for politics in New Zealand? To begin with the far right here has nowhere near the same influence as in the United States.

    The parties that make up the coalition government are hard right rather than far right (that is, hardline but still largely respectful of the formal democratic institutions).

    It is arguably the most hard right government since the early 1950s at least. But this doesn’t make it far right. I discussed this difference in an earlier Political Bytes post (November 3): Distinguishing far right from hard right.

    Specifically:

    …”hard right” for me means being very firm (immoderate) near the extremity of rightwing politics but still respect the functional institutions that make formal democracy work.

    In contrast the “far right” are at the extremity of rightwing politics and don’t respect these functional institutions. There is an overlapping blur between the “hard right” and “far right”.

    Both the NZ First and ACT parties certainly have far right influences. The former’s deputy leader Shane Jones does a copy-cat imitation of Trumpian bravado.

    Brian Tamaki
    Far right Brian Tamaki has some influence but is a small bit player compared to Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Image: politicalbytes.blog

    Meanwhile, there is an uncomfortable rapport between ACT (particularly its leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour) and the far right Destiny Church (particularly its leader Brian Tamaki).

    But this doesn’t come close to meeting the far right threshold for both NZ First and ACT.

    The far right itself also has its internal conflicts. The most prominent group within this relatively small extremist group is the Destiny Church. However, its relationship with other sects can be adversarial.

    Insights for New Zealand politics nevertheless
    Nevertheless, the internal far right fallout in the United States does provide some insights for public fall-outs within the hard right in New Zealand.

    This is already becoming evident in the three rightwing parties making up the coalition government.

    NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
    NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon . . . coalition arrangement starting to get tuckered out and heading towards lamenting? Image: politicalbytes.blog

    For example:

    • NZ First has said that it would support repealing ACT’s recent parliamentary success with the Regulatory Standards Act, which was part of the coalition agreement, should it be part of the next government following the 2026 election;
    • National subsequently suggested that they might do likewise;
    • ACT has lashed out against NZ First for its above-mentioned position;
    • NZ First leader Winston Peters has declined to express public confidence in Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s leadership;
    • NZ First has publicly criticised the Government’s economic management performance; and
    • while National and ACT support the sale of public assets, NZ First is publicly opposed.

    These tensions are well short of the magnitude of Tucker Carlson’s public attack on Israel over Gaza and President Trump’s leadership.

    However, there are signs with the hard right in New Zealand of at least starting to feel “tuckered out” of collaborating collegially in their coalition government arrangement and showing signs of pending laments.

    Too early to tell yet but we shall see.

    Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • David Robie’s Eyes of Fire rekindles the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior 40 years on

    A transition in global emphasis from “nuclear to climate crisis survivors”, plus new geopolitical exposés.

    REVIEW: By Amit Sarwal of The Australia Today

    Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.

    Robie’s newly updated book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, is both a historical record and a contemporary warning.

    It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.

    “The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.

    “The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”

    In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.

    Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.

    EOF LOOP 44 Henk David Davey 1024x692 1 2
    Back in 1985: Journalist David Robie (centre) pictured with two Rainbow Warrior crew members, Henk Haazen (left) and the late Davey Edward, the chief engineer. Robie spent 11 weeks on the ship, covering the evacuation of the Rongelap Islanders. Image: Inner City News

    Humanitarian voyage
    “The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . .  helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.

    “It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”

    The Rainbow Warrior
    The Rainbow Warrior sailing in the Marshall Islands in May 1985 before the Rongelap relocation mission. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific Media

    The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.

    “I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.

    “That image has never left me.”

    Rongelap woman
    A Rongelap islander with her entire home and belongings on board the Rainbow Warrior in May 1985. Image: © David Robie/Eyes Of Fire

    Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.

    On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

    NZ Herald 22Terrorism Strikes 12 July 1985
    The front page of The New Zealand Herald on 12 July 1985 — two days after the bombing. Image: NZH screenshot

    Bombing shockwaves
    The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.

    Helen Clark
    Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. Image: Kate Flanagan /www.helenclarknz.com

    Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.

    “The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.

    “It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”

    Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.

    “New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”

    Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.

    David Robie and the Rainbow Warrior III
    Author David Robie and the Rainbow Warrior III. Image: Facebook/David Robie

    Geopolitical threats
    Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”

    Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.

    “She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”

    David Robie RNZ
    Author David Robie with a copy of Eyes of Fire during a recent interview with RNZ Pacific. Image: Facebook/David Robie

    When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.

    Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.

    “This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.

    “It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”

    For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.

    “I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.

    “The future is in your hands.”

    Rainbow Warrior III
    “You can’t sink a rainbow” slogan on board the Rainbow Warrior III. Image: David Robie 2025

    The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Clownish Proscriptions: Challenging the Palestine Action Ban

    On June 20, members of Palestine Action broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, going on to spray paint two military aircraft activists claimed were being used in “direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.” This was deemed so horrible as to draw the ire of then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who went on to invoke section 3 of the Terrorism Act to proscribe the organisation.

    At the time, it seemed impulsive, rash, and most likely intended to placate Israeli voices that something was being done about these bleeding hearts in Albion. Toby Cadman, Member of the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee Advisory Board, was in no doubt that the proscription was fashioned “as a blunt instrument to silence certain voices on Palestine at a moment when public opinion and government policy are sharply at odds.”

    It did not take long for those well-versed in human rights to protest this scrappy measure as absurd and needlessly authoritarian. The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, which counts among its members Francesca Albanese, Ben Saul, and Irene Khan, issued a press release in early July expressing its bafflement at the proscription. “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.” Since the addition of Palestine Action to the naughty list of outlawed organisations, over 2,200 arrests have been made citing terrorism legislation, with 254 people charged with terrorism offences merely for participating in peaceful protests.

    Even within government circles, this measure did not fly smoothly. That most terrier-like human rights activist and former diplomat Craig Murray got his hands on a leaked report by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) revealing that the impulsive decision to proscribe the organisation had been a fumbling episode riddled with mendacity. The JTAC could hardly be said to be devotees of Palestine Action, but they did struggle, at points, to see the alleged, outsized terrorist demon shadowing their actions. “The majority of the group’s activity would not be classified as terrorism under Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”

    The process is well underway to challenge the order as a breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. On October 17, the Court of Appeal confirmed that Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, could seek judicial review of the Home Office’s proscription decision. Three judges upheld the July decision by the lower court to grant judicial review, rejecting the flimsy arguments by the Home Office that Ammori could merely seek to “deproscribe” the organisation via application to the Secretary of State, then appeal further to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), if refused. This could hardly be an adequate remedy.

    The appeals court also found that the Secretary of State had failed to consider that the acts of protest used by Palestine Action could not meet the criminal threshold. The wider support shown for the organisation had also been ignored. The judges further singled out a mischief common to many governments: that the addition of Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations was done for an improper purpose. Organisations dedicated to civil disobedience should not fall within the proscription regime, yet here we were, seeing rattled politicians terrified by the actions of a less-than-incendiary organisation.

    To give the finding a fine rounding off, the judges also noted that the criminalisation of the organisation potentially breached the Equality Act 2010, notably section 149. There had been little regard paid to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity, and fostering good relations.

    The organisation has been able to count on powerful submissions to advance its cause. Liberty, the UK’s foremost domestic human rights organisation, paired with Amnesty International as intervening parties to assist the High Court in reaching its decision.

    The feisty arguments of these bodies against the proscribing of Palestine Action draw from Lord Hoffman’s firm observation in a case concerning, rather strikingly, the actions of organised protesters keen to create mayhem on a US airbase. Not only did the judge refer to that “long and honourable history” of civil disobedience in the UK, but he also thought reference to the suffragettes a reliably sturdy comparison. When it came to such actions as the destruction of property, it was “the mark of a civilised community” that such protestation and demonstration could be accommodated. There was a fundamental “moral difference” between those engaged in civil disobedience and those engaged in ordinary lawbreaking.

    On November 26, Raza Husain KC urged the court to consider that the proscription was “repugnant to the tradition of the common law and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.” The government had “imposed extreme measures on a protest group (which enjoyed widespread popularity among the British public) seeking to expose, protest and prevent serious violations of international law by Israel, and the complicity of the UK government and companies in the UK therewith, including by seeking to obstruct the continuing supply of weapons and components to Israel.”

    Ultimately, issues of proportionality will be central to any successful judicial review. The property damage that arose in the case could not be compared with those instances counter-terrorism legislation was intended to cover, which considers the intent to commit acts of violence against people. The organisation’s object had to be considered, distinguishing aims abhorrent to a society respecting human rights from those intended to uphold international law.

    Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, also intervened in the case to challenge the proscription as unlawful for being incompatible with Articles 10, 11, and 14 (the non-discrimination provision) of the ECHR, and grounds of public law.  Assistance to that end has been provided by notes from the UN special rapporteur on the rights of peaceful assembly and association, Gina Romero, and from Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

    Across the globe, protests are being curtailed by jittery authorities eager to see a rabid terrorist in the clothing of a demonstrator. This clownish effort by the Starmer government against Palestine Action, one of a long and running list, has brought the importance of civil disobedience and lawful assembly to the fore. Will the high court bite?

    The post Clownish Proscriptions: Challenging the Palestine Action Ban first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Since Assad’s Fall, Many Families of the Forcibly Disappeared Still Lack Answers

    Maryam Hassan sits on a couch in her home in Jdeidet Artouz, a suburb of Syria’s capital Damascus, her voice soft but steady as she speaks. She raises her eyes to look upon a photograph of Younes and Mohammed al-Muqbil, her husband and teenage son, whom she last saw on September 26, 2013. Mohammed was 14 years old when he was detained at a regime checkpoint outside Yarmouk camp…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Fiji, NZ protesters kick off UN day of solidarity for Palestine amid calls for sanctions, boycotts on Israel

    Asia Pacific Report

    Protesters in Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand kicked off the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People today as Israel faced global condemnation over more “war crimes” against Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

    At least 13 people, including two children, were killed and 25 were wounded as Israel launched another incursion into Syrian territory in the Damascus countryside, according to state media.

    The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned “the criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn”.

    At Albert Park in Fiji’s capital Suva today, members of Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (F4PSN) defied police repression and gathered to celebrate Solidarity Day.

    They issued a statement declaring:

    “On the 48th anniversary of this day, we must be clear: Fiji cannot claim to stand for human rights while aligning itself with GENOCIDE, APARTHEID and OCCUPATION.

    “We refuse to let our government speak in our name while supporting systems of colonial oppression.”

    Fiji ‘not on side of Palestine justice’
    The statement went on to state that in 1977, the UN General Assembly had called for the annual observance of November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

    But now, Palestinians faced dispossession, military occupation, forced displacement, and the systematic destruction of their homes and lives.

    “The world is watching genocide unfold in Gaza — entire families wiped out, children buried under rubble, hospitals bombed, and civilians starved — while governments continue to fund Israel’s genocidal campaign and shield it from accountability,” the network said.

    Fiji was not on the side of justice and humanity, added the network. These were some of the reasons why:

    • Fiji has repeatedly abstained or voted against resolutions protecting Palestinian rights at the United Nations, including resolutions calling for humanitarian ceasefires;
    • Fiji voted against renewing support for Palestinian refugees under UNRWA;
    • Fiji abstained on a resolution supporting a two-state solution;
    • Fiji was the only country to publicly support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and land annexation at the International Court of Justice; and
    • Fiji has opened an embassy in Jerusalem, in Occupied Palestine.

    “This is not foreign policy — this is complicity,” said the network.

    Fiji pro-Palestinian protesters in Albert Park, Suva, today marking UN Solidarity Day
    Fiji pro-Palestinian protesters in Albert Park, Suva, today marking UN Solidarity Day. Image: Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network

    “And we say loudly from Fiji: End occupation. End apartheid. End genocide. Free Palestine — from the River to the Sea.”

    Powerful speeches in NZ
    In New Zealand’s Te Komititanga Square beside Auckland city’s main transport hub, protesters heard several powerful speakers before marching up the Queen Street shopping precinct to Aotea Square and raised the Palestinian flag.

    Journalist and videographer Cole Martin, of Aotearoa Christians for Peace in Palestine who recently returned from six months bearing witness in the occupied West Bank, gave a harrowing account of the brutality and cruelty of daily life under Israeli military control.

    Describing the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes by Israeli military bulldozers in one village, Martin said: “They [villagers] put up tents. And they Israeli military returned because the tents, they say, didn’t have the correct permits, just like their homes.

    “And so they demolished them.

    “But when Palestinians apply for permits, they are pretty much never granted them. It is an impossible system.”

    Journalist Cole Martin speaking at the UN Solidarity Day rally in Auckland today about his experiences bearing witness in the occupied West Bank
    Journalist Cole Martin speaking at the UN Solidarity Day rally in Auckland today about his recent experiences bearing witness in the occupied West Bank. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    Speaking for Amnesty International Aotearoa, people power manager Margaret Taylor described the US President Trump-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza as “dangerous” because it gave the illusion that life in Gaza was returning to normal.

    “We here today are aware that the ‘normal’ for the people of Gaza is the ongoing genocide perpetrated against them by Israel.

    “Earlier this week Amnesty international again came out saying, ‘yes, it is still genocide’.

    “‘It is still genocide. It is still genocide.” It continues unabated.

    “We had to do that because world leaders have denied that it is genocide and are using this alleged ceasefire.”

    "Boycott Israel" declares a banner at today's UN Solidarity Day rally in Auckland
    “Boycott Israel” declares a banner at today’s UN Solidarity Day rally in Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    Gaza flotilla plans
    Gaza Sumud Flotilla activist Youssef Sammour, who was also rally MC, brought the crow up-to-date with plans for another flotilla to attempt to break the Israeli siege around the Gaza enclave.

    About 30 other protests are happening across New Zealand this weekend over the Gaza genocide.

    Global news media reports described Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, although little was reported in New Zealand media.

    Several Israeli soldiers were also reported wounded in clashes at the town of Beit Jinn.

    The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned “the criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn”.

    Al Jazeera reports that Israeli military incursions have become more brazen, more frequent and more violent since Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syria.

    Several Israeli soldiers were also reported wounded in clashes at the town of Beit Jinn when local people fought back against the Israeli incursion.

    Meanwhile, the UN has condemned an incident in Jenin in the occupied West Bank as another “apparent summary execution” and warned that killings in the Occupied West Bank were surging “without accountability”.

    Footage from Jenin showed Israeli forces shooting two Palestinian men in the back after  they had raised their hands to surrender. They were unarmed.

    "The beast must be stopped" says a placard held aloft by protest artist Craig Tyburn among the Christmas decorations in downtown Auckland today
    “The beast must be stopped” says a placard held aloft by protest artist Craig Tynan among the Christmas decorations in downtown Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • After landmark climate win, lawyer hopes for a ‘new legal order’ to protect Indigenous rights

    Pacific lawyer Julian Aguon to be honoured with Right Livelihood award for his work that led to ICJ ruling on climate harm

    Six years ago, human rights lawyer Julian Aguon received a call from Vanuatu’s foreign affairs minister. The minister had an unusual request – he wanted Aguon to help develop a legal case on behalf of dozens of law students who were seeking climate justice from the world’s highest court.

    Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer based in Guam, was excited by the opportunity and believed they could clear up legal ambiguities he says had “long hobbled the ability of the international community to respond effectively to the climate crisis.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Israel attacks three countries as NZ protesters prepare for UN day of Palestine solidarity

    Asia Pacific Report

    As New Zealand pro-Palestinian protesters prepared for demonstrations across the country today to mark the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, they awoke to news of Israel attacking three countries in the Middle East — Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

    This is the 112th consecutive week that the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has held protests over the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network has also held frequent rallies in defiance of Fiji police restrictions.

    At least 13 Syrians have been killed and others wounded during an Israeli ground incursion and air strikes on the town of Beit Jinn, southwest of Syria’s capital Damascus.

    Palestine’s Foreign Ministry is demanding action from the international community to halt Israel’s “war crime” as it continues its large-scale military assault on the occupied West Bank.

    Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s representative to the UN, has condemned Israel’s latest attack on the southern town of Beit Jinn, saying it further exposes Israel’s disregard for international law and reflects its fear of a strengthening Syria.

    The incident is “yet another indication to the world of which country in the region is the one abiding by international law and which isn’t,” Olabi told Al Jazeera.

    It highlights “who really wants a peace deal, a security agreement — who wants to be able to get the region into stability — and who doesn’t,” he said.

    Israel is acting out of anxiety over Syria’s trajectory and its growing “regional and international prominence” he said.

    ‘Israel is terrified’
    “Israel is terrified by a strong and prosperous and stable Syria. We are heading in that direction no matter what.”

    Olabi described Israel’s latest assault as a signal aimed not only at Syria, but also at its allies.

    The attack indicated Israel was “running out of options”.

    Since the declaration of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on October 10, Israel has violated the agreement many times with near-daily attacks, killing hundreds of people.

    Stop complicity with Israel war crimes
    Stop complicity with Israel war crimes – a PSNA poster for today’s rally. Image: PSNA

    The Government Media Office in Gaza said Israel shot at civilians 142 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 21 times, bombed and shelled Gaza 228 times, and demolished people’s property on 100 occasions.

    Israeli forces have also detained 35 Palestinians in Gaza over the past month, and continue to block vital humanitarian aid and destroy homes and infrastructure across the Strip.

    Last night, New Zealand photojournalist Cole Martin spoke of daily life in the occupied Palestine Territories as he experienced Israeli brutality during six months based in Bethlehem in an inspiring public kōrero at Saint Matthew-in-the-City Cathedral, Auckland, and offered a “what now?” prescription of hope for the future.

    He is also speaking at today’s UN solidarity rally in Te Komititanga Square at 2pm and will give another kōrero at 7pm tonight at Cityside Baptist Church, 8 Mt Eden Road.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nine Days in Gaza: Dr. Amr Gharib’s Testimony from Nasser Hospital

     

    The post Nine Days in Gaza: Dr. Amr Gharib’s Testimony from Nasser Hospital first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Mass Murder As “Public Service” In “Our Democracy”

    Super-hawk Elliot Abrams is back in the news again, worrying that Donald Trump lacks “clarity” about what he intends to do in Venezuela. Abrams recommends that the president eliminate all doubts and ambiguities in his mind and directly attack Venezuelan territory in order to bring down the “dictator” Nicolas Maduro.

    Abrams, U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, said in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the president’s advisors should promptly persuade him that the point of no return has already been passed in Venezuela, and that the only possible outcomes are that either Trump or Maduro will win the contest that is now well underway. Forthrightly titled, “How To Topple Maduro,” Abrams calls for doing more than blowing up “narco-trafficking boats” (i.e., Caribbean fishing vessels), though he does not go so far as to advocate the deployment of U.S. ground troops in the South American nation.

    According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, Abrams wants Washington to destroy Venezuela’s air defense systems, the F-16s at the air base of Palo Negro, and the Sukhoi jets at the air base in La Orchila, an island one hundred miles off the coast of Venezuela. He also desires to see U.S. attacks against bases in western Venezuela used by the Army of National Liberation (ELN), a Colombian Marxist group allied with Maduro.

    Abrams worries that after a prolonged show of massive U.S. force off the coast of Venezuela, Washington may end up leaving Maduro in power, sending a signal to the world that it has declined from superpower status to the “pitiful helpless giant” that Richard Nixon feared the U.S. was becoming by not being aggressive enough in Vietnam. Such an outcome, he feels, would only benefit the Venezuelan “regime”, as well as irrationally hostile countries (presumably) like China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran.

    Abrams nowhere takes note of the huge risks U.S. military escalation necessarily carries with it, namely, that it might provoke a Vietnam-style bloodbath or worse, after uniting all of Latin America against Washington’s unprovoked aggression. Even Colombia, which regards the Marxist ELN affiliated with Maduro as a drug-trafficking terrorist group, has made it very clear it will not tolerate a U.S. attack on Venezuela. If Washington overthrows Maduro and Venezuela turns to prolonged popular resistance via guerrilla war and sabotage, expect a large number of Americans to return home in body bags.

    Instead of facing this sobering prospect, Abrams indulges the usual imperial fantasy that regime change will lead Venezuela promptly to democracy, broad prosperity, and national reconciliation under the enlightened tutelage of its friendly occupiers, who are said by many experts on democracy to be on the path to civil war at home.

    Of course, all of this is only to be expected from Abrams, who is a former senior Middle East adviser on the National Security Council for George W. Bush, in which position he promoted the 2003 invasion of Iraq (with similarly rosy results predicted), and a disastrous coup against the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza, which eventually produced the genocidal horror show we have been watching on our live feeds for the last two-plus years.

    Before these ghastly events, Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights under Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). During those years, he staunchly defended U.S. support for a death squad client regime in El Salvador that tortured and murdered staggering numbers of peasants struggling to gain their most basic human rights, a “democracy” campaign that ended with an estimated 70,000 dead and the country devastated almost beyond repair. Abrams rated it a “fabulous achievement.”

    He did the same with respect to Guatemala, where another U.S. client state was carrying out a scorched earth campaign that was determined to be genocide by the United Nations and a Guatemalan court of law, with entire villages razed to the ground. He whitewashed the El Mozote massacre, in which hundreds of Guatemalans were beheaded, shot, raped, and burned alive, including children. Confronted on live TV in 1995 by journalist Allan Nairn about his role in covering up the torture, rape, and murder of Guatemalan human rights leader Rosario Godoy (her baby had his fingernails torn out), Abrams shamelessly stuck to the official story that “they died in a traffic accident.”

    Throughout the eighties, Abrams worked diligently to destroy the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, which had overthrown the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose long record of human rights crimes rivaled those in El Salvador and Guatemala. Ex-Somoza National Guardsmen, famous for torture, rape, and murder, formed themselves into a mercenary army financed by Washington, spending the decade attacking civilian infrastructure like schools, farming cooperatives, medical clinics, and electricity-generating plants, killing roughly thirty thousand Nicaraguans to punish them for having carried out a popular revolution.

    Later tried for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal, Abrams called the prosecutors “filthy bastards” and denounced members of the U.S. Intelligence Committee as “pious clowns” who asked “abysmally stupid” questions. When journalist Terry Allen told him that much of the world considered him a war criminal, he called her a “rotten bitch.” In 1991, he actually pled guilty to two counts of lying to Congress, but this was apparently only because he “wasn’t authorized to tell the truth,” as he put it.

    After hearing Abrams testify, Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton remarked, “I want to puke,” a common enough sentiment among those subjected to the neo-con’s perverse rationalizations for unspeakable crimes.

    The aforementioned Allan Nairn, a rare journalist who actually covered the truth rather than allowing it to be covered up, had the following exchanges with Abrams on the Charlie Rose show on March 31, 1995.

    Nairn: . . . in the face of this systematic policy of slaughter by the Guatemalan military, more than 110,000 civilians killed by that military since 1978, what Amnesty International has called a “government program of political murder,” the U.S.  has continued to provide covert assistance to the G-2 and they have continued, especially during the time of Mr. Abrams, to provide political aid and comfort. For example . . . .  

    Abrams: Uh, Charlie.

    Rose: One second.

    Nairn:  . . . during the Northwest Highland massacres of the [early] 80s, when the Catholic Church said: “Never in our history has it come to such grave extremes. It has reached the point of genocide.” President Reagan went down, embraced [General] Rios-Montt, the dictator who was staging these massacres, and said he was getting “a bum rap on human rights.” In ’85, when human rights leader Rosario Godoy was abducted by the army, raped, and mutilated, her baby had his fingernails torn out, the Guatemalan military said: “Oh, they died in a traffic accident.” Human rights groups contacted Mr. Abrams, asked him about it, he wrote back – this is his letter of reply – he said: yes, “there’s no evidence other than that they died in a traffic accident.” Now this is a woman raped and mutilated, a baby with his fingernails torn out. This is a long-standing policy. 

    Rose: . . . these are specific points raised by Allan having to do with your public conduct. 

    Abrams: . . . I’m not here to refight the Cold War. I’m glad we won. . .

    Nairn: Won against whom? Won against those civilians the Guatemalan army was massacring?

    Abrams: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We’re not here to refight the Cold War . . . If Mr. Nairn thinks we should have been on the other side in Guatemala, that we should have been in favor of a guerrilla victory, I disagree with him.

    Nairn: So you’re admitting that you were on the side of the Guatemalan military!

    Abrams: I am admitting that it was the policy of the United States, under Democrats and Republicans, approved by Congress repeatedly, to oppose a Communist guerrilla victory anywhere in Central America, including in Guatemala.

    Nairn: “A Communist guerrilla victory!” Ninety-five percent of these victims are civilians – peasant organizers, human rights leaders, priests – assassinated by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan army.

    Rose: I’m happy to invite both of you back to review Reagan and Bush (Senior) administration policy. Right now I want to stick to this point . . . .

    Nairn: Let’s look at reality here . . .  We’re talking about more than a hundred thousand murders, an entire army, many of its top officers, employees of the U.S. government. We’re talking about crimes, and we’re also talking about criminals; not just people like Guatemalan Colonels but also the U.S. agents who’ve been working with them, and the higher-level U.S. officials. I mean, I think you have to apply uniform standards. President Bush [Senior] once talked about putting Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes against humanity – Nuremberg style tribunal. I think that’s a good idea. But if you’re serious, you have to be even-handed. If you look at a case like this, I think we have to start talking about putting Guatemalan and U.S. officials on trial. I think someone like Mr. Abrams would be a fit subject for such a Nuremberg-style inquiry. 

    Abrams: [laughs]

    Nairn: . . . but I agree with Mr. Abrams that Democrats would have to be in the dock with him.

    Rose: Well, well I  . . . again, I invite you and Elliot Abrams back to discuss what he did, but right now . . . .

    Abrams: No thanks, Charlie, but . . . .

    Rose: Elliot, go ahead Elliot, to repeat the question, do you want to be in the dock?

    Abrams: It is ludicrous, it is ludicrous to respond to that kind of stupidity. This guy thinks we were on the wrong side in the Cold War.

    Nairn: Mr. Abrams, you were on the wrong side in supporting the massacre of peasants and organizers and anyone who dared speak. Absolutely. And that’s a crime. That’s a crime, Mr. Abrams, for which people should be tried. It’s against the law.

    Abrams: (sarcastically) All right, we’ll put all the American officials who won the Cold War in the dock.

    Rose: . . . Allan Nairn is a distinguished reporter who won the George Polk Award last year. So, I mean, you know, I don’t want him characterized on this broadcast as a crackpot. I mean, you can have a personal argument about what he says about you specifically, but . . . 

    Abrams: Well, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, when a guy tells me he thinks the entire U.S. leadership during the Cold War needs to have a Nuremberg trial, he’s a crackpot.

    Rose: OK, I mean, I, I wouldn’t, point well taken.

    Nairn: Well, it’s Mr. Abrams’s right to say whatever he wants, but the facts speak for themselves. And in the case of Guatemala, you have this ongoing pattern of murder which has been public record – the Catholic Church in Guatemala has documented it, all the human rights groups have documented it. And on the public level, not even talking about the covert level, year after year the U.S. has continued to provide all different kinds of aid to the Guatemalan military. . . 

    Abrams did indeed say whatever he wanted, which in the case of Guatemala was that General Ríos Montt, later convicted of genocide, had “brought considerable progress” to the “war” against defenseless civilians.

    Sources:

    Carlos Fazio, “Elliot Abrams Pressures Trump,” La Jornada (Spanish), November 24, 2025

    Jim Cason and David Brooks, “Officials Present Trump Options For Military Action Against Venezuela,” La Jornada, (Spanish) November 14, 2025

    Jim Lobe, “Elliot Abrams returns promoting a Caracas cakewalk,” Responsible Statecraft, November 21, 2025

    Leigh Binford, The El Mozote Massacre, (University of Arizona, 1996) pp. 18-22

    Terry J. Allen, Public Serpent, www.InTheseTimes.com, August 2001

    Abrams confronted on Charlie Rose March 31, 1995

    The post Mass Murder As “Public Service” In “Our Democracy” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • British military halts vehicle rollout after its soldiers fall ill

    If it came with a label, it would read: late, expensive and harmful to the very people it’s meant to protect. This describes the £5.5 billion Ajax British armoured fighting vehicle deal plagued by malfunctions and ongoing delays, the last of which was announced on Wednesday.

    After 15 years, since the contract was awarded, and now three delays, the army appears to be no closer to a roll out.

    Everything’s fine, until it wasn’t

    Earlier in November, Defence Minister Luke Pollard insisted the technical problems with Ajax had been resolved.

    We would not be putting it [Ajax] in the hands of our frontline forces if it were not safe.

    But, it wasn’t safe. The roll-out of the vehicle was halted again earlier this week. The problem? Soldiers reported feeling unwell.

    An unidentified vibration or rattle that Ministry of Defence (MOD) boffins cannot get to the bottom of is causing disorientation and severe hearing damage among soldiers that have trialed the vehicle.

    That’s despite them now wearing TWO different kinds of ear protection — “foam earplugs and over-ear headphones” — when operating the vehicles.

    Here’s Pollard telling the press everything is fine a few weeks ago:

    Years of delays and issues

    Back in 2021, reports circulated that 310 soldiers impacted during the testing phase would be assessed for potential hearing loss. That’s before anything’s been rolled out.

    Earlier this month, three other soldiers were also medically discharged from the military. This was due to these injuries and related health concerns.

    Rolling forward — but at what cost?

    A November report from BBC reported that a further 30 soldiers had gone ‘man down’ with hearing issues, nausea, and disorientation. An MOD spokesperson said:

    Out of an abundance of caution, the minister for defence readiness and industry has asked the Army to pause all use of Ajax for training and exercising for two weeks, while a safety investigation is carried out into the events this weekend.

    A 2023 review of the program revealed “a number of errors of judgment” and “systemic, cultural and institutional problems”.

    General Dynamics, has so far delivered 165 faulty Ajax vehicles, including reconnaissance, recovery, and command variants, which are central to the UK’s future armoured forces. Yet, once again, a costly military project falters — while the only guaranteed winners are the global arms companies cashing in.

    165 Ajax have been delivered so far. The MOD expects the total order of 589 to be delivered by 2030.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Fiji PM Rabuka blames ‘insulated’ upbringing for racially motivated 1987 coups

    RNZ Pacific

    Sitiveni Rabuka, the instigator of Fiji’s coup culture, took to the witness stand for the first time today — fronting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Suva.

    The TRC was set up by Rabuka’s coalition government with the aim of promoting truth-telling and reconciliation regarding political upheavals dating back to 1987.

    The five-member TRC began its work earlier this year. It was led by Dr Marcus Brand, who was appointed in January, and has reportedly already finished his role.

    Rabuka had stated earlier this year he would “voluntarily appear” before the commission and disclose names of individuals involved in his two racist coups almost four decades ago.

    The man, often referred to as “Rambo” for his military past, has been a permanent fixture in the Fijian political landscape since first overthrowing a democratically elected government as a 38-year-old lieutenant-colonel.

    But now, at 77, he has a weatherbeaten face yet still carries the resolute confidence of a young soldier. He faced the TRC commissioners, wearing a tie in the colours of the Fiji Army, to give a much-anticipated testimony by Fijians locally and in the diaspora.

    He began by revisiting his childhood and the influences in his life that shaped his worldview. He fundamentally accepted the actions of 1987 were rooted in his racial worldview.

    Protecting Indigenous Fijians
    He acknowledged those actions were a result of his background, being raised in an “insulated” environment (i.e. village, boarding school, military), and it is his view that he was acting to protect Indigenous Fijians.

    Asked if the coups had served their purpose, Rabuka said: “The coups have brought out more of a self-realisation of who we are, what we’re doing, where we need to be.”

    “If that is a positive outcome of the coup, I encourage all of us to do that. Let us be aware of the sensitivity of numbers, the sensitivity of a perceived imbalance in the distribution of assets, or whatever.”

    But perhaps the most important response from him came toward the end of the almost 1hr 50min submission to a question from the facilitator and veteran journalist Netani Rika, who asked Rabuka: “Do you see the removal of immunity for coup perpetrators from the [2013] Constitution as a way towards preventing a repeat of these incidents [coups]?”

    “There should be [a] very objective assessment of what can be done,” Rabuka replied.

    “There are certain things that we cannot do unless we all agree [to] leave the amendment to the [2013] Constitution open to the people. If that is the will of the people, let it be.

    “At the moment our hands are tied,” confirming indirectly that the removal of immunity for coup perpetrators is off the table as it stands.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • How Israel has set a dangerous precedent in international law

    ANALYSIS: By Emad Moussa

    “Israel appears set on destroying the framework created to ensure compliance with international law . . . ”, the International Court of Justice heard in April 2025.

    To a similar effect, Norway’s Development Minister said in May that Israel was setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza.

    Both accounts stem from the belief that Israel’s crimes in Gaza are so extreme that they have broadened the scope of impunity under international law. That would make future conflicts more fluid and the world more dangerous, possibly precipitating the emergence of a New World Order.

    The First World Order emerged in 1920 with the creation of the League of Nations, the first intergovernmental organisation. The goal was to prevent conflicts and wars from ever happening again. But because of, inter alia, structural weaknesses and the unresolved injustice of the defeated parties, the Second World War erupted in 1939 and the world order crumbled.

    The horrors of the Second World War thus paved the way to the emergence of the Second World Order. It rallied universalism with the establishment of the United Nations and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was reinforced by numerous bodies and treaties to maximise compliance with international law.

    While International law was never perfect, let alone fully implementable, it has had an indirect, normative influence on shaping domestic politics, academia, civil society, and journalism. It set in motion the emergence of a global rights-based consciousness, setting a frame of reference against which states are morally and legally judged, even if lacked enforcement.

    ‘Self-defence’ claim
    Israel is the product of the Second World Order. It was initially legitimised by the UN Partition Plan of Palestine in November 1947, and was admitted as a full UN member state in May 1949.

    It is today a signatory of multiple UN treaties and engages with international law in various domains. Yet for years it has employed quasi-legal concepts hoping to inject dangerous exceptions in the law tailored to its own image.

    It dealt with international law based more on self-perceived legitimacy (via historical victimhood or Biblical ties to the land of Palestine) than objective legality. That resulted in the production of Israeli societal beliefs regarding the country’s boundless right to, say, “self-defence”, that only few in the international community shared.

    This exclusive outlook was helped, ironically, by international law’s own lingua franca, its rhetorical nature. It equipped Tel Aviv, like several other states, with the linguistic tools to justify themselves.

    Think of how Israelis defend their military occupation of Palestinians by quoting legal arguments regarding self-defence. Or by re-interpreting the UN Resolution 242, which calls for the “withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967”, to mean not “all” territories.

    They also argue that the Gaza Strip was not occupied since 2005. But ignore Israel’s continued “effective control” over it, which makes it an occupation as per the Fourth Hague Convention.

    And while Israel isn’t a party to the Convention, it is customary international law, and therefore binding.

    Dahiya Doctrine
    In the same vein, Tel Aviv’s ratification in 1995 of the convention on certain conventional weapons, did not stop it deploying cluster bombs against civilians in Beirut’s southern Dahiya’s district in 2006.

    The Israeli army readily denied it was in violation of international law, because “they warned the area’s population”.

    It is in Dahiya that a new legal threshold was crossed, or rather twisted. One that would define Israel’s next military campaigns, namely “The Dahiya Doctrine”. It permits the unleashing of extraordinary force against the civilian population and infrastructure.

    While a clear violation of international law’s “principle of proportionality”, Israeli officials often justified the attacks as lawful for they target the civilian bedding of “terrorists”.

    Needless to say, the Israeli definition of terrorism encapsulates almost every act of dissidence directed at the state, or Jews. Regardless of the legitimacy of that act, and irrespective of its form — violent or passive.

    Israel would upscale the Dahiya Doctrine in its consecutive onslaughts on Gaza since 2008, while continuing to pay lip service to international law.

    After 7 October 2023, even the words of justification had been abandoned. Calls by Israeli officials and some journalists to commit war crimes in Gaza, including genocide, were mostly unapologetic.

    Save for the gas chambers, the Israeli army committed every atrocity imaginable against Gaza’s civilians. Gaza became the world’s largest graveyard of children. Most hospitals, schools, and universities were destroyed, alongside nearly 80 percent of the Strip’s infrastructure and homes.

    More journalists were targeted and killed in Gaza than both world wars, the Vietnam War, wars in Yugoslavia, and the war in Afghanistan combined. And unknown to modern conflict, Israel systematically went after aid workers, including UN-associated ones.

    Enemies and allies
    The gun barrels were then turned against the very representative of international law, the UN. In October 2024, the Knesset banned the UNRWA — going even further by labelling it a “terrorist organisation”.

    Sure, Israel has long looked at the UN as biased, and saw the UNRWA as detrimental to Tel Aviv’s wishes to erase the Palestinian refugee problem from existence. But after October 7, not only did Israel unleash a genocidal war against Palestinians, it used quasi-legal instrument and military prowess to neutralise the legal bodies that may limit its scope.

    This is unprecedented in the United Nation’s history.

    Yet, despite its unbridled brutality, Israel could have been kept at bay had it not been for the US support.

    Indeed, the White House helped Israel normalise its violations of international law in two ways. Firstly, by emphasising the “reason of the state” doctrine over international law. The White House under Biden and Trump, almost fully embraced the Israeli narrative of self-defence after October 7, even when it was evident that the Israelis went too far in Gaza.

    Secondly, the US was already waging its own lateral war on international law. In February 2025, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order authorising sanctions on the ICC and its Chief Prosecutor.

    It expanded the sanctions on four ICC officials in August, saying they had been pivotal in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis.

    Trump had withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, allegedly over anti-Israel bias. The Biden administration re-joined in 2021 despite being critical of the council’s “disproportionate  attention on Israel”. But in 2025 Trump re-withdrew from the organisation.

    Ultimately, whether Israel is being driven by a sense of doom post-October 7, one that has overshadowed rationality, or it is rationally using whatever necessary militarily capacity it has to achieve its war objectives, matters little.

    Whatever the explanation, what stands is that Israel’s unprecedented crimes set a trajectory in the international system. There is now a possibility that under the increasing normalisation of such crimes, the system will ultimately break.

    But if the trajectory follows the same pattern as in the past 100 years, then the crisis may usher in a third world order. A rectifying phase. But that remains speculative, for the path of history is not linear.

    Dr Emad Moussa is a Palestinian-British researcher and writer specialising in the political psychology of intergroup and conflict dynamics, focusing on MENA with a special interest in Israel/Palestine. He has a background in human rights and journalism. Follow him on Twitter: @emadmoussa

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel still committing genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International says

    The NGO’s chief says last month’s ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal’

    Amnesty International has said Israel is “still committing genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire agreed last month.

    The fragile, US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 10 October, after two years of war.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Indonesia’s Gaza peacekeeping mission risks enforcing a ‘broken’ status quo

    ANALYSIS: By Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat

    Indonesia is preparing one of the largest peacekeeping deployments in its history — a 20,000-strong force of soldiers, engineers, medics and logistics personnel — to enter the shattered and starving Gaza Strip.

    Three brigades, three hospital ships, Hercules aircraft, a three-star general, a reconnaissance team, battalions for health services, construction and logistics — Jakarta is moving with remarkable speed and confidence.

    But the moral clarity that Indonesia prides itself on in its support for Palestine is now in danger of being muddied by geopolitical calculation.

    And that calculation, in this case, is deeply entangled with a plan conceived and promoted by US President Donald Trump — a plan that critics argue would freeze, not resolve, the structures of domination and blockade that have long suffocated Gaza.

    Indonesia must ask itself a hard question: Is it stepping into Gaza to help Palestinians — or to help enforce a fragile order designed to protect the status quo?

    For years, Indonesian leaders have proudly stated that their support for Palestine is grounded not in expediency but in principle.

    President Prabowo Subianto has reiterated that Jakarta stands “ready at any moment” to help end the suffering in Gaza. But readiness is not the same as reflection. And reflection is urgently needed.

    Tilted towards Israel
    Trump’s so-called stabilisation plan envisions an International Stabilisation Force tasked with training select Palestinian police officers and preventing weapons smuggling — a mission framed as neutral but structurally tilted toward Israel’s long-standing security demands.

    The plan does little to address the root political causes of Gaza’s devastation. It does not confront Israel’s decades-long military occupation.

    It does not propose a just political horizon. And it does not establish meaningful accountability for continued violations, even as reports persist that ceasefire terms are repeatedly breached.

    A peacekeeping force that does not address the underlying conditions of injustice is not peacekeeping. It is de facto enforcement of a deeply unequal arrangement.

    Indonesia’s deployment risks becoming just that.

    Former deputy foreign minister Dino Patti Djalal has urged caution, warning that Indonesian troops could easily be drawn into clashes simply because the territory remains saturated with weaponry, competing authorities and unresolved political tensions.

    He argues that Indonesia must insist on crystal-clear rules of engagement. With volatility always a possibility, a mission built on ambiguity is a mission built on quicksand.

    Impossible peacekeeper position
    His warning deserves attention. A peacekeeper who does not know whether they are expected to intervene, withdraw or hold ground in moments of confrontation is placed in an impossible position.

    And should Indonesian forces — admired worldwide for their professionalism — be forced to navigate chaos without a political framework, Jakarta will face unpredictable political and humanitarian consequences at home and abroad.

    More troubling is the lack of political strategy behind Indonesia’s enthusiasm. Prabowo’s government frames this mission as a humanitarian and stabilising operation, but it has not clarified how it fits within the long-term political resolution that Indonesia claims to champion.

    For decades, Jakarta has stood consistently behind a two-state solution. Yet today, after the destruction of Gaza and the collapse of any credible peace process, many Palestinians and international observers argue that the two-state paradigm has become a diplomatic mirage — repeatedly invoked, never realised, and often used to justify inaction.

    If Indonesia truly wants to stand for justice rather than merely stability, it must be willing to articulate alternatives. One of those alternatives — controversial but increasingly discussed in academic, political and human rights circles — is a rights-based one-state solution that guarantees equal citizenship and security for all who live between the river and the sea.

    Such a political horizon would require courage from Jakarta. Supporting a single state would mean breaking sharply from US policy preferences and acknowledging that decades of partition proposals have failed to deliver anything resembling peace.

    But Indonesia has taken courageous positions before. It has spoken against apartheid in South Africa and, most recently, called out the global community’s double standards in the treatment of Ukraine and Palestine.

    Jakarta must be moral voice
    If Jakarta wants to be a moral voice, it cannot outsource its vision to a proposal drafted by an American administration whose approach to the conflict was widely criticised as one-sided.

    Indonesia’s soldiers are being told they are going to Gaza to help. That is noble. But noble intentions do not excuse political naivety.

    Before Jakarta sends even a single battalion forward — before the hospital ships are launched, before the Hercules engines warm, before the three-star commander takes his post — Indonesia must ask whether this mission will move Palestinians closer to genuine freedom or merely enforce a temporary calm that leaves the underlying injustices untouched.

    A peacekeeping force that sustains the structures of oppression is not peacekeeping at all. It is maintenance.

    Indonesia can — and must — do better.

    Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the director of the Indonesia-MENA Desk at the Centre for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) in Jakarta and a research affiliate at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. He spent more than a decade living and traveling across the Middle East, earning a BA in international affairs from Qatar University. He later completed his MA in International Politics and PhD in politics at the University of Manchester. This article was first published by Middle East Monitor.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Indonesia’s Gaza peacekeeping mission risks enforcing a ‘broken’ status quo

    ANALYSIS: By Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat

    Indonesia is preparing one of the largest peacekeeping deployments in its history — a 20,000-strong force of soldiers, engineers, medics and logistics personnel — to enter the shattered and starving Gaza Strip.

    Three brigades, three hospital ships, Hercules aircraft, a three-star general, a reconnaissance team, battalions for health services, construction and logistics — Jakarta is moving with remarkable speed and confidence.

    But the moral clarity that Indonesia prides itself on in its support for Palestine is now in danger of being muddied by geopolitical calculation.

    And that calculation, in this case, is deeply entangled with a plan conceived and promoted by US President Donald Trump — a plan that critics argue would freeze, not resolve, the structures of domination and blockade that have long suffocated Gaza.

    Indonesia must ask itself a hard question: Is it stepping into Gaza to help Palestinians — or to help enforce a fragile order designed to protect the status quo?

    For years, Indonesian leaders have proudly stated that their support for Palestine is grounded not in expediency but in principle.

    President Prabowo Subianto has reiterated that Jakarta stands “ready at any moment” to help end the suffering in Gaza. But readiness is not the same as reflection. And reflection is urgently needed.

    Tilted towards Israel
    Trump’s so-called stabilisation plan envisions an International Stabilisation Force tasked with training select Palestinian police officers and preventing weapons smuggling — a mission framed as neutral but structurally tilted toward Israel’s long-standing security demands.

    The plan does little to address the root political causes of Gaza’s devastation. It does not confront Israel’s decades-long military occupation.

    It does not propose a just political horizon. And it does not establish meaningful accountability for continued violations, even as reports persist that ceasefire terms are repeatedly breached.

    A peacekeeping force that does not address the underlying conditions of injustice is not peacekeeping. It is de facto enforcement of a deeply unequal arrangement.

    Indonesia’s deployment risks becoming just that.

    Former deputy foreign minister Dino Patti Djalal has urged caution, warning that Indonesian troops could easily be drawn into clashes simply because the territory remains saturated with weaponry, competing authorities and unresolved political tensions.

    He argues that Indonesia must insist on crystal-clear rules of engagement. With volatility always a possibility, a mission built on ambiguity is a mission built on quicksand.

    Impossible peacekeeper position
    His warning deserves attention. A peacekeeper who does not know whether they are expected to intervene, withdraw or hold ground in moments of confrontation is placed in an impossible position.

    And should Indonesian forces — admired worldwide for their professionalism — be forced to navigate chaos without a political framework, Jakarta will face unpredictable political and humanitarian consequences at home and abroad.

    More troubling is the lack of political strategy behind Indonesia’s enthusiasm. Prabowo’s government frames this mission as a humanitarian and stabilising operation, but it has not clarified how it fits within the long-term political resolution that Indonesia claims to champion.

    For decades, Jakarta has stood consistently behind a two-state solution. Yet today, after the destruction of Gaza and the collapse of any credible peace process, many Palestinians and international observers argue that the two-state paradigm has become a diplomatic mirage — repeatedly invoked, never realised, and often used to justify inaction.

    If Indonesia truly wants to stand for justice rather than merely stability, it must be willing to articulate alternatives. One of those alternatives — controversial but increasingly discussed in academic, political and human rights circles — is a rights-based one-state solution that guarantees equal citizenship and security for all who live between the river and the sea.

    Such a political horizon would require courage from Jakarta. Supporting a single state would mean breaking sharply from US policy preferences and acknowledging that decades of partition proposals have failed to deliver anything resembling peace.

    But Indonesia has taken courageous positions before. It has spoken against apartheid in South Africa and, most recently, called out the global community’s double standards in the treatment of Ukraine and Palestine.

    Jakarta must be moral voice
    If Jakarta wants to be a moral voice, it cannot outsource its vision to a proposal drafted by an American administration whose approach to the conflict was widely criticised as one-sided.

    Indonesia’s soldiers are being told they are going to Gaza to help. That is noble. But noble intentions do not excuse political naivety.

    Before Jakarta sends even a single battalion forward — before the hospital ships are launched, before the Hercules engines warm, before the three-star commander takes his post — Indonesia must ask whether this mission will move Palestinians closer to genuine freedom or merely enforce a temporary calm that leaves the underlying injustices untouched.

    A peacekeeping force that sustains the structures of oppression is not peacekeeping at all. It is maintenance.

    Indonesia can — and must — do better.

    Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the director of the Indonesia-MENA Desk at the Centre for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) in Jakarta and a research affiliate at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. He spent more than a decade living and traveling across the Middle East, earning a BA in international affairs from Qatar University. He later completed his MA in International Politics and PhD in politics at the University of Manchester. This article was first published by Middle East Monitor.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji MP: Violence against women and girls ‘permeates every dimension of society’

    RNZ Pacific

    Fiji marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls  this week with the government saying the day is a reminder that for too many women and girls violence is a daily reality — not a headline or a statistic.

    The day also kicked off 16 days of activism against gender-based violence — a worldwide UN campaign running from November 25 to December 10.

    The country’s Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran told Parliament violence against women and girls was not limited to the private sphere — “it permeates every dimension of society”.

    “Addressing this issue is therefore not only a woman’s matter; it is a national priority — requiring engagement from every sector, every institution and every leader in our country.

    “It manifests in various forms including physical, emotional, sexual and economic abuse as well as harmful practices such as trafficking.”

    She said the cost of violence against females was estimated to be equivalent to seven percent of Fiji’s gross domestic product (GDP), affecting families, the health system, productivity and the nation’s development.

    “The cost of violence is not only emotional — it is national.”

    She pointed out several statistics, including that around 60 percent of Fijian women had experienced some form of violence in their lifetime; girls as young as 13 remained the most vulnerable to sexual assault; and from 2020-2024, more than 4000 child sexual offences were reported — most involving young girls.

    “Our response must be survivor-centred, and above all accessible to everyone — including women and girls with disabilities and those from diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”

    In the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific Region, more than a quarter of girls and women experience some form of intimate partner or sexual violence.

    But WHO said in several Pacific island countries and areas, the prevalence of lifetime intimate partner violence is as high as one in two women.

    WHO’s western Pacific director, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, said governments and communities must use data to drive stronger policies, scale up prevention efforts, and invest in health system readiness, “so every girl is protected and woman is empowered”.

    WHO said while the numbers were grim, a survey on “health system readiness to respond to interpersonal violence” pointed to an encouraging policy environment.

    “Many countries are integrating strategies to prevent violence against women and girls into their national multisectoral plans, and acknowledging the key role that health systems must play in tackling this societal problem.

    “However, the survey also highlights challenges in implementing these strategies.”

    It is not all bad news in the region though — Cook Islands police have reported a decrease in the number of assault cases against women this year.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Yellow lines and green zones – Israel’s de facto partition into ‘two Gazas’

    ANALYSIS: By Alessandra Bajec

    Last week, the UN Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, effectively installing American supervision over the Palestinian territory’s postwar future.

    The resolution, which mandated a transitional administration and an international stabilisation force, faced sharp rejection from several Palestinian factions, who warned that it would undermine the national will.

    The US roadmap sets out a future path to a Palestinian state, although its opaque wording and lack of concrete details on what it would look like cast doubt on any real commitment towards Palestinian self-determination.

    While the UNSC contemplates a “possible” pathway to an independent Palestinian state, the Israeli government firmly rejected Palestinian statehood, calling it an “existential threat”.

    The vote came amid American plans to split the Gaza Strip into two zones. The arrangement envisions a potentially indefinite division of the war-ravaged enclave along the Israeli-established Yellow Line, creating a “green zone” under Israeli military control — where reconstruction would begin — and a “red zone,” which would remain under de facto Hamas control.

    Under the US-brokered ceasefire agreement reached in October, which Tel Aviv is repeatedly violating, Palestinians have been pushed into a small zone on the coastline that makes up less than half of Gaza, with Israeli forces controlling 53 to 58 percent of the Strip.

    The Israeli army maintains roughly 40 active military positions in the area that falls beyond the Yellow Line, the invisible military demarcation boundary set during the first phase of the truce, where Israeli troops had to withdraw to.

    Armed militias and clans
    A mix of armed militias and clans, some supported by Israel, has emerged across the areas of Gaza now under Israeli command, challenging Hamas’s authority. Many Gazans, including those disillusioned with the group, are uneasy about the rise of these small, fragmented groups.

    The majority of Gaza’s two million people are squeezed into a confined, suffocating land mass, living amidst rubble and makeshift tents, with only limited life-saving aid and no operational medical care.

    “The first stage of the US plan has further fragmented Gaza and forced its surviving population into an even smaller territory, turning less than half of it into a concentration camp with no means of survival whatsoever,” US-Palestinian journalist and writer Ramzy Baroud told The New Arab.

    Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, made similar comments to TNA, describing Gaza as split between an indefinitely Israeli-ruled sector and a massive concentration camp.

    “This is the reality that the Security Council has normalised,” he said, criticising the latest UN resolution.

    For the Middle East expert, the so-called peace plan for Gaza has created new facts on the ground that are likely to become “permanent realities”, with the risk of a West Bank–style arrangement marked by extensive Israeli control.

    The Trump administration is reportedly working to build “alternative safe communities” inside the part of Gaza under Israeli control. These communities are intended to provide temporary housing, schools, and hospitals until long-term reconstruction becomes possible.

    The new residential sites are said to be part of a project aimed at resettling Gazans from areas under Hamas rule.

    Gaza’s fragmentation entrenched
    Critics caution that the initiative could entrench Gaza’s fragmentation, undermine Palestinian sovereignty, and amount to forced displacement.

    Rami Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian researcher on Israeli affairs, however, told the Palestinian Information Center that the American blueprint was unrealistic, since Gaza’s dense urban and familial fabric “is not land that can be partitioned”.

    In fact, he added, Israel had not been able to fully control the enclave, either before its withdrawal or throughout the two years of conflict.

    Baroud, born and raised in Gaza, explained that the project was a “far uglier” version of any previous Israeli policy toward Palestinians, in that people are now told that their political stance could determine whether the Strip returns to full-scale genocide or not.

    “Israel’s new tactic is to divide Gaza and let those Palestinians who are not linked to the resistance trickle into the rebuilt zone,” hoping to set up an alternative governing structure there, he argued.

    The analyst believes that Israel’s attempt to form “two Gazas” is unlikely to gain enough traction among people, affirming that their strong sense of unity has long made it almost impossible to manufacture divisions within Gaza’s society.

    “I don’t think Israel can do this kind of social engineering in Gaza, no matter how desperate the situation”, he said.

    Segmentation an old idea
    Baroud stressed that Gaza’s segmentation is an old idea, pointing to former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon’s 1971 “five fingers” plan, which divided the Strip into separate areas through military zones and settlements.

    But he also noted that Gazans resisted it for many years, which later pushed Sharon to withdraw Israeli settlers and troops from the coastal enclave in 2005.

    Besides the emerging territorial divisions, Tel Aviv previously established the Netzarim Corridor, an east‑west military route through central Gaza that splits the Strip in two and gives Israel grip over major highways.

    It also fortified the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone along the Gaza‑Egypt border.

    The Yellow Line, originally intended as a temporary military arrangement marking Israel’s first withdrawal under the ceasefire, is now being cemented despite plans to deploy an international stabilisation force and reduce the Israeli army’s direct presence in the territory after phase one.

    Trump’s 20-point plan has essentially created a geographical division in Gaza that risks becoming permanent.

    Many Palestinians fear the outcome will be a de facto partition between the Israeli-occupied east, with some reconstruction concentrated there, and the Hamas-controlled west, where most of the population remains crowded in devastated areas with little rebuilding.

    Gradual Israeli pull back
    According to the proposal, Israel would gradually pull back to a “security perimeter” but retain military control over this buffer zone, overseen by an international administrative body.

    Critics warn this would perpetuate Israel’s effective control over much of the territory and confine Palestinians to a smaller, more restricted Gaza than before the war.

    Meanwhile, negotiations for the second phase of the truce remain stalled as Hamas still holds the remains of three hostages. An extended standstill would only prolong Palestinian suffering and expose civilians to further violence.

    Israeli forces have continued to carry out near-daily airstrikes, artillery shelling, and demolitions since the truce began on 10 October. In just the first month, Israel violated the ceasefire nearly 500 times, killing more than 340 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more, with some of the worst violence occurring near or past the Yellow Line.

    “Each passing day makes the ceasefire look more like a farce,” Elgindy said, slamming the Security Council’s silence in the face of Israel’s daily ceasefire violations.

    Aid flows restricted
    Israeli authorities have also continued to restrict aid flows to Gaza more than a month into the ceasefire, leaving nearly 1.5 million people without emergency shelter and hundreds of thousands living in tents without basic services.

    UN data shows that just over 100 trucks of humanitarian assistance are entering the besieged enclave each day, far below the 600 trucks per day agreed under the October ceasefire deal.

    Elgindy added that if the world keeps pretending the war is over while bombing continues, aid is still blocked, and reconstruction is stalled, the truce will become untenable, and the situation will erupt again.

    “It’s only a matter of time before we see a Palestinian response, giving Israel a pretext to resume a full-scale assault,” he said.

    Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis. This article was first published by The New Arab.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Activists slam Mayor Brown’s ‘free beer’ cavalier response to Palestine genocide issue

    Asia Pacific Report

    A news report highlighting Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown yelling “free beer” at pro-Palestine protesters at an Auckland Council governing body meeting on Tuesday has stirred an angry response over the failure to face up to a serious human rights issue.

    Mayor Brown was called a ”shameful man” by protesters after they were refused an opportunity to speak at the meeting over ethical procurement policies in response to the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

    At the start of the meeting, the mayor said a request from the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) to speak had been declined, saying the governing body did not have responsibility for Palestine.

    A point of order was then raised by Councillor Mike Lee, who questioned the decision and asked for an explanation, said a Stuff news report.

    Two other councillors also challenged the mayor, but Brown doubled down on his refusal to allow the PSNA deputation to speak.

    When protesters started chanting “free Palestine”, Brown shouted “free beer”.

    Brown again reiterated that the governing body did not have responsibility for Palestine, said the Stuff report.

    ‘Depraved comment’
    “It’s hard to know who is more to blame for this story in Stuff,” said PSNA co-chair John Minto to supporters in a social media post.

    “Is it Wayne Brown’s depraved comment ‘free beer’ in response to genocide in Gaza or is it the mainstream media which presents such a half-arsed account of our request to speak at the council meeting?”

    Minto pointed out that so far the Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington and Palmerston North city councils — as well as Environment Canterbury and Environment Southland — had passed motions to exclude from their procurement policies any company on the United Nations Human Rights Council list of companies building and maintaining illegal Israeli settlements on illegally occupied Palestinian land.

    “Brown is happy for Auckland ratepayer money to be spent on companies involved in flagrant violations of international law and is refusing to allow the council to discuss this,” Minto said.

    “We will be back.”

    Other pro-Palestinian protesters added comments in support.

    West Coast environmental activist Pete Lusk wrote: “That’s like the age-old comment ‘get a job’. Such an ignorant man is Wayne Brown.”

    Brown lacked ‘compassion’
    In a lengthy response, Nancy McShane wrote in part: “I find Mr Brown’s cavalier response of ‘free beer’ entirely inappropriate. It’s a pity he was unable to demonstrate an appropriate level of concern, insight and compassion towards the Palestinian people, and engage constructively with this group of PSNA members who were advocating on their behalf.

    “PSNA has worked extremely hard to ensure our local bodies are vigilant in ensuring they are not supporting genocide through poor purchasing choices.

    “Aucklanders should be concerned that, unlike many other councils around New Zealand, their own council has refused to even have a discussion on this issue, let alone adopt an ethical, genocide-free procurement policy.

    “Once upon a time, our country had a proud reputation as a progressor and defender of human rights. That is rapidly disappearing.

    “New Zealanders should think carefully about how this shift away from our foundational values of peace, justice and equality will shape the future of Aotearoa.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Civicus raps 8 Pacific countries for ‘not doing enough’ to protect civic rights, press freedom

    Asia Pacific Report

    The global civil society alliance Civicus has called on eight Pacific governments to do more to respect civic freedoms and strengthen institutions to protect these rights.

    It is especially concerned over the threats to press freedom, the use of laws to criminalise online expression, and failure to establish national human rights institutions or ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

    But it also says that the Pacific status is generally positive.

    The Civicus Pacific civic protections report
    The Civicus Pacific civic protections report.

    Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Solomon Islands have been singled out for criticism over press freedom concerns, but the brief published by the Civicus Monitor also examines the civic spce in Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu.

    “There have been incidents of harassment, intimidation and dismissal of journalists in retaliation for their work,” the report said.

    “Cases of censorship have also been reported, along with denial of access, exclusion of journalists from government events and refusal of visas to foreign journalists.”

    The Civicus report focuses on respect for and limitations to the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly, which are fundamental to the exercise of civic rights.

    Freedoms guaranteed
    “These freedoms are guaranteed in the national constitutions of all eight countries as well as in the ICCPR.

    “In several countries — including Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, PNG and Samoa — the absence of freedom of information laws makes it extremely difficult for journalists and the public to access official information,” the report said.

    Countries such as Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, continued to enforce criminal defamation laws, creating a “chilling environment for the media, human rights defenders and anyone seeking to express themselves or criticise governments”.

    In recent years, Fiji, PNG and Samoa had also used cybercrime laws to criminalise online expression.

    “Governments in the Pacific must do more to protect press freedom and ensure that journalists can work freely and without fear of retribution for expressing critical opinions or covering topics the government may find sensitive,” said Josef Benedict, Civicus Asia Pacific researcher.

    “They must also pass freedom of information legislation and remove criminal defamation provisions in law so that they are not used to criminalise expression both off and online.”

    Civicus is concerned that at least four countries – Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Tonga – have yet to ratify the ICCPR, which imposes obligations on states to respect and protect civic freedoms.

    Lacking human rights bodies
    Also, four countries — Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — lack national human rights institutions (NHRI).

    Fiji was criticised over restricting the right to peaceful assembly over protests about genocide and human rights violations in Palestine and West Papua.

    In May 2024, “a truckload of police officers, including two patrol cars, turned up at a protest at the premises of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre against human rights violations in Gaza and West Papua, in an apparent effort to intimidate protesters”.

    Gatherings and vigils had been organised regularly each Thursday.

    In PNG and Tonga, the Office of the Ombudsman plays monitor and responds to human rights issues, but calls remain for establishing an independent body in line with the Paris Principles, which set international standards for national human rights institutions.

    “It is time all Pacific countries ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and ensure its laws are consistent with it,” said Benedict.

    “Governments must also to establish national human rights institutions to ensure effective monitoring and reporting on human rights issues. This will also allow for better accountability for violations of civic freedoms.”

    How Civicus rates Pacific countries
    How Civicus rates Pacific countries. Image: Civicus

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Philippines testimony reveals torture, abuses by police, says Amnesty

    Asia Pacific Report

    Philippines police unlawfully targeted protesters with unnecessary and excessive force during anti-corruption marches in September, according to harrowing new testimony gathered by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International ahead of fresh protests planned across the country this weekend.

    Ten people interviewed by Amnesty International detailed physical abuse — including violations that may amount to torture and other ill-treatment — by state forces following demonstrations in the capital Manila on 21 September 2025.

    The research comes as thousands prepare to return to the streets on November 30 in renewed protests against government corruption, said the Amnesty International report.

    “The disturbing evidence we have gathered of unlawful force unleashed by the police against protesters and others on September 21 makes a mockery of the Philippine government’s repeated claim that it exercises ‘maximum tolerance’ during protests,” said Jerrie Abella, Amnesty International regional campaigner.

    “Victims have described how police punched, kicked and hit people — including children — with batons as they were arrested, with appalling ill-treatment continuing in detention. The police must change course and respect people’s right to protest on November 30 and beyond.”

    Police only stopped beatings “when they saw the media coming”.

    The Philippines’ biggest demonstrations in years took place on September 21, as tens of thousands in Manila and elsewhere protested against corruption by government officials, high-level politicians and contractors in flood-control and infrastructure projects.

    Isolated incidents
    Isolated incidents of violence from some protesters, including setting vehicles on fire and throwing stones at the police, were reported in Manila.

    Manila police said they arrested and detained 216 people who were allegedly involved in the violence, including 91 children. Many are facing criminal charges.

    However, Amnesty’s research indicates that peaceful protesters and bystanders were also violently targeted by the police.

    Rey*, 20, recounted how three men in plain clothes — who he believes were police as they later handed him to uniformed officers — grabbed and punched him in the face as he tried to run away while holding a sign calling on people to take to the streets.

    The assault on Rey was captured in a video, by an unknown individual, which he found online and showed to Amnesty International.

    “Police in uniform joined in to punch, kick and hit me with their batons. I briefly lost consciousness but woke up to pain as they dragged me by my hair,” Rey told Amnesty International.

    He said police accused him of taking part in violence that killed two officers, despite the fact that no police were killed in the protests.

    Beating stopped when media came
    Rey said the beating only stopped when one officer warned the others that members of the media were approaching. He also described how he and his friend were taken by uniformed police into an ambulance, where they were beaten further.

    Omar*, 25, said he was watching the protests with relatives in Mendiola Street, Manila, when he was arrested.

    Police accused him of being among those who caused violence, including attacking the police.

    While walking with the police who arrested him, Omar said they passed other officers who punched and hit him with batons.

    He said he was then held in a tent with about 14 other people, one of whom “had blood dripping from a head wound” which he said was from being hit with a gun by a police officer.

    Ahmed*, 17, was arrested alongside his relatives Yusuf*, 18, and Ali*, 19, who all live and do construction work near the protest site.

    They said they went out to buy rice and were waiting for police to allow them to pass through a protest area on their way back to the construction site when they were arrested.

    ‘Hit with batons, kicked’
    “The police took us to a tent where they hit us with their batons. They punched us in the face and kicked our torsos,” Ali told Amnesty International. He said they were accused of attacking the police and subsequently detained.

    ‘I saw people coming out of the tent bloodied and bruised’

    Greg*, 18, and Ryan*, 22, were arrested in separate incidents in Mendiola and Ayala Bridge in Manila for their alleged involvement in attacks against the police. Like all those interviewed, they were brought by the police to a blue tent in Mendiola, where police beat them further.

    Lawyer Maria Sol Taule, from a legal aid group representing those interviewed, said the “notorious blue tent” served as a temporary holding area for those arrested. While it showed no outward sign of police affiliation, it appeared to be supervised by the police, according to the group’s investigation.

    “I was so scared. I saw people coming out of the tent bloodied and bruised. Inside, they made me spread my hands and repeatedly hit both sides with their batons,” said Greg, who showed Amnesty International welts on his back where he said he was struck.

    Ryan said police hit him on his head and neck. “They saw me lift my head up and accused me of ‘verifying’ or looking at the faces of police to identify them,” he said. Others interviewed reported being similarly hit following the same accusation by police.

    “I told myself, I was done for. I’d never make it out of this tent alive,” said Michael*, 23, who described being punched, kicked and hit with batons by police. He was arrested with his girlfriend Sam*, 21, and their friend Lena*, 22, before all three were detained at a police station. They said they went to the protest just to watch and take videos but were arrested for allegedly committing violence.

    Sam and Lena were not hurt but could hear people being beaten nearby. “Even now, I can still hear the cries coming from the tent. I have problems sleeping, imagining how they beat up Michael,” Sam said.

    Needed medical treatment
    The beatings were so severe that some victims needed medical treatment, according to Taule. She said one individual sustained injuries including a dislocated jaw when he was hit by the police with a baton in the face. Others – including Michael, Sam and Lena – lost their jobs after failing to report to work as they were detained.

    All those interviewed maintained they were not involved in the violence of which they were accused by the police.

    On November 4, police said 97 individuals had been charged with conspiracy, sedition and other crimes over the protests.

    *Names were changed in the Amnesty International report upon request for safety reasons

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Piers Morgan accepts Russia’s war crimes — shame he won’t do the same with America’s

    In a conversation with Jeffrey Sachs, Piers Morgan got a brutally honest response on the consequences Russia will face for invading Ukraine:

    Morgan wasn’t wrong to speak out against Russia’s actions. However, his criticism masks the double standards of the Western establishment, which conveniently glosses over its own imperial misadventures.

    The grim truth

    Morgan was speaking to the American economist and analyst Sachs when he asked:

    What happens to a country like Russia, which by common consent has committed myriad war crimes in the last three years?

    It’s targeted and killed civilians. I think that’s inarguable. It’s kidnapped a reported 20,000 Ukrainian children. There was the massacre at places like Bucha. I’ve been there. Absolutely horrific what went on down there. There have been the sexual assaults and rapes of Ukrainian women and so on. So it seems inarguable. There’s been a number of war crimes committed.

    Is it fair and just that at the end of this, assuming you’re right and this is the beginning of the end of this, that Russia emerges unpunished for any of this?

    It’s not an unfair question.

    The people who order and commit these inhumanities should be held accountable, but this seldom happens, as Sachs explained:

    Well, if the United States were punished for all its war crimes, the world would be a better place. And if all countries were punished for their war crimes; if Israel was punished for its genocide before our eyes; if the United States was punished for overthrowing so many regimes and causing so many wars; if the United States were punished for the Iraq war; if the United States were punished for the coup in Iraq, Maidan in February 2014, I’d agree with you.

    It would be great if governments were accountable. But what we like to do is say the other side is the wrong one and not to acknowledge our own sins.

    For this, Jesus had it right. Why do you always point to the moat in the other eye when you have the plank or the beam in your own eye? To my mind, this is the basic point.

    I would love to follow your line, Piers. I agree with it. We should have accountability for all the crimes that are committed. And the United States’ list is so long.

    I have been tracking it for more than 40 years professionally. It’s just one war crime after another, including complicity in a genocide in Gaza during the last two years.

    War crimes

    After WWII, it was possible to hold the Nazis accountable. Germany was completely defeated — ignoring the Nazis who went to work for the Americans, obviously.

    Nations like America, Russia, Israel, and the UK, have not been defeated. Therefore, it’s not possible to hold foreign politicians accountable in the same way.

    Of course, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for accountability or demand an international response to war criminals. Our politics would be in a much better state if Blair and New Labour had been punished for invading Iraq on unfounded claims. And it goes without saying, that everyone should support the International Criminal Court’s attempts to hold Israel responsible for the genocide.

    The problem is that the mechanisms for justice and accountability are limited to waging war — which rarely works out … or sanctions — both of which make things worse.

    Morgan isn’t wrong about Russia’s crimes. The issue is that he’s selectively correct. You won’t hear mainstream journalists like him arguing that Western nations should face accountability, and that’s a massive problem.

    Featured image via Piers Morgan Uncensored

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Chile plans to launch global campaign seeking to expel ‘pariah’ Israel from United Nations

    Ma’an News Agency in Santiago

    Civil society forces in Chile are preparing to launch an international campaign to demand the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations.

    This is based on Article 6 of the United Nations Charter against the backdrop of what the campaign describes as “continuous and systematic violations” of international law and resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

    The official launch of the campaign is due to take place tomorrow during a public event in the capital Santiago while a collection of signatures by electronic petition has already begun.

    Campaign data indicated that the petition addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had already exceeded 57,000 signatures, with a goal of quickly reaching 100,000 signatures.

    The organisers of the civil society initiative say the rapid response reflects a “broad popular response” to the dire humanitarian situation in Palestine, and embodies “international civil pressure” to get the international system moving after decades of inaction.

    At the media event introducing the initiative, lawyer and former Chilean ambassador Nelson Haddad presented the legal framework for the campaign, explaining that Israel had become a “pariah state according to the definitions of international law,” and that it “does not abide by UN resolutions, nor by the basic rules of international humanitarian law, and practises systematic violations that have been ongoing for more than seven decades”.

    Campaign organisers say this mechanism has been used in historical moments, such as the Korean War and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that activating it now could constitute an “institutional pressure tool” capable of overcoming obstruction within the UN Security Council.

    ‘Reforming the UN’
    The organisers also believe that the goal is not limited to imposing measures against Israel, but extends to “reopening the file of reforming the structure of the United Nations”, restricting the power of the veto, and restoring the principle of legal equality between states in order to limit the ability of one state to “disrupt international justice.”

    The petition read as follows:

    “We, the undersigned, respectfully but firmly appeal to you to initiate formal procedures to expel the State of Israel from the Organisation, in accordance with Article 6 of the Charter of the United Nations, because of its repeated violations of the principles contained therein.”

    The letter continues:

    “Emphasising that Israel, through official statements, declares its intention to eliminate the State of Palestine with all its inhabitants, infrastructure, and memory, and accuses every party that criticises its policies of ‘anti-Semitism,’ and practices repression even against Jewish citizens who oppose genocide, thus making its violations extensive, deep, and directed against everyone who disagrees with its orientations.”

    The letter describes what is happening in the Gaza Strip as a “complex war crime,” noting that the occupying state is killing “Palestinians with bombs and missiles, destroying medical infrastructure, and exterminating nearly two million people through hunger and thirst”.

    ‘Starving population, poisoning the land’
    Israel is also depriving the population of water, food, and medicine, and destroying and poisoning the land, representing “one of the most serious documented crimes in the modern era”.

    The letter adds that the continued dealings of international and academic institutions with Israel are “unjustified and unacceptable”, and that “Israel must be immediately expelled from all international activities, all institutional relations with it must be severed, and a comprehensive arms embargo imposed that contributes to the continuation of the genocide.”

    The message concluded by saying: “With Gaza, humanity dies too. We want Palestine to live, for it is the heart of the world.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Leading lawyers condemn ‘contrived’ Bangladesh trial of former UK minister

    Exclusive: High-profile lawyers suggest ex-City minister Tulip Siddiq has not enjoyed basic rights during her trial in absentia

    The trial in Bangladesh of the former UK City minister Tulip Siddiq has been “contrived and unfair”, leading lawyers including a former Conservative justice secretary have told Bangladesh’s ambassador before Thursday’s verdict.

    Siddiq, who resigned from the UK government in January, is due to receive her verdict and sentence in absentia, with the prosecution seeking a maximum life sentence term.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.