radiofree.asia

Category: Human Rights

  • Under Health Communism, Care Is A Human Right

    Advocates Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant say health communism isn’t about tweaking the current healthcare system but ending a system in which only those deemed ​“productive” or ​“deserving” are allowed to live well. Instead, care should be guaranteed to all — because we exist, not because we work. 

    Under capitalism, care is often tied to productivity. But as Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue in their book, Health Communism, that logic is the problem. Sickness, disability and aging aren’t anomalies; they’re part of being human. A truly humane health system, then, would not treat nonproductivity as a defect. 

    Under the current system, many people — especially the chronically ill, disabled, elderly and institutionalized — are treated as ​“surplus populations,” expensive burdens to be managed. Health communism sees their liberation as central to the fight for justice.

    The post Under Health Communism, Care Is A Human Right appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Saige England: Why I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    I unequivocally support Irish author Sally Rooney with all my heart and soul. The author risks imprisonment for donating funds from her books and the TV series based on Normal People to a Palestinian group.

    Once again the United Kingdom tells Palestinians who they should support. Go figure.
    In her opinion piece in The Irish Times last Saturday she said that:

    “Activists who disrupt the flow of weapons to a genocidal regime may violate petty criminal statutes, but they uphold a far greater law and a more profound human imperative: to protect a people and culture from annihilation.”

    Whenever the people resist or rebel they are deemed terrorists. That has been the case for indigenous people around the world from indigenous Americans to Indians in India to Aborigine and Māori, the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh.

    I went from being a “born-again” starry-eyed kibbutznik who believed in Zionism to a journalist who researched the facts and the hidden truths.

    Those facts are revolting. Settler colonialism is revolting. Stealing homes is theft.

    I kept in touch with some of my US-based Zionist kibbutznik mates. When I asked them to stop calling Palestinians animals, when I asked them not to say they had tails, when I asked them to stop the de-humanisation — the same de-humanisation that happened during the Nazi regime, they dumped me.

    Zionism based on a myth
    Jews who support genocide are antisemitic. They are also selfish and greedy. Zionists are the bully kids at school who take other kids toys and don’t want to share. They don’t play fair.

    The notion of Zionism is based on a myth of the superiority of one group over another. It is religious nutterism and it is racism.

    Empire is greed. Capitalism is greed. Settler colonialism involves extermination for those who resist giving up their land. Would you or I accept someone taking our homes, forcing us to leave our uneaten dinner on the table? Would you or I accept our kids being stolen, put in jail, raped, tortured.

    Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine
    Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine Action and rejects the UK law banning this, and she argues that nation states have a duty not only to punish but also to prevent the commission of this “incomparably horrifying crime of genocide”. Image: Irish Times screenshot APR

    The country was weird when I visited in 1982. It had just invaded Lebanon. Later that year it committed a genocide.

    The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The horrific slaughter prompted outrage and condemnation around the world, with the UN General Assembly condemning it as “an act of genocide”.

    I had been primed for sunshine and olives, but the country gave me a chill. The toymaker I worked with was a socialist and he told me I should feel sorry for the Palestinians.

    It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets. But you need to defend yourself when you steal.

    Paranoia from guilt
    Paranoia is a consequence of a persecutor who fails to recognise their guilt. It happens when you steal. The paranoia happens when you close doors. When you don’t welcome the other — whose home you stole.

    In 2014, soldiers of the IDF — a mercenary macho army — were charged with raping their own colleagues. Now footage of the rape of Palestinian men are celebrated on national television in Israel in front of live audiences. Any decent person would be disgusted by this.

    The army under this Zionist madness has committed — and continues to commit — the crimes it lied about Palestinians committing. And yes, the big fat liar has even admitted its own lies. The bully in the playground really doesn’t care now, it does not have to persuade the world it is right, because it is supported, it has the power.

    This isn’t the warped Wild West where puritans invented the scalping of women and children — the sins of colonisers are many — this is happening now. We can stand for the might of racism or we can stand against racist policies and regimes. We can stand against apartheid and genocide.

    Indigenous people must have the right to live in their homeland. Casting them onto designated land then invading that land is wrong.

    When Israelis are kidnapped they are called hostages. When Palestinians are kidnapped they are called prisoners. It’s racist. It’s cruel. It’s revolting that anyone would support this travesty.

    Far far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed that day (and we know now that some of those Israelis were killed by their own army, Israel has admitted it lied over and again about the murder of babies and rapes).

    Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England
    Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England . . . “It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets.” Image: Saige England

    Mercenary macho army
    So who does murder and rape? The IDF. The proud mercenary macho army.

    Once upon a time, a Palestinian kid who threw a stone got a bullet between the eyes. Now they get a bullet for carrying water, for going back to the homeground that has been bombed to smithereens. Snipers enjoy taking them down.

    Drones operated by human beings who have no conscience follow children, follow journalists, follow nurses, follow someone in a wheelchair, and blow them to dust.

    This is a game for the IDF. I’m sure some feel bad about it but they have to go along with it because they lose privileges if they do not. This sick army run by a sick state includes soldiers who hold dual US and Israeli citizenship.

    Earlier this year I met a couple of IDF soldiers on holidays from genocide, breezily ordering their lattes in a local cafe. I tried to engage with them, to garner some sense of compassion but they used “them” and “they” to talk about Palestinians.

    They lumped all Palestinians into a de-humanised mass worth killing. They blamed indigenous people who lived under a regime of apartheid and who are now being exterminated, for the genocide.

    The woman was even worse than the man. She loathed me the minute she saw my badge supporting the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aoteara. Hate spat from her eyes.

    Madness.

    De-brainwashing
    I saw that the only prospect for them to change might be a de-brainwashing programme. Show them the real facts they were never given, show them real Palestinians instead of figments of their imagination.

    It occurred to me that it really was very tempting to take them home and offer them a different narrative. I asked them if they would listen, and they said no. If I had forced them to come with me I would have been, you know, a hostage-taker.

    Israel is evidence that the victim can become the persecutor when they scapegoat indigenous people as the villain, when they hound them for crime of a holocaust they did not commit.

    And I get it, a little. My Irish and French Huguenot ancestors were persecuted. I have to face the sad horrid fact that those persecuted people took other people’s land in New Zealand. The victims became the persecutor.

    Oh they can say they did not know but they did know. They just did not look too hard at the dispossession of indigenous people.

    I wrote my book The Seasonwife at the ripe young age of 63 to reveal some of the suppressed truths about colonisation and about the greed of Empire — a system where the rich exploit the poor to help themselves. I will continue to write novels about suppressed truths.

    And I call down my Jewish ancestors who hid their Jewishness to avoid persecution. I have experienced antisemitism.

    Experienced cancelling
    But I have experienced cancelling, not by my publisher I hasten to add, but I know agencies and publishers in my country who tell authors to shut up about this genocide, who call those who speak up anti-semitic.

    I have been cancelled by Zionist authors. I don’t have a publisher like that but I know those who do, I know agencies who pressure authors to be silent.

    I call on other authors to follow Rooney’s example and for pity’s sake stop referencing Hamas. Learn the truth.

    Benjamin Netanyahu refused to deal with any other Palestinian representative. Palestinians have the right to choose their own representatives but they were denied that right.

    What is a terrorist army? The IDF which has created killing field after killing field. Not just this genocide, but the genocide in Lebanon in 1982.

    I have been protesting against the massacre of Palestinians since 2014 and I wish I had been more vocal earlier. I wish I had left the country when the Phalangists were killed. I did go back and report from the West Bank but I feel now, that I did not do enough. I was pressured — as Western writers are — to support the wrongdoer, the persecutor, not the victim.

    I will never do that again.

    Change with learning
    I do believe that with learning we can change, we can work towards a different, fairer system — a system based on fairness not exploitation.

    I stand alongside indigenous people everywhere.

    So I say again, that I support Sally Rooney and any author who has the guts to stand up to the pressure of oppressive regimes that deny the rights of people to resist oppression.

    I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop. I believe they will be granted the right to return to their land. It is not anyone else’s right to grant that, really, the right of return for those who were forced out, and their descendants, is long overdue.

    And their forced exile is recent. Biblical myths don’t stack up. Far too often they are stacked to make other people fall down.

    Perhaps if we had all stood up more than 100,000 Palestinians would still be alive, a third of those children, would still be running around, their voices like bells instead of death calls.

    I support Palestinians with all my heart and soul.

    Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • When journalists like Anas al-Sharif are killed we lose access to truth in Gaza

    Journalists like Anas al-Sharif who report the truth in Gaza to the world and are targeted by Israel deserve protection, not just sympathy.

    COMMENTARY: By Sara Qudah

    During the past 22 months in Gaza, the pattern has become unbearable yet tragically predictable: A journalist reports about civilians; killed or starved, shares footage of a hospital corridor, shelters bombed out, schools and homes destroyed, and then they are silenced.

    Killed.

    At the Committee to Protect Journalists we documented that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists, with an unprecedented number of those killed by Israel reporting from Gaza while covering Israel’s military operations.

    That trend did not end; it continued instead in 2025, making this war by far the deadliest for the press in history.

    When a journalist is killed in a besieged war city, the loss is no longer personal. It is institutional, it is the loss of eyes and ears on the ground: a loss of verification, context, and witness.

    Journalists are the ones who turn statistics into stories. They give names to numbers and faces to headlines. They make distant realities real for the rest of the world, and provide windows into the truth and doors into other worlds.

    That is why the killing of Anas al-Sharif last week reverberates so loudly, not just as a tragic loss of one life, but as a silencing of many stories that will now never be told.

    Not just reporting
    Anas al-Sharif was not just reporting from Gaza, he was filling a vital void. When international journalists couldn’t access the Strip, his work for Al Jazeera helped the world understand what was happening.

    On August 10, 2025, an airstrike hit a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where journalists had gathered. Al-Sharif and several of his colleagues were killed.

    The strike — its method, its targets, and its aftermath – wasn’t isolated. It fits a pattern CPJ and other press freedom organisations have tracked for months: in Gaza, journalists are facing not just the incidental risks of war, but repeated, targeted threats.

    And so far, there has been no accountability.

    The Israeli military framed its action differently: officials alleged that al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas and that the attack was aimed at a legitimate threat. But so far, the evidence presented publicly failed to meet the test of independent witnesses; no public evidence has met the basic standard of independent verification.

    UN experts and press freedom groups have called for transparent investigations, warning of the danger in labelling journalists as combatants without clear, verifiable proof.

    In the turmoil of war, there’s a dangerous tendency to accept official narratives too quickly, too uncritically. That’s exactly how truth gets lost.

    Immediate chilling effect
    The repercussions of silencing reporters in a besieged territory are far-reaching. There is the immediate chilling effect: journalists who stay risk death; those who leave — if they even can — leave behind untold stories.

    Second, when local journalists are killed, international media have no choice but to rely increasingly on official statements or third-party briefings for coverage, many with obvious biases and blind spots.

    And third, the families of victims and the communities they represented are denied both justice and memory.

    Al-Sharif’s camera recorded funerals and destroyed homes, bore witness to lives cut short. His death leaves those images without a voice, pointing now only into silence.

    We also need to name the power dynamics at play. When an enormously powerful state with overwhelming military capability acts inside a densely populated area, the vast majority of casualties will be civilians — those who cannot leave — and local reporters, who cannot shelter.

    This is not a neutral law of physics; it is the to-be-anticipated result of how this war waged in a space where journalists will not be able to go into shelter.

    We have repeatedly documented that journalists killed in this war are Palestinian — not international correspondents. The most vulnerable witnesses, those most essential to documenting it, are also the most vulnerable to being killed.

    So what should the international community and the world leaders do beyond offering condolences?

    Demand independent investigation
    For starters, they must demand an immediate, independent investigation. Not just routine military reviews, but real accountability — gathering evidence, preserving witness testimony, and treating each death with the seriousness it deserves.

    Accountability cannot be a diplomatic nicety; it must be a forensic process with witnesses and evidence.

    Additionally, journalists must be protected as civilians. That’s not optional. Under international law, reporters who aren’t taking part in the fighting are civilians — period.

    That is an obligation not a choice. And when safety isn’t possible, we must get them out. Evacuate them. Save their lives. And in doing so, allow others in — international reporters who can continue telling the story.

    We are past the time for neutrality. The use of language like “conflict”, “collateral damage”, or “civilian casualties” cannot be used to deflect responsibility, especially when the victims are people whose only “crime” was documenting human suffering.

    When the world loses journalists like Anas al-Sharif, it loses more than just one voice. We lose a crucial balance of power and access to truth; it fails to maintain the ability to understand what’s happening on the ground. And future generations lose the memory — the record — of what took place here.

    Stand up for facts
    The international press community, human rights organisations, and diplomatic actors need to stand up. Not just for investigations, but for facts. Families in Gaza deserve more than empty statements. They deserve the truth about who was killed, and why. So does every person reading this from afar.

    And the journalists still risking everything to report from inside Gaza deserve more than sympathy. They deserve protection.

    The killing of journalists — like those from Al Jazeera — isn’t just devastating on a human level. It’s a direct attack on journalism itself. When a state can murder reporters without consequence, it sends a message to the entire world: telling the truth might cost you your life.

    I write this as someone who believes that journalism is, above all, a moral act. It’s about bearing witness. It’s about insisting that lives under siege are still lives that matter, still worth seeing.

    Silencing a journalist doesn’t just stop a story — it erases a lifetime of effort to bring others into view.

    The murder of al-Sharif isn’t just another tragedy. It’s an assault on truth itself, in a place where truth is desperately needed. If we let this keep happening, we’re not just losing lives — we’re losing the last honest witnesses in a world ruled by force.

    And that’s something we can’t afford to give up.

    Sara Qudah is the regional director for Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sara on LinkedIn: Sara Qudah

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • US Human Rights Report On Venezuela Doesn’t Pass The Mirror Test

    The US State Department’s latest Human Rights Report condemns Venezuela for serious abuses. Weaponizing human rights, accusations are selectively applied to serve a destabilization campaign. In this article, a mirror is held up to Uncle Sam to see how well “America the beautiful” holds up to the same charges, while also exposing the role of sanctions, compliant NGOs, and military threats in Washington’s hybrid war on Venezuela.

    The US report indicts Venezuela for “arbitrary or unlawful killings.” Meanwhile, in the land of the free, police killings hit a record high in in 2024. Impunity is high with charges brought against offending officers in fewer than 3% of cases. The FBI itself admits that transparency is hampered.

    The post US Human Rights Report On Venezuela Doesn’t Pass The Mirror Test appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump Administration Opens New Immigration Jail at Texas Military Base

    Despite local opposition, the Trump administration has opened what’s expected to be the largest immigration jail in the country, on the grounds of the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. In addition to Fort Bliss, the Trump administration also plans to detain immigrants on military bases in New Jersey and Indiana. On August 18, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas)…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The U.S.-Israeli Guide to Deprivation By Design

    The post The U.S.-Israeli Guide to Deprivation By Design first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Visualizing Palestine.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test

    The US State Department’s latest Human Rights Report condemns Venezuela for serious abuses. Weaponizing human rights, accusations are selectively applied to serve a destabilization campaign. In this article, a mirror is held up to Uncle Sam to see how well “America the beautiful” holds up to the same charges, while also exposing the role of sanctions, compliant NGOs, and military threats in Washington’s hybrid war on Venezuela.

    The carceral state

    The US report indicts Venezuela for “arbitrary or unlawful killings.” Meanwhile, in the land of the free, police killings hit a record high in 2024. Impunity is high with charges brought against offending officers in fewer than 3% of cases. The FBI itself admits that transparency is hampered.

    Prolonged solitary confinement, recognized as torturous, is widespread in US prisons and ICE detention centers, affecting over 122,000 people daily. A US Senate report on torture documented CIA abuses, yet meaningful accountability has failed. Hundreds of political prisoners languish in penitentiaries in the US and in Guantánamo, the majority of whom are people of color. Roughly 70% of local jail inmates are held in pretrial detention, often pressured with coercive plea deals, undermining equality before the law.

    The US has the largest prison population in the world (about 1.8 to 2 million) and an incarceration rate over 2.5 times greater than Venezuela’s. Even after release, about four million citizens remain disenfranchised due to felony convictions, disproportionately affecting Black communities.

    Freedom to protest

    Washington faults Venezuela for limiting freedom of expression. Yet, numerous US states have passed or considered anti-protest laws (e.g., “critical infrastructure” bills) that civil-liberties groups warn chill peaceful assembly.

    Reporters without Borders (RSF) observes, “the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history.” This accusation is particularly notable because RSF is strongly biased in support of the US and receives funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. Arrests and detentions of journalists surged in 2024; schoolbook bans spiked across 29 states. In April 2024, Congress reauthorized and expanded FISA §702, enabling warrantless surveillance according to legal scholars.

    As the US-based Black Alliance for Peace observes, “domestic repression in the US colonial/capitalist core is imperative to support the aggressive militarism abroad.”

    This coupling of domestic subjugation with the international is painfully evident with the US imperialist/Israeli zionist aggression abroad in Gaza, while pro-Palestine advocates are suppressed at home. Zionist curricula are being imposed at all levels of education; at least half of the US states now require so-called “Holocaust education.” Pro-Palestine faculty, students, and staff are being purged.

    Washington’s accusation of Venezuelan antisemitism cites President Nicolás Maduro calling Israel’s assault on Gaza “the most brutal genocide” since Hitler. Its charge of antisemitism conflates Venezuela’s political criticism of the zionist state with hatred of the Jewish religion. If “antisemitism” includes Muslim Arabs, US culpability is so blatant that it requires no additional documentation.

    Meanwhile, the US accuses Venezuela of failing to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This projection does not deserve any rebuttal other than to mention that the US has a documented history of family separation of migrants and deaths in custody.

    Likewise, the world’s rogue nation does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and similar institutions, while reproaching Caracas for attempting to “misuse international law.” If anything, the Maduro government has gone out of its way to defend international law with initiatives upholding the UN Charter.

    Social welfare

    The US report scolds Venezuela for a minimum wage “under the poverty line.” Yet, its own federal minimum wage has been $7.25/hour since 2009; insufficient to lift a full-time worker out of poverty.

    A UN special rapporteur for human rights estimated that sanctions – more properly “unilateral coercive measures” – by the US and allies have caused over 100,000 excess deaths in Venezuela. Yet purported human rights NGOs Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRC), and the Washington Office on Latin American (WOLA) omit this glaring human toll in their reports on human rights in Venezuela.

    Predictably, they make nearly identical evaluations of the Venezuelan human rights situation as does the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) and the US State Department itself.  Their reports (AI, HRW, WOLA, US, OAS) either ignore or, at best, make passing references to the sanctions. No mention is made of the illegality of sanctions under international law – they are a form of collective punishment.

    In other contexts, the NGOs have acknowledged the horrific human impact of sanctions. Regardless, they were in a panic that the Trump administration might ease sanctions over the Chevron license, thus rewarding bad behavior. For these soft power apparatchiks of the US imperial project, the pain endured by the Venezuelans is worth it. WOLA has been particularly vocal about counseling against direct US military intervention, when sanctions afford an equally lethal but less obvious form of coercion.

    Hybrid war on Venezuela

    In his first term, Donald Trump levied a $15m bounty on Maduro, framing the Venezuela government as a transnational criminal enterprise tied to terrorism. This lowered the potential threshold for extraordinary US measures. Joe Biden seamlessly upped the bounty to $25m, which Trump then doubled on August 7.

    Evidence-free allegations linking the Venezuelan president to the dismantled Tren de Aragua drug cartel, the fictitious Cartel of the Suns criminal organization, and the actual Sinaloa Cartel (which is in Mexico) were conveniently used to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is supposed to be a wartime measure. This is coupled with the designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and periodic threats of US military intervention.

    This is from the country that is the world’s biggest launderer of illicit drug money and the largest consumer of illicit drugs. Even US agencies recognize that very few of these US-bound drugs move through Venezuela.

    Most recently, the US deployed an additional 4,000 troops and warships to the Caribbean and around Latin America. Venezuela responded by mobilizing its navy in its territorial waters.

    Leading Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado expressed her “immense gratitude” for the imperialist measures against her country. In contrast, thousands of her compatriots took the opposite stance and marched in protest. Venezuela-American Michelle Ellner calls the US policy “a green light for open-ended US military action abroad, bypassing congressional approval, sidestepping international law.”

    Weaponizing human rights for regime change

    Venezuela is caught in a hybrid war that is as deadly as if it were being bombed. Washington’s strangling of its economy, making wild accusations against its leaders, sponsoring opponents, and threatening armed interventions are all designed to provoke and destabilize. Venezuela’s response is best seen as self-defense against an immensely powerful foreign bully that exploits any weakness, imperfection, or lapse in vigilance.

    The US weaponizes human rights to overthrow Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Its exaggerated or outright fabricated allegations are echoed by the “human rights industry.” Where problems exist, they must be viewed in the context of US economic warfare, which has strained Venezuelan institutions. North Americans genuinely concerned about Venezuelan human rights should be highly skeptical of corporate media reports and recognize the need to end US interference. Escalating provocations will only necessitate Venezuela’s greater defensiveness.

    The post US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test

    The US State Department’s latest Human Rights Report condemns Venezuela for serious abuses. Weaponizing human rights, accusations are selectively applied to serve a destabilization campaign. In this article, a mirror is held up to Uncle Sam to see how well “America the beautiful” holds up to the same charges, while also exposing the role of sanctions, compliant NGOs, and military threats in Washington’s hybrid war on Venezuela.

    The carceral state

    The US report indicts Venezuela for “arbitrary or unlawful killings.” Meanwhile, in the land of the free, police killings hit a record high in 2024. Impunity is high with charges brought against offending officers in fewer than 3% of cases. The FBI itself admits that transparency is hampered.

    Prolonged solitary confinement, recognized as torturous, is widespread in US prisons and ICE detention centers, affecting over 122,000 people daily. A US Senate report on torture documented CIA abuses, yet meaningful accountability has failed. Hundreds of political prisoners languish in penitentiaries in the US and in Guantánamo, the majority of whom are people of color. Roughly 70% of local jail inmates are held in pretrial detention, often pressured with coercive plea deals, undermining equality before the law.

    The US has the largest prison population in the world (about 1.8 to 2 million) and an incarceration rate over 2.5 times greater than Venezuela’s. Even after release, about four million citizens remain disenfranchised due to felony convictions, disproportionately affecting Black communities.

    Freedom to protest

    Washington faults Venezuela for limiting freedom of expression. Yet, numerous US states have passed or considered anti-protest laws (e.g., “critical infrastructure” bills) that civil-liberties groups warn chill peaceful assembly.

    Reporters without Borders (RSF) observes, “the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history.” This accusation is particularly notable because RSF is strongly biased in support of the US and receives funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. Arrests and detentions of journalists surged in 2024; schoolbook bans spiked across 29 states. In April 2024, Congress reauthorized and expanded FISA §702, enabling warrantless surveillance according to legal scholars.

    As the US-based Black Alliance for Peace observes, “domestic repression in the US colonial/capitalist core is imperative to support the aggressive militarism abroad.”

    This coupling of domestic subjugation with the international is painfully evident with the US imperialist/Israeli zionist aggression abroad in Gaza, while pro-Palestine advocates are suppressed at home. Zionist curricula are being imposed at all levels of education; at least half of the US states now require so-called “Holocaust education.” Pro-Palestine faculty, students, and staff are being purged.

    Washington’s accusation of Venezuelan antisemitism cites President Nicolás Maduro calling Israel’s assault on Gaza “the most brutal genocide” since Hitler. Its charge of antisemitism conflates Venezuela’s political criticism of the zionist state with hatred of the Jewish religion. If “antisemitism” includes Muslim Arabs, US culpability is so blatant that it requires no additional documentation.

    Meanwhile, the US accuses Venezuela of failing to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This projection does not deserve any rebuttal other than to mention that the US has a documented history of family separation of migrants and deaths in custody.

    Likewise, the world’s rogue nation does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and similar institutions, while reproaching Caracas for attempting to “misuse international law.” If anything, the Maduro government has gone out of its way to defend international law with initiatives upholding the UN Charter.

    Social welfare

    The US report scolds Venezuela for a minimum wage “under the poverty line.” Yet, its own federal minimum wage has been $7.25/hour since 2009; insufficient to lift a full-time worker out of poverty.

    A UN special rapporteur for human rights estimated that sanctions – more properly “unilateral coercive measures” – by the US and allies have caused over 100,000 excess deaths in Venezuela. Yet purported human rights NGOs Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRC), and the Washington Office on Latin American (WOLA) omit this glaring human toll in their reports on human rights in Venezuela.

    Predictably, they make nearly identical evaluations of the Venezuelan human rights situation as does the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) and the US State Department itself.  Their reports (AI, HRW, WOLA, US, OAS) either ignore or, at best, make passing references to the sanctions. No mention is made of the illegality of sanctions under international law – they are a form of collective punishment.

    In other contexts, the NGOs have acknowledged the horrific human impact of sanctions. Regardless, they were in a panic that the Trump administration might ease sanctions over the Chevron license, thus rewarding bad behavior. For these soft power apparatchiks of the US imperial project, the pain endured by the Venezuelans is worth it. WOLA has been particularly vocal about counseling against direct US military intervention, when sanctions afford an equally lethal but less obvious form of coercion.

    Hybrid war on Venezuela

    In his first term, Donald Trump levied a $15m bounty on Maduro, framing the Venezuela government as a transnational criminal enterprise tied to terrorism. This lowered the potential threshold for extraordinary US measures. Joe Biden seamlessly upped the bounty to $25m, which Trump then doubled on August 7.

    Evidence-free allegations linking the Venezuelan president to the dismantled Tren de Aragua drug cartel, the fictitious Cartel of the Suns criminal organization, and the actual Sinaloa Cartel (which is in Mexico) were conveniently used to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is supposed to be a wartime measure. This is coupled with the designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and periodic threats of US military intervention.

    This is from the country that is the world’s biggest launderer of illicit drug money and the largest consumer of illicit drugs. Even US agencies recognize that very few of these US-bound drugs move through Venezuela.

    Most recently, the US deployed an additional 4,000 troops and warships to the Caribbean and around Latin America. Venezuela responded by mobilizing its navy in its territorial waters.

    Leading Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado expressed her “immense gratitude” for the imperialist measures against her country. In contrast, thousands of her compatriots took the opposite stance and marched in protest. Venezuela-American Michelle Ellner calls the US policy “a green light for open-ended US military action abroad, bypassing congressional approval, sidestepping international law.”

    Weaponizing human rights for regime change

    Venezuela is caught in a hybrid war that is as deadly as if it were being bombed. Washington’s strangling of its economy, making wild accusations against its leaders, sponsoring opponents, and threatening armed interventions are all designed to provoke and destabilize. Venezuela’s response is best seen as self-defense against an immensely powerful foreign bully that exploits any weakness, imperfection, or lapse in vigilance.

    The US weaponizes human rights to overthrow Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Its exaggerated or outright fabricated allegations are echoed by the “human rights industry.” Where problems exist, they must be viewed in the context of US economic warfare, which has strained Venezuelan institutions. North Americans genuinely concerned about Venezuelan human rights should be highly skeptical of corporate media reports and recognize the need to end US interference. Escalating provocations will only necessitate Venezuela’s greater defensiveness.

    The post US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Rewarding knowingly illegal conduct – some might say, Israeli terrorism

    Why the recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia is an important development. Meanwhile, New Zealand still dithers. This article unpacks the hypocrisy in the debate.

    ANALYSIS: By Paul Heywood-Smith

    The recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia, leading, it is hoped, to full UN member state status, is an important development.

    What has followed is a remarkable demonstration of ignorance and/or submission to the Zionist lobby.

    Rewarding Hamas
    Let us consider aspects of the response. One aspect is that recognising Palestine is rewarding the resistance organisation Hamas.

    There are a number of issues involved here. The first issue is that Hamas is branded as a “terrorist organisation”. So much is said, apparently, by eight nations compared to the overwhelming majority of UN recognised states which do not so regard it.

    May I suggest that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation: refer P&I, October 23, 2022, Australia must overturn its listing of Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political party which chose to fight apartheid by calling for one state.

    That was Hamas’s objective when it fought the election against Fatah in 2006.

    As an aside, it now results in the lie that it is ridiculous that the Albanese government would recognise Palestine as part of a two-state solution when Hamas rejects a two-state solution. This is just yet another attempt to demonise Hamas.

    Hamas leaders have repeatedly said they would accept a two-state solution. It has only recently done so again.

    On 23 July last, when Hamas responded to a US draft ceasefire framework the Hamas official, Basem Naim, affirmed Hamas’s publicly stated pledge that it would give up power in Gaza and support a two-state solution on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine.

    These are the very borders stipulated by international law — see hereunder.

    The Palestinians constituting Hamas are residents of an illegally occupied territory. International law affords to them the right to resist: Geneva Conventions I-IV, 1949.

    The hypocrisy associated with the demonisation of Hamas is massive. Much is made of hostages having been taken on 7 October 2023 — a war crime according to international law. Those militants who took the hostages might be forgiven for thinking that it was minimal compared with the seven years of non-compliance with Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2334 calling for the end of occupation and removal of settlements.

    The second issue is that Hamas commenced the events in Gaza by its horrific, unprovoked, attack on 7 October 2023. As to October 7 being unprovoked, see P&I, October 9, 2023 Palestinians, pushed beyond endurance, defend their homeland against violent apartheid.

    The events of October 7 are, in any event, shrouded in doubt. This follows from Israel’s suppression of evidence concerning what happened. What we do know is that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases on October 7.

    In addition, the Hannibal Directive justified IDF slaughter of Israelis potentially being taken as hostages. It is also accepted that allegations of rape and beheading of babies by Hamas militants were false. The disinformation put out by Israel, and Israel’s refusal to allow journalists on site, or to interview participants, make it impossible to form any clear or credible understanding of what happened on October 7.

    It is accepted that Hamas militants attacked three Israeli military bases, no doubt with the intention that those bases should withdraw from their positions relative to Gazan territory. Such action can be understood as consistent with an occupied citizenry resisting such illegal occupation.

    Compounding the uncertainty over October 7 is the continuing conjecture, leakage, of information suggesting that the IDF had advance warning of the proposed Hamas attack but chose, for other purposes, to take no action. These uncertainties are never adverted to by our press which repeatedly attributes responsibility for all Israeli deaths on the day to the actions of Hamas militants, which actions are presented as an “abomination, barbarity”. Refer generally to P&I, November 5, 2023 (Stuart Rees) Expose and dismiss the domination Israeli narrative; P&I, January 4, 2024 Israeli general killed Israelis on 7 October and then lied about it.

    The third issue, the major hypocrisy, is that Hamas is being rewarded. Consider the position of Israel. Israel is, and has been, illegally occupying Palestinian territory since 1967. This is undisputed according to international law as articulated in the following instruments:

    • 1967 – SCR 242;
    • 2004 – the ICJ decision concerning The Wall;
    • Dec. 2016 – SCR 2334, not vetoed by Obama, recognising the illegal occupation and calling for its end; and
    • 2024 – the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ of 19 July.

    Israel has done nothing to comply with any of these instruments. It is set on a programme of gradual acquisition.

    The result is that now there are illegal settlements all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When Israel is told: the West Bank and East Jerusalem are to be part of a Palestinian state, it will scream, “But large parts are occupied by Jewish Israelis!” These are “facts on the ground”.

    Supporters of Israel ignore the fact that occupation by settlers occurred in the full knowledge that international law branded such occupation as illegal. If the settlements are considered as a “done deal”, that would be rewarding knowingly illegal conduct — some might say, Israeli terrorism.

    So that there can be no doubt about the import of the position it is appropriate to specify the critical parts of SCR 2334:

    The Security Council

    1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
    2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
    3. Underlines that it will not recognise any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
    4. Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-State solution;.

    Following the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 19, the UN General Assembly in adopting the same set 17 September 2025 as the deadline for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory.

    Negotiated settlement
    And when Israel now says, “Recognition now is going to prevent a negotiated settlement”, it is ignoring the fact that in the six, 12, 20 months, two, three, four years until such negotiated settlement occurs, many more settlements would have been commenced, which of course, are more “facts on the ground”.

    Then we have the response of the Coalition, which demonstrates how irrelevant the Opposition is in today’s Australia. That response is that the recognition will inhibit a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians.

    The Coalition, however, says nothing about the fact that the Israeli government has repeatedly stated that there will never be a Palestinian State. Indeed, Israel has legislated to that effect and is moreover periodically purporting to annex Palestinian land.

    So how does the Coalition believe that a negotiated settlement will come about? Well, one way, over which Israel may have no say, is for Palestine to become a full member State of the UN. One UN member state cannot occupy the land of another.

    Failure of our press to ask any question of pro-Israel interviewees about the end of occupation is a disgrace.

    Next challenge
    Now for the next challenge — to bring about the end of occupation. Israel will not accede readily. Sanctions must be the first step. Such sanctions must be immediate, concrete and crippling.

    They must result in the immediate suspension of trade. That can be the first step.

    Watch this space.

    Paul Heywood-Smith is an Adelaide SC (senior counsel) of some 20 years. He was the initial chairperson of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, an incorporated association registered in South Australia in 2004. He is the author of The Case for Palestine, The Perspective of an Australian Observer (Wakefield Press, 2014). This article was first published by Pearls & Irritations and is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Suspended Green MP tells Al Jazeera NZ must stand on ‘right side of history’ over Palestine

    Pacific Media Watch

    The New Zealand Green Party co-leader suspended over criticising government MPs over a “spineless” stance over Gaza has called for action.

    Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said in an interview with Al Jazeera that public pressure was mounting on governments to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

    The politician continues to push for recognition of Palestinian statehood and sanctions on Israel, despite being ejected from New Zealand’s Parliament for a week for her remarks.

    She refused to apologise in the House last week, telling Al Jazeera that New Zealand must “stand on the right side of history”.

    “We in Aotearoa New Zealand have a long proud history of standing typically on the right side of things, whether that be our anti-nuclear stance or our stance against apartheid in South Africa,” she said.

    “So it really is a question for this current government whether they are now willing to do the right thing and stand on the right side of history, and that was precisely the point that we were making last week in Parliament.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Palau president calls exclusion of PIF partners a ‘missed opportunity’

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr says it is “a missed opportunity” not to include partners at next mont’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ summit.

    However, Whipps said he respects the position of the Solomon Islands, as hosts, to exclude more than 20 countries that are not members the regional organisation.

    The Solomon Islands is blocking all external partners from attending the PIF leaders’ week in Honiara from September 8-12.

    The decision means that nations such as the United States and China (dialogue partners), and Taiwan (a development partner), will be shut out of the regional gathering.

    Whipps Jr told RNZ Pacific that although he has accepted the decision, he was not happy about it.

    “These are Forum events; they need to be treated as Forum events. They are not Solomon Islands events, [nor] are Palau events,” Whipps said.

    “It is so important for any Pacific [Islands] Forum meeting that we have all our partners there. It is a missed opportunity not to have our partners attending the meeting in the Solomon Islands, but they are the host.”

    Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele (right) at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. August 2024
    Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele with PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa (left) at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, last year. Image: Lydia Lewis/RNZ Pacific

    ‘Space’ for leaders
    Last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said the decision gave leaders space to focus on a review of how the PIF engaged with diplomatic partners, through reforms under PIF’s Partnership and Engagement Mechanism.

    Solomon Islands opposition MP Peter Kenilorea Jr said that the move was about disguising the fact that the Manele administration was planning on blocking Taiwan from entering the country.

    “The way I see it is definitely, 100 percent, to do with China and Taiwan,” he said.

    Kenilorea said he was concerned there would still be bilateral meetings on the margins, which would be easy for countries with diplomatic missions in Solomon Islands, like China and the US, but not for Taiwan.

    “There might be delegations coming through that might have bilaterials that make a big deal out of it, the optics and the narratives that will be coming out of those, if they do happen [they] are out of the control of the Pacific Islands Forum architecture, which is another hit to regionalism.”

    Palau, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands are the remaining Pacific countries that have ties with Taiwan.

    The Guardian reported that Tuvalu was now considering not attending the leaders’ summit.

    Tuvalu disappointed
    Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo said he would wait to see how other Pacific leaders responded before deciding whether to attend. He was disappointed at the exclusion.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was concerned.

    “We have advocated very strongly for the status quo. That actually the Pacific Islands Forum family countries come together, and then the dialogue partners, who are from all over the world can be present as well.”

    President Whipps said all would be welcome, including China, at the Pacific Islands Forum next year hosted in Palau.

    He said it was important for Pacific nations to work together despite differences.

    “Everybody has their own sovereignty, they have their own partners and they have their reasons for what they do. We respect that,” he said.

    “What’s most important is we find ways to come together.”

    Know the reason
    Kenilorea said other Solomon Islands MPs knew the deferral was about China and Taiwan but he was the only one willing to mention it.

    Solomon Islands switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China in 2019. In 2022 the island nation signed a security pact with China.

    “If [the deferral] had happened earlier in our [China and Solomon Islands] relationship, I would have thought you would have heard more leaders saying how it is.

    “But we are now six years down the track of our switch and leaders are not as vocal as they used to be anymore.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Too hungry to think, too weak to sit upright. Concentration slips away’: the struggle to stay focussed as an academic in Gaza

    It is hard to keep the mind sharp when the body is thin and dehydrated, but solidarity is teaching starving students their thoughts still matter

    I must admit: I write this piece while starving – too hungry to think clearly, too weak to sit upright for long. I do not feel ashamed because my starvation is deliberate. I refuse my hunger even as it decays me. I can survive no other way.

    Since 2 March 2025, Israel has imposed a full blockade on Gaza. Little aid – food, medicine, fuel – is getting in or being distributed. The markets are empty and bakeries, community kitchens and fuel stations are shuttered.

    Continue reading…

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

  • A US court has stopped Trump’s assault on migrant children’s rights in its tracks

    In a major victory, on Friday 15 August a US federal court struck down the US federal government’s – via Donald Trump – latest bid to attack migrant children’s rights.

    The court win centred round a foundational legal safeguard called the Flores Settlement Agreement that ensures the government respects their basic rights and dignity. Notably, it requires the federal government to treat children in immigration custody humanely, hold them in the least restrictive settings, prioritise release to family, and provide access to basic necessities such as clean water, food, medical care, and safe, sanitary living conditions.

    US court reaffirms migrant children’s rights – despite what Trump wants

    Friday’s ruling reaffirmed that children – whether accompanied by their families or arriving alone – remain entitled to these basic human rights. The court’s decision preserves critical court oversight. It blocks the government from detaining children indefinitely in inhumane, unlicensed, or dangerous facilities.

    US district judge Dolly Gee issued her ruling, finding that:

    The Court remains unconvinced. There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law.

    Thus, it is the government that continues to bind itself to the Flores Settlement Agreement by failing to fulfill its side of the Parties’ bargain. In light of the foregoing, the Court again DENIES Defendants’ MTT.

    The Flores co-counsel team – including the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL), National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), and Children’s Rights – applauded the ruling.

    Executive director of the CHRCL Sergio Perez said:

    The court’s vindication of Flores is a victory that belongs to each and every immigrant child currently detained by our government.

    Children should be free and, barring that, they should be cared for in environments that respect their basic human rights and essential needs. So long as that is not the case, Flores provides an essential avenue for transparency and accountability.

    No to indefinite detention and violation of migrant children’s right

    This decision comes at a critical moment. Trump and the US are increasingly subjecting migrant children and families to prolonged detention in isolated, prison-like conditions. The government’s attempt to dismantle the Flores Agreement – which it has repeatedly violated – would have thrown the door open to mass, indefinite detention of children without any enforceable standards for their care.

    Directing Attorney at the NCYL Mishan Wroe said:

    I will never forget meeting with a mother and her two young daughters who described being detained in a cell with over 40 people that was littered with trash and an overflowing toilet. They could not use the bathroom privately, and the girls were struggling to sleep in a crowded cell on the floor with nothing more than a mat and a mylar blanket. These young girls, like all children, deserve safety and dignity.

    We are pleased the court understands the value of the Settlement in protecting the rights of children and refuses to allow the government to shirk its basic responsibilities.

    Friday’s ruling sends a clear message: migrant children are not invisible. They deserve care, dignity, and full recognition of their human rights.. Strong, enforceable protections under the Flores Agreement remain essential to shield children from the deprivation and distress of immigration detention. These are harms that children themselves have made heartbreakingly clear.

    A 16-year-old child ICE detained in a family detention center confided how:

    Some things here are really bad – really scary. This place is full of little kids . . . I don’t want any more kids to come here. I don’t like seeing all the kids crying.

    Trump cannot be allowed free rein to rip children from their communities

    Deputy litigation director at Children’s Rights Leecia Welch said:

    At a time when the government seeks free rein to rip children from their communities and detain them for as long as it wishes, I am grateful for the court’s well-reasoned decision to protect the Flores Settlement Agreement from the Trump Administration’s most recent attack.

    My colleagues and I have seen the looks of desperation and fear on the faces of children as they describe their captivity in brutal, prison-like settings. Flores is the only thing standing between them and their indefinite detention in ever harsher conditions.

    For nearly 30 years, the Flores Settlement Agreement has stood as a cornerstone of legal protections for migrant children. It has ensured state authorities treat them with basic care and dignity.

    However, repeated violations underscore the continued need for Flores court oversight. Violations included unlicensed family detention, forced medication of children, and the use of open-air detention sites at the border. Now more than ever, these protections must be defended and strengthened. Without Flores, children would be left entirely at the mercy of a system that has consistently failed them.

    As long immigration detention continues to mete out profound harms, Flores co-counsel has said it will remain steadfast in defending their rights. It will continue to hold the government accountable for how it treats children in its custody. It argued that:

    this fight to preserve the Flores Agreement is not only about legal protections – it’s about the kind of country we choose to be for the most vulnerable in our care.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Oregon Black Pioneers: Exclusion Laws, Sundown Provisos, Racism in the Oregon Trail State

    ZACHARY STOCKS: Executive Director of Oregon Black Pioneers

    I had Zachary Stocks on my radio show, which will air Sept. 17. He’s a busy man, working as ED of this non-profit, covering the state of Oregon discussing Oregon Black Pioneers’ history outreach. Listen HERE.

    Oregon Black Pioneers is Oregon’s only historical society dedicated to preserving and presenting the experiences of African Americans statewide. For more than 30 years, we’ve illuminated the seldom-told stories of people of African descent in Oregon through our engaging exhibits, public programs, publications, and historical research. Additionally, we partner with local organizations to identify, interpret, and preserve sites with African American historical significance.

    Our Mission is to research, recognize, and commemorate the history and heritage of African Americans in Oregon.

    Below is a piece in Dissident Voice covering some of Stocks’ work here in Waldport, Oregon, population 2,300 of all places where a Black slave came after spending a thousand dollars to pay for his freedom.

    I’m going to go off a bit (not really) with inserting Gerald Horne, who does see the settlers in Jewish Israel now calling for the IDF to push the natives off the land as akin to the settlers in the Oregon and Washington Territories demanding the army to kill the Indians. And, so they, the government, didn’t come through so these pioneers and settlers went after the native tribes.

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    On December 7, 1855, a four-day battle begins between Oregon volunteers and the Walla Wallas and other tribes. Tensions have been growing that year between many of the Native American tribes of the interior Pacific Northwest and the increasing numbers of newly arriving settlers. Some tribes have been coerced into signing treaties that grant most of their ancestral lands to the United States, whose citizens are beginning to crowd into the area. The Yakamas, under the leadership of Kamiakin (ca. 1800-1877) and others of his family, were in open defiance of encroaching non-Native settlers and battled with volunteer territorial militias. With their resistance reduced, the territorial volunteers turn to other tribes that have been asserting themselves, including the Walla Wallas under their chief, Peo-Peo-Mox-Mox. Marching into their stronghold in the Walla Walla River valley, the First Oregon Mounted Volunteers defeat the Walla Wallas and their allies in a four-day running battle. Before the fight, chief Peo-Peo-Mox-Mox had been taken hostage and, during the first day of the battle, he and other hostages are killed. The Walla Wallas will never fully recover from the campaign. The next year, federal troops will take over the fighting and, following a series of battles during 1858, most Indian military resistance in the interior Pacific Northwest will be defeated.

    (source)

    My old stomping grounds, Spokane, the Spokane Falls Community College, where I taught, on Fort George Wright Boulevard, near Hang Man or Latah Ccreek. I lobbied to have that fucking road name changed, but to no avail.

    Upon his arrest, Qualchan noticed his imprisoned father and wept. As soldiers attempted to hang Qualchan it was said by his companion Seven Mountains that “Qualchan twice summoned the power of the mist and twice the rope broke”. Qualchan’s executioners bound his arms and legs and he was slowly strangled to death. With his words almost as cold as his actions, Wright’s only mention of the event in his journal read: “Qualchan came to see me at 9 o’clock, at 9:15 he was hanged.” One day after helplessly witnessing his son’s murder, Chief Owhi was shot dead as he attempted an escape. Over three days another dozen or so Indians were hanged as well, all without a trial.

    Qualchan’s death was only the beginning of what could be considered a hanging spree by Wright. Only one day after the killings, Wright had six members of the Palus tribe hanged, including a chief. Similar to Qualchan, they were hanged after approaching Wright’s camp with a white flag attempting to negotiate peace. Wright was a busy man for the month of September as he had almost 1,000 horses and at least seven men murdered for the cause of westward expansion.

    September 24, 1858:

    “There was no timber close to where they camped, but they planted a large stick in the ground and nailed a cross stick on it; tied my husband’s legs together, his hands behind his back, put a rope around his neck and strangled him to death…they must have seen from the expression of my face that I anguished, but they heeded not”. These are the words of Whist-alks, wife of Yakama leader Qualchan who witnessed her husband’s death under orders of Col. George Wright.

    As Qualchan’s wife Whist-alks rode into Col. Wright’s encampment, she plunged a spear into the ground near Wright’s tent. The spear was an entrance for Qualchan and a symbol of his intent to negotiate peace with Wright. The “lance” was covered with “solid beadwork”, noted one soldier in the camp.

    Western history is rife with epic clashes between well-armed Indian tribes and masses of United States soldiers: the Plains Indian Wars including Red Cloud’s War and the Great Sioux Wars, and the subjugation of the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Apache in the Southwest. But for all their open confrontations, federal commanders backed by military force also engaged in campaign after campaign of fear and terror—usually sparked by greed for Indian lands. Frequently, they were carried out with a blend of self-righteousness, prevarication, and unwarranted and unjust brutality. Col. George Wright’s foray against the tribes of the Upper Columbia Plateau in Washington in the summer and fall of 1858 was just such an ignominious campaign. Sparked by a need to show force and strengthen or create treaties, Wright’s advance devolved into a bloody and vindictive march featuring hangings, burned villages, lies and coercion, and the slaughter of nearly 700 Indian horses.

    The two-month-long sortie did permanently suppress the region’s native people, and settlers appreciated his effectiveness. Some 44 years later, the New York Times referred to it as “one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of Indian warfare.” But Colonel Wright’s own words at the time were more to the point:

    “For the last eighty miles our route has been marked by slaughter and devastation.”

    This disgusting “religion,” that Mitt Romney vulture religion:

    “I feel it best to kill the Indians” “My voice is for war, exterminate them.” “I say go kill them!” “We shall have no peace until the men are killed off - Never treat an Indian as your equal.” - Parley P. Pratt, Willard Richards, and Brigham Young Extermination Order - Timpanogos, January 31, 1850 | wasmormon.org

    Back to Zachary. The Oregon Black Pioneers is kicking off a new traveling display, presentation on York. York’s Early Life: Before the Lewis and Clark Expedition

    Sculptre: York by Margaret Laccarino

    York’s parents, known as Old York and Rose were enslaved by John Clark. York, who was about the same age as John Clark’s son William, became a body servant to young William.

    James P. Beckwourth circa 1860

    “York was connected to Clark from very early on in his life,” says Hasan Davis, who has been researching and portraying York for more than two decades. “York was going to be William’s first slave, his gift as a young man, his companion.”

    York and Clark grew up together, the enslaved and the enslaver, and formed a close and complicated bond.

    “What that looks like—from accounts of enslaved hand servants, personal valet slaves at that time—was that York would have been acculturated with Clark, so much so that York would be able to be in alignment with Clark as far as how they feel and how they experience the world,” says Davis.

    Growing up enslaved by the Clarks, York accompanied William Clark nearly everywhere and gained skills on the frontier at his side. York would eventually use these skills when he went West with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

    “When Lewis and Clark had their list of the qualities they needed, York would have nearly checked all of those off,” says Davis. “He was a trained frontiersman because he grew up with a family that was on the frontier. He understood how to navigate the rivers because that was a thing that they did. Clark talks about York in his letters, saying he was setting the boat up the river and doing his work. So York was important to Clark because he was the holder of Clark’s memory and work on a daily basis. I think as they grew up, that would have been a very powerful part of what made York useful to Clark.”

    When Clark was called by Meriwether Lewis to co-lead the Corps of Discovery west to the Pacific Ocean, Clark was in his early thirties. Davis imagines the decision to bring York was an easy one. Not only did York possess useful skills, a large build, and strength, he was also a constant in Clark’s life that he could bring with him on the journey into the unfamiliar.

    "in a system where one person is automatically given control and power over another"

    Quote by Hasan Davis.

    “On the expedition into the unknown, there are a lot of things that you can’t account for, and if something went wrong and there was a mutiny, Clark wanted to have the biggest, strongest guy behind him, without any question that he would be there to back him up,” Davis says. “Clark knew that he always had someone with him who was always going to be his protector, his provider, his support system. If all things in the world failed Clark, I believe, could believe and imagine that York was going to be the most constant thing in his life.”

    You Can’t Have Your Mule and Forty Acres, Too!

    by Paul Haeder / November 22, 2022

    The celebration was lively: in the small town of Waldport, Oregon, a few hundred finally gathered to see the statue’s unveiling. We heard a Gulf Coast guy, Truman Price, a violinist, play music on his fiddle reminiscent of the tunes of 1880s which would have been played by the historical person cast in bronze. A sculptor showed up, Peter Helzer, and his daughter, too, who was on the banjo with Truman and another fellow playing guitar. The story is of a slave, brought to Oregon by his “owner,” James Southworth. Oh, those Oregon Black Exclusion laws initiated in 1844, stating that any Black individuals or families attempting to settle here would be whipped 39 times, and repeated until they left. The Oregon Constitution in 1859 made it illegal for African Americans to live in Oregon. That law was repeated in 1926.

    The state of Oregon, man, whew. When I was working in downtown Portland, two of my social services colleagues, both Black, said they had not seen the amount of racism in Portland compared to Texas and Georgia where they had came from. “It’s not overt, more like sort of hidden, but these white colleagues, liberals, they say some pretty racist stuff to say, profess. They might think it’s passive bigotry, but the state’s history, the sundown laws, and the racist cops and sheriff departments all speak to me as a black man who is definitely feeling the racism.”

    So, Louis Southworth was sent to the Nevada and California gold fields in the 1870s by his enslaver, and he came back with money he saved from work, but mostly from entertaining camps with his fiddle. He bought his freedom at age 28, lived in Buena Vista, did blacksmith work while learning how to read and write.

    He came out to this area, Oregon, on the Pacific, Alsea, homesteading with his wife; about five miles up the river from Waldport.

    He ran a ferry, moving people, hay and other cargo. He ended up chair of the school board, and donated land for the schoolhouse and still played his fiddle.

    So, 2022, November 19, the fun was had by all, and there is land dedicated to a Southworth Park, and the statue will be placed there, and there will be more ceremonies. The donated land Southworth gave for the first schoolhouse is now a field where the park will be built, named after him, with the statue.

    I have the text of the dedicatory remarks made by an African American, Zachary Stocks, who is executive director of Oregon Black Pioneers. He set the record straight on the life and times of not only Southworth, but how his story is that of all Blacks, then, and now. It is an odd thing that this town, which is partially built on burial grounds of the first people, Alsi (Salish folk), is putting up a statue of a Black American, who bought his freedom using the fiddle as his conduit to freedom.

    There are no dedicatory memorials to the Siletz and Alsi. I’ve written about that before, and down at Devil’s Churn, there is a cemented-and-walled-in cave with a really hard-to-read sign telling the odd visitor who might stray off the path and go over rocks to see the sign mostly covered by bushes. Traditional clamming grounds of tribes. I’ve talked to people who have lived here 50 years and they never ventured off the paved path at Devil’s Churn and seen the sign. Here’s my poem about Amanda, an Indigenous Woman forcefully marched to Yachats, barefoot and blind. “Not Just One of those Tales of Another Dead Indian“

    Again, these stories, these events, since I’ve been around the world, embroiled in social justice movements, anti-racism movements, and, well, I have my take on the history of the USA and the world. Here, Peter and Zach, taking off the cover to give the crowd the Louis statue of him fiddling.

    Here, Alison plays the banjo as her father walks the crowd as a sort of dignitary. He’s got over a 100 public sculptures around the state and Pacific Northwest.

    Here, Carol Van Strum, next to Louis. She’s been featured in several stories I’ve written, and her fiction novel, The Oreo File, has a mixed race protagonist and lots about Louis Southworth. Read my piece on Carol and her fight against the forest service and state with their sprays (pesticides) that have caused genetic damage and other chronic illnesses: “A real-life Toxic Avenger“.

    She also has her own story of a Black son, Jordan, who was put in jail for a murder he did not commit: Read my piece on his story, and Carol’s here: “A letter a day for 15 years and 9 months.” She came down from her Five Rivers house, 30 minutes away, to meet the artist and to give him a copy of her book, signed. I was there taking 100 photos, talking to various people I knew and those I just met.

    Here, Peter is messing with a 110 year old violin an elderly lady from Waldport (she actually is from all over, and said this violin was made in Iowa, and she was a concert violinist until she broke her neck and could no longer play).

    Here’s Zach’s organization website, Oregon Black Pioneers. Here’s just some of what he said at the ceremony:

    Just before his death in 1917, it was reported that Louis Southworth was denied a military pension because his name wasn’t recorded in the volunteer lists. And this, despite a testimonial written on his behalf by his former commanding officer. In response, 218 Oregonians sent in donations totaling $243 to help cover Louis’ living expenses in his final days. Some of those people might be relatives of folks in this room. But it saddens me, that someone who had achieved so much would be forced to live on the charity of others.

    All of this demonstrates how Louis Southworth seemed to live multiple lives. Slave and freeman; laborer and entrepreneur; squatter and homesteader; soldier and pauper; excluded and included. Louis was not just a jolly old man living quietly in the background. He actively participated in some of the most significant events in the history of Oregon.

    And more than perhaps any other person, Louis’s time in Oregon spans the most transformational moments for Black Americans in the state. Consider this– around the year Louis Southworth was born, York, the first Black person to reach Oregon by land, died, likely less than 200 miles away. The year Louis Southworth died, Mercedes Diez, who would go on to become Oregon’s first Black judge in the 1970s, was born. Louis is a link in the chain of historic Black individuals that stretches from 1770 to 2005!

    That is how close we are to the past. A great colleague of mine named Richard Josey once posed an amazing question at a museum conference. He asked, “What kind of ancestor will you be?”. Let’s look to the example of Louis Southworth, whose story and accomplishments have inspired people, then and now. And whose resiliency was matched only by his generosity. A truly historic person.

    I did stories on Hanford, the Washington nuclear facility. Won a couple of awards for magazine articles. “Nearly nature, nearly perfect But, near Hanford (part 1)” and “Nuclear Narratives – When Cold War Starts, the Hot Milk Gets Poured (part 2)“.

    I did learn from several farmers, including Tom Bailey, that when the facility was being built, many African Americans were brought into this dryland of Washington on the Columbia River. The Tri-Cities of Richland-Kennewick-Pasco. There was a part of town where the blacks lived, there were a few black establishments including bars and stores, and black churches. The justice for these workers was harsh, or should I say, the injustice. That facility was being built in the 1940s. I was shown some of the places, both still standing and others decrepit and falling apart.

    Then, in Portland, Vanport, I got my education on that racist history. Here, a website, Hidden History:

    Race is not a topic we often discuss in public settings, at least not explicitly. We are told we are in a “postracial” landscape, yet race is the number one determinant of access to health care, home ownership, graduation rates, and income, as the data from the Urban League of Portland below show.

    We can’t understand these disparities without understanding history. I didn’t grow up in Oregon; I moved here to attend high school. It wasn’t until I had the privilege of attending a presentation by Darrell Millner, founder of Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, that I learned Oregon was created as a white utopian homeland. That Oregon was the only state that entered the Union with a clause in its constitution forbidding Black people to live here. That the punishment originally meted out for violating this exclusionary law was the “Lash Law”: public whipping every six months until the Black person left the state. That this ideology shaped Oregon’s entire history and was reflected in the larger history of this nation. — Walidah Imarisha

    Again, laborers, workers, coming to Portland in the 1940s to help sustain the construction of homes, warehouses, other buildings for its rapid growth. Vanport was built as a temporary housing solution to Portland’s rapidly growing population. At its peak it housed nearly 40,000 residents, close to 40 percent were African-American. But an unusually wet spring in 1948 created a hole in the railroad dike blocking the Columbia River, and it erupted into massive flooding. City officials didn’t warn residents of the dangerously high water levels and opted not to evacuate. The town was wiped out within a day and 18,500 families were displaced, more than a third African-American.

    So, the Albina section of Portland was the only place for Blacks, but with these displaced folk, some of which were taken in by other families, black and white, they had not other place in Portland to live. Many left the area. Now? Gentrification, racist policing, and, yep, with my Masters in Urban Planning, lots of redlining and zoning issues tied to making African Americans personas non grata. It’s disgusting.

    The great Southern Migration, years after Southworth passed on in 1919. Many now living in Stumptown know nothing about that migration of Black men and women arriving to Portland by the many thousands, increasing Portland’s black population tenfold in a few years. Between 1940 and 1950, the city’s black population increased more than any West Coast city other than Oakland and San Francisco.

    It was part of a demographic change seen in cities across America, as blacks left the South for the North and West in what became known as the Great Migration, or what Isabel Wilkerson, in her acclaimed history of the period, The Warmth of Other Suns, calls “the biggest underreported story of the 20th century.” From 1915 to 1960, nearly six million blacks left their Southern homes, seeking work and better opportunities in Northern cities, with nearly 1.5 million leaving in the 1940s, seduced by the call of WWII industries and jobs. Many seeking employment headed West, lured by the massive shipyards of the Pacific coast. (Source)

    Here we are in this complicated story, 2022, where Native Americans have been pushed out by the Old World coming into this continent for making money, exploiting land, moving immigrants to lay claim on land for farming and settlements with no regard to the hundreds of American Indian tribes. The Indian war lasted over three hundred years, from 1602 to 1926. Almost every buffalo in the 60 million population was exterminated, as a way to kill American Indian culture.

    I’ve got some time at Fort Huachuca, the home of the Buffalo Soldier, the African American union soldiers who also did their duty to help pacify and exterminate the Indians. The First African American troops to arrive in Arizona at Fort Huachuca were the Buffalo Soldiers in the 1890s — the 9th and 10th Cavalries. The Fort Huachuca Buffalo Soldiers distinguished themselves in the Spanish American War and the charge up San Juan Hill.

    The African American Soldier At Fort Huachuca, Arizona, 1892-1946 American Plains Indians who fought against these soldiers referred to the black cavalry troops as “buffalo soldiers” because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo’s coat and because of their fierce nature of fighting. The nickname soon became synonymous with all African-American regiments formed in 1866.

    You can read my piece coming out November 23 here at Dissident Voice, you know, for National Day of Mourning. The so-called Thanksgiving (for whom?). Again, the Southworth story is amazing, but it conjures up many issues tied to the Indian Removal actions of the many who came into their lands and stole. Sure, the series, The English, is just one aspect of those dirty Anglo Saxons coming out here to kill Indians: Yeah, it is a six part romance thing:

    Or Terrance Malick’s, The New World:

    Or the Redford produced, The American West.

    Complicated feelings for me living on burial ground, by the Alsea River, in the old part of Waldport, and I can almost see that field, that soon-to-be Southworth Park. So many homeless, so many domestic violence cases, so many Native youth in schools here doing not so well. So many backward thinkers, and then all the transplants, who, well, they go to the Southworth show, but would they come to a lecture and viewing on Black Panthers’s struggles, or for on “In Prison My Whole Life – Mumia Abu-Jamal (Documentary)”

    I am Not your Negro and Exterminate all the beasts:

    Here, I’ll let Zach have the last word:

    All of the images feature a seated Louis Southworth wearing a shabby coat and holding his fiddle. In one, he is facing away from the camera in his living room, and in the other where he is looking directly into the camera with a smile. The former was used on the cover of Elizabeth McLagan’s landmark 1980 book, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940; the latter is featured on Louis’ headstone in Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis. The epitaph reads “A bit of heaven’s music here below”.

    Louis’ smile is infectious, and when you look at him, it almost feels as if you know him personally. No doubt, these photos continue to inspire appreciation for Louis. But unfortunately, we should question why these photos were made, and what they were meant to represent to viewers in 1915.

    John Horner was not a journalist, but an anthropologist at Oregon State University, and the founder of the city’s first museum. He was a proponent of phrenology, and in his lab, he studied human skulls which he had stolen from Native graves to try and find proof of racial hierarchies. In 1931, he was hired to investigate a grave site at Three Rocks –not far from here—and determined that one of these skulls had [quote] “an extremely thick skull, indicative of negroid characteristics”. This skull too, was taken back to Horner’s lab for study.

    Why would this anthropologist take photos and write an article about Louis Southworth? I can’t help but think of the staged images of Indigenous peoples that anthropologists and photographers used to document the tragedy of the supposedly-“vanishing” Indians. Edward Curtis’ “The North American Indian” had been first exhibited only eight years earlier. It seems to me that Horner was making a similar documentation of Louis. No one was suggesting that Black Americans were disappearing from Oregon in the 1910s –in fact, Oregon’s Black population was the highest it had ever been—but Louis represented something different. He too, was the last of his kind. The last of the enslaved Oregonians; the last trace of the “Old South” which had emigrated west during the pioneer days.

    White Oregonians could be pleased by the “Uncle Lou” they saw in the newspaper, while at the same time, be virulently opposed to the growing Black progressive class in Portland. The same year this article was printed, Oregon voters rejected a ballot measure to repeal the state’s ban on interracial marriage, and rejected a measure to remove the Black exclusion language from the Oregon Constitution, even though it was no longer legally enforceable.

    It still was a moving day for me, for sure, in its own way. I also told Zach and a few others I’d be writing something about the event, but to not expect some inverted Triangle News Piece. I can never take away the genuine feelings people yesterday expressed for this history, this man, and the park.

    The post Oregon Black Pioneers: Exclusion Laws, Sundown Provisos, Racism in the Oregon Trail State first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Eyes of Fire is an updated Rainbow Warrior classic and must read for activism

    REVIEW: By Jenny Nicholls

    Author David Robie left his cabin on the Rainbow Warrior three days before it was blown up by the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency

    The ship was destroyed at Marsden Wharf on 10 July 1985 by two limpet mines attached
    below the waterline.

    As New Zealand soon learned to its shock, the second explosion killed crew member and photographer Fernando Pereira as he tried to retrieve his cameras.

    “I had planned to spend the night of the bombing onboard with my two young sons, to give them a brief taste of shipboard life,” Dr Robie writes. “At the last moment I decided to leave it to another night.”

    He left the ship after 11 weeks documenting what turned out to be the last of her humanitarian missions — a voyage which highlighted the exploitation of Pacific nations
    by countries who used them to test nuclear weapons.

    Dr Robie was the only journalist on board to cover both the evacuation of the people
    of Rongelap Atoll after their land, fishing grounds and bodies were ravaged by US nuclear fallout, and the continued voyage to nuclear-free Vanuatu and New Zealand.

    Eyes of Fire is not only the authoritative biography of the Rainbow Warrior and her
    missions, but a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace by a French spy, the bombing, its planning, the capture of the French agents, the political fallout, and ongoing
    challenges for Pacific nations.

    Dr Robie corrects the widely held belief that the first explosion on the Rainbow Warrior
    was intended as a warning, to avoid loss of life. No, it turns out, the French state really
    did mean to kill people.

    “It was remarkable,” he writes, “that Fernando Pereira was the only person who
    died.”

    The explosives were set to detonate shortly before midnight, when members of the
    crew would be asleep. (One of them was the ship’s relief cook, Waihekean Margaret Mills. She awoke in the nick of time. The next explosion blew in the wall of her cabin).

    “Two cabins on the main deck had their floors ruptured by pieces of steel flying from
    the [first] engine room blast,” writes Dr Robie.

    “By chance, the four crew who slept in those rooms were not on board. If they had been,
    they almost certainly would have been killed.”

    Eyes of Fire author David Robie with Rainbow Warrior III . . . not only an account of the Rongelap humanitarian voyage, but also a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace and the bombing. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    Eyes of Fire was first published in 1986 — and also in the UK and USA, and has been reissued in 2005, 2015 and again this year to coincide with the 40th anniversary
    of the bombing.

    If you are lucky enough to own the first edition, you will find plenty that is new here; updated text, an index, new photographs, a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark and a searing preface by Waihekean Bunny McDiarmid, former executive director
    of Greenpeace International.

    As you would expect from the former head of journalism schools at the University
    of Papua New Guinea and University of the South Pacific, and founder of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre, Eyes of Fire is not only a brilliant piece of research, it is an absolutely
    fascinating read, filled with human detail.

    The bombing and its aftermath make up a couple of chapters in a book which covers an enormous amount of ground.

    Professor David Robie is a photographer, journalist and teacher who was awarded an MNZM in 2024 for his services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education. He is founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review, also well worth seeking out.

    Eyes of Fire is an updated classic and required reading for anyone interested in activism
    or the contemporary history of the Pacific.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Hong Kong activist Tony Chung says he has been granted asylum in the UK

    Chung, one of youngest people to get jail sentence under security law, posts Home Office letter agreeing he has ‘well-founded fear of persecution’

    The Hong Kong independence activist Tony Chung says he has been granted asylum in the UK, two years after fleeing the Chinese region.

    Chung, 24, revealed the news on his Instagram page on Sunday, the day after the former Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui said he had been granted asylum in Australia. Both Chung and Hui are among dozens of pro-democracy activists targeted with arrest warrants and 1m Hong Kong dollar bounties by authorities.

    Continue reading…

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

  • New Australia-Vanuatu deal won’t replicate Falepili-style pact, says analyst

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    A Pacific analyst and commentator says it is unlikely that Vanuatu will agree to any exclusive rights in the new security and economic pact with Australia.

    Senior ministers of both countries, including deputy prime ministers Richard Marles and Johnny Koanapo, initialled the Nakamal Agreement at the summit of Mount Yasur volcano on Tanna Island, ahead of formal sign-off next month.

    The two nations have agreed to a landmark deal worth A$500 million that will replace the previous security pact that was scrapped in 2022.

    Dr Tess Newton Cain of the Griffith Asia Institute said she did not believe Vanuatu would agree to anything similar to what Tuvalu (Falepili Union) and Papua New Guinea (Bilateral Security Agreement) had agreed to in recent times.

    She said that the Australian government had been wanting the deal for some time, but had been “progressing quite slowly” because there was “significant pushback” on the Vanuatu side.

    “Back in 2022, it took people by surprise that there was an announcement made that a security agreement had been signed while Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s Foreign Minister was in Port Vila. She and then-prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau had signed a security agreement.

    “On the Australian side, they referred to it as having not been ratified. But essentially it was totally disregarded and thrown out by Vanuatu officials, and not considered to [be a] meaningful agreement.”

    Tess Newton Cain
    Analyst Dr Tess Newton Cain . . . significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials. Image: ResearchGate

    High-level engagement
    However, this time around, Dr Newton Cain said, there had been a significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials.

    “There has been a lot of high-level engagement. We have had a lot of senior Australian officials visiting Vanuatu over the last six months, and possibly for a bit longer. So, it has been a steady process of negotiation.”

    Dr Newton Cain said the text of the agreement had undergone a much more rigorous process, involving input from a wider range of people at the government level.

    “And in the last few days leading up to the initialling of this agreement, it was brought before the National Security Council in Vanuatu, which discussed it and signed off on it.

    “Then it went to the Council of Ministers, which also discussed it and made reference to further amendments. So there were some last-minute changes to the text, and then it was initialled.”

    She said that while the agreement had been “substantially agreed”, more details on what it actually entailed remained scarce.

    Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat said earlier this month that he would not sign the agreement unless visa-free travel was agreed.

    Visa sticking point
    Dr Newton Cain said visa-free travel between the two countries remained a sticking point.

    “Prime Minister Napat said he hoped Prime Minister Albanese would travel to Port Vila in order to sign this agreement. But we know there is still more work to do — both Australia and Vanuatu [have] indicated that there were still aspects that were not completely aligned yet.

    “I think it is reasonable to think that this is around text relating to visa-free access to Australia. There is a circle there that is yet to be squared.”

    Australia is Vanuatu’s biggest development partner, as well as the biggest provider of foreign direct investment. Its support covers a range of critical sectors such as health, education, security, and infrastructure.

    According to Dr Newton Cain, from Canberra’s point of view, they have concerns that countries like Vanuatu have “more visible, diversified and stronger” relations with China.

    “As we have seen in other parts of the region, that has provoked a response from countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and others that want to be seen to be offering Vanuatu different options.”

    However, she said it was not surprising that Vanuatu was looking to have a range of conversations with partners that can support the country.

    “China’s relationship has moved more into security areas. There are aspects of policing that China is involved in in Vanuatu, and that this is a bit of a tipping point for countries like Australia and New Zealand.

    “So these sorts of agreements with Australia [are] part of trying to cement the relationship [and] demonstrate that this relationship is built on lasting foundations and strong ties.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Australia-Vanuatu deal won’t replicate Falepili-style pact, says analyst

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    A Pacific analyst and commentator says it is unlikely that Vanuatu will agree to any exclusive rights in the new security and economic pact with Australia.

    Senior ministers of both countries, including deputy prime ministers Richard Marles and Johnny Koanapo, initialled the Nakamal Agreement at the summit of Mount Yasur volcano on Tanna Island, ahead of formal sign-off next month.

    The two nations have agreed to a landmark deal worth A$500 million that will replace the previous security pact that was scrapped in 2022.

    Dr Tess Newton Cain of the Griffith Asia Institute said she did not believe Vanuatu would agree to anything similar to what Tuvalu (Falepili Union) and Papua New Guinea (Bilateral Security Agreement) had agreed to in recent times.

    She said that the Australian government had been wanting the deal for some time, but had been “progressing quite slowly” because there was “significant pushback” on the Vanuatu side.

    “Back in 2022, it took people by surprise that there was an announcement made that a security agreement had been signed while Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s Foreign Minister was in Port Vila. She and then-prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau had signed a security agreement.

    “On the Australian side, they referred to it as having not been ratified. But essentially it was totally disregarded and thrown out by Vanuatu officials, and not considered to [be a] meaningful agreement.”

    Tess Newton Cain
    Analyst Dr Tess Newton Cain . . . significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials. Image: ResearchGate

    High-level engagement
    However, this time around, Dr Newton Cain said, there had been a significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials.

    “There has been a lot of high-level engagement. We have had a lot of senior Australian officials visiting Vanuatu over the last six months, and possibly for a bit longer. So, it has been a steady process of negotiation.”

    Dr Newton Cain said the text of the agreement had undergone a much more rigorous process, involving input from a wider range of people at the government level.

    “And in the last few days leading up to the initialling of this agreement, it was brought before the National Security Council in Vanuatu, which discussed it and signed off on it.

    “Then it went to the Council of Ministers, which also discussed it and made reference to further amendments. So there were some last-minute changes to the text, and then it was initialled.”

    She said that while the agreement had been “substantially agreed”, more details on what it actually entailed remained scarce.

    Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat said earlier this month that he would not sign the agreement unless visa-free travel was agreed.

    Visa sticking point
    Dr Newton Cain said visa-free travel between the two countries remained a sticking point.

    “Prime Minister Napat said he hoped Prime Minister Albanese would travel to Port Vila in order to sign this agreement. But we know there is still more work to do — both Australia and Vanuatu [have] indicated that there were still aspects that were not completely aligned yet.

    “I think it is reasonable to think that this is around text relating to visa-free access to Australia. There is a circle there that is yet to be squared.”

    Australia is Vanuatu’s biggest development partner, as well as the biggest provider of foreign direct investment. Its support covers a range of critical sectors such as health, education, security, and infrastructure.

    According to Dr Newton Cain, from Canberra’s point of view, they have concerns that countries like Vanuatu have “more visible, diversified and stronger” relations with China.

    “As we have seen in other parts of the region, that has provoked a response from countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and others that want to be seen to be offering Vanuatu different options.”

    However, she said it was not surprising that Vanuatu was looking to have a range of conversations with partners that can support the country.

    “China’s relationship has moved more into security areas. There are aspects of policing that China is involved in in Vanuatu, and that this is a bit of a tipping point for countries like Australia and New Zealand.

    “So these sorts of agreements with Australia [are] part of trying to cement the relationship [and] demonstrate that this relationship is built on lasting foundations and strong ties.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights? – podcast

    Many of his supporters hoped the prime minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has been curiously mixed

    By Daniel Trilling. Read by Simon Darwen

    Continue reading…

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

  • ‘Will I make it back alive?’: Gaza journalists tell of being targeted by Israel

    Pacific Media Watch

    Palestinian journalists have long known Gaza to be the most dangerous place on earth for media workers, but Israel’s attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City last Sunday has left many reeling from shock and fear, reports Al Jazeera.

    Four Al Jazeera staff members were among the seven people killed in an Israeli drone strike outside al-Shifa Hospital.

    The Israeli military admitted to deliberately targeting the tent after making unsubstantiated accusations that one of those killed, Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, was a member of Hamas.

    Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 238 media workers since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This toll is higher than that of World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Yugoslavia wars combined.

    Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said in a video report about the plight of journalists this week that  “press vests and helmets, once considered a shield, now feel like a target.”

    “The fear is constant — and justified,” Mahmoud said. “Every assignment is accompanied by the same unspoken question: Will [I] make it back alive?”

    The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have been among several organisations denouncing Israel’s longstanding pattern of accusing journalists of being “terrorists” without credible proof.

    Smears no coincidence
    “It is no coincidence that the smears against al-Sharif — who has reported night and day for Al Jazeera since the start of the war — surfaced every time he reported on a major development in the war, most recently the starvation brought about by Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into the territory,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in the aftermath of Israel’s attack.

    In light of Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists, media workers in Gaza are forced to make difficult choices.

    Palestinian reporter Sally Thabet told Al Jazeera: “As a mother and a journalist, I go through this mental dissonance almost daily, whether to go to work or stay with my daughters and being afraid of the random shelling of the Israeli occupation army.”

    "It's about time for Luxon to grow a spine"
    “Journalism is not a crime . . . oppressing it is” placards at the Auckland free Palestine rally in Te Komititanga Square last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    Across the street from the ruins of the School of Media Studies at al-Quds Open University in Gaza City, where he used to teach, Hussein Saad has been recovering from an injury he sustained while running to safety.

    “The deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists has a strong effect on the disappearance of the Palestinian story and the disappearance of the media narrative,” he said.

    Saad argued the Gaza Strip was witnessing “the disappearance of the truth”.

    While journalists report on mass killings, human suffering and starvation, they also cope with their own losses and deprivation. Photographer and correspondent Amer al-Sultan said hunger was a major challenge.

    “I used to go to work, and when I didn’t find anything to eat, I would just drink water,” he said.

    Palestinian journalists under fire.             Video: Al Jazeera

    ‘We are all . . . confused’
    “I did this for two days. I had to live for two or three days on water. This is one of the most difficult challenges we face amid this war against our people — starvation.”

    Journalist and film director Hassan Abu Dan said reporters “live in conditions that are more difficult than the mind can imagine.”

    “You live in a tent. You drink water that is not good for drinking. You eat unhealthy food …

    “We are all, as journalists, confused. There is a part of our lives that has been ruined and gone far away,” he said.

    Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud said that despite the psychological trauma and the personal risks, Palestinian journalists continue to do their jobs, “driven by a belief that documenting the truth is not just a profession, but a duty to their people and history”.

    Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud
    Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud . . . the fear in Gaza is constant – and justified – after Israel’s targeted attack killed four colleagues. Image: Al Jazeera

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pro-Palestinian protests across NZ call on government to sanction Israel

    RNZ News

    Protesters staged pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Aotearoa New Zealand at the weekend, calling on the government to place sanctions on Israel for its war on Gaza.

    The government announced last week it was considering whether to join other countries like France, Canada and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood at a United Nations leader’s meeting next month.

    Demonstrators took to the streets in about 20 cities and towns on Saturday in a “National Day of Protest”, waving Palestinian and other flags, holding vigils, and banging pots and pans to represent what a UN-backed food security agency has called “the worst case scenario of famine”.

    They also condemned Israel’s targeted killing of journalists.

    In Wellington, about 2000 protesters gathered at Te Aro Park, and formed a crowd almost a kilometre long during the march, an RNZ journalist estimated.

    One demonstrator, who carried a sign which read “Palestine is in our hearts”, said the government had been “woefully silent” on what was happening in Gaza.


    The Wellington Gaza protest on Saturday.    Video: RNZ

    It was her first protest, she said, and she intended to go to others in order to “agitate for our politicians to listen and take a stand”.

    “I hope the country comes out in force today right across all of our regions, to give Palestine a voice, to show that we care, and to inspire action from our politicians — who have been woefully silent and as a result compliant in the genocide in Palestine.”

    Pro Palestinian protesters gather in Wellington on 16 August 2025 as part of nationwide demonstrations.
    A protester’s “Palestine is in our hearts” placard at the Wellington protest. Image: Mark Papalii/RNZ News

    She said she wanted to see the New Zealand government sanction Israel and take a global stand against the war in Gaza.

    Another protester said the killings of four Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza this week was what had spurred him to join the crowd.

    Wellington Gaza protest
    A “grow a spine Luxon!” placard at the Wellington protest in reference to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s “woeful” stance on the Israeli war on Gaza. Photo: Mark Papalii/RNZ

    “You know hearing about the attack on the journalists, the way they were targeting just one purportedly but were willing to kill [others] just to get their man.

    “It’s not right.”

    Pro-Palestinian protesters gather in Wellington on 16 August 2025 as part of nationwide demonstrations.
    Pro-Palestinian protesters condemn the killing of journalists by Israel and call for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as part of nationwide demonstrations. Image: Mark Papalii/RNZ

    Others in the capital carried signs showing Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif and his three Al Jazeera colleagues who were killed by an Israeli strike on a tent of reporters in Gaza.

    The IDF claimed that al-Sharif was working for the Hamas resistance — something Al Jazeera has strongly denied.

    Wellington Gaza protest
    Some of the demonstrators at the Wellington protest against Israel. Image: Mark Papalii/RNZ


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jack Straw urges Labour not to panic about threat of Nigel Farage

    Former home secretary praises Keir Starmer’s success on world stage and says PM can win over sceptical UK public

    Keir Starmer and his ministers must not “panic” about the threat of Nigel Farage, the former home secretary Jack Straw has said, adding that the prime minister had impressed on the world stage and should show more of that side of himself at home.

    In an interview with the Guardian, he praised Starmer’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state after an ultimatum to Israel – but defended the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, saying he would also have proscribed the direct action group Palestine Action.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Gerard Otto on Palestine, genocide and the media: ‘Not if – but when – but not now’

    COMMENTARY: By Gerard Otto

    This morning there is no article on the political page of The New Zealand Herald about the plight of people in Gaza, the same is the case at The Post and at RNZ. Even the 1News political page is Gaza free but what may stun you over a Sunday morning coffee is the fact that there is also no mention of Gaza on the “World Pages” of any of these so-called news organisations.

    It’s not news in the world of our mainstream media journalists.

    Instead, there is articles about “no deal” between Trump and Putin, 300 dead in Pakistan, Trump will meet Zelenskyy, Stone Age Humans were picky about what stones they used . . . and other things — in fact the only article in the “big ” New Zealand mainstream media “World” pages about Gaza is at Stuff and it’s a link to a three minute news video item from yesterday’s Auckland protest about Neil Finn supporting Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

    Chlöe said the evidence is pretty clear and you don’t kill journalists for no reason when Israel laughed off claims that people in Gaza were starving.

    Last night, TVNZ 1News broadcast a news item that led with Neil Finn singing “Don’t Dream it’s Over” and Simon Mercep interviewing Chlöe about her stance on an apology.

    The news Chlöe would be back next week at Parliament probably shocked Duncan Garner but there was precious little coverage of what was said in protest speeches because the limitations of broadcasting news concision (a sequence of soundbites) prevent the New Zealand public from hearing too much about Gaza from our own mainstream news services.

    Gordon’s action list
    Over on social media many people are sharing Gordon Campbell’s article around — where he details the actions you could take and points out how the people of Gaza don’t have time for symbolic stances and the kinds of actions that might help — like sanctions and UN peacekeeping intervention on the ground.

    Gordon Campbell has “a go at” the stance taken by the NZ government that “it’s not a matter of if, but when” by adding “but not now” and why not now?

    One reason for “but not now” pitched by Campbell is that with Todd McClay now heading over to the US to beg for a return to 10 percent tariffs, New Zealand is stalling and playing a wait and see game — watching whether Australia will be punished for backing a Palestinian state and whether tariffs will be part of the game.


    G News on yesterday’s Palestine solidarity rally in Te Komititanga Square, Auckland.

    A map of the nations in the world who support a Palestinian state shows most of it in green — and the holdouts in white — with New Zealand holding out in white as we recite “Not if, but when, but not now”.

    The editorial at The New Zealand Herald this morning is about how Labour MPs should have shown up and performed publicly at the Covid Circus Phase 2 Royal Commission of Inquiry in the opinion of the Herald (run by Steven Joyce and cookers from The Centrist) — because an urgent Taxpayers’ Union Poll claims 53 percent say so with a giant margin for error not even mentioned — nor how the Royal Commission has all the information it needs from the previous government but it needs the same questions answered in public.

    The priorities and partisanship of The NZ Herald are on show as it campaigns hard against Labour and the left bloc even while there’s an unfolding genocide taking place in the world and it’s “World” pages are empty about this — while decent people cancel their subscriptions.

    Many of us are still aghast at the way senior political correspondent Audrey Young wished Chlöe would go away when all she was doing was asking National MPs to act with their conscience and Speaker Gerry Brownlee had taken offence and dished out injustice — which now has backfired at grassroots level across the nation and media starve us all of the real content in those speeches.

    Chlöe has said from the start this is not about her and she was telling people this again yesterday as folks thanked her for taking an unapologetic stand.

    Green Party's Chlöe Swarbrick has said from the start this is not about her and she was telling people this again
    Green Party’s Chlöe Swarbrick has said from the start this is not about her and she was telling people this again yesterday as folks thanked her for taking an unapologetic stand. Image: Stuff screenshot APR

    Who controls the spotlight? Media!
    We wanted to hear from Chlöe and we wanted to hear those speeches.

    I personally felt I had let down the show yesterday because my cell and sound gear seized up in the bitter cold wind and rain so I missed Chlöe’s speech and some of the other messages — Hey Now Don’t Dream it’s Over — but with no umbrella, no raincoat and standing in the rain my frozen fingers took some time to come right and I sat on a ferry in cold wet clothes like a failure afterwards but it is what it is.

    My apologies for not being better prepared.

    It was pointed out in speeches at the rally (there has almost been 100 of them now) how NZ journalists do not support their colleagues who are being murdered for doing their jobs in Gaza and when I got home and warmed up we discussed the way Al Jazeera is a good news channel and how crap things are in New Zealand media.

    Gordon Campbell and a few other notable exceptions keep the faith and his observation “but not now” has done the thinking for many of us about the spineless government who are stalling and pretending this is complex and needs to take weeks while every day more people starve to death, get shot going for food. And it all just happens as if — it’s “a mystery” – while our government names Hamas strongly but nobody else.

    Criticism of State Terror is more toned down and we care more about our US relationship than anything much else it seems — putting our own interests first and not reporting much about the facts.

    RNZ has finally published “Spine and Punishment: A review of Swarbrick v Brownlee” because the media spotlight was on this local issue and the history of Speakers’ rulings versus “a new decency” because Gerry was offended and overreached.

    Gerry must withdraw
    In my opinion, Gerry has got to withdraw and apologise or step down and any more stick about this towards Chlöe is going to further the focus on National MPs who are silent and hiding behind “But not now”.

    If only six of 68 National MPs voted with their conscience and not their party “but not now” instructions then we’d be actively progressing a new law to sanction Israel — and our actions would speak louder than merely words and symbolic gestures.

    “But not now” is the order of the day for New Zealand’s mainstream media as Dr Paul Goldsmith is caught out supporting what David Seymour wrote to the UN — Education Minister Erica Stanford overreaches banning Te Reo words, Public Service Minister Judith Collins is threatening to prevent strikes, and PM Christopher Luxon is now loathed by the business community as his fluffers at The NZ Herald look the other way.

    The unfolding genocide in Gaza seems to be going to plan as NZ news media also lack a spine and any kind of support for their dead colleagues while this one term government clings to “Not if, but when — but not now”.

    Might as well carry on starving until September.

    “He’s lost the plot” – “but not now”.

    Because this government and its sycophantic media need more time to argue about this very “complex” issue.

    Gerard Otto is a digital creator and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Why we need protection from brutality of some thuggish NZ police

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    A New Zealand policeman pushed over an elderly man who was doing nothing but waving a Palestinian flag at a solidarity rally in Ōtautahi yesterday.

    Yes the man employed to protect the public committed a violent assault. Not a wee shove, a great big push that caused the man to fall the ground – onto hard tarmac.

    It comes on top of a woman being fatally shot this week by police and her partner being shot and injured. In that case a knife was involved but it’s kind of like paper-scissors-rock, is it not?

    Police wear protective clothing and where are the tasers?

    In other, different, situations I know for a fact that some of our police are violent against peaceful people.

    I have experienced their brutality directly while filming their brutality. Like the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) they see journalists who film their offensive actions as the enemy.They used pepper spray against me illegally to stop me filming their perversity.

    But look, it’s a hard job so they need how-not-to-be-thugs training.

    Pre-trained as thugs
    Some young men are already pre-trained to be thugs and they seem to be out at the front. They feel great in this mostly white gang.

    I have witnessed police haul people off the pavement, beat them up, and then arrest the victims of their assaults “for assault”.

    False accusations to protect themselves? Twisting the narrative completely to hide their own violence?

    False arrests when they themselves should face arrest.

    I think we’ve had enough.

    Some of the boys in blue really really need to grow up.

    They need training that teaches them that manning or womaning up (some women cops play the thug game too) doesn’t mean training to be a wanker white supremacist.

    Self awareness
    Good training means teaching police to be self aware, aware of thoughts and feelings, not just learning cognitive behavioural tools but applying them.

    They are in the community to protect the community. They should not see people who are supporting human rights or kids attending a party as their opposition, their enemy.

    These thug police need to unlearn their thuggery and learn instead, how to relate to the people. They are not defending themselves against the public. They must not view people — real human beings — as their enemy.

    The thug cops are adept at dehumanising others. They need to learn to see people as individuals and this includes people attending group functions like parties or protests or club activities. People have human rights.

    This includes the right to be respected and treated with dignity.

    The perpetrators of violent crime are — far too often — the police. I’ve seen it happen with no provocation time and again. Too many times to count.

    They don the black gloves and black sunnies and wear bullet proof vests and feel what?How do they feel when they gear up? Threatened or threatening?

    Public protection
    Questions need to be asked.

    The public needs protection from some — not all — of our police.

    And the legal system, the justice system — (I’m trying not use an ironic tone here) needs to be applied to violent crimes, including the police crims who assault members of the public.

    I worry for unseen victims too. I worry for their wives and children because if they assault with no provocation on the street what do they do at home?

    Do people who behave like street devils turn into angels at home?

    Investigations must be held about why our police are assaulting bystanders and peaceful protesters.

    Tragedy investigation
    I guess there wll be an investigation into the bullets against knife tragedy. But we need other investigations too.

    I know the footage of what happened to our innocent elderly protester will be posted on social media.


    New footage emerges of policeman pushing partygoer (2021 1News video)

    In the meantime, here’s other footage above of Christchurch police doing what they are in danger of doing best.

    This footage is four years ago but this alarming, aggressive behaviour continues as demonstrated yesterday by a cop shoving to the ground an unarmed, unprotected, elderly man waving a Palestinian flag whom they then — so wrongly — charged with assault!

    Saige England is an Aotearoa New Zealand journalist, author, and poet, member of the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This commentary was first published on her social media.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • US Guts Mentions of Indigenous Rights, Climate Change From Human Rights Reports

    This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Forget Indigenous rights, climate change and environmental protection. That’s the stark message from the latest edition of the U.S. Department of State’s reports on human rights practices across the world…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Luxon ‘get a spine’ chants as big rallies call for NZ to recognise Palestine state

    Asia Pacific Report

    “Grow a spine for Palestine!” was a frequent theme among about 5000 people protesting in the heart of New Zealand’s largest city today as the protesters demanded that the coalition government should recognise the state of Palestine and stop supporting impunity for Israel.

    More than 62,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza in the past 22 months and the country’s military have doubled down on their attacks on residential areas in the besieged enclave.

    Several speakers, including opposition parliamentarians, spoke at the rally, strongly condemning Israel for its genocidal policies and crimes against humanity.

    Many children took part in the rally at Te Komititanga Square and the return march up Queen Street in spite of the bitterly wet and cold weather. Many of them carried placards and Palestinian flags like their parents.

    One young boy carried a placard declaring “Just a kid standing in front of his PM asking him to grow a heart and a spine”. The heart was illustrated as a Palestinian flag.

    Other placards included slogans such as “Wanted MPs with a spine” and “Grow a spine for Palestine”, and “They try to bury us forgetting we are seeds” with the resistance watermelon symbol.

    Many placards demanded sanctions and condemned Israel, saying “Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them — sanction Israel now”, “NZ government: Your silence is complicity with Israeli genocide” and “Free Palestine now”.

    Disillusionment with leaders
    One poster expressed disillusionment with both the coalition government and opposition Labour Party leaders, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins, denouncing “apologists for genocide”.

    Another poster challenged both Hipkins and Luxon over “what values” they stood for. It said:

    “Our ‘leaders’ have refused to call for a ceasefire even after 10,000+ innocent civilians have been brutally murdered in their own homes, including 4000+ CHILDREN all under the name of “Kiwi values”.

    “They, like a lot of other world politicians, are apologists for genocide.”

    A "Palestine forever" banner at the head of the Auckland march
    A “Palestine forever” banner at the head of the Auckland march today as it prepares to walk up Queen Street. Image: APR

    Frustration has been growing among the public with the government’s reluctance to declare support for Palestinian statehood after 96 consecutive weeks of protests organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and other groups, not just in the largest city of Auckland and the capital Wellington, but also in Christchurch and in at least 20 other towns and communities across the motu.

    The “spine” theme in chants and posters followed just days after Parliament suspended Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick following a fiery speech about Gaza when she said government MPs should grow a spine and sanction Israel for its atrocities.

    She had refused to apologise to the House and supporters at the rally today gave her rousing cheers in support of her defiance.

    ‘We need your help’
    Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told the crowd: “We need you to help her put the pressure on so that we can fight together in that place [Parliament] for our people to free, free Palestine; from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

    “Return our dignity Aotearoa. Stand up for what is right. There is only one side to support in genocide, only one side. And Te Pati Māori will only work with those.”

    When Swarbrick spoke to the crowd, she repeated her goal to find six government MPs “with a spine” to support her bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes”.

    She also said the Palestinian people were being “starved and slaughtered by Israel” in Gaza, adding that their breath was being “stolen from them” by the IDF (Israeli “Defence” Force).

    “It is our duty, all human beings with breath left in our lungs, with the freedom to chant and to move and to demand action from our politicians, to do all that we can to fight for liberation for all peoples,” she said.

    Other politicians speaking were Orini Kaipara, the Te Pati Māori candidate for the Tāmaki Mākaurau byelection, and Kerrin Leoni, mayoral candidate for Tamaki.

    Targeted assassinations
    Earlier, the targeted assassinations of six journalists by the Israeli military last Sunday — taking the toll to 272 — was condemned by independent journalist and Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie. He also criticised the NZ media silence.

    Noting that New Zealand journalists had not condemned the killings or held a vigil as the Media Alliance (MEAA) had done in Australia, he cited an Al Jazeera journalist, Hind Khoudary, whose message to the world was:

    “We are being hunted and killed in Gaza while you watch in silence. For two years, your fellow journalists here have been slaughtered.

    What did you do? Nothing.”

    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick (left) and Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick (left) and Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer at today’s rally in Te Komitanga Square, Auckland. Image: APR

    A recent poll on whether New Zealanders want sanctions to be imposed on Israel, showed that of those who gave an opinion, 60 percent favoured sanctions.

    The PSNA commissioned survey by Talbot Mills in July with 1216 respondents gave a similar result to one commissioned by Justice for Palestine a year ago.

    Popular support for sanctions
    PSNA co-chair John Minto said the numbers showed strong popular support for sanctions. The 60 percent overall rose to 68 percent for the 18–29 year category.

    “The government is well out of step with public opinion and ignores this message at its peril.  There is popular support for sanctions against Israel,” he said.

    “People see that Israel is committing the worst atrocities of the 21st century with impunity. It is starving a whole population.

    “It has destroyed just about every building in Gaza. It is assassinating journalists. It holds 7000 Palestinian hostages in its jails without charge.  Its goal of occupying all of Gaza and ethnically cleansing its people into the Sudan desert, is all public knowledge.”

    Minto said Israel’s “depraved Prime Minister” who was wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICJ) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, had boasting that if Israel was really committing genocide, “it could have killed everyone in Gaza in a single afternoon”.

    “The poll shows New Zealand First supporters are most opposed to sanctions against Israel (59 percent of those who gave an opinion were opposed) so it’s little surprise Winston Peters is dragging the chain.”

    "Just a kid" with his message to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
    “Just a kid” with his blunt message to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Image: APR

  • Palestinian Youth Movement Vows to Make Genocide Support Too Costly for Maersk

    After two years of continuous effort in research, agitation and direct action, the organizers of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) celebrated a landmark organizing victory in late June. Their “Mask Off Maersk” campaign had sought to prove the complicity of the Danish freight-logistics titan A.P. Møller – Maersk A/S in the genocide in Gaza. Maersk, as it’s generally known, was found by PYM…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘I’m proud to have made this stand’: over-60s arrested at Palestine Action ban protest explain their decision

    From a retired British colonel to a Catholic priest, half of the 532 people arrested in Parliament Square were 60 or older. Many believe they had a greater share of responsibility to take in defending the right to free speech

    In recent weeks, hundreds of people have been arrested for taking part in demonstrations organised by the campaign group Defend Our Juries. Their alleged crime is calling for an end to the ban against Palestine Action, which has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary.

    One striking detail among those detained is their age. Half of those arrested at the largest protest yet, in Parliament Square in London on Saturday, were 60 or older. Some said they had taken part to give a voice to younger people who have more to lose by breaking the law, some simply felt they must challenge the government’s stance.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Israel is using its manufactured famine of Palestinians as a silent weapon in genocide

    Israel’s manufactured famine is being used, according to Amnesty International, as a “weapon of war.” However, public support for the famine amongst Israelis is also disturbingly widespread. During a speech to a large audience on 28 July, which was streamed live on TVs and social media in Israel, Rabbi Ronen Shaulov said:

    All of Gaza, and every child in Gaza should starve to death. I have no mercy for them…even though they are still young and hungry, I hope they starve to death.

     

    Starvation as policy: decades of blockade

    Restricting the entry of food and aid into Gaza has been a decades-long policy of the Israeli occupation. And, it has been consciously designed to control and exert pressure over the civilian population.

    In 2006, after Hamas’s electoral victory, a senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister said that when it came to tightening the blockade that:

    The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.

    In 2011, under court order, Israel released documents showing it calculated the minimal daily calorie intake required to avoid malnutrition in Gaza, planning aid only for subsistence – not nutritional health.

    Restrictions have intensified, reaching a new level of depravity. The humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding was manufactured from day one with the goal of ethnically cleansing Gaza. Crossings have been closed, food and medicine blocked, warehouses and bakeries destroyed, farmland obliterated. Only 1.5% of Gaza’s cropland remains accessible.

    According to Gaza’s Media Office, vegetable production has plummeted from 405,000 tonnes to 25,000. On top of that, 665 livestock and poultry farms have been destroyed. Beyond aid prevention, 44 food kitchens and 57 food distribution centres have been bombed. Palestinians queuing for water and food have been continually targeted.

    Since March 2 there has been a blockade on aid – initially total, now partial. Despite pressure forcing the occupation to allow the ‘limited’ entry of trucks, on 27 July, more than 430 food items, including frozen meats, dairy products, frozen vegetables and fruits, are still prohibited from entering.

    Pre-genocide, 500 aid trucks entered daily. Now at least 600 are needed, but between July 27–Aug 12, only 1,535 trucks entered—92 per day, according to Gaza’s Media Office. This is “a drop in the ocean” , compared to what is needed by Gaza’s starving population. Even those permitted to cross the border still face many problems.

    Chaos at the checkpoints: aid access and lawlessness

    The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA’s) spokesperson in Gaza, Olga Cherevko, said that:

    Our convoys continue to face delays at checkpoints, where we have to wait hours for authorisation to move. Once we enter the strip, we find that the routes given by the Israeli authorities are often congested, dangerous or impassable, and roads are severely damaged.

    With no organised distribution in most areas, crowds mob the few trucks that cross. Looting is rife amid a deliberately manufactured insecurity created by the occupation arming and protecting criminal gangs in Gaza.

    Amjad Al-Shawa is director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO), a coalition that unites over 130 independent Palestinian civil society organisations working in a variety of areas.

    He said:

    Its an unprecedented situation. We are not only suffering from starvation, but also from engineered chaos, imposed by the Israelis from day one of this war, through the systematic attacks on the rule of law, and the order bodies in Gaza- the Civil Police, the Attorney General, the court system, the jails, the prisons.

    Everything was attacked. Also the escorting teams for the aid supplies, the warehouses, the distribution points- all these were attacked. So these things led to such chaos, and also people are starving. Such conditions have led to disputes between individuals, and families.

    The battle is how to survive. There is no other option, just to risk your life to get a piece of bread or some flour.

    The purpose of this policy of engineered starvation and chaos is fundamentally to turn people against each other. This policy exists to undermine resilience, spread anarchy, and destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state. One way the occupation is doing this is by arming and protecting gangs, such as that led by Yasser Abu Shabab, previously jailed by Hamas, for drug smuggling and theft.

    Manufactured famine: aid distribution as deadly trap

    Rana Yassin lives in Tel al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in the southern part of Gaza City. Her brother had gone to the flour trucks, to try and get some food. Instead, he came back frightened and empty handed.

    Yassin said that:

    My brother was feeling very sad because he saw my little sister starving in front of his eyes. She was crying before sleeping, from hunger. So he made the decision to go to the flour trucks at the Kerem Shalom border crossing the next day. He told me it was very crowded and the condition there is crazy. People were fighting to get a packet of flour, but even if you are lucky enough to get something, people will steal it from you. He said the thieves had knives, and randomly shot at people, along with the army. These people aren’t of us.

    We didn’t see these people living with us in the days before the war. These are not Gazan people-really! We are very honest people, very generous, very good people. Who are these people? We don’t know. The things they are doing – stealing other people’s food and selling it, are not the principles we have been raised on. We were raised to give our neighbour food, if he is hungry and he is poor. We help each other. These people, of course, are supported by Israel, because they know when the trucks arrive, and they are protected by the army- which shoots other people, but lets them steal.

    Aid restrictions

    The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Alert tells us that the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in Gaza. Two famine indicators – acute malnutrition and severely reduced food consumption – are already surpassed in parts of the enclave. Namely, more than one in three people now regularly go days without food, and over half a million are in famine-like conditions, while the rest suffer emergency-level hunger. Gaza is at Phase 5 ’catastrophe’, where food vanishes and communities fall apart. Warnings, issued as early as December 2023, went unheeded.

    To enable the ethnic cleansing and genocide to continue, the occupation has not permitted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to bring any aid into Gaza since March 2. That’s in spite of the fact that the organisation have operated with great efficiency in Gaza since 1950. Instead, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), run by US mercenaries and the Israeli military, has replaced UNRWA’s four hundred decentralised aid points with just four heavily militarised ‘aid distribution sites’.

    GHF has nothing to do with providing aid, and everything to do with control. Armed guards patrol these sites, while the biometric data and digital IDs of the starving population, who have turned up in the hopes of some food, are collected to identify those of interest to the occupation. These checkpoints are nothing more than death traps for desperate, starving Palestinians. People have no choice but to risk death for a piece of bread, or some flour.

    GHF aid distribution sites: ‘Bloodbaths’

    Al-Shawa said that:

    Israel is trying its best to paralyse the humanitarian structure- the UN, and international and national NGOs, who are committed to the humanitarian principles. If this will continue, there will be total collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, where people will be left with nothing, and at the same time it will be a step forward to issue the forcible deportation of the people, through the establishment of a concentration camp in the south.

    This is the real plan of the Israelis, through the GHF and through these attacks on the Palestinian civilians, wherever they are. Now all ages are suffering from starvation. It has appeared now, on the faces, and the energy of everyone. Myself, my children- everyone is affected.

    Through their new report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) spoke with a whistleblower – a former contractor that worked with GHF. They also interviewed multiple witnesses who saw violence at aid distribution sites. HRW also spoke to humanitarian workers and doctors who treated those that were injured or killed during aid distributions to understand more about how GHF operates.

    What it found was a deeply flawed and problematic method of aid distribution, which lead HRW to accuse GHF of turning its sites into regular “bloodbaths”.

    Israel’s deliberate massacres at GHF aid sites

    Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). He investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. And, he explained that:

    We are able to confirm that Israeli forces are routinely opening fire on starving Palestinian civilians seeking aid at these sites, and we determine that those acts amount to wilful killings and are therefore war crimes. But our findings aren’t just limited to the killings.

    These companies are operating in militarized areas on land that has been largely raised by the Israeli army and ethnically cleansed of Palestinians. So Palestinians are forced to trek many, many kilometres over many hours to reach these aid sites. Because of the nature of how desperate the situation is – because Israel is deliberately starving civilians- there are many thousands of people, while the Israeli army uses live ammunition, essentially as crowd control. We’ve talked to people who’ve gone to, in some cases, scores of aid distributions, often coming back empty handed, witnessing friends and relatives that have been gunned down.

    Even if all the sites were to operate at full capacity, they would not be able to even bring in one tenth of the food, the number of trucks worth of food that was being brought in during the ceasefire by the UN mechanism.

    By reviewing GHF’s Facebook posts, which is where they make their official announcements, HRW also learnt that GHF’s four sites are only open for an average of 11 minutes. Even then, they’re not even open every day. Sometimes, they announced that sites were closed at the end of distribution. But they had not even announced when distribution had begun, making it impossible for Palestinians to know when aid was being distributed.

    Shakir said:

    So basically it’s a free for all. Suddenly the site is open. People run, they sprint. They’re being fired on by contractors using lethal and non lethal use of force. We also corresponded with these contractors, and they have acknowledged using live fire. They say they fire in the air or at people’s feet, but the evidence suggests that they’re firing on the crowd. So it’s a scenario where only the strong and powerful are able to, if they’re lucky, get food.

    As of 14 August, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, since 27 May, 1,881 aid seekers have been killed, and 13,863 injured. Deaths from famine and malnutrition total 239, including 106 children. Huge numbers of injured people have been flooding into Gaza’s hospitals, because of repeated attacks and the targeting of aid seekers.

    Hospitals are overwhelmed, and deaths are rapidly rising

    Dr Atef Al-Hout is the director of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, the only major hospital still functioning in Southern Gaza Strip. We spoke with him recently, and were told a mass casualty event had taken place. 287 injured people, and more than 40 martyrs had been brought to the hospital. They had been at what he calls “the inhumane aid distribution area”.

    Dr Al-Hout said that:

    We have all kinds of cases here, including those resulting from shelling that targeted residential areas, in what are known as ‘safe zones’, and injuries from the aid distribution area. The situation is extremely critical and continues to deteriorate. The number of martyrs is increasing daily. We are treating more than double the number of patients compared to 22 months ago, while medical supplies are critically low: Before the war, our hospital had 342 beds, but today we are treating over 800 patients. We’ve added a 100 bed field hospital, there are tents in the courtyard, and patients are even being treated on the floor in the corridors, because of severe overcrowding.

    Supplies are critically low, so patients have to go three to four days without having their wound gauze dressings changed because there is not enough supply, and this can lead to blood poisoning and life-threatening complications. There are also no painkillers, IV fluids or intravenous nutrition, which are essential for patients with injuries and malnutrition.

    Stocks of blood and plasma units are also running very low in several hospitals. This is not only because of the growing number of mass casualty events, but also the rise in malnutrition, which prevents a person being able to donate their blood to help the injured.

    Malnutrition: ‘tired from the slightest effort’

    Dr Mohammed Wael Shaheen is resident orthopaedic surgeon and head of the Medical Delegation Committee at Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital, Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip where he works. He said:

    Everyone is suffering from malnutrition here, and there is a shortage of food which contain essential elements that strengthen the blood, such as vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs and other items. These have been missing in Gaza since March, due to the blockade.

    Although Al-Aqsa Martyr’s hospital now provides one meal -a small plate of rice, pasta, or a Palestinian dish called Majadra – for its medical staff during their 24-hour shift, Dr Shaheen said:

    Of course, this is not enough to even sustain a small child for two days, let alone medical staff throughout their shift. Medical staff, as well as their patients, are suffering from malnutrition and are unable to work continuously. I used to be able to stand in the operating room for ten, twelve, or fifteen hours straight, without feeling the slightest bit of fatigue, exhaustion or lack of concentration, but now I can’t even last two to three hours. After that, you feel a severe headache, dizziness, nausea, and exhaustion. You cannot continue to stand, and you cannot complete your work. You get tired from the slightest effort you make at these times.

    One of the most vulnerable groups to malnutrition are children, and UNICEF has warned all under fives  – over 320,000 children – are at risk of acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition. Dr Al-Hout said:

    Children, especially infants are arriving in horrific conditions, as breastfeeding mothers do not have milk to feed their babies, due to their own malnutrition, and milk, though very rare in the local markets, is unaffordable, at more than $100 per carton- which is enough for a child for four days.

    The toll on children and families: starvation and trauma

    Dr Shaheen confided that:

    Malnutrition in children is a terrible thing. It is frightening when you see young children with their thin, emaciated bodies, and their parents and families unable to do anything for them. I mean, it chills the bones.

    Even a heart of stone would break. How can the people of the free world not be moved? The scenes are unbelievable. We see children in the wards, their chest bones and hand bones protruding from weakness, emaciation, and humiliation. No one in the free world, the honorable world, can imagine that, God forbid, this could be their child or one of their relatives.

    Nine-year-old Maryam used to be a healthy happy child, but is now too weak to move. Doctors have not been able to discover any illnesses other than acute malnutrition from starvation. The number of children in Gaza like Maryam are increasing daily.

    Abdulaziz Dawas, Maryam’s father is appealing for help. He said:

    We began to notice her weight loss around five or six months ago, especially in the last two months. Although Maryam’s malnutrition is extremely severe, I haven’t been able to find a doctor who can assess her condition because all of her tests are clean. Before the war, Maryam was like a princess and weighed 25kg. She now weighs 9kg, has acute diarrhea and blood in her stools, and is in a critical condition. Her situation is deteriorating daily, in a very serious way. She is dying quickly, and we need to save her life. My message to the whole world is that my daughter needs evacuating, it’s the only solution. Please help us!

    You can donate to Maryam’s Go Fund Me here.

    Profound long-term effects on Palestinian children’s cognitive development

    Childhood malnutrition has mental symptoms as well as physical. It can impair brain development – which can have profound long-term effects. Malnourished children struggle with concentration, memory, and learning. Mental development issues can become irreversible if malnutrition continues through early development.

    Palestine has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. But unless aid and medical supplies are allowed to now flow freely across the borders, to all parts of the Gaza Strip, the occupation’s enforced starvation campaign will lead to a generation of Palestinians suffering from cognitive decline, with a destroyed future.

    Parents in Gaza often sacrifice meals so their children can eat. Yassin, who has a two year old son, said:

    When we buy food we eat hardly anything, and keep the rest for our son. We say we have eaten enough during our lives, but he is a child and doesn’t deserve to feel hungry. So we always keep the biggest portion for him. Most days we don’t have anything except bread-two pieces of bread- and duqqa made with lentils. Yousef doesn’t like it, so refuses to eat, so keeps crying and sleeps with hunger. He wakes up in the morning hungry, saying mummy can you give me cake? Can you give me egg? I want apple. We have nothing but duqqa again. In the end he eats a little bit, because he is hungry.

    Yassin said she is unable to buy Yousef multivitamins because the occupation has blocked their entry into the Strip.

    Malnutrition and contaminated water leading to an explosion of infections and diseases

    Good nutrition is also essential for older people and those with chronic illnesses, who have weakened immune systems, such as kidney and cancer patients. But in Gaza, these people are not only hungry, thirsty, and malnourished, but also unable to receive dialysis treatment or chemotherapy, and cannot get essential medicines. Dr Al-Hout said that the condition of these patients is deteriorating by the day, and their death rates are rapidly increasing in Nasser hospital. Only 580 of the approximately 1200 dialysis patients being treated at Nasser Hospital before October 2023 are now still alive.

    Overcrowding, lack of sanitary conditions, and contaminated water, combined with immune deficiency due to malnutrition and starvation, is leading Palestinians – especially children – to face extremely high risks of severe, and sometimes fatal infections and diseases.

    Gaza’s water infrastructure has purposely been targeted by the occupation. That includes desalination plants, pipelines and sewage systems. Effectively, contaminated water has become a critical humanitarian crisis. Water-borne diseases have increased by almost 150%, with diseases such as polio making a comeback after an absence from the Strip of 25 years. Thousands of cases of Hepatitis A are emerging this year, and there is a surge in meningitis cases among children, amid the total health system collapse.

    Severe ‘environmental and public health consequences’

    Malnutrition and severely polluted drinking water is also spreading a rare neurological condition, called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which results in paralysis of the legs, followed by respiratory failure. GBS is treatable, but the destruction of the healthcare system and blockade on medicines means it can now prove fatal. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 30% of GBS patients require Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission, so their only hope in Gaza would be medical treatment abroad.

    Maher Salem, director general of planning, water and sanitation in the Gaza municipality, said much of the population is now suffering from limited or no access to clean water, and this is having a devastating impact. Wells, reservoirs, and pumping stations have all been damaged or destroyed.

    Salem said:

    In Gaza City there are eight main sewage pumping stations but all have been destroyed since the beginning of the ongoing aggression. As a result, the entire wastewater system in Gaza City has been non functional, leading to severe environmental and public health consequences. Across the Strip, 175,000 metres of sewage network, out of 500,000 metres has been destroyed, and only a limited number of the 66 sewage pumping stations remain partially functional, mostly in the Southern areas- but even those are operating under extreme limitations due to fuel shortages, damage and access restrictions.

    Surviving Israel’s famine: Gaza’s struggle for dignity

    Wells are used to extract water from the coastal aquifer, the sole groundwater source in the Gaza Strip, but this groundwater is heavily contaminated by untreated sewage and saltwater, making it unfit for direct human consumption without treatment. This is carried out using small desalination units and brackish water desalination plants. But the occupation’s blockade has led to a severe shortage of electricity and fuel, which complicate the pumping and distribution of water from the wells. Only 14 wells remain undamaged, while 49 are totally destroyed, and 20 severely damaged. Before October 2023, Salem said the total production from wells in summer was 80,000m3 daily but is now only 12,000m3, with 60% lost due to leakage.

    Ibrahim Al Khalili, a freelance journalist, born, raised, and based in Gaza City, said that due to this destruction, the majority of families are now completely dependent on water tankers. He said:

    People wait in long lines with containers, sometimes for hours, and they have been targeted previously, such as in al-Nuseirat refugee camp when the Israeli military targeted the water distribution point where many children were lining up, just to get a gallon of water for their families. They ended up being brutally killed.

    The water is often slightly salty tasting, not ideal for drinking, but people have no other choice. Some families survive on as little as two litres of water per person per day, for everything- drinking, cooking, washing and hygiene, and this lack of water, as well as the contaminated supplies, can really impact people’s health. It’s very horrific and heartbreaking, to witness all this.

    Al Khalili, who told the Canary it is more than ten hours since his last meal, said he will eat in the next two hours:

    I will prepare bread, with nothing – that is my dinner.

    Working for a month to make two days worth of food

    Once looters and gangs have taken over the humanitarian aid, they sell it in the markets for sky high prices. So even people with money in Gaza have been left struggling.

    Al Khalili said:

    When you find flour, it is very expensive, around $25-$30 a kilo, and this is a problem even if you have the money in your bank account. I get paid electronically, but they don’t deal with electronic payments here – they just receive cash. So when we need to withdraw the cash, we lose 52% of our money just to get the cash in hand, or to buy something to eat. The average monthly income per person ranges between $120-$180 USD. That means if someone is lucky enough to find a job, and works all month, he can just secure 4-5kg of flour to feed his kids – which is not sufficient for two days! For me, I work just to survive. The money that comes in goes straight back out.

    Mahmoud Basal, the Palestinian civil defence spokesman in Gaza has, so far, been on hunger strike for 27 consecutive days, and has said on his social media posts:

    This hunger is not pain. It is protest, it is mourning, it is love turned into resistance…My body is withering but it has not collapsed—because within it I carry the cry of two million souls, besieged by famine and hunted by death in every alley…Do not speak of human rights while you watch an entire people being starved deliberately. Do not praise “international justice” while you allow us to die slowly under siege. You may not live in Gaza but you are complicit in its suffering through your silence…To the officials of this world, I say: Save Gaza.

    Airdrops: a dehumanising distraction from real action

    Basal has also spoken out about airdrops. He said aid is not entering Gaza in a humane way, and:

    the world still accepts that we receive scraps through the path of humiliation and blood.

    Airdrops are expensive, inefficient, dangerous, and undignified. They do nothing to address the real problem of aid entry being blocked at the border. However, multiple countries continue with them, including the UK – which is supporting air drops in co-operation with Jordan.

    Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, said on X:

    Airdrops are at least 100 times more costly than trucks. Trucks carry twice as much aid as planes. If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings. As the people of Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance.

    Israeli occupation forces are now deployed over 88% of the Gaza Strip, with these ‘Red Zones’ out of bounds to Palestinians, so much of the aid airdropped by parachute becomes inaccessible to the starving population. Additionally, airdrops are especially dangerous in one of the most crowded places on Earth. Multiple deaths have resulted from airdrop accidents, as each pallet of food plus a parachute weigh more than 540kg, while ones carrying water bottles weigh more than a tonne.

    Al Shawa, PNGOs director, summed up the situation:

    People are suffocated in a very limited space of land, with the total Palestinian population crowded into just 12 percent of the land. It’s extremely risky to drop the aid over the heads of the people, over the tents. There are now about 47,000 people over a square kilometre of the Gaza Strip, and there is no space for air drops.

    Violations of international law, and the need for accountability

    As the occupying power, Israel has obligations under international law to ensure the unhindered entry of essential supplies but it has, instead, carried out a systematic policy of starvation, weaponising aid and using it as a silent tool of genocide, to target those Palestinians who have managed to survive the bombing and bloodshed.

    Dr Al-Hout said that:

    This is an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, a deliberate systematic killing of two million people in Gaza. What is happening is unlike anything in modern human history-a combination of mass killing and starvation.

    Women, children and the elderly are being exterminated by hunger, and the areas they were instructed to flee to are being targeted and bombed. What we are witnessing is not just a famine, but deliberate starvation, systematically imposed by the occupation forces who are preventing aid from reaching the area. The silence of the international community only emboldens the occupation to continue its crimes.

    Gaza’s destruction is not an accident, but a calculated assault: a campaign waged through hunger, displacement, and the breaking of bodies and spirits, which is a culmination of decades of dehumanisation.

    As life inside Gaza edges ever closer to collapse, and as the world watches – silent, complicit, and distracted – history will remember not only the scale of suffering inflicted but also the choices made by those with the power to stop it.

    The demand for action remains as urgent as ever: the immediate opening of all crossings into Gaza, the safe and unhindered delivery of aid throughout the Strip, a permanent ceasefire, investment in local food production, and accountability for the occupation’s many atrocities towards Palestinian people.

    Please donate to Maryam’s Go Fund Me page here.

    Featured image and additional images via the Canary

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Human rights ignored as UK endorses Moroccan control of Western Sahara

    In June, just weeks before home secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group, the UK government reversed longstanding policy by recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that has been under illegal occupation for 50 years.

    UK backs agreement maintaining Morocco’s colonial occupation in West Sahara

    In a joint communique signed by foreign secretary David Lammy and his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, the UK said the 2007 autonomy plan – which gives the indigenous Sahrawis self-governance under Moroccan sovereignty – was “the most credible, viable and pragmatic basis” to end the years-long conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the political-military movement representing the Sahrawi people.

    The UK had previously said the status of the territory remains “undetermined” and supported UN-led efforts for a referendum for self-determination for the Sahrawi people.

    Sahrawi Minister of Foreign Affairs and African Affairs Mohamed Yeslem Beisat told the Canary during his visit to the UK last week that:

    We are shocked to see them supporting an illegal, unilateral, baseless proposal [from] Morocco.

    But we know this autonomy plan is a passage brocatoire. It’s an old proposal … They [Morocco] just took it from the fridge, warmed it up in the microwave and tried to resell it again into the world.

    Beisat, who was invited to London by Middle East minister Hamish Falconer, insisted that though he was “disappointed” by the UK’s recognition of the plan, he believes these are just “empty words” and that the UK is still committed to a “mutually acceptable political solution”. Falconer did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    A ‘calculated’ move to secure economic opportunities

    Still, the sudden shift in UK policy is a victory for Morocco, which Beisat says has been “aggressively lobbying” African and European governments to recognize its autonomy plan.

    Since US president Donald Trump first endorsed the plan in 2020, countries including Spain, France, Germany, Kenya and the UK have followed suit, joining over 100 other UN member states that have already done so. Forty countries recognize the Polisario’s state in exile, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) near Tindouf, southwest Algeria, which is also a member of the African Union.

    Riccardo Fabiani, the North Africa director at the International Crisis Group says there is a national interest component as well as a diplomatic calculation to the UK’s decision.

    He told the Canary via email that:

    The UK calculated that by shifting its position in favour of Morocco’s autonomy plan, it could secure economic opportunities in a country that is quickly developing and that is investing considerably in infrastructure, energy etc.

    London’s new position has earned Morocco’s goodwill without alienating the Polisario and its main backer, Algeria. This means that right now the UK is one of the few international actors that still has channels of communication with both sides, unlike France or Spain.

    Fabiani believes the UK is trying to use its new position to push both sides towards a compromise, but that “it’s not going to be easy”.

    Violating the Sahrawis’ right to self-determination

    Pro-Sahrawi activists in the UK have their doubts too. Danielle Smith, the founder of UK-based charity Sandblast which advocates for Sahrawi self-determination, says the autonomy plan serves to “legitimise Morocco’s illegal occupation in Western Sahara”.

    The UN and various international human rights bodies agree that Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara is a violation of the Sahrawi right to self-determination and independence, and that all states have an obligation to assist the people of Western Sahara in their struggle for self-determination.

    Smith said:

    It is hard to have confidence and trust in British diplomacy given its glaring history of providing appeasement to victims of injustice on one hand while carrying on to support groups and governments that perpetuate human rights violations and atrocities [on the other].

    She added that she “doubts the sincerity” of the UK’s respect for international law.

    For the past six weeks, Smith has hosted a group of Sahrawi refugee teachers and students from the Sahrawi refugee camps in southwest Algeria as part of a cultural exchange programme in the UK. She said their plight “continues to be one of the most invisible stories of the day”.

    Promise for a referendum for self-determination: ignored

    After years of conflict between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991 promised a referendum for self-determination for the Sahrawi people. But that referendum never happened, and the ceasefire was broken in mid-November 2020, triggering the return to war that Morocco refuses to acknowledge and to which the world pays little attention.

    For decades, Rabat has argued that Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara is the best way to end the 50-year dispute over the former colony. They see the Polisario Front as a threat to their regional influence and security. But in recent years, the narrative has notably shifted focus to one of economic development, trade and investment which, according to former Moroccan diplomat Mohammed Loulichki has:

    played a pivotal role in Morocco’s autonomy campaign.

    Still, the Polisario Front has secured its own victories when it comes to trade in Western Sahara. In 2024, after a 12-year legal battle, the European Court of Justice ruled that EU-Morocco trade and fisheries agreements cannot be applied in Western Sahara because the territory is “separate and distinct” from Morocco.

    Trade in Western Sahara without Sahrawi consent

    The ECJ also explicitly stated that no trade agreement could take place in Western Sahara without obtaining consent from the people of the territory – something foreign governments and businesses have continuously sought to avoid.

    “British businesses [will] score big on football’s biggest stage,” Lammy said in reference to Morocco’s preparations to co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal.

    The two countries have also signed cooperation deals on healthcare, innovation, ports, water infrastructure and procurement, and British investments in Western Sahara are “under discussion”. Last month, Morocco announced plans to build a 500-megawatt hyperscale data centre in Dakhla, a coastal city Western Sahara that would reportedly be powered entirely by renewable energy and would rank among the largest data centers on the African continent.

    Other plans include a $1.2bn megaproject including a trade port, a fishing port and a shipyard, which is due to be completed in 2028.

    Egregious human rights abuses in Western Sahara

    Yet, conveniently missing from the sudden political interest in Western Sahara are the egregious human rights abuses Morocco continues to carry out in the territory on a near-daily basis. Journalists are denied entry to Western Sahara, unless it is on invitation from the Moroccan government to push a pro-government narrative of economic development. In 2020, Moroccan authorities prevented at least nine lawyers, activists, politicians, and journalists from accessing the territory.

    It is well documented that Sahrawis in occupied Western Sahara are routinely and disproportionately subjected to violence, arrests, and detainment for their activism for self-determination. In a recent high profile case, the activist Sultana Khaya was placed under house arrest for more than 500 days in Morocco where she and her sister and mother were subjected to horrific violence, including sexual assault.

    Morocco continues to refuse to allow the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to observe humanitarian conditions in the country for the tenth year running. The UN peacekeeping mission MINURSO, which is tasked with maintaining the ceasefire and carrying out the self-determination referendum, is also one of the only modern UN peacekeeping missions that does not incorporate human rights monitoring into its mandate.

    Economic interests trump human rights, but Sahrawi identity is ‘not for sale’

    As we’ve seen when it comes to the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in Gaza, British economic interests appear to always trump human rights.

    But for the hundreds of thousands of Sahrawis who continue to live in limbo, self-determination remains their sole purpose.

    Speaking at the UN General Assembly in June, Mouhidine Souvi, a Sahrawi petitioner said:

    We are not Moroccan, and we will never be Moroccans. Our identity is not for sale.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maxine Betteridge-Moes

    This post was originally published on Canary.