The State of Palestine has submitted a written plea to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asking it for an advisory opinion regarding Israel’s obligations not to obstruct humanitarian and development assistance in the territories it occupies, Al Jazeera reports.
In the submission, Palestinian officials affirmed the responsibility of Israel, as an occupying power, to not obstruct the work of the UN, international organisations, and third states so they can provide essential services, humanitarian aid, and development assistance to the Palestinian people.
Many states, as well as international groups, have submitted written pleas to the ICJ ahead of oral proceedings set to start next month.
Last July, the ICJ issued a historic advisory opinion determining Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.
Widespread ‘torture’ of Gaza medics in Israeli custody In a separate report, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights accused the Israeli military of detaining more than 250 medical personnel and support staff since the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
More than 180 remained in detention without a clear indication of when or if they would be released, the physicians’ report said.
“Detainees endure physical, psychological and sexual abuse as well as starvation and medical neglect amounting to torture,” the report said, denouncing a “deeply ingrained policy”.
Healthcare workers were beaten, threatened, and forced to sign documents in Hebrew during their detention, according to the report based on 20 testimonies collected in prison.
“Medical personnel were primarily questioned about the Israeli hostages, tunnels, hospital structures and Hamas’s activity,” it said.
“They were rarely asked questions linking them to any criminal activity, nor were they presented with substantive charges.”
New Zealand protesters calling for the continuation of the Gaza ceasefire and for peace and justice in Palestine in a march along the Auckland waterfront today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Where does Trump stand on the Gaza ceasefire? With phase one of the ceasefire due to end today and negotiations barely started on phase two, serious fears are being raised over the viability of the ceasefire.
President Donald Trump took credit for the truce that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar, reports Al Jazeera.
Advocate Maher Nazzal at today’s New Zealand rally for Gaza in Auckland . . . he was elected co-leader of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report
However, Trump has since sent mixed signals about the deal.
Earlier last month, he set a firm deadline for Hamas to release all the captives, warning “all hell is going to break out” if it didn’t.
But he said it was ultimately up to Israel, and the deadline came and went.
Trump sowed further confusion by proposing that Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million be relocated to other countries and for the US to take over the territory and develop it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the idea, but it was universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, including close US allies. Human rights groups said it could violate international law.
Trump stood by the plan in a Fox News interview over the weekend but said he was “not forcing it”.
Responding to DAWN’s referral of Biden, Blinken & Austin to the ICC for investigation for aiding Israeli war crimes, @alhaq_org‘s @SJabaren says:
“Finally, we see an effort to hold” accountable “US officials who have armed, financed and politically defended Israeli atrocities.” pic.twitter.com/yCpRaogE2I
‘Finally’ an effort to hold the US accountable, says Al-Haq director
Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin has welcomed a plea by the US-based rights group DAWN for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Joe Biden and senior US officials for aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
In a video posted by DAWN, Jabarin, director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said the effort was long overdue.
“For decades we have called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, but time and again, the US has used its power and influence to block that accountability, to shield Israel from consequences and to ensure that it can continue its crimes with impunity,” Jabarin said.
“Now, finally, we see an effort to hold not just Israeli officials accountable but also those who have made these crimes possible: US officials who have armed, financed, and politically defended Israeli atrocities.”
A father piggybacks his sleepy child during the New Zealand solidarity protest for Palestine in Auckland’s Viaduct today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Two children a week are killed in the West Bank. Two cameras recorded the circumstances of one such death
The last time Nassar al-Hammouni talked to his son, Ayman, it was by telephone and the 12-year-old was overflowing with plans for the coming weekend, and for the rest of his life. He had joined a local football team and planned to register at a karate club that weekend. When he grew up, he told Nassar, he was going to become a doctor, or better still an engineer to help his father in the construction job that took him away from their home in Hebron every week.
None of that – the football, the karate or his imagined future career – will happen now. Last Friday, two days after the call to his father, Ayman was killed, shot by Israeli fire, video footage seen by the Guardian suggests.
Of all the ideological mystifications created by the white West to rationalize and justify its brutal exploitation and colonization of the world the last five hundred years, the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on the colonized and the entire world is the idea that the West has the capacity or intent to define and protect something called human rights.
The conquest fueled by advanced weapons and a style of war that has as its objective the annihilation of the enemy, the barbarians that poured out of what became “Europe” into what was eventually named the Americas burned, murdered, raped and destroyed cultures and peoples in a war of extermination. The people that were spared, or who escaped or resisted, were enslaved alongside Africans brought by the millions to provide free labor that would result in consolidation of riches and capital key to the development of what has been characterized as Western civilization.
In the year marking 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents and 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tested by the United States, Greenpeace is calling on Washington to comply with demands by the Marshall Islands for nuclear justice.
“The Marshall Islands bears the deepest scars of a dark legacy — nuclear contamination, forced displacement, and premeditated human experimentation at the hands of the US government,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Shiva Gounden.
To mark the Marshall Islands’ Remembrance Day today, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior is flying the republic’s flag at halfmast in solidarity with those who lost their lives and are suffering ongoing trauma as a result of US nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
On 1 March 1954, the Castle Bravo nuclear bomb was detonated on Bikini Atoll with a blast 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
On Rongelap Atoll, 150 km away, radioactive fallout rained onto the inhabited island, with children mistaking it as snow.
The Rainbow Warrior is sailing to the Marshall Islands where a mission led by Greenpeace will conduct independent scientific research across the country, the results of which will eventually be given to the National Nuclear Commission to support the Marshall Islands government’s ongoing legal proceedings with the US and at the UN.
Still enduring fallout
Marshall Islands communities still endure the physical, economic, and cultural fallout of the nuclear tests — compensation from the US has fallen far short of expectations of the islanders who are yet to receive an apology.
Former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum’s “nuclear justice” speech as Right Livelihood Award Winner in 2009. Video: Voices Rising
“To this day, Marshall Islanders continue to grapple with this injustice while standing on the frontlines of the climate crisis — facing yet another wave of displacement and devastation for a catastrophe they did not create,” Gounden said.
“But the Marshallese people and their government are not just survivors — they are warriors for justice, among the most powerful voices demanding bold action, accountability, and reparations on the global stage.
“Those who have inflicted unimaginable harm on the Marshallese must be held to account and made to pay for the devastation they caused.
“Greenpeace stands unwaveringly beside Marshallese communities in their fight for justice. Jimwe im Maron.”
Rainbow Warrior crew members holding the Marshall Islands flag . . . remembering the anniversary of the devastating Castle Bravo nuclear test – 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima – on 1 March 1954. Image: Greenpeace InternationalChair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission Ariana Tibon-Kilma . . . “the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents.” Image: UN Human Rights Council
Ariana Tibon Kilma, chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission, said that the immediate effects of the Bravo bomb on March 1 were “harrowing”.
“Hours after exposure, many people fell ill — skin peeling off, burning sensation in their eyes, their stomachs were churning in pain. Mothers watched as their children’s hair fell to the ground and blisters devoured their bodies overnight,” she said.
“Without their consent, the United States government enrolled them as ‘test subjects’ in a top secret medical study on the effects of radiation on human beings — a study that continued for 40 years.
“Today on Remembrance Day the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents — this is a legacy not only of suffering, loss, and frustration, but also of strength, unity, and unwavering commitment to justice, truth and accountability.”
The new Rainbow Warrior will arrive in the Marshall Islands early this month.
Alongside the government of the Marshall Islands, Greenpeace will lead an independent scientific mission into the ongoing impacts of the US weapons testing programme.
Travelling across the country, Greenpeace will reaffirm its solidarity with the Marshallese people — now facing further harm and displacement from the climate crisis, and the emerging threat of deep sea mining in the Pacific.
During Ramadan, joy usually sweeps through Gaza as the streets come alive with dazzling decorations and the warm glow of radiant lanterns. The alleys resonate with echoes of blessings and celebratory chants while people gather, their hearts brimming with anticipation and happiness. Children embrace the holy month with pure innocence and delight, carrying the hope of reunion and the spirit of unity…
Tongan community leaders and artists in New Zealand have criticised the Treaty Principles Bill while highlighting the ongoing impact of colonisation in Aotearoa and the Pacific.
Oral submissions continued this week for the public to voice their view on the controversial proposed bill, which aims to redefine the legal framework of the nation’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
Aotearoa Tongan Response Group member Pakilau Manase Lua echoed words from the Waitangi Day commemorations earlier this month.
“The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill and its champions and enablers represent the spirit of the coloniser,” he said.
Pakilau said New Zealand’s history included forcible takeovers of Sāmoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau.
“The New Zealand government, or the Crown, has shown time and again that it has a pattern of trampling on the mana and sovereignty of indigenous peoples, not just here in Aotearoa, but also in the Pacific region.”
Poet Karlo Mila spoke as part of a submission by a collective of artists, Mana Moana,
“Have you ever paused to wonder why we speak English here, half a world away from England? It’s a global history of Christian white supremacy, who, with apostolic authority, ordained the doctrine of discovery to create a new world order,” she said.
“Yes, this is where the ‘new’ in New Zealand comes from, invasion for advantage and profit, presenting itself as progress, as civilising, as salvation, as enlightenment itself — the greatest gaslighting feat of history.”
Bill used as political weapon
She argued that the bill was being used as a political weapon, and government rhetoric was causing division.
“We watch political parties sow seeds of disunity using disingenuous history, harnessing hate speech and the haka of destiny, scapegoating ‘vulnerable enemies’ . . . Yes, for us, it’s a forest fire out there, and brown bodies are moving political targets, every inflammatory word finding kindling in kindred racists.”
Pakilau said that because Tonga had never been formally colonised, Tongans had a unique view of the unfolding situation.
“We know what sovereignty tastes like, we know what it smells like and feels like, especially when it’s trampled on.
“Ask the American Samoans, who provide more soldiers per capita than any state of America to join the US Army, but are not allowed to vote for the country they are prepared to die for.
“Ask the mighty 28th Maori Battalion, who field Marshal Erwin Rommel famously said, ‘Give me the Māori Battalion and I will rule the world’, they bled and died for a country that denied them the very rights promised under the Treaty.
“The Treaty of Waitangi Bill is essentially threatening to do the same thing again, it is re-traumatising Māori and opening old wounds.”
A vision for the future Mila, who also has European and Sāmoan ancestry, said the answer to how to proceed was in the Treaty’s Indigenous text.
“The answer is Te Tiriti, not separatist exclusion. It’s the fair terms of inclusion, an ancestral strategy for harmony, a covenant of cooperation. It’s how we live ethically on a land that was never ceded.”
Aotearoa Tongan Response Group chair Anahila Kanongata’a said Tongans were Tangata Tiriti (people of the Treaty), and the bill denigrated the rights of Māori as Tangata Whenua (people of the land).
“How many times has the Crown breached the Treaty? Too, too many times.
“What this bill is attempting to do is retrospectively annul those breaches by extinguishing Māori sovereignty or tino rangatiritanga over their own affairs, as promised to them in their Tiriti, the Te Reo Māori text.”
Kanongata’a called on the Crown to rescind the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, honour Te Tiriti, and issue a formal apology to Māori, similar to what had been done for the Dawn Raids.
Hundreds gather at Treaty Grounds for the annual Waitangi Day dawn service. Image: PMN Digital/Joseph Safiti
“As a former member of Parliament, I am proud of the fact that an apology was made for the way our people were treated during the Dawn Raids.
“We were directly affected, yes, it was painful and most of our loved ones never got to see or hear the apology, but imagine the pain Māori must feel to be essentially dispossessed, disempowered and effectively disowned of their sovereignty on their own lands.”
The bill’s architect, Act Party leader David Seymour, sayid the nationwide discussion on Treaty principles was crucial for future generations.
“In a democracy, the citizens are always ready to decide the future. That’s how it works.”
Exclusive: Education department allows Sheikh Wesam Charkawi to return to Granville Boys high school, lawyer says, adding case highlights ‘ambiguity in what is required of public servants’
A support officer has returned to a western Sydney school after being ordered to work from home after he posted a video in response to the Bankstown hospital nurses footage, in which he criticised “selective outrage”.
Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, who works at Granville Boys high school, posted a video on his social media platforms on 16 February in which he spoke about the reaction to two New South Wales nurses who allegedly claimed in a social media video they wouldn’t treat Israelis and boasted of sending them to hell.
Self-professedmisogynists and alleged rapists and human traffickers Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan left Romania on a US-bound private jet, and are now in Florida. This was after officials lifted a travel ban which had been barring them from leaving the country amidst a slate of serious criminal charges.
Notably, lobbying from the Trump administration looks to have played a role in Romania’s sudden relaxing of Tate’s travel restrictions.
Now, the UK solicitor representing British women survivors of Tate’s alleged violent crimes, has lambasted prime minister Keir Starmer amidst his Whitehouse visit. In particular, he has called out the Labour Party government’s failure to act to prevent the two leaving for the US – when it knew “more than a week ago” it could happen.
Andrew Tate: arch misogynist influencer and alleged rapist US-bound
The dual US-UK citizens and self-styled sexist social media influencers are facing criminal charges in Romania for a series of serious and violent crimes. This includes allegations of human trafficking, rape, and money laundering. They also stand accused of forming a criminal gang to exploit women.
Alongside these charges in Romania, the pair of arch chauvinists face further allegations in the UK. These are for similar reported sexual violence crimes – again including both rape, and human trafficking. In addition to this, Westminster Magistrates Court previously ruled that British police could seize nearly £2.7m from the Tate brothers in unpaid tax.
Four survivors of sexual assault who have made allegations against Tate have spoken out on the news. As the BBC reported, the group issued a joint statement. In this, they expressed that they are in “disbelief and feel re-traumatised” by the turn of events. Moreover, they articulated their worry that Tate would:
use it as an opportunity to harass further and intimidate witnesses and his accusers, and he will continue to spread his violent, misogynistic doctrine around the world.
Romania’s law enforcement service DIICOT have not dropped the investigation. Moreover, purportedly, it will require the Tate brothers to return to Romania. Under Romania’s law of “judicial control”, reports suggest that the country could call the pair back to Romania by the end of March.
However, the British women waiting for justice expressed their view that the move to lift the travel ban means that the Tate brothers will now evade justice. They stated that:
It is clear that he will now not face criminal prosecution for his alleged crimes in Romania.
Already, Romania appears to be lifting some of its legal action against the brothers. A representative of the Tate brothers has said that Romanian authorities have returned some of their seized assets. It includes five properties, and another which they partially own, six cars, company shares, and frozen bank accounts.
The Trump admin’s influence over Andrew Tate travel ban
As ardent Donald Trump supporters, since the president’s inauguration, the Whitehouse had been operating to intervene. Of course, Trump himself is a staunch and outspoken misogynist, convicted felon, and rapist. So it’s perhaps little wonder the president has been fighting in their corner since he entered the Oval Office.
And notably, the Tate brothers have long had connections to the reprising president. As the Guardian’s Matt Shea reported recently:
The alliance between the Trump administration and the Tate brothers has been in the making for a long time. Paul Ingrassia, one of the lawyers Andrew Tate hired to fight his human trafficking case, was recently sworn in as the White House liaison for the Department of Justice. According to him, the Tate brothers were “sacrificed on the altar of the Matrix under the banner of egregious crimes they never committed”.
Andrew Tate has been friends since 2016 with Donald Trump Jr, who called Tate’s detention “absolute insanity”. Donald Trump himself also appeared on a stream with the Andrew Tate sycophant and collaborator Adin Ross in August 2024. Around the same time, JD Vance appeared on the pro-Tate podcast the Nelk Boys.
Elon Musk responded to Tate’s plan to “run for prime minister of the UK” by saying “he’s not wrong” and JD Vance followed both Tate brothers on X in December.
Now, the pairs sudden departure comes not little over a week after Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell raised it. He did so with Romania’s foreign minister Emil Hurezeanu at a security conference in Munich.
Given the recent lobbying efforts of the Trump administration, UK solicitor Matthew Jury has called out the UK government for its failure to pre-empt this outcome.
Starmer knew that the ‘serial rapist’ could soon slip out out of reach
The news that pressure by the Trump Administration has led to Andrew Tate, and his brother Tristan, being allowed to leave Romania by its authorities is equal parts disgusting and dismaying.
There is clear evidence to support the allegations against Tate that he is one of the world’s worst human traffickers and serial rapists.
That the US Government would choose to lobby for his release is absurd but sadly, given its actions over the past month, perhaps unsurprising.
Any suggestion that the Tates will now face justice in Romania is fanciful.
The UK authorities must take immediate steps to secure their extradition to the UK to face charges for the offences of human trafficking and rape they are alleged to have committed in this jurisdiction.
Romania has embarrassed itself. The UK must not do the same.
@10DowningStreet was aware this may happen more than a week ago. The fact that nothing seems to have been done to prevent it is concerning. One can only hope action will now be taken.
Given that @Keir_Starmer is in the US today to meet with
@realDonaldTrump perhaps his team may take the opportunity to raise this issue on behalf of the many British women who Tate is alleged to have raped and sexually assaulted who may now be denied justice.
However, a Downing Street spokesperson has declined to comment on the news. Moreover, as the BBC detailed, he refused to confirm whether Starmer would raise it with Trump. The UK prime minister is currently visiting the Whitehouse. His office said only that since it was a “live case”, then:
you wouldn’t expect us to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
And his spokesperson added that:
This was a decision taken by the Romanian courts independently following due process and their investigation remains in place.
But more widely, the prime minister has been clear that human trafficking should be viewed as a global security threat, similar to terrorism.
The family of a Papua New Guinea police constable, killed in an ambush last month, has blocked a section of the Highlands Highway in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, demanding justice for his death.
Constable Harry Gorano succumbed to his injuries in intensive care two weeks ago after spending three weeks in a coma.
He was attacked alongside colleagues in the Southern Highlands in January, during which fellow officer Constable Noel Biape was fatally shot.
Natika Kantaria is a human rights advocate with nearly a decade of experience planning and implementing advocacy campaigns in human rights. She has worked with international organizations and watchdog NGOs and collaborated with the public and private sectors. For the ISHR she wrote a piece on 26 February 2025 about a worrying trend: ‘Foreign agent’ laws have been introduced in various countries, violating international human rights law and threatening to silence human rights defenders. This pattern is particularly evident in Eastern Europe, where NGOs courageously resist and need the support of the international community. See e.g. my earlier posts:
Societies thrive when everyone can work, speak out, and organise freely and safely to ensure justice and equality for all. Legislation requiring NGOs to register as ‘foreign agents’ is a barrier to this virtuous cycle. Despite the European Court of Human Rights’ 2022 ruling that Russia’s 2012 foreign agent law violated freedom of expression and association, the governments of Hungary, Georgia, Slovakia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina have proceeded undeterred to introduce similar laws.
These laws specifically target NGOs and not-for-profits that receive foreign funds and require them to register as foreign agents, organisations serving the interests of a foreign power, or agents of foreign influence. By doing so, they restrict the capacity of human rights defenders to organise, participate and exercise their right to defend rights by:
imposing disproportionately high fines and heavy sanctions to NGOs refusing to comply, which may ultimately lead to the termination of their operations
using vague wording, that ultimately gives too much room and power for government interpretation. For instance, the requirement for NGOs to register in official records or identify themselves as ‘agents of foreign influence’ lacks clarity and specificity.
increasing the burden of NGOs by introducing heavy reporting and auditing requirements. The State’s alleged need for transparency as their primary purpose can, therefore, be effectively addressed through existing legislation regulating NGOs.
employing a negative narrative that stigmatises and delegitimises the work of the civil society organisations and human rights defenders. This rhetoric promotes hostility and distrust toward civil society and encourages attacks against defenders.
Furthermore, such laws contradict the commitments of these countries under international human rights law. Article 13 of the 1998 UN Declaration on human rights defenders recognises the right of defenders to solicit, receive and utilise resources.
Article 10 of the Declaration +25, a supplement to the UN Declaration put forward in 2024 by civil society, human rights defenders and legal experts, addresses States’ attempts to prohibit foreign contributions or impose unjustified national security limitations. It stipulates that States should not hinder financial resources for human rights defenders and outlines measures to prevent retaliation based on the source of their funding. These laws violate rights related to freedom of expression, association, and privacy, as outlined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Foreign agent laws also run counter to commitments made by countries at the regional level as members of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), including recommendation CM/Rec(2018)11, which emphasizes the protection and promotion of civil society space and OSCE guidelines for protecting human rights defenders.
NGOs are increasingly becoming a primary target for repressive governments. According to the CIVICUS Monitor 2024 report, the countries mentioned above that have introduced ‘foreign agent’ laws have either ‘closed’ or ‘obstructed’ civil society space. In addition, the Trump administration’s rhetoric and its decision to freeze foreign aid have contributed to strengthening hostile narratives already present in ‘foreign agent laws’ in Eastern Europe and have emboldened governments in their efforts to publicly undermine these organisations.
While the silencing of NGOs has become part of the agenda for many governments, and the rise of ‘foreign agent’ laws serves as a step towards establishing authoritarian regimes, civil society actors continue to mobilise in response. Strengthening engagement with international human rights mechanisms, fostering joint global advocacy, and providing support to targeted organisations and groups are essential steps that international NGOs and the international community should take to build resistance, reinforce coalition efforts, and protect the work of human rights defenders.
International and regional human rights mechanisms have called for governments to either repeal these laws, or not to adopt them in their current forms. On 7 February 2025, three UN independent experts issued a statement in relation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the government reintroduced the ‘Law on the Special Registry and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organisations’ after its initial withdrawal in May 2024. The statement stressed that creating a register of non-profit organisations receiving foreign funding in one of the entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina will impose severe restrictions on NGOs and would grant government control over their operation, including the introduction of an annual inspection, with further reviews of legality of CSOs receiving foreign funding possible upon requests from citizens or relevant authorities.
In this unsupportive environment, donors have a fundamental role to play. ‘As civil society actors devise strategies to push back against these repressive tactics, private philanthropy and bilateral and multilateral donors have vital support roles to play,’ writes James Savage, who leads the Fund for Global Human Rights’ (FGHR) programme on the Enabling Environment for Human Rights Defenders. ‘They can help civil society prepare for future challenges, so that it is organised not only to respond to evolving forms of repression but also to get ahead of them by tackling their root causes,’ Savage concludes.
As Israel deploys tanks in the West Bank for the first time in 20 years, we reveal how two of the world’s biggest travel companies are helping settlers commercialise stolen land
The villa is stunning. The private swimming pool; the lush, landscaped terrace with firepit; the long dining table with its expansive balcony view; the pingpong table; the piano.
But the jewel in the crown, according to the Airbnb listing, is the experience of watching the sun rise over the nearby mountains from the luxury of the generous master bedroom.
It has the feeling of a ghastly ending, one pushed along by desperation and eagerness. First, levelling Gaza and turning it to an uninhabitable moonscape, with the promise of a territory free of Palestinians. Then, displacing and destroying the already precarious holdings of Palestinian residents in the West Bank, all the time subjecting them to curfews, arrests and detentions while aiding vigilante Jewish settlers, firming up the system of segregation and snuffing out any prospect of autonomy.
The campaign of rendering the Palestinian cause for sovereignty extinct has become an article of faith for Israel’s security forces, and spectators stare, glumly, at its crude, unceasing momentum. On February 23, the IDF announced that tanks from the 188th Armoured Brigade were being deployed to Jenin as part of what it claims are “counterterrorism efforts”, a feature of an operation dubbed “Iron Wall”. The justification for the decision lay in the planting of three bombs on empty buses in the Tel Aviv area. These prematurely detonated on February 20. Two further explosive devices were discovered on additional buses, but these failed to cause any casualties.
The impetus for the failed bombings, it was argued, came from the West Bank, though we are none the wiser about any further details, since a gag order was imposed on February 21, intended to last till March 12.
The move is ominous as being the first time tanks have been used in the West Bank since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Defence Minister Israel Katz also issued a chilling instruction to the IDF to clear “nests of terror”, to eliminate infrastructure and destroy weapons “on an extensive scale.” But this operation, as with others conducted by the IDF, is characteristically brutal, involving the effective expulsion of 40,000 Palestinians from refugee camps. According to Katz, “40,000 Palestinians have so far been evacuated from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, and are now empty of residents. UNRWA [UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] activity in the camps has also been stopped.”
The measure taken here has the rank smell of permanent displacement, albeit dressed up as a calculated, temporary action intended to protect Israeli security. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates was in no doubt that the latest efforts perpetuated Israel’s “genocide, displacement and annexation”. The Knesset’s Cabinet Committee for Legislation has also expressed its proprietary feelings towards the territory this month by approving a bill replacing the term “West Bank” with “Judea and Samaria”. On January 29, the Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a bill permitting Israeli settlers to register themselves as legal owners of property in the West Bank.
The IDF, according to Katz, have been “instructed … to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared, for the coming year, and not allow residents to return and the terror to return and grow.” He spoke of not returning “to the reality that was in the past”, suggesting an even more radical targeting of Palestinian refugees, blended, as they are, in the mash of “terror centres” and “battalions and terror infrastructure” aided by “the Iranian evil axis, in an attempt to establish an eastern terror front”.
The Israeli operation has also involved raids against Kobar and Silwad north of Ramallah, the Beitunia neighbourhood of Ramallah, and Hebron. The long term plan here is to establish corridors similar to the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza, intended for the movement of IDF personnel and equipment. Al Jazeera reports that the IDF, in addition to conducting mass expulsions, is also engaged in destroying roads, imposing and enforcing lengthy curfews, blocking critical access points to towns, executing arrests and seizing homes for military use.
No arrangements have been put in place for the Palestinian expellees, leaving them to seek temporary and precarious shelter in community centres, event halls and mosques. The cessation of UNRWA activity in the West Bank camps has also effectively concluded the most vital link of aid to the refugees.
The Israeli advocacy group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), has noted shortages in food, power and medical supplies, along with incessant IDF efforts to obstruct “Red Crescent vehicles and humanitarian services, delaying their ability to provide first aid or transport patients for … treatment”.
The blunt savagery of these latest actions, as with the broader campaign against militant groups by Israel, continues the reductive logic that celebrates force over peace, the use of weapons over considerations of diplomacy. The direct targeting of refugee camps in the West Bank shows that the Israeli method is one distinctly hostile to the approach Winston Churchill described as “meeting jaw to jaw”. In doing so, Israeli is fecundly engendering the next generation of fighters that will, in due course, return the deadly serve with remorseless dedication. In the short term, there is also a serious risk that the West Bank operations will fray an already withering truce between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. Not that this seems to bother Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who promises a return to full scale war in Gaza if necessary.
An independent Jewish body has condemned the move by Australia’s 39 universities to endorse a “dangerous and politicised” definition of antisemitism which threatens academic freedom.
The Jewish Council of Australia, a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers, said in a statement that the move would have a “chilling effect” on legitimate criticism of Israel, and risked institutionalising anti-Palestinian racism.
The council also criticised the fact that the universities had done so “without meaningful consultation” with Palestinian groups or diverse Jewish groups which were critical of Israel.
The definition was developed by the Group of Eight (Go8) universities and adopted by Universities Australia.
“By categorising Palestinian political expression as inherently antisemitic, it will be unworkable and unenforceable, and stifle critical political debate, which is at the heart of any democratic society,” the Jewish Council of Australia said.
“The definition dangerously conflates Jewish identities with support for the state of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism.”
The council statement said that it highlighted two key concerns:
Mischaracterisation of criticism of Israel The definition states: “Criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel or all Jews or when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions.”
The definition’s inclusion of “calls for the elimination of the State of Israel” would mean, for instance, that calls for a single binational democratic state, where Palestinians and Israelis had equal rights, could be labelled antisemitic.
Moreover, the wording around “harmful tropes” was dangerously vague, failing to distinguish between tropes about Jewish people, which were antisemitic, and criticism of the state of Israel, which was not, the statement said.
Misrepresentation of Zionism as core to Jewish identity The definition states that for most Jewish people “Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity”.
The council said it was deeply concerned that by adopting this definition, universities would be taking and promoting a view that a national political ideology was a core part of Judaism.
“This is not only inaccurate, but is also dangerous,” said the statement.
“Zionism is a political ideology of Jewish nationalism, not an intrinsic part of Jewish identity.
“There is a long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism, from the beginning of its emergence in the late-19th century, to the present day. Many, if not the majority, of people who hold Zionist views today are not Jewish.”
In contrast to Zionism and the state of Israel, said the council, Jewish identities traced back more than 3000 years and spanned different cultures and traditions.
Jewish identities were a rightly protected category under all racial discrimination laws, whereas political ideologies such as Zionism and support for Israel were not, the council said.
Growing numbers of dissenting Jews
“While many Jewish people identify as Zionist, many do not. There are a growing number of Jewish people worldwide, including in Australia, who disagree with the actions of the state of Israel and do not support Zionism.
“Australian polling in this area is not definitive, but some polls suggest that 30 percent of Australian Jews do not identify as Zionists.
“A recent Canadian poll found half of Canadian Jews do not identify as Zionist. In the United States, more and more Jewish people are turning away from Zionist beliefs and support for the state of Israel.”
Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer and the Jewish Council of Australia’s executive officer, said: “It degrades the very real fight against antisemitism for it to be weaponised to silence legitimate criticism of the Israeli state and Palestinian political expressions.
“It also risks fomenting division between communities and institutionalising anti-Palestinian racism.”
Taner Kılıç, a human rights activist and the final defendant in the so-called “Büyükada Trials,” was acquitted on Tuesday, marking the end of a case widely seen as a stain on Turkey’s human rights record, Turkish media reported.
On July 5, 2017, 10 human rights advocates were detained during a workshop that was taking place in a hotel on Istanbul’s Büyükada, one of the Princes’ Islands. Among those detained were İdil Eser, then-director of Amnesty International Turkey; İlknur Üstün of the Women’s Coalition; Özlem Dalkıran, a member of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly; and several others. Two weeks after their detention eight were jailed after a court appearance, while the other two were released pending trial.
While the group was still in detention, pro-government news outlets published reports accusing them of being foreign agents and that the workshop in Büyükada was a “spying activity.” However, an indictment prepared by the prosecutor three months later accused the group of “membership in a terrorist organization” and “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.” They were linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gülen movement.
Taner Kılıç, Amnesty Turkey’s honorary chair, who wasn’t among those who were initially detained but had been imprisoned on June 6, 2017 for alleged involvement in the 2016 coup attempt, was added to the indictment and his case was merged with the Büyükada trials.
In 2020 he was sentenced to more than six years in prison for links to the Gülen movement.
That same year, Günal Kurşun from the Human Rights Agenda Association, along with İdil Eser and Özlem Dalkıran, were sentenced to two years in prison. Nalan Erkem from the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, İlknur Üstün, Iranian-Swedish writer Ali Gharavi, German human rights activist Peter Steudtner, Veli Acu from the Human Rights Agenda Association, Nejat Taştan from the Association for Monitoring Equal Rights and Şeyhmus Özbekli from the Rights Initiative were acquitted.
On October 17, 2022 the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the sentences, and in the retrial, Eser, Kurşun, Dalkıran and Kılıç were acquitted. However, the prosecutor objected to Kılıç’s acquittal and requested a review of the decision. As a result, the case was sent back to the appeals court. Ultimately, the final ruling favored Kılıç, with his acquittal upheld. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/07/03/will-long-running-saga-of-trial-against-the-istanbul-10-end-on-friday-3-july/]
The Büyükada trials were harshly criticized by international human rights organizations such as Freedom House and Amnesty International.
Following the initial convictions, Freedom House said it was “an assault on human rights.”
“The conviction of Taner Kılıç, Günal Kurşun, İdil Eser, and Özlem Dalkıran in this politically motivated case lays bare the Turkish authorities’ ongoing assault on human rights and the justice system’s abdication of its responsibility to protect them,” said Marc Behrendt, director for Europe and Eurasia programs at Freedom House. “We call on the Turkish courts to reaffirm the rule of law and to fulfill their obligation to uphold fundamental rights and freedoms in Turkey.”
Amnesty International called the trials “an ordeal” and said it was a “baseless trial” that “represents a shocking example of the authorities’ attempt to criminalize the defense of human rights with implications for everyone in Turkey.” “This injustice has become a stark symbol of the massive crackdown on human rights and on those who defend them,” said Amnesty International.
Amnesty International invites applications for an 18-month part-time fellowship to explore the global phenomenon of shrinking civic space and document grassroots resistance strategies from marginalized and overlooked voices. Fellows will analyze current trends in civic space restrictions, investigate emerging resistance and human rights movements, and convene activists to co-create a practical toolkit for defending civic space worldwide. The fellowship aims to ensure that Amnesty’s work remains innovative, grounded in lived experience, and contributes to new knowledge on resistance strategies.
Deadline for all applications: 06/03/2024
Rate: Fixed Rate of USD 25,000 for the duration of the fellowship
Location: This fellowship does not include relocation. The consultant must work from their preferred location and possess the necessary work authorization.
OBJECTIVES AND DELIVERABLES
The Fellowship project aims to:
Support human rights defenders, academics, and practitioners with lived experience to document and analyze grassroots resistance strategies against authoritarianism and civic space restrictions in their regions.
Use this research to develop concrete recommendations and practical tools that can inform Amnesty’s global civic space advocacy.
Produce regular short written outputs, including blog posts and opinion pieces, to be independently published.
Convene activists and thought leaders in the region through virtual, in-person, or hybrid meetings to share ideas, incubate new strategies, and foster collective learning.
Deliver a final in-depth think-piece for Amnesty International’s internal strategy and advocacy, with external publication at Amnesty’s discretion.
ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
Fluency in written and spoken English; fluency in a relevant regional language is desirable.
Demonstrated experience working on civic space resistance—either formally (academia, NGOs, journalism, law, policy) or through grassroots activism.
Strong writing and research skills, with experience producing publications related to civic space and human rights activism.
No formal academic qualifications or certifications are required to apply.
To apply, please submit:
A short bio (maximum one page) outlining your recent experience.
Relevant case studies or descriptions of past work on civic space issues.
Your proposed approach to this fellowship opportunity, including how you would structure your research and engagement.
Applications must be in PDF, Word, PowerPoint or Excel format.
Many days I was tied to a chair in the interrogation room for maybe 15 hours. I was not allowed to sleep or eat or drink. They tied my arms to the chair very painfully and when they were beating me they would put their hands or legs on my chest to bend my back.
A rally on the steps of the Victorian Parliament under the banner of Jews for a Free Palestine was arranged for Sunday, February 9. At 11:11pm on the eve of that rally, Mark Leibler —a lawyer who claims to have a high profile and speak on behalf of Jews by the totally unelected organisation AIJAC — put out a tweet on X (and paid for an advertisement of the same posting) as follows:
Nothing, but nothing, is worse than those Jews who level totally unfounded allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the State of Israel. They are repulsive and revolting human beings. Their relatives who were murdered by the Nazis – the role models for Hamas – will…
As someone Jewish, the son of Holocaust survivors and members of whose family were murdered by the Nazis, it is hard to know whether to characterise Mark Leibler’s tweet as offensive, appalling, contemptuous, insulting or a disgusting, shameful and grievous introduction of the Holocaust, and those who were murdered by the Nazis, into his tweet — or all of the foregoing!
Leibler’s tweet is most likely a breach of recently passed legislation in Australia, both federally and in various state Parliaments, making hateful words and actions, and doxxing, criminal offences. It will be “interesting” to see how the police deal with the complaint taken up with the police alleging Leibler’s breach of the legislation.
In the end, Leibler’s attempted intimidation of those who might have been thinking of going to the rally failed — miserably!
There are many Jews who abhor what Israel is doing in Gaza (and the West Bank) but feel intimidated by the Leiblers of this world who accuse them of being antisemitic for speaking out against Israel’s actions and not those rusted-on 100 percent supporters of Israel who blindly and uncritically support whatever Israel does, however egregious.
Leibler, and others like him, who label Jews as antisemites because they dare speak out about Israel’s actions, certainly need to be called out.
As a lawyer, Leibler knows that actions have consequences. A group of concerned Jews (this writer included) are in the process of lodging a complaint about Leibler’s tweet with the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission.
Separately from that, this week will see full-page adverts in both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age — signed by hundreds of Jews — bearing the heading:
“Australia must reject Trump’s call for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish Australians say NO to ethnic cleansing.”
Jeffrey Loewenstein, LLB, was a member of the Victorian Bar and a one-time chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission and member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria. This article was first published by Pearls & Irritations public policy journal and is republished here with permission.
This full-page ad appears in today’s @smh and @theage with the names of 500 Jews, many more signed but couldn’t fit onto the page!, to clearly say that they’re utterly opposed to removing Palestinians from Gaza. Notice the silence from most “mainstream” Jewish groups? It’s… pic.twitter.com/GuUqvVMWNZ
The Papua New Guinea government wants to have everyone on their National Identity (NID) card system by the country’s 50th anniversary on 16 September 2025.
While the government has been struggling to set up the NID programme for more than 10 years, in January the Prime Minister, James Marape, announced they aimed to have 100 percent of Papua New Guineans signed up by September 16.
However, an academic with the University of PNG, working in conjunction with the Australian National University, Andrew Anton Mako, said there was no chance the government could achieve this goal.
Anton Mako spoke with RNZ Pacific senior journalist Don Wiseman:
ANDREW ANTON MAKO: The NID programme was established in November 2014, so it’s 10 years now. I wouldn’t know the mechanics of the delay, why it has taken this long for the project to not deliver on the outcomes, but I can say a lot of money has been invested into the programme.
By the end of this year, the national government would have spent about 500 million kina (over NZ$211 million). That’s a lot of money to be spent on a particular project, and then it would have only registered about 30 to 40 percent of the total population. So there’s a serious issue there. The project has failed to deliver.
DON WISEMAN: Come back to that in a moment. But why does the government think that a national ID card is so important?
AAM: It’s got some usefulness to achieve. If it was well established and well implemented, it would address a number of issues. For example, on doing business and a form of identity that will help people to do business, to apply for jobs in Papua New Guinea or elsewhere, and all that. I believe it has got merit towards it, but I think just that it has not been implemented properly.
DW: Does the population like the idea?
AAM: I think generally when it started, people were on board. But when it got delayed, you see a lot of people venting frustration on the NID Facebook page. I think [it’s] popularity has actually fallen over the years.
DW: It’s money that could go into a whole lot of other, perhaps, more important things?
AAM: Exactly, there’s pressing issues for the country, in terms of law and order, health and education. Those important sectors have actually fallen over the years. So that 500 million kina would have been better spent.
DW: So now the government wants the entire country within this system by September 16, and they’re not going to get anywhere near it. They must have realised they wouldn’t get anywhere near it when the Prime Minister made that statement. Surely?
AAM: It’s not possible. The numbers do not add up. They’ve spent more than 460 million kina over the last 10 years or so, and they’ve only registered 36 percent of the total — 3.3 million people. And then of the 3.3 million people, they’ve only issued an ID card to about 30 to 40 perCent of them . . .
DW: 30 to 40 percent of those who have already signed up. So it’s what, 10 percent of the country?
AAM: That’s right, about 1.2 million people have been issued an ID card, including a duplicate card. It is not possible to register the entire country, the rest of the country, in just six, seven or eight months.
DW: It’s not the first time that the government has come out with what is effectively like a wish list without fully backing it, financially?
AAM: That’s right. The ambitions that the government and the Prime Minister, their intentions are good, but there is no effective strategy how to get there.
The resources that are needed to be allocated. It’s just not possible to realise the the end results. For example, the Prime Minister and his government promised that by this year, we would stop importing rice. That was a promise that was made in 2019, so the thing is that the government has not clearly laid out a plan as to how the country will realise that outcome by this year.
If you are going to promise something, then you have to deliver on it. You have to deliver on the ambitions. Then you have to set up a proper game plan and proper indicators and things like this.
I think that’s the issue, that you have promised something [and] you must deliver. But you must chart out a proper pathway to deliver that.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Janine Jackson interviewed the University of Guelph-Humber’s Gregory Shupak about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for the February 21, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: When a Los Angeles police officer killed a child in a department store, the New York Times ran the story with the headline “Stray Bullet Kills Girl as Officers Fire at Suspect in Los Angeles Store.” A later headline from the Times referred to the ”Officer Whose Bullet Killed a 14-Year-Old Girl.”
That used to be thought of as just newspaper speak, but we can now recognize how that distorted, passive-voice language is a choice that obscures agency and undermines accountability. It’s not just words.
We see that obscuring of agency, and undermining of accountability, writ larger when crimes are committed by governments corporate media favor, against populations they don’t care much about. Here, journalistic language takes on another level of import, because calling those crimes by their name brings on particular legal and political responses. New research from our guest explores that question in Gaza and the West Bank.
Gregory Shupak is a media critic and activist. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, and he’s author of the book The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books. He joins us now by phone from Toronto. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Gregory Shupak.
Gregory Shupak: Hi, how are you?
JJ: Well, I’m OK. When Trump declared his plans for Gaza: “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” and then later he declared that the US would “take over the Gaza Strip” and “own it,” if you still have an outrage bone in your body, you may have thought, surely this will be seen as the wildly illegal, immoral move that it is.
How can it be resisted? Who can counter it? What bodies do we have to protect Palestinians in the face of this? All of those would be questions for journalists to pursue, but you can’t challenge something that you won’t name. Which brings us to the research that you’ve just been working on. Tell us about that.
GS: Sure. So this plan that Trump has put forth and stuck to for quite some time—I thought perhaps it would just be one of his many deranged statements that would be later walked back by, if not him, then others in administration, but he keeps pressing on this—it was widely described as ethnic cleansing by people who are positioned to make that assessment. So people like António Guterres of the United Nations, their secretary general, or Navi Pillay, who is another UN official focusing on Palestine. This plan that Trump brought forth was denounced by them and by others, like Human Rights Watch, as ethnic cleansing.
And yet that term has seldom found its way into the coverage. I looked at coverage of the first, just over a week, since Trump’s racist fever dream, and I found that 87% of the articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post did not include the term “ethnic cleansing.” And, in fact, only 26% of the coverage included a term like “ethnic cleansing,” or something similar that captures the violence of what he is proposing. So terms like “forced displacement” or “expel” or “expulsion” or “forced transfer.”
Just automatically, you have a whitewashing of what he’s proposing to do, even in coverage that is critical of it. And that’s really leaving audiences, who’re maybe not terribly well-versed in international law, not in a very strong position to understand just how egregious of a crime it is that Trump is advocating.
JJ: And ethnic cleansing is almost like just a pejorative, as though it had no actual meaning. In fact, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, you found, put it in scare quotes, like it’s an accusation and not a phenomenon.
GS: Exactly. And I talk in my piece about Bret Stephens and a couple of Wall Street Journalpieces that endorsed Trump’s plan. However, I didn’t mention that Stephens had a second piece that addressed Trump’s plan in passing, and he blatantly lied and said that Trump’s plan does not involve forcing Palestinians to leave Gaza. But Trump has been quite clear that that’s exactly what he has in mind. So not only do we have a widespread failure to properly name this plan for ethnic cleansing, we also have quite a few cases of endorsements of what Trump is calling for.
JJ: We know that for many US media—and you illustrated it—US exceptionalism, just the idea that, “Oh, sure, we can do this anywhere in the world,” extends to the point where they don’t even really acknowledge international law. And this is a longstanding problem, where the UN is just kind of meddling in US power, and that sort of thing. But it really comes to the point where they don’t even invoke the idea that there is something called international law.
GS: Yeah, that’s quite important. Only 19% of the coverage of Trump’s proposal for Gaza, if you can even call it that, only 19% include the term “international law,” which is really a key paradigm through which this, and any kind of international armed conflict, needs to be understood. But it’s just not even being presented to the audience as something that they need to think about.
And it put me in mind of Richard Falk and Howard Friel, [who] wrote a book 20 years ago or so, called The Record of the Paper, and it talked about how in coverage of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, international law was totally absent from New York Times editorials that were in various ways endorsing or at least giving credibility to the concept of the attack. And we still see the same pattern with regard to Gaza, as well as the West Bank, where patterns of ethnic cleansing are also unfolding.
JJ: And yet we know they will invoke international law when it suits, when it seems like something that bolsters the US case.
You found, finally, similar issues with coverage of the West Bank, and I think it’s important for folks to understand this is not just a story of Gaza anymore, obviously; this is an expansive story. And when we talk about the West Bank here, as is often the case, you can find an example of an outlet or a journalist who is doing straightforward, informative witnessing, and you can actually use that to contrast with what many powerful, better resourced outlets are doing. And that’s the case in coverage of the West Bank, right? It’s not that everyone is refusing to witness or acknowledge.
GS: No, I think that one of the main problems I see in the way that the events unfolding in the West Bank are being portrayed is that there’s a refusal, you might call it, to connect how each “individual” event or incident connects to others.
So you’ll have reports that’ll say, Israel’s invasion of Jenin refugee camp that has unfolded in recent weeks has largely emptied out the entire area. But the coverage of that fails to situate that in relation to the fact that we are seeing similar types of violence unfolding in other parts of the West Bank that Israel is attacking, particularly the lower West Bank, and that these are part of a longer-term trend towards, as several observers that I cite in the article have pointed out, of ethnic cleansing the territory.
So, for example, I talk about how in October of last year, the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese put forth a report in which she describes escalated patterns of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. And she talks about how, since October 7, 2023, at least 18 West Bank communities have been depopulated under the threat of force.
So what she and others have observed is that this is not a matter of, OK, there’s a couple days of fighting, and people go back to their homes when it’s safe. It’s part of a longer-term trajectory whereby it’s becoming difficult, and often impossible, for people in West Bank towns to go back to their homes once Israel drives them out. So not at all unlike what we have seen in Gaza.
Gregory Shupak: “What we’re talking about is driving out the indigenous population so that settlers can take over their land.”
JJ: But the refusal to connect those dots, and to make it seem as though, oh, a skirmish happened over here today, and oh, a skirmish happened over there yesterday, and not telling the bigger story, is the failure.
GS: Exactly. And as is so often the case with coverage of Palestine, and other issues as well, we get a muddying of the agency of the perpetrators of the violence, right? Everything’s reduced to just “clashes” and “conflict,” rather than efforts to enforce colonial subjugation, and resistance to that. So that kind of power dynamic is completely glossed over, when you get this anodyne language about just conflicts and clashes. There’s no space within that language for communicating that what we’re talking about is driving out the indigenous population so that settlers can take over their land.
A non-profit organisation has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former US president Joe Biden for fuelling Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. And it has highlighted the role of current president Donald Trump too.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) isn’t exactly a radical organisation, having previously received ample corporate funding. But it has made the bold decision to submit a 172-page request to the ICC which calls for accountability for Biden, along with his secretary of state Antony Blinken and secretary of defense Lloyd Austin.
It documents Washington’s $17.9bn weapons transfers, intelligence support, and political protection for Israel’s genocidal war crimes. And it claims Biden administration officials did so in full knowledge of their ally’s crimes.
The organisation insisted that the ICC should investigate Biden, Blinken and Austin for:
their accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza
DAWN doesn’t try to cosy up to Trump either, clearly stating that Trump’s obstruction of justice via sanctions against the ICC prosecutor, along with proposals to ethnically cleanse Gaza, also constitute potential war crimes. Its advocacy director Raed Jarrar stressed that:
Trump isn’t just obstructing justice; he’s trying to burn down the courthouse to prevent anyone from holding Israeli criminals accountable.
The ICC has “solid grounds to investigate”
In DAWN’s press release, it asserted that:
there are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel’s crimes.
It added that:
Not only did Biden, Blinken and Secretary Austin ignore and justify the overwhelming evidence of Israel’s grotesque and deliberate crimes, overruling their own staff recommendations to halt weapons transfers to Israel, they doubled down by providing Israel with unconditional military and political support to ensure it could carry out its atrocities.
They were, in short, “aware of how their assistance would be used to commit crimes”.
DAWN also clarified that:
Israel could not have committed without U.S. military and political support.
New and emerging technologies have become a fundamental tool for human rights defenders to conduct their activities, boost solidarity among movements and reach different audiences. Unfortunately, these positive aspects have been overshadowed by negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights, including increased threats and risks for human rights defenders. While we see the increased negative impacts of new technologies, we do not see that governments are addressing these impacts comprehensively.
Furthermore, States and their law enforcement agencies (often through the help of non-State actors, including business enterprises) often take down or censor the information shared by defenders on social media and other platforms. In other cases, we have seen that businesses are also complicit in attacks and violations against human right defenders.
Conversely, lack of access to the internet and the digital gaps in many countries and regions, or affecting specific groups, limits the potential of digital technologies for activism and movement building, as well as access to information.
The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted in 1998, does not consider these challenges, which have largely arisen with the rapid evolution of technology. In this context, and, as part of activities to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on human rights defenders, a coalition of NGOs launched a consultative initiative to identify the key issues faced by human rights defenders that are insufficiently addressed by the UN Declaration, including on the area of digital and new technologies. These issues are also reflected in the open letter to States on the draft resolution on human rights defenders that will be considered during HRC58.
This side event will be an opportunity to continue discussing the reality and the challenges that human rights defenders face in the context of new and emerging technologies. It will also be an opportunity to hear directly from those who, on a daily basis, work with defenders in the field of digital rights while highlighting their specific protection needs. Finally, the event will also help remind States about the range of obligations in this field that can contribute to inform the consultations on the HRC58 resolution on human rights defenders.
Panelists:
Opening remarks: Permanent Mission of Norway
Speakers:
Carla Vitoria – Association for Progressive Communications
Human rights defender from Kenya regarding the Safaricom case (via video message)
Woman human rights defender from Colombia regarding use of new technologies during peaceful protests
Human rights defender from Myanmar regarding online incitement to violence against Rohingya people
Video montage of civil society priorities for the human rights defender resolution at HRC58
Moderator: Ulises Quero, Programme Manager, Land, Environment and Business & Human Rights (ISHR)
This event is co-sponsored by Access Now, Asian Forum for Human Rights & Development (FORUM-ASIA), Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa HRD Project), Huridocs, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World), International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Peace Brigades International, Privacy International, Protection International, Regional Coalition of WHRDs in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRD MENA Coalition).
The Free Expression Legal Network, a new initiative dedicated to strengthening legal protections for free expression and media freedom, was launched at Webber Wentzel’s Sandton office on 18 February 2025, with more than 50 People in attendance. Developed by the SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef), the Press Council, the Campaign for Free Expression (CFE), and other organisations and legal experts, the network aims to ensure that individuals and organisations facing legal threats can access the support they need.
Among those that this new initiative aims to support are journalists, smaller media outlets, community-based organisations and businesses that lack access to corporate or external legal representation. It aims to ensure co-ordination with several other international efforts of this kind to provide a stronger framework for defending free expression,
The network will focus on several key areas to strengthen legal protections for free expression and media freedom. Media freedom is critical – ensuring that individuals and media organisations can report and impart information freely and hold power to account without fear of legal repercussions. Additionally, the network will support media viability by providing legal guidance to help media outlets navigate financial and operational challenges, ensuring their long-term sustainability. Another critical area is policy advocacy, where the network will assist with legal challenges related to media regulation and press freedom policies, helping to create a more supportive legal environment for journalism. Lastly, the initiative will prioritise small and community media, offering essential legal resources to newsrooms and organisations that often lack adequate legal support, ensuring they have the protection needed to operate effectively.
But this initiative comes at a time of new and sinister threats to freedom of expression more generally. Unchecked and unprecedented powers to platform and platform certain voices and sources of information present pronounces threats to freedom of expression globally. It is intended that this network, enabling resources and expertise, is able to respond innovatively, nimbly and effectively in meeting these dangers.
The keynote address was delivered by Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Judge of the International Criminal Court, and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Drawing from her extensive experience in international human rights law, she provided invaluable insight into the legal challenges surrounding free expression and the role of judicial systems in upholding these rights. Emphasising the power of collective action, she stated, “If you clap with a single hand, nobody yells for you. But if a lot of people form a network clap, they will be heard. So, I can only see success for an initiative like this, I encourage them to go for it here.
Anton Harber, Campaign for Free Expression Director, emphasised the importance of the new body in defending free speech, stating, “This new body will be a vital tool in preventing attacks on free speech and free media, bringing together a range of resources to respond quickly and strongly. It will help ensure that anyone whose free speech is threatened will be properly defended. It will also be proactive – pushing for change to laws that don’t defend free speech or the right to information. In the face of growing threats to free speech, we are building a strong defence“.
Echoing this urgency, Nicole Fritz, Executive Director of Campaign for Free Expression, highlighted the global nature of these challenges, adding, “I think that the threats to free expression are especially intense at this time, not only in our country but in the world generally. It is especially important that those who have their rights to expression violated and threatened are offered expert support and legal assistance in order to counter those threats”.
Dario Milo, a partner at Webber Wentzel and a leading expert in media law, emphasised the importance of this initiative, stating: “The Free Expression Legal Network is a significant step forward in ensuring that journalists, media organisations and other human rights defenders, particularly those with limited resources, have access to the legal guidance they need. At a time when media freedom is under increasing pressure, this initiative will play a crucial role in safeguarding free expression and upholding the public’s right to know.”
For more information on the Free Expression Legal Network and how to get involved, please contact Anton Harber, Director, CFE, anton@harber.co.za
In this interview, OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock shares his vision for 2025 and key priorities in the fight against torture. From the launch of the Global Torture Index to the SOS Defenders platform, he highlights the initiatives that will shape the movement and strengthen global human rights efforts, including the Global Week on Torture—an event not to be missed.
His message for 2025 is clear: “resilience and unity, not despair.”
What is your vision for 2025, and what priorities should we focus on to maximize our impact on human rights?
In my vision, 2025 is the year in which we rise to the challenge and stand up in the anti-torture movement and uphold the absolute prohibition of torture. Today, in an increasingly dangerous world where states are turning away from human rights, fostering division and weakening protections, and some questioning universal norms altogether, the message must be resilience and unity, not despair. It is essential to protect all victims of torture and to defend the universality of human rights, which is under threat.
I am convinced that our SOS Torture Network must serve as an anchor for human rights and universality. As a movement, we stand united—to protect those at risk, to support our fellow human rights defenders under threat, and to ensure that the absolute prohibition of torture remains intact.
What impact do you hope the launch of the Global Torture Index will have?
The Global Index on Torture is the new flagship program of OMCT, with its launch anticipated in June 2025. I think it is the tool we have been lacking for years, and a tool all actors working against torture can benefit from. It combines reliable data with often-overlooked narratives to make the hidden reality of torture visible. This index will allow us to measure its scope, its impact on society, and advocate for political and legal reforms. It will help identify risks and develop effective anti-torture strategies. This index is not only an OMCT tool but a collective resource to support the efforts of network members towards concrete reforms and the prevention of torture.
Why is the Global Week on Torture important and what can people expect?
Four years ago, we held the first ever Global Week Against Torture, and we saw the power and energy that such a week can create. Many of us, especially those of our members working in very complicated dire situation, often feel alone. It offers a unique opportunity to share experiences, best practices and to learn from each other and to stand in solidarity across countries and regions. The Global Week all makes us feel and understand that we are united in a struggle and reflect that the real force of the OMCT is in its SOS Torture Network.
How will the SOS Defenders platform and the SOS Database help serve human rights defenders?
One of the most important achievements in 2024 has been the launch of the SOS Defenders platform. The platform gives a face to more than 400 human rights defenders that are currently imprisoned because they stood up for human rights. We don’t forget them. We want to demonstrate to governments that the detention of these defenders is an attack on democracy and freedom, and we need to make states who support human rights understand that this is the moment to step up in their actions. OMCT, along with its SOS Torture Network must raise the alarm bells and act to protect from torture and ill-treatment in detention.
Israel has now banned another European Union parliamentarian from entering the country, reports Al Jazeera.
The government gave no reasons why Lynn Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament EU-Palestine delegation, was denied entry.
“This utter contempt from Israel is the result of the international community failing to hold them to account,” Boylan, an Irish MP in Brussels, said in a statement.
“Israel is a rogue state, and this disgraceful move shows the level of utter disregard that they have for international law.
“Europe must now hold Israel to account.”
Boylan said she had planned to meet with Palestinian Authority officials, representatives of civil society organisations, and people living under Israeli occupation.
She is a member of the Sinn Fein party in Ireland, which has been among the most vocal countries in criticising the Israeli government over its treatment of Palestinians.
France’s Hassan also refused
Earlier, EU lawmaker Rima Hassan was also refused entry at Ben-Gurion airport and ordered to return to Europe.
“Hassan, who is expected to land from Brussels in the coming hour, consistently works to promote boycotts against Israel in addition to numerous public statements both on social media and in media interviews,” said Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel’s office.
Hassan is a French national of Palestinian origin known for her support of the Palestinian cause and for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, outlined a range of worries about the situation in war-battered Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
“We have constantly called on all parties, including Israel, to respect international humanitarian law,” she said, adding that Europe “cannot hide our concern when it comes to the West Bank”.
ICC raps Merz over warrants
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has declared that states cannot unilaterally “determine soundness” of its rulings
Earlier, it was reported that Germany’s election winner Friedrich Merz was saying he planned to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the country — despite an ICC war crimes warrant issued for his arrest, which Merz claimed did not apply.
The ICC responded by saying states had a legal obligation to enforce its decisions, and any concerns they may have should be addressed with the court in a timely and efficient manner.
“It is not for states to unilaterally determine the soundness of the court’s legal decisions,” said the ICC in a statement.
Israel rejects the jurisdiction of the court and denies war crimes were committed during its devastating war on Gaza.
Germans feel a special responsibility towards Israel because of the legacy of the Holocaust, and Merz has made clear he is a strong ally. But Germany also has a strong tradition of support for international justice for war crimes.
Amnesty slams ‘shameful silence’ Amnesty International and 162 other civil society organisations and trade unions have signed a joint letter calling on the EU to ban trade and business with Israel’s settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.
“Despite EU consensus about the settlements’ illegality and their link to serious abuses, the EU continues to trade and allow business with them,” the letter said.
This contributes to “the serious and systemic human rights and other international law abuses underpinning the settlement enterprise”, it added.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming that states must not recognise, aid or assist the unlawful situation arising from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
The EU’s shameful silence on threats to the ICC gives the firm impression that the EU has prioritized relations with a government implicated in the commission of genocide and war crimes, over support to an institution which is pursuing individual accountability for these crimes.
Healthcare workers are protected under international law yet hundreds were detained during the war. Now, some of Gaza’s most senior doctors have spoken of the violence and abuse they say they faced
Dr Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of performing emergency surgery on a patient with a severe abdominal injury at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza when thesoldiers came for him.
“I asked them what they were doing coming into the operating theatre,” he says.“One of the soldiers pointed at me and said: ‘Are you Dr Issam Abu Ajwa?’ I said: ‘Yes, that’s me.’ And then the beating began.”
At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia
In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.
I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and how the children crowded you, grabbing hands and clothes, pinching, pulling hair, jostling and asking questions. Dressed in an odd collection of what seemed to be adult castoffs, the kids spent most of their waking hours in rooms furnished with just a few scuffed tables and chairs, a bookcase and television. At night, and for long periods during the day, cast-iron metal grilles across corridors were locked, confining the older teenagers to their dormitories at one end. Children vulnerable to self-harm were tied up.
But in a shock move today, FAST members voted alongside Fiame’s faction to register a resounding defeat against Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi’s motion.
The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Papalii Lio Masipua, had granted the opposition’s formal request for a vote of no confidence against Fiame on Friday.
Tuilaepa, who is also the head of the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), confirmed that the Speaker approved the motion in writing and allowed five members from the opposition bench to speak on it.
According to Samoa’s constitutional requirements, the MP who commands the majority of MPs should be elected as Prime Minister or continue as Prime Minister.
‘Another desperate attempt’
However, the Samoan government stated Tuilaepa’s move was “another desperate attempt to stir political drama” ahead of the no-confidence vote.
Political upheaval hit Samoa just three days into 2025 when the chair of the ruling FAST party and Samoa’s Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries La’auli Leuatea Schmidt confirmed he was facing criminal charges.
FAST Party chair Laauli Leuatea Schmidt (left to right), Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, and Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi. Image: RNZ Pacific/123RF/Samoa Government/FAST Party
On January 10, Mata’afa removed La’auli’s ministerial portfolio and subsequently removed three of her Cabinet ministers.
But La’auli remained chair of the FAST Party, and went on to announce the removal of the prime minister and five Cabinet ministers from the ruling party.
This decision was reportedly challenged by the removed members.
Fiame then removed 13 of her associate ministers.
Laauli acknowledged the challenge of holding a vote of no confidence, but refrained from disclosing the party’s position, stating they would wait until Tuesday.
First female prime minister
Fiame is Samoa’s first female prime minister. She had heritage — her father, Fiame Mata’afa Faumuina Mulinu’u, was the country’s first prime minister.
The caretaker HRPP government locked the doors to Parliament in an attempt to stop the then prime minister-elect from being sworn into office following her FAST Party’s one-seat election win.
Two governments claimed a mandate to rule, and the United Nations urged the party leaders to find a solution through discussion.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the country had a new government after it judged the impromptu swearing-in by the newcomer FAST party on May 24 was legitimate under the doctrine of necessity.
It took until July for the incumbent, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, to concede.
Fiame went to school and university in Wellington, New Zealand, but her studies were interrupted in 1977 when she returned to Samoa to help with court cases around the succession of her father’s titles following his death in 1975.
In 1985, she was elected as MP for Lotofaga, the same seat held by her father and then her mother after his death.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Maata Wharehoka has been described as the Parihaka Matriarch, Parihaka leader and arts advocate, “champion of Kahu Whakatere Tupapaku, the tikanga Māori practices, expert in marae arts, raranga (weaving) and karanga”, renowned weaver who revived traditional Māori methods of death and burial, “driving force behind Parihaka’s focus to be a self-sufficient community”, Kaitiaki (or guardian) of Te Niho marae for nearly 30 years.
And I want to add Peace Advocate and Activist. She died aged 74.
At Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre of Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPCS) at Otago University, Ōtepoti Dunedin, we were fortunate that Maata brought her knowledge and her exceptional presence to help us learn some of the lessons from Parihaka about peaceful resistance, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, consultation, hospitality, humility and mana.
One of her first talks was entitled “Why do I wear feathers in my hair and scribbles on my face?” and she explained to us the significance of the raukura or albatross feathers that signify peace to the people of Parihaka.
She used the moko (tattoos) on her mouth, chin and from her ears to her cheeks to teach us the importance of listening first, before you speak.
Maata taught us the use of the beat of the poi to signify the sound of the horses hooves when the pacifist settlement at Parihaka was invaded by the British militia in 1881.
The poi and waiata have served as a “hidden-in-plain-sight” performative image by the people of Parihaka that represents consistent resistance to the oppression.
Maata had been shocked when she first came to the peace centre that we were only able to sing (badly) what she called a “nursery school” waiata. So she gifted a unique waiata to NCPACS to help with our transition to being a more bicultural centre, now named Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa.
Maukaroko ki te whenua, Whakaaro pai ki te tangata katoa Arohanui ki te aoraki Koa, koa, koa ki te aoraki, Pono, whakapono Ki te ao nei Ko rongo, no rongo, na rongo Me rongo, me rongo, me rongo
Translation: Peace to the land Be thoughtful to all Great love to the universe Joy, joy, joy to the universe Truth, truth to the world It is Rongo, from Rongo, by Rongo Peace, peace, peace.
Maata also hosted a number of students from TAOR/NCPACS at Parihaka for both PhD fieldwork and practicum experience, building a link between them and Parihaka that extends to the next generation.
She named her expertise “deathing and birthing” as she taught Māori traditions of preparation for dying and for welcoming the new born. One of the students learnt from Maata about the process where the person who is dying is closely involved in the preparations, including the weaving of the waka kahutere (coffin) from harakeke (flax) for a natural burial.
Maata herself was very much part of the preparations for her own death and would have advised and assisted those who wove her waka kahutere with much love and expertise.
For me, Maata became one of my very best friends. Her generosity, sense of humour, high energy and kindness quite overwhelmed me. We also became close through working and writing together, with Kelli Te Maihāroa (from Waitaha — the South Island iwi with a long peace history) and Maui Solomon (who upholds the Moriori peace tradition).
We collaborated on a series of articles and chapters, and our joint work was presented both locally and at international conferences.
On my many visits to Parihaka I was also warmly welcomed by the Wharehoka family and was able to meet Maata’s mokopuna, all growing up with Māori as their first language and steeped in Māori knowledge and tikanga.
Maata is an irreplaceable person, a true wahine toa, exuberant, outgoing, funny, clever, fiece, talented, indomitable. Maata, we will miss you terribly, but will continue to be guided by your wisdom and ongoing presence in our hearts and our lives.
In the words of Kelli Te Maihāroa “She was an amazing wahine toa, who loved sharing her gifts with the world. Moe Mai Rā e te māreikura o Te Niho Parihaka.’
Dr Heather Devere is chair of Asia Pacific Media Network and former director of research of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa.
Publications:
Kelli Te Maihāroa, Heather Devere, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2022). Exploring Indigenous Peace Traditions Collaboratively. In Te Maihāroa, Ligaliga and Devere (Eds). Decolonising Peace and Conflict Studies through Indigenous Research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Heather Devere, Kelli Te Maihāroa, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2020). Concepts of Friendship and Decolonising Cross-Cultural Peace Research in Aotearoa New Zealand. AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies, 6(1), 53-87 doi:10.5518/AMITY/31.
Heather Devere, Kelli Te Maihāroa, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2019). Tides of Endurance: Indigenous Peace Traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand. Ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First National and First Peoples, 3(1), 24-47.
