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Category: Human Rights

  • NYT’s Morning Newsletter Blames Everyone but Israel for Israeli Crimes

     

    With over 17 million subscribers, the Morning, the New York Times’ flagship newsletter, is by far the most popular newsletter in the English-speaking world. (It has almost three times as many subscribers as the next most popular newsletter.)

    Since October 7, as Israel has waged an unprecedented war on Palestinian children, journalists, hospitals and schools, the New York Times’ highly influential newsletter has bent over backwards to blame everyone but Israel for the carnage.

    Waging a legitimate war

    According to the Morning—led by head writer David Leonhardt—Israel’s war on Gaza is a targeted operation designed to eliminate Hamas. The Morning propagates this narrative despite well-documented declarations of collective punishment and even genocidal intent by high-ranking Israeli officials—a tendency that South Africa has forcefully documented in their case before the ICJ (UN, 12/29/23). Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s comments on October 12, 2023, are typical: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved.”

    This sentiment has been echoed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, multiple cabinet-level ministers and senior military officials. Speaking from a devastated northern Gaza, one top Israeli army official said (UN, 12/29/23): “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”

    NYT: A Looming Invasion in Gaza

    The Morning (10/13/23) expresses what it sees as the main problem with mass death in Gaza: “The widespread killing of Palestinian civilians would damage Israel’s global reputation.”

    Despite these statements and the body of supporting evidence, the Morning has consistently portrayed the war on Gaza as a focused campaign targeting the military infrastructure of Hamas.

    For instance, in one October edition (10/13/23), Leonhardt and co-writer Lauren Jackson explained, “Israel’s goals are to prevent Hamas from being able to conduct more attacks and to reestablish the country’s military credibility.”

    In similar fashion, in a late January edition (1/28/24), the Morning argued that Israel’s 17-year-long blockade of Gaza is primarily designed to debilitate Hamas—rather than to collectively punish Gazan civilians, as many analysts and human rights groups have argued:

    For years, Israel has limited the flow of goods into Gaza, largely to prevent Hamas from gaining access to military supplies.

    The Morning did, in the same edition (1/28/24), quote Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s comments in the immediate aftermath of October 7:

    After the Hamas-led October 7 terrorist attacks, Israel ordered what its defense minister called a “complete siege” of Gaza. The goal was both to weaken Hamas fighters and to ensure that no military supplies could enter.

    This is, however, a downright fictional interpretation of Gallant’s quote (Al Jazeera, 10/9/23), given that the Morning failed to quote the next words out of his mouth:

    There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals, and we are acting accordingly.

    Blame the terrorists

    NYT: Gaza's Vital Tunnels

    The Morning (10/30/23) insists that “Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths” caused by Israel—a division of responsibility it would never apply to civilians killed by Hamas on October 7.

    The Morning consistently has argued that Hamas makes densely populated civilian areas legitimate targets for Israeli attacks by conducting military operations nearby. This deflects blame from Israel and frames civilian casualties as a necessary evil, as in the October 30 edition of the newsletter:

    Hamas has hidden many weapons under hospitals, schools and mosques so that Israel risks killing civilians, and facing an international backlash, when it fights. Hamas fighters also slip above and below ground, blending with civilians.

    These practices mean that Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths, according to international law.

    Similar rhetoric was deployed in this December edition (12/20/23):

    Hamas has long hidden its fighters and weapons in and under populated civilian areas, such as hospitals and mosques. It does so partly to force Israel to make a gruesome calculation: To fight Hamas, Israel often must also harm civilians.

    The Morning has not yet found it pertinent to report on, for instance, the Israeli soldiers who dressed as doctors to gain access to the Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank, and proceeded to assassinate three Palestinian militants in their hospital beds.

    To the Morning (11/14/23), Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians is unavoidable:

    The battle over Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza highlights a tension that often goes unmentioned in the debate over the war between Israel and Hamas: There may be no way for Israel both to minimize civilian casualties and to eliminate Hamas.

    It repeats this line again in a late January edition (1/22/24), once again framing the mass murder of civilians as a “difficult decision”:

    The Israeli military faces a difficult decision about how to proceed in southern Gaza…. Israel will not easily be able to eliminate the fighters without killing innocent civilians.

    And again in the October 17 edition:

    Longer term, there will be more difficult choices. Many steps that Israel could take to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, such as advance warnings of attacks, would also weaken its attempts to destroy Hamas’s control.

    These themes are repeated across all editions of the Morning, and echo throughout the New York Times’ reporting on Israel. Israel’s motivations in the war (beyond eliminating Hamas) go unquestioned, while the openly genocidal statements made by high-ranking politicians and military leaders go unacknowledged.

    And when Israeli mass murder of Palestinian civilians is mentioned, it is constantly qualified by the line that Hamas is fully or partially to blame.

    ‘Civilian death toll in Gaza’

    NYT: The Civilian Death Toll in Gaza

    David Leonhardt assures readers of the Morning (12/7/23) that “military experts say that there is probably no way for Israel to topple Hamas without a substantial civilian toll.” The possibility that this means that Israel should therefore not try to “topple Hamas” is not addressed.

    Let’s break down one emblematic newsletter (12/7/23) written by Leonhardt in December, in which he “puts the [civilian death] toll in context and explains the reason for it.”

    Leonhardt began by qualifying the Palestinian death toll—around 17,000 at time of writing in early December. First, he delegitimized the Gaza Health Ministry, which, he wrote, “seems to have spread false information during the war.” Though he acknowledged that “many international observers believe that the overall death toll is accurate…as do some top Israeli officials,” he wrote that “there is more debate about the breakdown between civilian and combatant deaths.” Leonhardt went on:

    A senior Israeli military official told my colleague Isabel Kershner this week that about a third of the dead were likely Hamas-allied fighters, rather than civilians. Gazan officials have suggested that the combatant toll is lower, and the civilian toll higher, based on their breakdown of deaths among men, women and children.

    Leonhardt only informs readers that Hamas has spread false information, while neglecting to mention Israel’s documented history of lying to the press (IMEU, 10/17/23; Intercept, 2/27/24). He also declined to investigate the implausibility of his source’s figure: At this point in the war, about 30% of Palestinian fatalities were adult men, meaning the Israeli figure implies that essentially every adult man killed by Israel was a Hamas fighter—all civilian men being miraculously spared.

    Next, Leonhardt attempted to explain “who is most responsible for the high civilian death toll”—concluding, even before describing them, that “different people obviously put different amounts of blame on each.”

    First he named Israel, and contextualized and rationalized Israel’s war crimes:

    After the October 7 attacks—in which Hamas fighters killed more than 1,200 people, while committing sexual assault and torture, sometimes on video—Israeli leaders promised to eliminate Hamas. Israel is seeking to kill Hamas fighters, destroy their weapons stockpiles and collapse their network of tunnels. To do so, Israel has dropped 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza’s densely populated neighborhoods.

    Note that Leonhardt framed the war as a campaign only to “kill Hamas fighters, destroy their weapons stockpiles and collapse their network of tunnels,” despite the evidence that Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure, journalists, healthcare workers and aid workers—actions backed by the aforementioned statements of genocidal intent.

    Though Leonhardt briefly mentioned that Israel’s war has drawn international criticism, he made no mention of international law and concluded with his refrain that Israel can hardly avoid causing the deaths of “substantial” numbers of civilians:

    Nonetheless, military experts say that there is probably no way for Israel to topple Hamas without a substantial civilian toll. The question is whether the toll could be lower than it has been.

    Next, Leonhardt turned to his condemnation of Hamas:

    The second responsible party is Hamas. It hides weapons in schools, mosques and hospitals, and its fighters disguise themselves as civilians, all of which are violations of international law.

    This approach both helps Hamas to survive against a more powerful enemy — the Israeli military—and contributes to Hamas’s efforts to delegitimize Israel. The group has vowed to repeat the October 7 attacks and ultimately destroy Israel. Hamas’s strategy involves forcing Israel to choose between allowing Hamas to exist and killing Palestinian civilians.

    Hamas is simply not prioritizing Palestinian lives.

    It is notable that—unlike with Israel—Leonhardt did not attempt to contextualize Hamas’ actions by noting the horrifying conditions that Israel has imposed on Gaza for years, or the over 900 Palestinian children killed by Israel in the decade preceding October 7. To Leonhardt, history is only relevant when it justifies Israeli aggression.

    While Leonhardt states unequivocally that Hamas is violating international law, he does not find it worthwhile to investigate Israel’s flagrant and abundantly documented violations of international law. He also does not mention the Palestinian right to resist occupation, a right enshrined under international law.

    This unequal treatment leads straight to the jarringly contrasting conclusions, in which he essentially excuses Israel’s genocidal war as unavoidable, while he condemns Hamas for “simply not prioritizing Palestinian lives.”

    Leonhardt’s December 7 piece is not an aberration: It is emblematic of the language, selective contextualization and framing that the Times‘ Morning newsletter wields to provide ideological cover for Israel’s crimes.

    The post NYT’s Morning Newsletter Blames Everyone but Israel for Israeli Crimes appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Biden’s Use of the Slur “Illegal” Underscores His Rightward Lurch on Immigration

    President Joe Biden’s disconnected attempts to simultaneously pander to the anti-immigrant crowd without losing progressive members of his base were on full display this week, as he first expressed regret on Saturday about having parroted the offensive term “illegal” to refer to undocumented people during his State of the Union address, but then scrambled to clarify via a White House spokesperson…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Cori Bush’s Gazan SOTU Guest: Congress Is “Complicit in the Murder of My Family”

    Intimaa Salama, a 27-year-old dentist from Gaza, attended last week’s State of the Union address at the invitation of U.S. Rep. Cori Bush. Though she said she felt honored to join Bush in demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire and full restoration of funding for humanitarian assistance through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), she said she’s now clear she’ll never go to…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • New maritime aid corridor to Gaza is a “PR stunt” and smokescreen for Western imperial oil & gas interests

    As Gazans mark a devastating start to Ramadan on the brink of wide-spread famine, a Spanish non-profit boat set sail on Tuesday 12 March from Cyprus. Crucially, the vessel is carrying 200 tonnes of desperately needed food aid to the strip – currently under Israel’s brutal siege. It’s a precursor to the new Gaza aid maritime corridor.

    Gaza aid maritime corridor

    With Israel severely cutting off land shipments into the territory, the international community has sought to diversify routes for delivering aid. So of course, this is where the aid boat comes in.

    The non-profit Open Arms ship left the port of Larnaca and will travel roughly 400 kilometres (250 miles) across the Mediterranean to Gaza. Open Arms partnered with US charity World Central Kitchen, whose staff will take delivery of the shipment. US charity World Central Kitchen said work was “underway” on a jetty to unload the shipment.

    Notably, the Spanish non-profit ship is the first to use a much-lauded new maritime aid corridor intended to facilitate deliveries of food to the Palestinian territory. This is a joint initiative between the European Commission (EC), Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US.

    In effect, the proposal will enable countries to transport aid on the sea route between Cyprus and Gaza. As part of the plan, the American military will build a temporary Gaza pier to offload these supplies. Ostensibly, the non-profit vessel now on route is a torch-bearer for the flagship new aid project.

    However, as some organisations and folks have pointed out on X, all is likely not as settler-colonial Israel and its Western imperialist backers would have you believe.

    A “glaring distraction” from Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was unflinchingly scathing of the project, calling it:

    a glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege.

    Moreover, it didn’t falter in pointing the finger of blame at both Israel and US:

    The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border. Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies. This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem. Rather than look to the US military to build a work-around, the US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist.”

    As of 12 March, Israel has killed 27 people through malnutrition and dehydration. The majority – 23 – were children. However, non-profit World Vision has warned that the number of deaths from starvation is likely to be “much higher”.

    The dire humanitarian situation is happening because Israel has implemented de facto starvation policies on the population in Gaza. Specifically, it has been actively obstructing aid, with a new report from humanitarian rights group Refugees International accusing it of:

    consistently and groundlessly impeded aid operations within Gaza, blocked legitimate relief operations and resisted implementing measures that would genuinely enhance the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza

    Moreover, media and people inside Gaza have posted multiple accounts of IDF forces targeting civilians queuing for food aid.

    As of 11 March, Israel’s military has slaughtered over 400 people waiting in food lines. This of course includes its notoriously brutal 29 February attack on starving Palestinians, now referred to as the “Flour Massacre”.

    PR and opportunism

    So, posters on X challenged the narrative that the aid ship is some pioneering feat of impressive diplomacy. Instead, they called it out for what it really is: a calculated act of imperialistic PR whitewashing and opportunism:

    In other words, the maritime aid route – much like the recent aid airdrops – articulates a semblance of humanitarian action. Crucially, Israel’s imperialist cheerleaders can look like they’re upholding international law and negotiating for Palestinians’ rights. In reality, folks suggested that they’re instead pandering to Israel’s strategy of ethnic cleansing and mass Palestinian displacement:

    Some underscored the horrendous double standards. Effectively, Israel has lifted the blockade to enable vehicles carrying US soldiers through to build the port, but continues to stop aid trucks from entering Gaza:

    On top of this, others pointed out that the new port and maritime aid route does nothing for starving and injured Gazans needing aid now. This is because, as policy and politics scholar Taleed El-Sabawi astutely noted, the US logistics ship will take a month to reach Gaza, and a further two months to construct the port.

    Aid as a pretext for fossil fuels and militarism

    Ultimately, of course, the new port and Gaza aid maritime corridor looks largely a pretext for US militaristic expansion and energy colonialism. Unite’s Howard Beckett called it out:

    Meanwhile, ecological economics professor Julia Steinberger spelled out the oil and gas interests likely at the heart of the project:

    Certainly, the US hasn’t skipped a beat in sizing up the post-genocide oil and gas potential. As Israel ramped up its relentless genocidal siege in the strip in November, Biden energy security advisor Amos Hochstein visited the criminal state. Ever the shameless imperialist ready to cash in on colonial pillage, Hochstein pressed during the talks how there

    is an opportunity here to develop the gas fields in offshore Gaza

    Naturally, Hochstein emphasised that the proposal would be:

    on behalf of the Palestinians

    Yet, his transparent facade of colonial so-called benevolence – or in other words, exploitation – has fooled no-one. Like clockwork, the clincher for the US’s extractive ulterior motive came next:

    as soon as we get to the day after and this horrible war ends, there are companies willing to develop those fields.

    Of course, the vultures of disaster capitalism have already begun eyeing up plunder of the blood-soaked spoils. As Israel rained bombs down on Gaza, it announced new oil and gas licenses off the besieged strip’s shores for multiple Western fossil fuel supermajors.

    Genocide-backing colonialists

    Ultimately, the aid en route is vitally needed. However, 200 tonnes of food will offer little relief to the two million people Israel is starving in the strip.

    World Food Programme chief Cindy McCain has said that Gaza needs 300 trucks of food aid per day to avoid famine. This would equate to approximately 6,000 tonnes of food daily, as each truck can load up 20 tonnes.

    As famine starts to bite, nothing short of a full ceasefire and the immediate end of humanitarian aid blockades is necessary. But, as ever, Western apologists of the genocidal Zionist regime would rather see thousands starve than give up their colonial ambitions. Once a genocidal colonialist, always a genocide-backing colonialist.

    Feature image via Voice of America/YouTube 

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘Who is the superpower? The US or Israel?’ Al Jazeera on the absurdity of airdrops in Gaza

    Pacific Media Watch

    The United States’ airdrops of aid into Gaza are a textbook case of cognitive dissonance on the part of the US administration — dropping food while continuing to send Israel bombs with which to pulverise Gaza, reports Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post.

    And, says the media watch programme presenter Richard Gizbert, the gulf between what is happening on the ground and the mainstream media’s reportage continues to widen.

    Gizbert criticises the airdrops, what he calls the “optics of urgency, the illusions of aid”.

    “An absurd spectacle as the US drops aid into Gaza while also arming Israel,” he says.

    Gizbert critically examines the Israeli disinformation strategy over atrocities such as the gunning down of at least 116 starving Gazans in the so-called “flour massacre” of 29 February 2024 — first denial, then blame the Palestinians, and finally accept only limited responsibility.

    “The US air drops into the Gaza Strip are pure theatre. The US has been supplying thousands of tonnes into the Gaza Strip — but those have been high explosives,” says Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya.

    “And then to claim that somehow it is ameliorated by 38,000 meals ready to eat is quite obscene to put it politely.

    “People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.”

    ‘Who is the superpower?’
    Australian author Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, says: “When I saw the US drop food, my first response was really anger; it was horror that this is apparently the best the US can do.


    Absurd Aid Air Drops in Gaza.   Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post, 9 March 2024

    “Who is the superpower here? Is it the US or Israel? There is no place that is safe. There is no place where you can find reliable food, where people can get shelter.

    “Gazans are exhausted, angry and scared, and do not buy this argument that the US is suddenly caring about them by airdropping a handful of food.”

    “People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.

    Contributors:
    Laura Albast — Fellow, Institute for Palestine Studies
    Mohamad Bazzi — Director of NYU’s Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
    Antony Loewenstein — Author, The Palestine Laboratory
    Mouin Rabbani — Co-editor, Jadaliyya

    On Our Radar:
    Since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, the war has been a delicate subject for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The war has led to censorship of news coverage and suppression of public protest. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

    Israel’s cultural annihilation in Gaza
    The Listening Post has covered Israel’s war on Gaza through the prism of the media, including the unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists. But there is another level to what is unfolding in Gaza: the genocidal assault on Palestinian history, existence and culture.

    Featuring:
    Jehad Abusalim – Executive director, The Jerusalem Fund

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Disproportionality in Sentencing in the GCC: The Cases of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia

    The Gulf remains a major destination for migrant workers, primarily from southern and Southeast Asia. Often, migrants from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and numerous other countries travel to the Gulf States to work in low-skilled labour sectors. ADHRB, along with other organisations, reported the systemic discrimination these minorities face, including access to healthcare, threats of withholding of passports, physical or verbal abuse or non-payment of wages. Nonetheless, one of the most persistent and concerning discrimination is the disproportionality when it comes to the death penalty. The number of migrants who are killed by judicial execution is grossly disproportional to the size of the population living in the GCC. ADHRB recognises that this disproportionality lies in multiple factors, rendering the migrant workers an exceptionally vulnerable community.

    The vulnerability of this community depends on being subject to power imbalance and often exploitation. ADHRB acknowledges that this condition affects them before and after arriving in the Gulf, causing disproportionality in sentencing to be an issue of a larger scope. Usually, migrant workers come from rural areas, have limited literacy and become dependent on migrant brokers in their original countries. These figures often manipulate migrant workers, tricking them into smuggling drugs into the Gulf, with the highest percentage coming from Pakistan. This founding issue, combined with the flaws of the GCC judicial systems, socioeconomic disadvantage, language barriers and discrimination, cause immigrants to be the primary victims of sentencing and death penalties.

    In Bahrain, despite rhetoric of reform, death sentences in the last decade rose by over 600%. The data gathered between 2011 and 2021 shows a clear pattern of discrimination against foreign nationals in the context of the death penalty. Mainly, Bangladeshi nationals are disproportionately represented in this category. In addition, Reprieve informs that in contrast to Bahraini nationals, no pardons or commutations were offered to Bangladeshi nationals. In these circumstances, the decision of 2018  to allow death sentences for non-lethal charges (drug offences) represents a noteworthy backwards move for human rights in the country.

    Moving to Saudi Arabia, the situation is even more concerning, considering that it has the third-largest migrant population in the world. Generally, foreign nationals are particularly vulnerable to due process and fair trial violations when it comes to the death penalty. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination raised this point about a disproportionate number of foreign nationals facing the penalty in Saudi Arabia. From 2010 to 2021, Saudi Arabia has executed a total of 490 foreign nationals, with some nationalities overrepresenting their proportional representation in the total population. In particular, Pakistani nationals, making up 5% of the total population, represent 13.19% of the total number of executions. Furthermore, their sentence is flawed by a criminal justice system discrimination characterised by denied access to interpretation, legal representation or consular assistance.

    To conclude, the disproportionality in sentences against foreign nationals represents an issue that needs to be tackled at the national and transnational levels because of its characteristics. Many of the circumstances by which the death penalties were handed are related to the abusive functioning of the kafala system, exacerbated by a total lack of consular support from sending states. There is a significant correlation between citizenship and low class that causes migrant workers to be victims of exploitation. For this reason, ADHRB deems that both sending states and Gulf ones must take measures to stop the abuse against migrant workers, ultimately exemplified in the disproportionate sentencing against them.

    Recommendations for sending states:

    • Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
    • Intensify the efficiency of consular offices for representing nationals working abroad.
    • Initiate diplomatic exchanges with Arab countries to find countermeasures against human trafficking (including new treaties).
    • Protect the nationals, especially the ones coming from lower classes, who are subject to human trafficking.

    Recommendation for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia:

    • Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
    • Abolish the Kafala system, which, through its sponsorship system, causes migrant workers to be subject to human trafficking.
    • Cease using the death penalty arbitrarily.
    • Improve the quality of the trial, including legal representation, language barrier, and assumption of innocence.
    • Provide adequate socio-economic measures to ensure foreign workers can afford legal representation or pay blood money.
    • End the discrimination against foreign nationals in the application of the laws.
    • Publish a moratorium for abolishing death sentences for drug-related crimes, which enhances the risks for migrant workers who are victims of human trafficking.
    • Respect the pronouncing in different international law cases to ensure enhanced due process and fair trial rights for foreign nationals (recognising the range of barriers they face in the criminal system).

    The post Disproportionality in Sentencing in the GCC: The Cases of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia appeared first on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

    This post was originally published on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

  • U.S. State Department and the EU release an approach for protecting human rights defenders from online attacks.

    On 12 March 2024 the U.S. and European Union issued new joint guidance on Monday for online platforms to help mitigate virtual attacks targeting human rights defenders, reports Alexandra Kelley,
    Staff Correspondent, Nextgov/FCW.

    Outlined in 10 steps, the guidance was formed following stakeholder consulting from January 2023 to February 2024. Entities including nongovernmental organizations, trade unionists, journalists, lawyers, environmental and land activists advised both governments on how to protect human rights defenders on the internet.

    Recommendations within the guidance include: committing to an HRD [human rights defender] protection policy; identifying risks to HRDs; sharing information with peers and select stakeholders; creating policy to monitoring performance metric base marks; resource staff adequately; build a capacity to address local risks; offer safety tools education; create an incident reporting channel; provide access to help for HRDs; and incorporate a strong transparent infrastructure.

    Digital threats HRDs face include target Internet shutdowns, censorship, malicious cyber activity, unlawful surveillance, and doxxing. Given the severity and reported increase of digital attacks against HRDs, the guidance calls upon online platforms to take mitigating measures.

    “The United States and the European Union encourage online platforms to use these recommendations to determine and implement concrete steps to identify and mitigate risks to HRDs on or through their services or products,” the guidance reads. 

    The ten guiding points laid out in the document reflect existing transatlantic policy commitments, including the Declaration for the Future of the Internet. Like other digital guidance, however, these actions are voluntary. 

    “These recommendations may be followed by further actions taken by the United States or the European Union to promote rights-respecting approaches by online platforms to address the needs of HRDs,” the document said

    https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2024/03/us-eu-recommend-protections-human-rights-defenders-online/394865

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Abuse of counter-terrorism laws threaten human rights globally, warns UN expert

    On 12 March 2024 the recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, Ben Saul, warned that two decades of prolific global efforts to counter terrorism have not been matched by an equally robust commitment to human rights.

    In his first report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur painted a counter-terrorism landscape strewn with human rights violations, including unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture, unfair trials, privacy infringements from mass surveillance, and the criminalisation of freedoms of expression, assembly, association and political participation. For earlier posts on this topic, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/anti-terrorism-legislation/

    “The misuse of counter-terrorism measures not only violates the rights of suspected criminals but can also jeopardise the freedoms of the innocent,” Saul said.

    He condemned the rampant weaponisation of overly-broad terrorism offences against civil society, including political opponents, activists, human rights defenders, journalists, minorities, and students. Unjustified and protracted states of emergency continue to undermine human rights, the expert warned.

    “Excessive military violence in response to terrorism also destroys fundamental rights, including through violations of international humanitarian law and international criminal law,” Saul said. “Cross-border military violence is increasingly used by states even when it is not justified under the international law of self-defence.”

    “Many states have also failed to address the root causes of terrorism, including state violations of human rights – while impunity for those violations is endemic,” he said.

    Saul said regrettably, the UN has been part of the problem, by encouraging authoritarian regimes to strengthen counter-terrorism laws in the absence of a rule of law culture or human rights safeguards. “The UN must also do better to meaningfully consult civil society on counter-terrorism,” he said.

    Announcing his priorities for his three-year term, the Special Rapporteur said his focus would include ensuring regional organisations respect human rights when countering terrorism; all coercive administrative measures used to prevent terrorism comply with human rights; and States are held accountable for large-scale violations of human rights resulting from counter terrorism – and victims receive full and effective remedies.

    Saul will also continue the efforts of his predecessor on preventing the abuse of counter-terrorism measures against civil society; protecting the 70,000 people arbitrarily detained in north-east Syria in the conflict against ISIL; protecting detainees and transferees from the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; ensuring that the UN safeguards human rights in its counter-terrorism work, regulating new technologies used in counter-terrorism; and protecting the victims of terrorism.

    “Human rights in counter-terrorism are at increased risk because of rising authoritarianism, surging domestic polarisation and extremism, geopolitical competition, dysfunction in the Security Council and new tools, including social media, for fuelling dehumanisation, vilification, incitement and misinformation,” the Special Rapporteur warned.

    “Double standards and selectivity by major powers in the enforcement of human rights is also eroding public confidence in the credibility of the international human rights system,” he said. “States must move beyond rhetorical commitment to human rights and instead place human rights at the heart of all counter-terrorism measures.”

    Statements Statement of the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism

    Statements Human Rights Council discusses the protection of human rights while countering terrorism

    Statements UN Office of Counter-Terrorism Town Hall meeting, Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

    https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/rampant-abuse-counter-terrorism-laws-threaten-human-rights-globally-warns-un

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Julian Leeser accuses Australian Human Rights Commission of failing to address antisemitism

    Commission chief says organisation has actively condemned antisemitism as well as Islamophobia linked to Israel-Gaza war

    Liberal MP Julian Leeser has accused the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) of being “frozen by political paralysis” in failing to address antisemitism, and criticised staff who anonymously argued its response to “Israeli war crimes” had been inadequate.

    Guardian Australia revealed last month that at least 24 staff across eight teams at the commission wrote anonymously to president Rosalind Croucher at the end of January. The letter expressed “frustration at the commission’s failure to fulfil its mandate as an accredited national human rights institution in regard to Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”. It argued the commission’s response to date had been inadequate.

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

  • Better immunisation coverage needed to prevent Pacific measles, says WHO

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Surveillance and better vaccine coverage is needed to prevent another measles outbreak in the Pacific, says the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific regional director.

    Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala said many children missed out on routine vaccinations — including measles and rubella — during the covid-19 pandemic.

    According to WHO, measles cases jumped by 225 percent — from just over 1400 cases in 2022 to more than 5000 last year — in the Western Pacific region.

    A statement from WHO said the recent increase has been caused by gaps in vaccination coverage and disease surveillance, and people travelling from countries with outbreaks.

    “I think the health workforce were concentrating on covid-19 vaccinations and forgot about routine vaccinations, not only for measles, but other routine immunisation schedule,” Piukala told RNZ Pacific.

    “People are going back to fill the gaps.”

    From 2022 to 2023, 11 countries in the Western Pacific, including Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Papua New Guinea, conducted nationwide measles and rubella vaccination campaigns.

    Catch-up successful
    Piukala said the catch-up campaigns had been successful.

    “That will definitely reduce the risk,” he said.

    “No child should get sick or die of measles.”

    In 2019, Samoa had an outbreak that killed 83 people off the back of an outbreak in Auckland.

    WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala
    WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala . . . “No child should get sick or die of measles.” Image: Pierre Albouy/WHO

    Piukala said the deaths made people understand the importance of measles and rubella vaccinations for their children.

    Fiji, Guam, French Polynesia and New Caledonia are the only countries or territories that have local testing capacity for measles, with most nations sending samples to Melbourne for testing.

    Piukala said WHO plans for Samoa, the Cook Islands, and the Solomon Islands to have testing capacity by 2025.

    “The PCR machines that were made available in Pacific Island countries during the covid pandemic can also be used to detect other respiratory viruses, including the flu, LSV, and measles and rubella.”

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


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Revealed: the secret algorithm that controls the lives of Serco’s immigration detainees

    The opaque risk rating system, used in Australian detention centres, is riddled with errors and effectively makes the company ‘judge, jury and executioner’, says one former detainee

    Imagine there’s a secret rating that dictates where you sleep and whether you are forced to wear handcuffs to a doctor’s appointment. And imagine that rating is based on incorrect information, or unfair assumptions about the type of person you are.

    In Australia’s immigration detention centres, each detainee is given security risk ratings decided by an algorithm – but they’re not even told it exists.

    Continue reading…

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

  • UK pressing for ‘full explanation’ of alleged abuses after Gaza hospital raid

    Andrew Mitchell responds to Labour question in Commons about reports of Israeli mistreatment of medical staff

    A UK Foreign Office minister has called for an investigation into a report that medical staff in Gaza faced violent and humiliating treatment in detention after an Israeli raid.

    Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis – at the time the largest functioning hospital in the Palestinian territory – was raided over several days by Israeli forces in an attack that began on 15 February.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Activist criticises Western feminist ‘silence’ on Palestine’s brave women

    By Peter Boyle in Gadigal Sydney

    Jana Fayyad, a Palestinian activist, had some sharp words about “the silence of Western feminists” at International Women’s Day, asking in her address to the Palestine rally in Sydney last Saturday: “Are you only progressive until Palestine?”

    No Palestinian speaker had been asked to address the annual protest the previous day and Fayyad did not mince her words.

    “Save your corporate high teas, your bullshit speeches, your ridiculous and laughable social media posts on this International Women’s Day!” she said.

    “We don’t think of Margaret Thatcher or Ursula Von der Leyen or Hillary Clinton.

    “We think of Besan [Helasa], we think of Dr Amira al Assori, we think of Hind Khoudary —  we think Plestia [Alaqad], we think of Lama Jamous.

    “We think of the women that we honour — the women in Gaza.

    “And beyond the women of Gaza, we think of Leila Khaled and Hanan Ashrawi and Fadua Tuqan and Amira Hass and Dr Mona el Farrah — the women at the forefront of Palestinian liberation.”

    She said considering that 9000 women had been “slaughtered by the terrorist state of Israel”, the silence of Western feminists had been deafening.

    “The silence has been deafening — the silence on the 15,000 children slaughtered; the silence on the sexual assault and the rape that woman in Gaza have been subjected to; the silence on the horrific conditions that 50,000 pregnant women face having to do C-sections without anesthesia; and the silence on the mothers having to pick up their children in pieces,” Fayyad said.

    “The silence is deafening!”

    “Where is your feminism?” she asked.

    “I don’t see it anywhere! I don’t hear of it! Where are your voices? Or are you only progressive until Palestine?”

    Republished from Green Left with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • FIFA is under mounting pressure over its unwillingness to suspend genocidal Israel

    The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is facing pressure from dozens of global human rights groups over its failure to suspend Israel from international competitions. It comes after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it was investigating ‘plausible’ genocide accusations against the state.

    FIFA: Israel must be suspended

    The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and Citizens International have joined forces with 60 organisations from all over the world to demand that the world footballing body, FIFA, ban Israeli teams from all international competitions in the light of the country’s apartheid system and ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    The letter, sent on Monday 11 March, calls on FIFA to suspend Israel in the same way that it suspended Russia from international competitions in response to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    A suspension is the first step towards an eventual expulsion from world football. The South African FA was suspended by FIFA in September 1965, and expelled from FIFA in 1976 for its operation of an apartheid political system.

    FIFA is the governing body for world football and seeks to develop the game worldwide. But the organisation states that it holds philanthropic responsibilities and uses football as a tool to encourage social integration amongst communities around the world.

    ‘Hypocrisy and political bias’ from FIFA

    To date Israeli forces have killed over 31,000 people in Gaza, more than 70% of them women and children. Israel has attacked residential homes, schools, hospitals, ambulances, mosques and churches, and even fleeing civilians.

    The onslaught is so indiscriminate and destructive that Israel has found itself hauled before the ICJ to answer charges of genocide. In fact, the scale of the horrors being inflicted on the largely defenceless Palestinian population far surpass the human cost of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    The letter states:

    It is therefore surprising that while both UEFA and FIFA suspended Russia from all competitions in 2022, they continue to turn a blind eye to Israel with the result that its teams continue to participate freely in international competitions.

    We are sure you will agree that applying a different yardstick to Israeli actions undermines your credibility and exposes you to allegations of political bias and hypocrisy.

    The full text of the letter is available to read here.

    Featured image via Wikimedia

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Profile of Human Rights Defender Pamela Angwench Judith from Uganda

    DefendDefenders in January 2024 has chosen as HRDs of the Month Pamela Angwech from Uganda.

    For most of her life, Pamela Angwech’s existence has always been a defiant and simultaneous act of survival and resistance.  In 1976 when she was born, the anti-Amin movement was gathering pace, and her family was one of the earliest victims in Northern Uganda. Her father, a passionate educationist in Kitgum district was one of the most vocal critics of the dictatorship’s human rights excesses, which made him an obvious target of the state’s marauding vigilantes.  Fearing for his life and that of his young family, he escaped North, to Sudan, leaving behind his wife, then pregnant with Pamela, to follow him as soon as she could. It was on the treacherous journey to rejoin her father that Pamela was born, somewhere between Uganda and Sudan, and named Angwench, an Acholi word to mean “on the run,” in keeping with the circumstances of her birth.

    Unfortunately, those precarious circumstances would continue to define most of Angwech’s childhood. Although Amin was eventually overthrown, paving way for her family’s return home, the immediate post-Amin years were equally tumultuous, and when President Museveni’s National Resistance Army took power in 1986, Northern Uganda was immediately engulfed in a civil war by the Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA) rebels that would rage on for the next 20 years, bringing wanton anguish and suffering to the region’s people and communities.

    Angwench navigated those precarious circumstances to pursue an education, convinced that only then could she impact her community for the better. At University, she studied Gender and Women Studies and immediately returned home to seek work with the UN’s World Food Program Office in Gulu, determined to join the relief effort to alleviate the suffering of her people in Internally Displaced People’s (IDP)Camps.

    Initially, they told me there was no job. But I was determined to work with the UN and nowhere else. So, I camped at their office for 14 straight days. Sometimes, I would volunteer as a gatekeeper when the substantive gatekeeper was away, and other times, I would sit at the front patch of the Office Head the whole day. When they realized I was determined not to leave, they allowed me to start officially volunteering with them. “I would go with them to distribute food in the IDP camps, until later, I was formally integrated as official staff.

    Yet, despite her dogged stubbornness and resilience, she was not prepared for the heart-rending experience of life in the IDPs, particularly the plight of women and girls.

    “I started to notice that after picking their food rations, women and children would start picking residue beans from the floor, to take for either their little children or their elderly parents who could not queue. One other time, I noticed a visibly tired woman carrying a baby on her back, being pushed out of the queue by others. I called her to the front and assured her that I would give her a special ration but asked her to first untie her baby from the back, so she could protect her from the sun and breastfeed her. When she untied her baby, I noticed that the baby’s neck was twisted – it had suffocated and died! That changed me, forever,”

    From Humanitarian to Human Rights Activist

    Angwech realized that like a balm, humanitarian work could only soothe the suffering of her people but fell short of tackling the root causes of the same suffering. “So I decided that someone had to speak up about the heartbreaking indignity and human rights violations surrounding the conflict in Northern Uganda. I turned full scale, from a humanitarian to a human rights activist, particularly championing the rights of women who were most vulnerable “she says.  

    Angwech would move on the streets rallying women to stand up for their rights, holding placards signaling injustices against women in IDP camps like molestation and rape. Overtime, she won followers: Emboldened by her courage and audacity, other women started to show up and speak up against the conflict and related violence. Angwech mobilized grassroot women groups to pursue LRA leader Joseph Kony in Congo’s Garamba forest, to dramatize their cries for peace, under UN resolution 13/25 which provides for women’s participation in peace processes. 

    In 2004, Angwech started Gulu Women’s Economic Development & Globalization (GWED-G) to rehabilitate victims of the war, from victims of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence to those physically harmed by the conflict.  Since then, Angwech says GWED-G has rehabilitated over 1700 war victims through physical rehabilitation projects, giving them prosthesis, among other forms of support. It has also continued to sensitise and organise grassroot women into human rights defenders’ groups, through which they can report and address GBV cases, issues of women economic rights among others. Today, Angwech says there are about 600 of these groups across Gulu, Lamwo, Amuru and Kitgum, each with a membership of 30 -40 members.    

    Today, GWED-G is arguably the largest grassroots human rights organisation in Northern Uganda. It has also expanded to cover other social and economic causes, including environmental protection advocacy. Angwech says the environment is the local communities’ last refugee, and yet deforestation and charcoal burning are threatening it.  “For post-conflict communities like us in Northern Uganda, land is our primary resource. It is the land from which people make an income to feed their families, send their children to school, and access medical care. War destroyed everything else. So, if we don’t protect the environment, our land will be degraded, rainy seasons will begin to change which will affect food production and bring back hunger,” she says.

    https://defenddefenders.org/human-rights-defender-of-the-month_pamela_angwench_judith

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • ‘The Forever War’ – ABC Four Corners reports on the assault on Gaza

    Pacific Media Watch

    The War on Gaza will be etched in the memories of generations to come — the brutality of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, and the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation.

    In this Four Corners investigative report, The Forever War, broadcast in Australia last night, ABC’s global affairs editor John Lyons asks the tough questions — challenging some of Israel’s most powerful political and military voices about the country’s strategy and intentions.

    The result is a compelling interview-led piece of public interest journalism about one of the most controversial wars of modern times.

    Former prime minister Ehud Barak says Benjamin Netanyahu can’t be trusted, former Shin Bet internal security director Ami Ayalon describes two key far-right Israeli ministers as “terrorists”,  and cabinet minister Avi Dichter makes a grave prediction about the conflict’s future.

    Is there any way out of what’s beginning to look like the forever war? Lyons gives his perspective on the tough decisions for the future of both Palestinians and Israelis.


    ‘The Forever War’ – ABC Four Corners.      ABC Trailer on YouTube

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Talks herald Wapenamanda massacre ceasefire in PNG tribal warfare

    PNG Post-Courier

    A ceasefire is expected on the battlefields of Wapenamanda in Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province that has claimed hundreds of lives and caused massive destruction to properties in three constituencies.

    According to lead peace negotiator and Enga Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka, a ceasefire agreement is anticipated to be signed this week among three parties to solve the crisis.

    These parties are the state and two warring tribal leaders to make way for the peace process to start.

    The leaders of both warring factions are currently involved in intense negotiations with the State Conflict Resolution team led by key negotiator and Chief Magistrate Mark Pupaka in Port Moresby.

    The state negotiating team comprises Deputy Police Commissioner (Operations) Dr Philip Mitna; Assistant Commissioner of Police Julius Tasion; newly appointed Enga provincial police commander Chief Superintendent Fred Yakasa; Enga Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka and Chief Magistrate Pupaka.

    The government negotiators are meeting and having discussions separately with each faction.

    According to the state team, the roundtable conference was brought to Port Moresby because a ceasefire agreement and subsequently a Preventive Order issued in September last year failed.

    Guerrilla-style warfare
    The preventive order did not work when the tribal factions took up arms in guerrilla-style warfare.

    The conference will ensure that both parties, including the allies of 25 tribes from Tsaka valley, Aiyale valley and Middle Lai constituencies, agree to an amicable resolution in consultations with neighbouring tribes.

    The Yopo tribe’s leader Roy Opone Andoi of Tsaka valley apologised in a public statement to the state for damaging government properties and for the lives lost in the three-year tribal conflict.

    The Yopo tribal alliance leader Roy Andoi (centre)
    The Yopo tribal alliance leader Roy Andoi (centre) accompanied by tribal leaders presenting their position paper to the state team in Port Moresby yesterday. Image: PNG Post-Courier

    Andoi said it was regrettable to see a “trivial” tribal conflict that started with his Yopo tribe and neighbouring Palinau tribe in Tsaka valley escalate to “unimaginable proportions”, displacing more than 40,000 people.

    “I want to apologise to the state, rival tribes and neighbouring communities and the country for all the damage, including negative images portrayed through the media during the course of the conflict,” he said.

    Andoi said he would like to take the opportunity to thank the government for appointing the state team, comprising Police Commissioner David Manning, Tsaka and Pupaka, to conduct roundtable discussions towards restoring peace and normalcy.

    He said the government’s intervention came in following the latest casualties, including a massacre of more than 50 men from the Palinau allies by Yopo allies during an intensified battle on February 28 near Birip and Hela Opone Technical College on the border of Wapenamanda and Wabag districts.

    Andoi said that with the help of the state team, he was hoping for a better outcome to bring back normalcy in the district and the province.

    Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG MP Allan Bird on death threats: ‘Picking on me isn’t a smart thing to do’

    By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    Papua New Guinea’s rising voice as opposition candidate for prime minister, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, has pushed back after addressing recent death threats.

    Bird told RNZ Pacific he has declined police protection and is opting to use his own security after his nomination as opposition candidate for prime minister resulted in alleged threats to his personal safety.

    “I was informed about 10 days ago of the threats against my life. I’ve heard a few more threats are in fact active,” he said.

    “So I thought, probably the best way to declare it would be to put it out in the public domain.”

    He said three senior government ministers informed him about the death threats and were no longer contacting him, due to concerns his phone was “being monitored”.

    Bird was confident in his security to keep him safe and said whoever was behind the threats had picked on the wrong person.

    “My people served with the allied forces in the Second World War. So my grandfather did that. He was uneducated. So picking on me is not a smart thing to do.”

    RNZ Pacific has contacted the PNG police for comment after Bird accused authorities of illegally monitoring his phone and looking for dirt to charge and arrest him.

    “I have nothing to hide. So, apparently, they haven’t found any dirt.”

    PNG riots aftermath
    “I do understand that they’re trying to connect me as one of the masterminds behind the Black Wednesday day events in Port Moresby.”

    He said it would be “almost impossible because I was out of the country prior to that happening. And then I understand they’re looking now at all my travel allowances, so they’re looking at that to see what they can find.”

    Regarding the threats, he said: “I’m not too stressed. These are some of the things you expect in PNG, otherwise you wouldn’t be in PNG.”

    Bird said he did not trust the country’s police and declined their offer for protection, opting to use his own personal security instead.

    “If things get pretty bad in the capital, I will just go back home. But for now, I’m just keeping a low profile, not really moving around, just restricting movements.”

    He addressed sceptics who criticised him for attempting to boost his profile to become PNG’s next prime minister.

    Bird said he had accepted the nomination as candidate out of “respect to his colleagues.”

    ‘Asked by my caucus’
    “I didn’t put my hand up. I was asked by my caucus.”

    He said, the country needed change, even if it was at the expense of his safety.

    “Who wants to run around with security guards all the time?

    “Whoever gets into the hot seat, whether it’s me or someone else, in all seriousness and honesty will soon to have to deal with these problems, the problems that are begging for solutions, and these are personal criticisms of Prime Minister Marape.”

    He said supporters of the nation’s current leader James Marape lacked proper education and said it was “like a cult following”.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Two Women Arrested In Tehran For Dancing Dressed As Fictional Folk Character

    Iran’s parliamentary elections on March 1 witnessed a historically low turnout, in a blow to the legitimacy of the clerical establishment.

    The official turnout of 41 percent was the lowest for legislative elections since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Critics claim the real turnout was likely even lower.

    Hard-liners dominated the elections for the parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a body that picks the country’s supreme leader, consolidating their grip on power. Many reformists and moderates were barred from contesting the polls.

    Experts said the declining turnout signifies the growing chasm between the ruling clerics and Iran’s young population, many of whom are demanding greater social and political freedoms in the Middle Eastern nation of some 88 million.

    “These elections proved that the overriding imperative for the Islamic republic is strengthening ideological conformity at the top, even at the cost of losing even more of its legitimacy from below,” said Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.

    ‘Widening Divide’

    Observers said disillusionment with the state has been building up for years and is reflected in the declining voter turnout in recent elections.

    Turnout in presidential and parliamentary elections were consistently above 50 percent for decades. But the numbers have declined since 2020, when around 42 percent of voters cast ballots in the parliamentary elections that year. In the 2021 presidential vote, turnout was below 49 percent.

    Ali Ansari, a history professor at the University of St. Andrews, puts that down to growing “despondency” in the country.

    This is “the clearest indication of the widening divide between state and society, which has been growing over the years,” said Ansari.


    “It is quite clear that the despondency is extending even to those who are generally sympathetic to the regime,” he added, referring to reformist former President Mohammad Khatami choosing not to vote in the March 1 elections.

    Voter apathy was particularly evident in the capital, Tehran, which has the most representatives in the 290-seat parliament. In Tehran, only 1.8 million of the 7.7 million eligible voters — or some 24 percent — cast their votes on March 1, according to official figures.

    Up to 400,000 invalid ballots — many believed to be blank — were cast in Tehran alone, a sign of voter discontent.

    Ahead of the elections, nearly 300 activists in Iran had called on the public to boycott the “engineered” elections.

    Beyond Boycott

    The March 1 elections were the first since the unprecedented anti-establishment protests that rocked the country in 2022.

    The monthslong demonstrations, triggered by the death in custody of a young woman arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s hijab law, snowballed into one of the most sustained demonstrations against Iran’s theocracy. At least 500 protesters were killed and thousands were detained in the state’s brutal crackdown on the protests.

    Iran has been the scene of several bursts of deadly anti-establishment protests since the disputed presidential election in 2009. Many of the demonstrations have been over state repression and economic mismanagement.

    Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police in September 2022. Experts say declining voter turnout highlights society's growing disenchantment with the state.
    Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police in September 2022. Experts say declining voter turnout highlights society’s growing disenchantment with the state.

    But experts said that the 2022 protests alone did not result in the record-low turnout in the recent elections.

    “This is a reflection of a deeper malaise that extends back to 2009 and traverses through 2017, 2019, and 2022,” Ansari said. “It has been building for some time.”

    Despite the historically low turnout, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the “epic” participation of the public. State-run media, meanwhile, spun the elections as a victory over those who called for a boycott.

    By claiming victory, the clerical establishment “overlooks the growing absence of support from 60 percent of its population,” said Vaez.

    “Such self-approbation [mirrors] the regime’s previous dismissal of the 2022 protests as the result of foreign intrigue rather than reflection of deep discontent,” he said, adding that it represents the Islamic republic’s “continuation of ignoring simmering public discontent.”

    Hard-Line Dominance

    Around 40 moderates won seats in the new parliament. But the legislature will remain dominated by hard-liners.

    The elections were largely seen as a contest between conservatives and ultraconservatives.

    “We can say that a more hotheaded and previously marginal wing of the hard-liners scored a victory against more established conservatives,” said Arash Azizi, a senior lecturer in history and political science at Clemson University in South Carolina.

    “This is because the former had a more fired-up base and in the absence of popular participation were able to shape the results,” he added.

    A more hard-line parliament could have more bark but “certainly” not more bite than its predecessors, according to Vaez.

    “The parliament is subservient to the supreme leader and rubber stamps the deep state’s strategic decisions, even if grudgingly,” he added.

    Since the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Khamenei, was elected as president in 2021, Iran’s hard-liners have dominated all three branches of the government, including the parliament and judiciary.

    Other key institutions like the Assembly of Experts and the powerful Guardians Council, which vets all election candidates, are also dominated by hard-liners.

    “There is not much left of the system’s republican features,” Vaez said. “The Islamic republic is now a minority-ruled unconstitutional theocracy.”


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner lends voice to refugee defenders

    Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo reported in the Guardian of 22 February 2024 that people and groups who assist asylum seekers are reporting a disturbing trend of escalating intimidation, with aid workers facing direct threats including being held at gunpoint and having their phone communications monitored by government authorities, according to a report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights.

    Dunja Mijatović has warned of increasing harassment and in some cases criminalisation of people and groups who assist refugees, especially in Hungary, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Croatia and Poland. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/ and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/10/09/mary-lawlor-condemns-criminalization-of-those-saving-lives-in-the-mediterranean/]

    “Organisations and people assisting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants have been subjected to beatings, had their vehicles or equipment destroyed, or have been targeted by vandalism of their property, and even by arson or bomb attacks,” she wrote.

    A recent example was the bombing on 5 January of the office of Kisa, an NGO assisting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Cyprus. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/01/19/attack-against-cypriot-anti-racism-ngo-kisa/]

    Mijatović said she had observed in certain member states how authorities had engaged with human rights defenders in an aggressive or intimidating manner. During the humanitarian crisis at the Poland-Belarus border, thousands of refugees from the Middle East were offered a route by the Lukashenko regime to try to reach the EU from Belarus, highlighting the restrictions by Poland on access to the border zone for people and organisations providing humanitarian assistance and legal aid.

    The commissioner noted how “the emergence of an approach in which migration issues are increasingly addressed by member states from a security perspective” had led to the building of fences and deployment of military personnel, equipment and surveillance in border areas that has also affected NGOs.

    “These physical obstacles deny asylum seekers the chance to seek protection and the right to a fair and efficient asylum procedure [and] this approach has also created an extremely difficult environment for human rights defenders,” she wrote.

    “Those who assist refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants may be seen by states as an obstacle to the implementation of asylum and migration policies focused on deterrence and security, and therefore are faced with hostility. The rolling back of human rights, which is often part of states’ policies in this area, also leads to measures explicitly or implicitly targeting those helping.”

    NGO rescue boats have also faced violence, including the use of firearms, from non-European countries with which Council of Europe member states cooperate on external migration control. NGO workers on some of these vessels have documented how often the Libyan coastguard has fired gunshots and endangered crew members and people in distress in the central Mediterranean. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/12/18/international-migrants-day-the-story-of-the-ocean-viking/]

    Mijatović also noted the growing use of surveillance technologies. “During discussions for the preparation of this document concerns were raised that, in some member states, pervasive surveillance activities created mounting challenges for human rights defenders, including lawyers and journalists,” she wrote.

    “Governments, in the name of national security concerns, often employ advanced surveillance tools to intercept communications and monitor online activities, including human rights defenders’ social media.”

    In 2022, the Greek journalists Thanasis Koukakis and Stavros Malichudis were allegedly targeted for investigating sensitive topics such as financial crime cases and migration. The Italian justice minister in 2021 dispatched inspectors to Sicily after revelations that prosecutors had intercepted hundreds of telephone conversations involving no fewer than 15 journalists and covering migration issues and aid workers in the central Mediterranean.

    Mijatović wrote: “Invasive surveillance practices, whether through physical surveillance, phone and internet tapping or by using spyware not only infringes on the personal security and privacy of individual human rights defenders, but also threaten the confidentiality between human rights defenders and the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants they assist, which is often crucial to working effectively.”

    She added that people helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants often experience extremely high levels of online hate and even death threats. Human rights defenders who are themselves refugees or from an ethnic minority background may also receive racist abuse, online and offline.

    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/22/people-helping-asylum-seekers-in-europe-face-rising-violence-report-warns

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • The Press Freedom Case of the Century

    In March 2023, when my book on the case against Julian Assange was published, the detained WikiLeaks founder was waiting to find out if an appeals court in London would allow him to appeal extradition to the United States.

    Now, Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange [review] has been available on bookshelves for one year—and Assange still does not know if he has permission to appeal.

    Such limbo has developed into a feature of the prosecution against Assange. The march of time whittles away at Assange while cold-blooded authorities keep him in arbitrary detention.

    Assange was 38 years of age when WikiLeaks garnered praise for publishing disclosures from US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Assange was an ardent, nimble, and sharp-witted advocate for the truth. But at 52, Assange is increasingly frail as delays in proceedings compound physical and mental health problems that he must endure in Belmarsh prison.

    President Joe Biden’s administration may prefer the limbo to an unprecedented trial that will invite global condemnation. No Biden official has expressed any reservations when it comes to charging Assange.

    Biden officials still sidestep reporters, who ask why the US government won’t drop the charges against Assange. Biden’s National Security Council spokesperson said in October, “This is something the Justice Department is handling, and I think it’s better if you go to them on that.”

    But the State Department has not always been so disciplined. On World Press Freedom Day in 2023, State Department spokesperson Verdant Patel endorsed the prosecution that was launched under President Donald Trump.

    “The State Department thinks that Mr. Assange has been charged with serious criminal conduct in the United States, in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in our nation’s history. His actions risked serious harm to U.S. national security to the benefit of our adversaries,” Patel stated.

    Patel added, “It put named human sources to grave and imminent risk and risk of serious physical harm and arbitrary detention.”

    What the State Department uttered was familiar. This is how officials responded when WikiLeaks first published US diplomatic cables in 2010.

    To be clear, Assange’s “role” was that of a publisher who received documents from Manning and engaged in standard newsgathering activities.

    A 2011 Associated Press review of sources, whom the State Department claimed were most at risk from publication of the cables, uncovered no evidence that any person was threatened. In fact, the potential for harm was “strictly theoretical.”

    Despite the stagnation of the case against Assange, an international movement to free him has only grown stronger. Lawmakers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Mexico sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding an end to the case.

    Twenty unions affiliated with the European Federation of Journalists showed solidarity by granting Assange honorary membership in each of their organizations.

    On March 4, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he hoped the British courts would block extradition, which is remarkable given Germany’s status as a powerful NATO country.

    More significantly, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed a motion passed by the Australian Parliament that called on the US government—a close military and intelligence partner—to “bring the matter to a close” so that Assange may return home to his country.

    Assange is one of the world’s most well-known political prisoners. If the US government puts the WikiLeaks founder on trial, it will not only threaten the First Amendment in the United States but also imperil investigative journalism everywhere around the world.

    It is unlikely that the legal system in the United Kingdom or the United States will save us from the damage to global press freedom that officials are inflicting on our collective rights. To prevent further damage, we will have to find a way to shame the US government into abandoning the case. Otherwise, even more of us may find ourselves prosecuted for committing acts of journalism.

  • First published at Project Censored.
    • The post The Press Freedom Case of the Century first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Israeli human rights groups accuse country of failing to abide by ICJ’s Gaza aid ruling

    Exclusive: 12 prominent organisations sign open letter criticising lack of humanitarian access

    Twelve of Israel’s most prominent human rights organisations have signed an open letter accusing the country of failing to comply with the international court of justice’s (ICJ) provisional ruling that it should facilitate access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    The court in The Hague made a number of legal requirements of Israel when it issued a provisional ruling in late January in response to South Africa’s complaint accusing the state of committing genocide in its military campaign in Gaza.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Indicators on how to track businesses’ respect for human rights defenders

    According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC), since January 2015, there have been nearly 5,000 attacks on human rights defenders working on business and human rights issues. Defenders and UN experts have long worked to hold businesses accountable for meeting their responsibilities to defend civic freedoms and protect human rights defenders. Part of this work has included articulating what these responsibilities are and practical steps to meet them.

    Inspired by and building from the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the BHRRC and ISHR 2018 report, ‘Shared Space Under Pressure: Business Support for Civic Freedoms and Human Rights Defenders, Guidance for Companies,’ lays out the normative framework that clarifies the corporate responsibility to act and to do no harm against HRDs. The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights reaffirmed this in their 2021 Guidance on ensuring respect for human rights defenders. This guidance develops the implications of the Guiding Principles for engaging with and safeguarding the rights of human rights defenders– providing both States and businesses with a set of recommendations to follow.

    Over the last few years, there has been an increasing articulation of the responsibility of businesses to respect and promote civic freedoms and the rights of Human Rights Defenders.  Some recent examples of these efforts include the 2023 Unilever human rights policy and implementation guide and the BHRRC Human Rights Defender Policy Tracker.

    In this same spirit, ISHR is launching a set of Indicators on Business and Human Rights that cover the following areas:

    • Zero tolerance on intimidation, attacks and threats against HRDs
    • Human rights due diligence
    • Transparency and accountability
    • Access to remedy/grievance mechanisms
    • Support for civic freedoms
    • Requirements for business partners and suppliers to have similar commitments

    The indicators come in list and poster form. ISHR has also produced a ‘snapshot’ of the UN Working Group’s Guidance on ensuring respect for human rights defenders, in the form of an explainer, available in multiple languages. 

    We created a wonderful “Responsibility of businesses” roadmap poster for you. It shows the important steps to take on the journey to a responsible business, respecting the rights of human rights defenders amongst all people. You can download it in poster size print quality in the download section and print it yourself to go on your office wall, to remind everyone about the little steps and big responsibility to take everyday.

    https://ishr.ch/defenders-toolbox/resources/business-and-human-rights-indicators

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Large Public Human Rights Archive at University of Minnesota

    On 3 March 2024 Gary Price from the University of Minnesota Libraries reports that the University of Minnesota now has one of the largest human rights archives at a public university, and it’s already helping researchers, educators, and human rights advocates across the globe.

    “With everything that’s happening in the world, if we can highlight aspects of the history of human rights, maybe that provides us an opportunity to learn what not to do in the future,” said Kris Kiesling, director of  the U of M’s Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

    Unlike other collections in ASC, the Minnesota Human Rights Archive (MHRA) is an umbrella archive composed of new human rights materials donated to the Libraries, as well as existing materials housed in other collections.

    From the Givens Collection of African American Literature to the Immigration History Research Center Archives, there’s a trove of materials about civil rights, LGBTQ rights, child labor, domestic violence, public health, and more. ASC archivists and curators are already investigating how their materials relate to human rights, and how their collections are positioned under the MHRA umbrella.

    Planning for MHRA began around eight years ago when Barbara Frey — the former director of the U of M Human Rights Program and a founder and previous director of the advocates for human rights — began contacting The Advocates, CVT, and other organizations across the state.

    Kiesling — alongside University Archivist Erik Moore and Social Welfare History Archivist Linnea Anderson — met with Frey, Weissbrodt, and Meyer Weinshel, former collections and outreach lead for UMN’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, to build the MHRA.

    The team transferred some materials from HRC in 2016, and later on, Patrick Finnegan, former assistant director of HRC and administrative associate for The Advocates, surveyed and listed Weissbrodt’s personal papers and research materials.

    Pooling new and existing materials under the human rights umbrella not only helps researchers by condensing the initial hunt-and-gather phase of their projects, but it also helps potential donors. It’s easier for them to articulate their goals for their material, Moore explained, and it’s easier to connect their work to the broad framework of human rights, than a more granular collection like the University Archives.

    University of Minnesota Libraries Unveils One of the Largest Public Human Rights Archives

    Learn More, Read the Complete Article,  View Videos

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Youth activists need protection against smear campaigns and arrests, says UN expert

    Children and teenagers routinely denied access to support given to older activists against online and physical attacks, says report

    Children campaigning to save the planet and defend human rights must be taken seriously and better protected from online smear campaigns, arrests and physical attacks, a new report by a leading UN expert has found.

    Child and youth activists are at the forefront of human rights struggles globally but are routinely dismissed, excluded and denied access to support available to older activists, according to Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, who interviewed nearly 100 young people from 37 countries.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Question for PNG foreign minister Tkatchenko – what does the defence pact mean for West Papua?

    ANALYSIS: By Ali Mirin

    Papua New Guinea and Indonesia have formally ratified a defence agreement a decade after its initial signing.

    PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and the Indonesian ambassador to the Pacific nation, Andriana Supandy, convened a press briefing in Port Moresby on February 29 to declare the ratification.

    The agreement enables an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

    According to Tkatchenko as reported by RNZ Pacific citing Benar News, “The Joint border patrols and different types of defence cooperation between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea of course will be part of the ever-growing security mechanism.”

    “It would be wonderful to witness the collaboration between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, both now and in the future, as they work together side by side. Indonesia is a rising Southeast Asian power that reaches into the South Pacific region and dwarfs Papua New Guinea in population, economic size and military might,” added the minister.

    In recent years, Indonesia has been asserting its own regional hegemony in the Pacific amid the rivalries of two superpowers — the United States and China.

    Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to bolster collaboration with Pacific nations amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region during the recent 2024 annual press statement held by the minister for foreign affairs at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung.

    Diverse Indigenous states
    The Pacific Islands are home to diverse sovereign Indigenous states and islands, and also home to two influential regional powers, Australia and New Zealand. This vast diverse region is increasingly becoming a pivotal strategic and political battleground for foreign powers — aiming to win the hearts and minds of the populations and governments in the region.

    Numerous visible and hidden agreements, treaties, talks, and partnerships are being established among local, regional, and global stakeholders in the affairs of this vast region.

    The Pacific region carries great importance for powerful military and economic entities such as China, the United States and its coalition, and Indonesia. For them, it serves as a crucial area for strategic bases, resource acquisition, food, and commercial routes.

    For Indigenous islanders, states, and tribal communities, the primary concern is around the loss of their territories, islands, and other vital cultural aspects, such as languages and traditional wisdom.

    The crumbling of Oceania, reminiscent of its past colonisation by various European powers, is now occurring. However, this time it is being orchestrated by foreign entities appointing their own influential local pawns.

    With these local pawns in place, foreign monarchs, nobility, warlords, and miscreants are advancing to reshape the region’s fate.

    The rejection by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to acknowledge the representation of West Papua by the United Liberation for West Papua (ULMWP) as a full member of the regional body in August 2023 highlights the diminishing influence of MSG leaders in decision-making processes concerning issues that are deemed crucial by the Papuan community as part of the “Melanesian family affairs”.

    Suspicion over ‘external forces’
    This raises suspicion of external forces at play within the Melanesian nations, manipulating their destinies. The question arises, who is orchestrating the fate of the Melanesian nations?

    Is it Jakarta, Beijing, Washington, or Canberra?

    In a world characterised by instability, safety and security emerges as a crucial prerequisite for fostering a peaceful coexistence, nurturing friendships, and enabling development.

    The critical question at hand pertains to the nature of the threats that warrant such protective measures, the identities of both the endangered and the aggressors, and the underlying rationale and mechanisms involved. Whose safety hangs in the balance in this discourse?

    And between whom does the spectre of threat loom?

    If you are a realist in a world of policymaking, it is perhaps wise not to antagonise the big guy with the big weapon in the room. The Minister of Papua New Guinea may be attempting to underscore the importance of Indonesia in the Pacific region, as indicated by his statements.

    If you are West Papuan, it makes little difference whether one leans towards realism or idealism. What truly matters is the survival of West Papuans, in the midst of the significant settler colonial presence of Asian Indonesians in their ancestral homeland.

    West Papuan refugee camp
    Two years ago, PNG’s minister stated the profound existential sentiments experienced by the West Papuans in 2022 while visiting a West Papuan refugee community in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

    During the visit, the minister addressed the West Papuan refugees with the following words:

    “The line on the map in middle of the island (New Guinea) is the product of colonial impact. These West Papuans are part of our family, part of our members and part of Papua New Guinea. They are not strangers.

    “We are separated only by imaginary lines, which is why I am here. I did not come here to fight, to yell, to scream, to dictate, but to reach a common understanding — to respect the law of Papua New Guinea and the sovereignty of Indonesia.”

    These types of ambiguous and opaque messages and rhetoric not only instil fake hope among the West Papuans, but also produce despair among displaced Papuans on their own soil.

    The seemingly paradoxical language coupled with the significant recent security agreement with the entity — Indonesia — that has been oppressing the West Papuans under the pretext of sovereignty, signifies one ominous prospect:

    Is PNG endorsing a “death decree” for the Indonesian security apparatus to hunt Papuans along the border and mountainous region of West Papua and Papua New Guinea?

    Security for West Papua
    Currently, the situation in West Papua is deteriorating steadily. Thousands of Indonesian military personnel have been deployed to various regions in West Papua, especially in the areas afflicted by conflict, such as Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Star Mountain, and along the border separating Papua New Guinea from West Papua.

    On the 27 February 2024, Indonesian military personnel captured two teenage students and fatally shot a Papuan civilian in the Yahukimo district. They alleged that the deceased individual was affiliated with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNB), although this assertion has yet to be verified by the TPNPB.

    Such incidents are tragically a common occurrence throughout West Papua, as the Indonesian military continue to target and wrongfully accuse innocent West Papuans in conflict-ridden regions of being associated with the TPNPB.

    Two West Papuan students who were arrested on the banks of Braza River
    Two West Papuan students who were arrested on the banks of Braza River in Yahukimo . . . under the watch of two Indonesian military with heavy SS2 guns standing behind them. Image: Kompas.com

    These deplorable acts transpired just prior to the ratification of a border operation agreement between the governments of the Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

    As the security agreement was being finalised, the Indonesian government announced a new military campaign in the highlands of West Papua. This operation, is named as “Habema” — meaning “must succeed to the maximum” — and was initiated in Jakarta on the 29 February 2024.

    Agus Subiyanto, the Indonesian military command and police command stated during the announcement:

    “My approach for Papua involves smart power, a blend of soft power, hard power, and military diplomacy. Establishing the Habema operational command is a key step in ensuring maximum success.”

    Indonesian military commander General Agus Subiyanto
    Indonesian military commander General Agus Subiyanto (left) with National Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo (centre) and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto while checking defence equipment at the TNI headquarters in Jakarta last Wednesday. Prabowo (right) is expected to become President after his decisive victory in the elections last week. Image: Antara News.

    The looming military operation in West Papua and its border regions, employing advanced smart weapon technology poised a profound danger for Papuans.

    A looming humanitarian crisis in West Papua, PNG, broader Melanesia and the Pacific region is inevitable, as unmanned aerial drones discern targets indiscriminately, wreak havoc in homes, and villages of the Papuan communities.

    The Indonesian security forces have increasingly employed such sophisticated technology in conflict zones since 2019, including regions like Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Pegunungan Bintang, and other volatile regions in West Papua.

    Consequently, villages have been razed to the ground, compelling inhabitants to flee to the jungle in search of sanctuary — an exodus that continues unabated as they remain displaced from their homes indefinitely.

    On 5 April 2018, the Indonesian government announced a military operation known as Damai Cartenz, which remains active in conflict-ridden regions, such as Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga, and Intan Jaya.

    The Habema security initiative will further threaten Papuans residing in the conflict zones, particularly in the vicinity of the border shared by Papua New Guinea and West Papua.

    There are already hundreds of people from the Star Mountains who have fled across to Tumolbil, in the Yapsie sub-district of the PNG province of West Sepik, situated on the border. They fled to PNG because of Indonesia’s military operation (RNZ 2021).

    According to RNZ News, individuals fleeing military actions conducted by the Indonesian government, including helicopter raids that caused significant harm to approximately 14 villages, have left behind foot tracks.

    The speaker explained that Papua New Guineans occasionally cross over to the Indonesian side, typically seeking improved access to basic services.

    The PNG government has been placing refugees from West Papua in border camps, the biggest one being at East Awin in the Western Province for many decades, with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

    How should PNG, UN respond?
    The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, article 36, states that “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation with their own members as well as other peoples across borders”.

    Over the past six years, regional and international organisations, such as the Melanesian Spearheads groups (MSG), Pacific islands Forum (PIF), Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP), the UN’s human rights commissioner as well as dozens of countries and individual parliaments, lawyers, academics, and politicians have been asking the Indonesian government to allow the UN’s human rights commissioner to visit West Papua.

    However, to date, no response has been received from the Indonesian government.

    What does this security deal mean for West Papuans?
    This is not just a simple security arrangement between Jakarta and Port Moresby to address border conflicts, but rather an issue of utmost importance for the people of Papua.

    It concerns the sovereignty of a nation — West Papua — that has been unjustly seized by Indonesia, while the international community watched in silence, witnessing the unfurling and unparalleled destruction of human lives and the ecological system.

    There is one noble thing the foreign minister of PNG and his government can do: ask why Jakarta is not responding to the request for a UN visit made by the international community, rather than endorsing an ‘illegal security pact’ with the illegal Indonesia colonial occupier over his supposed “family members separated only by imaginary lines”.

    Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands that share a border with the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He graduated last year with a Master of Arts in International Relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Chlöe Swarbrick to replace NZ’s outgoing Green Party co-leader James Shaw

    RNZ News

    Outspoken MP Chlöe Swarbrick will be the Green Party’s new co-leader alongside Marama Davidson, as climate change specialist James Shaw steps down.

    Last month, Shaw said he would be stepping down from his duties as co-leader in March.

    Dunedin-based activist and conservationist Alex Foulkes had put his hand up too for the role but announced on Sunday that he had conceded defeat. Swarbrick received 169 votes from party delegates, Foulkes received no votes.

    Speaking to media today, Swarbrick, the MP for Auckland Central, thanked both Davidson — who could not be at the conference because she had covid-19 — and Shaw.

    She said the Greens were a party that would speak for all voices in New Zealand, and believed it could make changes for the better of all in New Zealand, sharing finite resources “justly and equitably” as well as protecting the environment.

    “We know our environment is not an endless resource to keep drawing from — we know there is enough to go around.”

    She said the Green Party “care a lot about whakapapa”, and described Shaw as a “giant” whose shoulders the Green Party stands upon.

    ‘No-one stands alone’
    “We know as the late great Efeso Collins put it, that: ‘No-one stands alone, no-one succeeds alone, and no-one suffers alone’.

    “James Shaw is one of those giants who have contributed decades to our movement, his enduring legacy of the Zero Carbon Act and establishing the Independent Climate Change Commission will hold this and all future governments to account on the scientific non-negotiables of a liveable planet.


    Greens elect Chloë Swarbrick as new co-leader. Video: RNZ News

    “We can take world-leading climate action that also improves people’s lives. We can provide a guaranteed minimum income for all, we can protect our oceans, we can have functional public transport, we can invest properly in our public services and housing, education and health-care, if we have the political courage to implement the tax system to do so.

    “And the Greens have that political courage.”

    Swarbrick also praised Davidson: “I have been inspired by her strength, the clarity of her conviction and her embodiment of our Green values every single day . . . ”

    Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw
    Chlöe Swarbrick praises co-leader Marama Davidson (pictured0, who could not attend today’s conference due to covid-19, and outgoing co-leader James Shaw. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver

    Swarbrick criticised the government’s 100-day plan and said, as Green co-leader, she was equally as comfortable marching in the streets as she was in Parliament.

    “The Greens’ see you, we hear you and we will represent you in the halls of power.”

    Democracy can work better
    Change would “require human cooperation on a scale we have never seen before”, she said: “Democracy can work better for all of us.

    “Politics belongs to those who show up, and we need everyday people to not leave politics to the politicians or we’ll get what we’ve got”.

    The Greens were concerned about a drift to the right side of politics in New Zealand, she said.

    Change would not come “from top down vested interest”, she said.

    “Legacy politics is not working to serve people and the planet.”

    Swarbrick said both the “red and blue” parties were tying up votes in a duopoly, and not serving voters effectively: “I believe we are the leading voice on the left.”

    In a statement earlier today, Swarbrick thanked the party’s members and reiterated the Greens’ vision for the future.

    Decent life for all
    “Aotearoa can be a place where everyone has what they need to live a decent life, and our natural world is restored and protected, on a foundation honouring te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is the Greens’ vision, and one we work to see realised every single day.”

    Shaw said there was no-one else he would rather take his place as co-leader than Swarbrick.

    “Ever since I first sat down to coffee with her after her mayoral campaign in 2016 she has struck me as a remarkable leader with an extraordinary belief in the power of people to make a difference.

    “Her passion and strength is second to none, and alongside Marama, will lead the Greens to make even more of a difference in the future.”

    Davidson said it was fantastic to be have Swarbrick by her side, leading their biggest caucus.

    “Chlöe is an incredible MP, colleague, and friend. She has proven time and time again her unique ability to mobilise communities to push for the change Aotearoa needs,” Davidson said in a statement.

    “It has never been more important for there to be a strong voice for an Aotearoa that works for everyone, where everyone is supported to live good lives, in warm dry homes, and where we take bold action to cut pollution and protect native wildlife,” she said.

    ‘Fighting for the future’
    “Chlöe and I will be in communities up and down Aotearoa working with people to build an unprecedented grassroots movement fighting for the future Aotearoa deserves.”

    Alex Foulkes
    Dunedin-based activist and conservationist Alex Foulkes . . . only challenger. Image: RNZ News

    Foulkes, who admitted defeat in the co-leadership race, congratulated Swarbrick and said she would do an incredible job.

    “I am confident Chlöe and Marama will lead the party from strength to strength.

    “I have enjoyed the debate with Chlöe and the party members and would like to commend and thank the party staff for the efficient organisation of the election and the members for their engagement and respectful, intelligent, and thoughtful questions throughout this process.”

    He described her as “one of the most talented politicians in Aotearoa New Zealand”, and said he never expected to win against her.

    “Indeed, someone suggested to me that I had more chance of spotting the fabled South-Island kokako than winning this election.”

    However, he said his goal in contesting was to discuss and debate policies. Last month, he put forward a radical manifesto, outlining his vision.

    Who is Chlöe Swarbrick?
    Ranked third on the party list, the Auckland Central MP appeared to be the popular choice from when Shaw made his announcement.

    After losing the mayoral race in 2016, she joined the Green Party.

    Winning the Auckland Central seat in 2020 and becoming the country’s youngest MP in 42 years, she has proven her popularity from early on.

    She is the first Green MP ever to hold on to a seat for more than one term after winning again in the 2023 elections.

    Swarbrick denied leadership ambitions in 2022, when more than 25 percent of delegates at the party’s annual general meeting voted to reopen Shaw’s position.

    She has regularly registered in preferred prime minister polls ahead of the party’s co-leaders.

    Last year, she had to apologise to Parliament a week after saying in the debating chamber Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had lied — a breach of parliamentary rules.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Questions for the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)

    Mass marches, chanting and banner waving are essential to the campaign but it’s also important to challenge UK Government policy and actions through ALL democratic channels, especially now that Lord Walney recommends that political leaders ban their MPs from engaging with PSC and suchlike. Lord Walney, aka John Woodcock, is a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel but PSC and mainstream media, strangely, don’t mention this important fact.

    Meanwhile, UKGov (Department for Business and Trade) have dismissed a petition calling for all licences for arms to Israel to be revoked. Their excuse is that “we rigorously assess every application on a case-by-case basis against strict assessment criteria, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (the SELC)…. The SELC provide a thorough risk assessment framework for export licence applications and require us to think hard about the impact of providing equipment and its capabilities. We will not license the export of equipment where to do so would be inconsistent with the SELC.”

    They don’t bother to explain how Israel manages to satisfy those “strict” criteria and survive such a “rigorous” process. We’re supposed to take it on trust. A serious campaign group would check out the SELC and provide their activists with an expert briefing.

    What, very briefly, does the SELC say?

    There are 8 criteria and, on reading them, you might well conclude that Israel fails to satisfy at least 5. MPs and ministers pretending otherwise mislead Parliament and insult the public. And I’ve always understood that’s a serious matter and punishable.

    CRITERION 6 talks of the need for “commitment to non-proliferation and other areas of arms control and disarmament”, but how safe is anyone under the threat of Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nukes? Israel is the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention either. It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention.

    CRITERION 4 worries about whether “the [exported] items would be used in the territory of another country other than for legitimate purposes”. Five months of genocide surely answers that one.

    Under CRITERION 3 the Government takes into account (a) whether granting a licence would provoke or prolong armed conflicts; (b) whether the items are likely to be used other than for the legitimate national security or defence of the recipient and (c) whether the items would be likely to cause, avert, increase or decrease conflict or instability in the country of final destination, taking into account the balance of forces between states or actors concerned; humanitarian purposes or impacts; the nature of the conflict including the conduct of all states or actors involved; and whether the items might be used for gender-based violence or serious acts of violence against women or children.

    CRITERION 2 is about respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country of final destination as well as respect by that country for international humanitarian law. The recipient country is assessed for its attitude towards relevant principles established by international human rights law. The Government will not grant a licence if “there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate internal repression”. That includes torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary detentions; and other serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. As the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza are deemed to be occupied by Israel using military force, Israel’s responsibilities towards, and treatment of, the Palestinians is presumably included in this.

    CRITERION 1 stresses UKGov’s commitment to UN and numerous other international obligations and how it would not grant an export licence if inconsistent with these.

    It seems to me that Israel falls flat on its face when confronted with these safeguards and, given our “rigorous” Government’s unwavering support for Israel, it is all too embarrassing to admit it. So it’s business as usual with the genocidal regime. Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch has ministerial responsibility for this fiasco.

    The PSC is critical of the way UKGov ignores its own SELC rules and fails to comply with the UK’s international obligations regarding arms exports to Israel. But are PSC and its campaign partners taking real action? There’s mention of a ‘Stop Arming Israel’ campaign in PSC’s literature from 2017 but no detail. PSC and partners, with their access to law and media specialists, could take apart the Government’s dishonest performance, which makes our nation complicit in Israel’s genocide and war crimes, and hold it accountable through available channels. That might achieve more than the usual mass protests. But is any of it happening?

    The post Questions for the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Alicia Keys criticised for Women’s Day event in ‘misogynist’ Saudi Arabia

    The US singer has been called out by human rights activists for hosting a summit and performing on stage in the repressive state

    Performer Alicia Keys projects a powerful position on women’s rights, hosting a regular Women to Women summit and posting inspirationally on Instagram on Friday for International Women’s Day. But the singer-songwriter’s message is undermined for some by the revelation that she is hosting the third edition of her summit this weekend in Saudi Arabia.

    The American performer and her guests, including Pharrell Williams, best known for his worldwide hit Happy, are to discuss “how women are pushing the culture forward in Saudi Arabia and around the world”, she has announced, before the get-together in the coastal city of Jeddah.

    Continue reading…

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

  • ‘Not complicated’ over killing children, Swarbrick tells Gaza ceasefire rally

    Asia Pacific Report

    About 5000 protesters calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli’s genocidal  war on Gaza took today part in a rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square and a march up Queen Street in the business heart of New Zealand’s largest city.

    This was one of a series of protests across more than 25 cities and towns across Aotearoa New Zealand in one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began last October.

    Many passionate Palestinian and indigenous Māori speakers and a Filipino activist condemned the Israeli settler colonial project over the destruction caused in the occupation of Palestinian lands and the massive loss of civilian lives in the war.

    The most rousing cheers greeted Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick who condemned the killing of “more than 30,000 innocent civilian lives” — most of them women and children with International Women’s Day being celebrated yesterday.

    “The powers that be want you to think it is complicated . . .,” she said. “it’s not. Here’s why.

    “We should all be able to agree that killing children is wrong.

    “We should all be able to agree that indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians who have been made refugees in their own land is wrong,” she said and was greeted with strong applause.

    “Everybody in power who disagrees with that is wrong.”

    ‘Stop the genocide’
    Chants of shame followed that echoing the scores of placards and banners in the crowd declaring such slogans as “Stop the genocide”, “From Gaza to Paekākāriki, this govt doesn’t care about tamariki. Free Palestine”, “Women for a free Palestine”, “Unlearn lies about Palestine”, “Food not bombs for the tamariki of Gaza”, “From the river to the sea . . . aways was, always will be. Ceasefire now.”

    Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick addressing the crowd
    Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick (third from left) addressing the crowd . . . “killing children is wrong.” Image: David Robie/APR

    Three young girls being wheeled in a pram held a placard saying “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around”, in reference to a protest against the New Zealand government joining a small US-led group of nations taking reprisals against Yemen.

    The Yemeni Houthis are blockading the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestine to prevent ships linked to Israel, UK or the US from getting through the narrow waterway. They say they are taking this action under the Genocide Convention.

    Swarbrick vowed that the Green Party — along with Te Māori Pati — the only political party represented at the rally, would pressure the conservative coalition government to press globally for an immediate ceasefire, condemnation of Israeli atrocities, restoration of funding to the Palestine refugee relief agency UNRWA, and expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.

    Meanwhile, as protests took place around the country, national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) declared on social media from Christchurch that “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon and [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters can’t find the energy to tweet for an end to Israel’s genocidal starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.

    He added that Israel continued to turn away humanitarian convoys of desperately needed aid from northern Gaza.

    “But PM Christopher Luxon has been silent while FM Winston Peters has been indolent.”

    Palestine will be free"
    Palestine will be free” . . . three friends show their solidarity for occupied Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR

    Death toll rising
    Al Jazeera reports that the death toll is ris­ing as Is­rael in­ten­si­fies at­tacks on Rafah in southern Gaza, and also in cen­tral Gaza.

    Three more children have died of malnutrition and dehydration at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, according to health officials, taking the total confirmed toll from starvation to 23.

    The US military has denied responsibility for an airdrop of humanitarian aid that Gaza officials say killed five people and injured several others when parachutes failed to open while Israeli forces again opened fire on aid seekers in northern Gaza.

    President Joe Biden’s plan of a temporary port for maritime delivery of aid has been widely condemned by UN officials and other critics as an “election year ploy”.

    Dr Rami Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, said the plan was “a ruse most of the world can see through”. It could give Israel even tighter control over what gets into the Gaza Strip in the future while completing “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.

    "All children are precious"
    “All children are precious” . . . a child and her mother declare their priorities at the protest. Image: David Robie/APR

    Protesters stop US lecturer
    Wellington Scoop reports that students and activist groups at Victoria University of Wellington yesterday protested against a lecture by the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Dr Bonnie Jenkins.

    Dr Jenkins is a senior official in charge of AUKUS implementation, a military alliance currently between Australia, UK and USA.

    About 150 people, mostly students from groups including Justice for Palestine, Student Justice for Palestine-Pōneke (SJP), Stop AUKUS and Peace Action Wellington rallied outside the university venue in Pipitea to protest against further collaborations with the US.

    A peaceful protest was undertaken inside the lecture hall at the same time.

    An activist began by calling for “a moment of silence for all the Palestinians killed by the US-funded genocide in Gaza”.

    He then condemned the weapons that the US was sending to Gaza, before eventually being ejected from the lecture theatre.

    Shortly after, another activist stood up and said “Karetao o te Kāwana kakīwhero!” (“Puppets of this redneck government”) and quoted from the women’s Super Rugby Aupiki team Hurricanes Poua’s revamped haka: “Mai te awa ki te moana (From the river to the sea), free free Palestine!”

    "You don't have to be a Muslim"
    “You don’t have to be a Muslim to support Palestine – just be human” . . . says this protester on the eve of Ramadan. Image: David Robie/APR

    Video on ‘imperialism’
    Dr Jenkins was ushered away for the second time. Subsequently a couple of activists took to speaking and playing a video about how AUKUS represented US imperialism.

    When organisers later came in to announce that Dr Jenkins would not be continuing with her lecture, chants of “Free, free Palestine!” filled the room.

    “For five months, Aotearoa has been calling for our government to do more to stop the genocide in Gaza. And for years, we have been calling our governments to stand against Israel’s occupation of Palestine,” said Samira Zaiton, a Justice for Palestine organiser.

    “We are now at the juncture of tightening relations with settler colonies who will only destroy more lives, more homes and more lands and waters. We want no part in this. We want no part in AUKUS.”

    Dr Jenkins’ lecture was organised by Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, to address “security challenges in the 21st century”.

    Valerie Morse, an organiser with Peace Action Wellington, said: “Experts on foreign policy and regional diplomacy have done careful research on the disastrous consequences of involving ourselves with AUKUS.

    “Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is not a nuclear testing ground and sacrifice zone for US wars.”

    "When silence is betrayal"
    “When silence is betrayal” . . . motorcycle look at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APR
    The Israeli military's "murder machine"
    The Israeli military’s “murder machine” . . . “there’s no good reason for bombing children”. Image: David Robie/APR


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.