Contentious liability clause that could have exposed institutions to being sued by Holocaust deniers is scrapped
The government is to overhaul legislation imposing free speech duties on higher education in England, scrapping a controversial civil liability that potentially exposed universities to being sued by Holocaust deniers.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told parliament that while the government intended to retain key parts of the law passed by the previous Conservative administration, she planned to revoke the “statutory tort” that allowed legal action by anyone claiming their freedom of speech had been restricted, and to largely exempt student unions from the legislation.
MANILA — Manila may resort to measures such as filing another international lawsuit like the 2016 case against Beijing to stop China’s continuing intimidating actions in the Philippines’ South China Sea waters, a senior Filipino official warned.
Manila has tried options including protests and official diplomatic complaints, and yet a Chinese coast guard ship – the world’s largest – is again in Philippine waters, said a spokesman of the Task Force for the West Philippine Sea, which is Manila’s name for the waters it claims.
The Philippine task force spokesman Jonathan Malaya explained at a press conference on Tuesday that Manila was running out of options in dealing with Beijing’s continued actions to assert what China claims is its sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea.
Since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assumed the presidency in June 2022, his administration has filed a total of 199 diplomatic protests against Chinese vessels and activities in the waterway.
Reporters asked whether the Philippines was thinking of filing another lawsuit akin to the one adjudicated in its favor and against Beijing in 2016 by an international arbitral tribunal.
“Will [the presence of the Chinese ship in Manila-claimed waters] lead to another case? All options are on the table,” he answered.
“[T]he closer the ‘monster’ ship is [to] Philippine waters, the more it [raises tensions] and the more the Philippine government contemplates things it was not contemplating before.”
Malaya said that China was “pushing us to the wall” but the Philippines would not back down.
“We do not waver or cower in the face of intimidation. On the contrary, it strengthens our resolve because we know we are in the right.”
“The Monster” refers to the giant 12,000-ton China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel 5901, which patrolled the disputed Scarborough Shoal area in recent days.
The behemoth subsequently moved to the northwestern coast of the Philippines’ Luzon island on Tuesday, where it was last spotted some 77 nautical miles (143 kilometers) from the shoreline.
China responded to Malay’s comments saying it maintained its claim in the waterway. The CCG vessels’ activities there were lawful and “fully justified,” added the superpower’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
“China’s sovereignty and rights and interests in the South China Sea were established in the long course of history, and are solidly grounded in history and the law and compliant with the international law and practice,” spokesman Guo Jiakun said Monday at a news conference.
“We call on the Philippines once again to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and stop all its actions that jeopardize peace and stability and complicate the situation in the South China Sea.”
.(.)
Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon Island, the Scarborough Shoal – known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines – has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.
Beijing’s possession of the shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague.
The court’s international arbitral tribunal in 2016 ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision.
Philippine officials on Monday said the government had filed yet another diplomatic protest over the presence of Chinese ships in waters within its exclusive economic zone.
In recent years, a slew of countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, France and United Kingdom, have also supported Manila and carried out joint sails with the Philippines in the contested sea.
Reporters asked Malaya whether the Philippine government was considering asking its foreign allies the U.S. and Japan for help in driving away the Chinese vessel.
“Now the ball is in the court of the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” he said.
Recently, the Philippine Senate ratified a so-called Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan, allowing the two allied nations to deploy troops on each other’s soil for military exercises.
The RAA – which will take effect once Philippine President Marcos signs off on it and Japan’s legislature ratifies it – is the first of its kind signed by Tokyo with an Asian country.
Japan, unlike the Philippines, does not have territorial claims that overlap with China’s expansive ones in the South China Sea.
But Tokyo has a separate dispute with Beijing over a group of uninhabited islands in the Senkaku chain (also known as the Diaoyu Islands) in the East China Sea.
On Monday, the leaders of the Philippines, Japan and the United States held a telephone summit to discuss regional security and their countries’ “continuing cooperation” amid China’s activities in the disputed South China Sea.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.
As the Indian Supreme Court prepares to hear the landmark case challenging India’s Marital Rape Exception, Kanaksha Kataria discusses how this colonial-era law violates a multitude of constitutional rights. Drawing on leading constitutional frameworks, she argues the legal immunity granted to husbands creates a sanctioned hierarchy of oppression that fundamentally undermines married women’s constitutional rights to equality, dignity, and bodily autonomy.
The Marital Rape Exception (MRE) in Indian criminal law stands as one of the most patriarchal yet contentious vestiges of colonial jurisprudence. MRE exemplifies the deep contradiction between conventional patriarchal norms and basic constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity and autonomy. As the Supreme Court prepares to address this issue in Hrikesh Sahoo v. State of Karnataka, the fundamental question emerges yet again: can the legal immunity granted to husbands for non-consensual sexual acts within marriage withstand constitutional scrutiny?
This analysis evaluates the constitutional invalidity of MRE via several lenses. First, drawing on Tarunabh Khaitan’s framework of discrimination law, it is argued that MRE fails the stringent standards of Articles 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution. Second, it is argued that MRE transgresses beyond equality provisions and ruthlessly undermines married women’s rights to dignity, personal liberty, and freedom from exploitation under Articles 19, 21, and 23.
Neoteric jurisprudential developments make the MRE’s constitutional position progressively untenable. The Supreme Court’s interpretations in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India(decriminalising consensual same-sex relations) and Joseph Shine v. Union of India(decriminalising adultery) have signalled progressive shifts, bolstering the constitutional foundation for personal autonomy and sexual agency. Yet, the existence of MRE creates a paradoxical constitutional framework where married women possess fewer rights over their bodily autonomy than their unmarried counterparts. This legal matrix creates a sanctioned hierarchy of oppression by actively perpetuating a hierarchal regime of rights protections, effectively institutionalising gender-based discrimination.
The persistence of this legally sanctioned hierarchy is understood through Rochana Bajpai’s concept of the “normative deficit” in the Indian constitutional framework. While Bajpai originally developed this argument to analyse group-differentiated rights, its application to MRE reveals why orthodox and constitutionally infirm value systems continue to undermine fundamental protections.
Violations of Article 14: the Right to Equality and Non-discrimination
MRE violates this principle by creating an arbitrary distinction between married and unmarried women when it comes to sexual autonomy and protection from sexual violence. To analyse the unconstitutionality of the MRE under Article 14, one must apply the two well-established tests: (1) the reasonable classification test, and (2) the arbitrariness test.
1. The test of reasonable classification Under this test, a law must satisfy two conditions:
The classification must be based on an intelligible differential.
There must be a rational nexus between the differentia and the object sought to be achieved by the law.
A. Intelligible differentia Intelligible differentia denotes a criterion to test reasonable classification. It is a lucid and discernible ground that distinguishes one group of people or situations from another for legislative purposes. It is the parameter which justifies treating groups distinctly. MRE classifies women based on their marital status. It distinguishes between married and unmarried women. This classification is prima facie based on intelligible differentia. It recognises the status of marriage as a legal relationship distinct from other relationships. So, it makes a clear distinction between married women and unmarried women regarding sexual intercourse and consent.
B. Rational nexus However, the differentia must not only be intelligible, but it must also bear a rational connection to the object of the law. The object of rape laws, as defined under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, is to protect a woman’s bodily integrity and sexual autonomy by criminalising non-consensual sexual intercourse. MRE undermines this objective by exempting husbands from prosecution for non-consensual sexual acts within marriage. This exemption does not serve the goal of protecting women from sexual violence. Instead, it creates a legal loophole where a woman’s consent is devalued simply because of her marital status i.e. her relationship with the very perpetrator of the crime.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that laws failing to achieve their stated objectives are unconstitutional. In State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkarand EP Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, the Court emphasised that the classification must have a rational nexus to the purpose of the law. In this case, the object of protecting women from sexual violence is undermined by the distinction based on marital status, as MRE excludes married women from the same legal protections available to unmarried women. Thus, it violates the core tenets of equality enshrined under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.
C. Strict scrutiny MRE should be subject to the strict scrutiny standard because it involves a fundamental right – the right to bodily autonomy and sexual integrity under Article 21. When a law infringes upon fundamental rights, the courts are required to apply strict scrutiny, which requires that the law:
Must have a compelling state interest, and
Must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest in the least restrictive way.
In this case, the purported compelling state interest is the preservation of the sanctity of marriage. However, this interest cannot justify the violation of a woman’s fundamental right to bodily autonomy. The preservation of marriage cannot be elevated above an individual’s fundamental right to consent or refuse sexual intercourse. In other words, the object of “preserving marriages” based on patriarchal notions cannot override constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights. As the Supreme Court held in Shayara Bano v. Union of India, laws that operate on patriarchal assumptions about women’s roles in marriage are inherently discriminatory and violate constitutional principles of equality.
Further, the law is not narrowly tailored to achieve its objective. Even if protecting the institution of marriage is considered a legitimate interest, MRE is an overly broad measure. Instead of addressing the complexities of marital relationships through other legal mechanisms, MRE gives blanket immunity to husbands. Here stripping married women of their fundamental right to bodily integrity is overlooked and in turn, criminal impunity is extended. Under strict scrutiny, this law would clearly fail because it is neither justified by a compelling interest nor narrowly tailored to achieve that interest without infringing on fundamental rights.
2. The test of arbitrariness As established in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and EP Royappa, arbitrariness is antithetical to equality under Article 14. A law is arbitrary when it acts irrationally, disproportionately, or without a proper guiding principle. MRE creates an arbitrary distinction between married and unmarried women by assuming that married women, by their marital status, have consented to all future sexual acts with their husbands.
This assumption of irrevocable consent is rooted in patriarchal norms that view marriage as a license for the husband’s unchecked control over the wife’s body. Such an outdated notion is arbitrary because it disregards the evolving understanding of marriage as a partnership between equals, where both parties retain their autonomy. By treating sexual consent within marriage differently than outside marriage, MRE operates irrationally, disproportionately impacting married women and denying them the equal protection of the law. This implies that legally such women are not victims of sexual abuse simply because the perpetrator is their husband.
As Justice Nariman explained in Shayara Bano, manifest arbitrariness includes laws that operate disproportionately and without adequate guiding principles. MRE allows married women to be subjected to sexual violence without legal recourse, which clearly meets the definition of manifest arbitrariness. It is excessive, irrational, and fails to recognise married women as autonomous individuals deserving of equal protection under the law.
Violations of Article 15: Prohibition of Discrimination MRE also violates Article 15(1) of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex. Khaitan’s work provides a framework for understanding how the MRE discriminates against women by reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes and creating an unequal legal regime for married women.
1. Anti stereotyping principle The anti-stereotyping principle, as highlighted in Anuj Garg and Navtej Singh Johar, prohibits laws that are based on gendered stereotypes. The MRE rests on the archaic notion that women, once married, implicitly consent to sexual relations with their husbands in semper. This perpetuates the stereotype of women as submissive sexual partners who are bound by the norms of marriage. It reinforces the damaging stereotype that marriage strips women of their individuality, compelling them to sacrifice even their most fundamental rights in the name of preserving peace.
By allowing husbands to act on these stereotypes with impunity, MRE effectively reduces the married woman’s sexual autonomy to that of her husband’s property, violating the anti-stereotyping principle under Article 15. The concept of marital consent as irrevocable and automatic has no place in a modern constitutional framework based on equality and autonomy.
2. Intersectionality and gender discrimination Khaitan also emphasises the importance of considering intersectionality when analysing gender-based discrimination. In this context, MRE discriminates against women based not just on their gender but also on their marital status. Married women are subjected to a higher threshold of rights violations due to their gender and their relationship status resulting in multi-dimensional discrimination. The Court’s evolving jurisprudence on equality, especially in Joseph Shine, highlights how patriarchy and marriage norms have historically suppressed women’s autonomy, and how such suppression cannot be constitutionally justified under Article 15.
The broader constitutional implications: Articles 19, 21, and 23 The constitutional violations stemming from MRE extend beyond Articles 14 and 15. Article 19(1)(a) protects personal expression, which includes sexual autonomy. By legally depriving married women of their right to say “no,” MRE silences a critical aspect of self-expression. Additionally, Article 21’s guarantee of life and personal liberty has been liberally construed to include dignity and bodily integrity (per Maneka Gandhi, Puttaswamy etc). MRE, by stripping married women of autonomy over their bodies, violates this essential right to live with dignity. Further, Article 23’s prohibition against forced labour jurisprudentially extends to situations where coercion is social, economic, or legal. When women are legally compelled to engage in non-consensual sexual acts, the law becomes complicit in enabling a form of forced labour within the home, undermining constitutional protections against servitude.
The proportionality test: why MRE fails judicial scrutiny India’s judicial system frequently applies the proportionality test to assess restrictions on fundamental rights, requiring that such measures serve a legitimate aim and are necessary and proportionate to achieving that aim. MRE, purportedly intended to preserve the sanctity of marriage, cannot be justified by this rationale. As seen in Shayara Bano, preserving patriarchal norms cannot override the fundamental rights to equality and autonomy. Moreover, less restrictive measures – such as promoting mutual respect within marriage – could achieve the same objectives without infringing on a woman’s autonomy.
MRE and the “normative deficit” in Indian law Rochana Bajpai’s argument on group-differentiated rights is a viable theoretical lens to examine MRE. Bajpai’s theory sheds light on why certain profound constitutional guarantees remain unrealised despite their formal recognition. MRE epitomises what Bajpai calls a “normative deficit”- a lack of established and reasoned justifications to substantiate rights – in three crucial ways. First, akin to under-theorised protections of cultural and religious minority rights that Bajpai analysed, women’s sexual autonomy within marriage is bereft of a well-founded normative justification in Indian jurisprudence. Second, this lacuna of a robust normative justification has allowed patriarchal and misogynist assumptions to fill the void thereby perpetuating the fiction of what can be termed “perpetual consent”. Third and most critically, the failure to develop any normative justification has transversed constitutional silence to active institutional oppression.
This vacuum of normativity has several profound implications. Rather than just failing to protect married women’s rights, the legal system and the State actively participate in their subordination. MRE exemplifies not merely an oversight but also a systemic devaluation of constitutional principles- where the institution of matrimony, paradoxically, strips women of fundamental protections that they would otherwise possess. This state-endorsed hierarchy of rights shows how normative deficits can calcify into a stark constitutional deficit by allowing socially entrenched patriarchal norms to masquerade as statutory and legal principles.
The continued existence of MRE reveals how the lack of strong normative frameworks does not merely leave a void but creates room for unconstitutional practices to acquire legitimacy. Just like in the case of cultural and religious minorities, it so happens that these unconstitutional practices are often at the cost of minority protections.
The path forward MRE stands as the epitome of constitutional abdication and normative failure in Indian law. Through its unconstitutional and inhumane preservation of patriarchal power within marriage, it not only contravenes fundamental rights but also legitimises gender inequality and violence in one of the most intimate spheres of human life. The constitutional challenge in Hrikesh Sahoo v. State of Karnataka gives the Supreme Court a historic opportunity to remedy this long-standing injustice. Such a step would go a long way in fulfilling the Constitutional promise of equal dignity and autonomy for all.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Fadi al-Wahidi’s condition is deteriorating, say hospital staff, who do not have medication needed to treat him
It was about 3pm on 9 October when a small group of Al Jazeera journalists arrived at the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The team say they were reporting on the displacement of Palestinian families after Israel launched its third offensive on the area, turning it into an unrecognisable wasteland of rubble.
Among them was the cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi, who moved ahead and began recording as his team set up their equipment. “At the time, none of us were aware that the IDF was close by,” says the 25-year-old from his bed at al-Helou hospital in Gaza. “But suddenly, the sound of gunfire surrounded us.”
Afghanistan’s ‘morality police’ arrested Samira at work in Kabul – and then made the 19-year-old marry her employer
It was a normal summer morning in July last year when 19-year-old Samira* made her way to the carpet-weaving shop where she worked in Kabul to pick up her wages. She had no way of knowing that in just a few hours, her life as she knew it would be over.
She would end the day in a Taliban police station, a victim of forced marriage with her entire future decided for her by a group of strangers with guns.
A failure of justice, and draconian Tory law, put Gaie Delap in prison. A failure of government is keeping her there
Gaie Delap will turn 78 on Friday, in Eastwood Park prison, Gloucestershire. Sentenced to 20 months last August for climbing a gantry over the M25 for Just Stop Oil, she was released in November to serve the rest of her sentence on a home detention curfew. But the electronic tag that she was required to wear couldn’t go round her ankle because she has deep-vein thrombosis and it might have risked causing her a stroke. It couldn’t go round her wrist because they couldn’t find a tag small enough, which people keep saying is because she’s frail. Delap hates being called frail. Her wrist is a perfectly reasonable size, 14-and-a-half centimetres. It’s the wrist-tag design that’s wanting. The topsy-turvy world where a government contractor, Serco, can fail and fail again, while a citizen with a social purpose gets called back to prison five days before Christmas to atone for that failure, isn’t even the most absurd thing about this story.
Delap was engaged in direct action to raise awareness about the climate emergency, and the day citizens stop doing that is the day that progressive politics might as well give up and go home. Whatever pretzel twists Labour ministers have to perform to sound as if they’re on the side of the decent, honest commuter, while simultaneously signalling that they understand the scale of the climate crisis, they must surely remember this: the trade union movement, the peace movement, the suffragette movement, the civil rights movement, the climate justice movement; every known movement of change has relied on non-violent action to disrupt the status quo.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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In ‘potentially trailblazing’ decision, European court of human rights finds country engaging in illicit deportations
The European court of human rights has found Greece guilty of conducting “systematic” pushbacks of would-be asylum seekers, ordering it to compensate a woman forcibly expelled back to Turkey despite her attempts to seek protection in the country.
In a judgment described as potentially trailblazing, the Strasbourg-based tribunal awarded the complainant damages of €20,000 (£16,500), citing evidence that the frontline EU state was engaging in the illicit deportations when she was removed.
Janine Jackson interviewed Free Press’s Yanni Chen about the appellate court TikTok ruling for the December 20, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: As we record on December 18, we’ve heard that the Supreme Court will address TikTok’s challenge to the federal law that was set to ban the platform in the US on January 19, unless they divest from Chinese ownership. The New York Times yesterday noted:
Lawmakers said the app’s ownership represented a risk because the Chinese government’s oversight of private companies would allow it to retrieve sensitive information about Americans, or to spread propaganda, though they have not publicly shared evidence that this has occurred.
A DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an earlier challenge from TikTok, ruling that the measure was justified by what were called “grave national security threats.” The judges, the Times reported, were united in accepting the US government’s arguments that “the Chinese government could exploit the site to gain access to users’ data to spread covert disinformation.”
Well, one can practically hear the buzzing in the heads of anyone who has used social media, ever: “Access to our data? No way! Disinformation? You don’t say.” We are in medias res, but what’s at stake, not even so much for TikTok as a company, as for its 170 million US users’—and really everyone’s—ability to access information we want and need, and our rights within those spheres?
Yanni Chen is policy counsel at the group Free Press, who’ve been working on this. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Yanni Chen.
Yanni Chen: Thank you so much for having me, Janine.
JJ: The fact that the rhetoric around the TikTok ban relies on phrases like “foreign adversary nation” doesn’t make it sound very 21st century, for a start, but the statement that we aren’t offered evidence that the thing being charged is happening, shouldn’t that at least raise questions about this move, and what else might be going on?
YC: I think absolutely, and that’s one thing that we found pretty troubling about the opinion in general. The court goes through and says that either intermediate or strict scrutiny, which are the higher of the two levels of constitutional analysis that is afforded to constitutional claims, applies here. And they say the highest scrutiny that the court applies, strict scrutiny, this law passes that, and then they don’t cite any evidence that the government didn’t provide publicly. They don’t substantiate it.
And so I think one thing that we have trouble with is the idea that the court can find that a law passes strict scrutiny with a clearly viewpoint-based angle, and not provide even a shred of evidence. And this opens up the door for further precedent, for further laws to be put on the books without that kind of substantiation either.
JJ: I’m going to ask you about that viewpoint angle, but I just want to say it early, in case it gets missed: We lose by making this a solely Trump thing. It’s not that he’s not as weird and dangerous as he is, but this TikTok ban, this proposed ban, doesn’t just map neatly onto a Trump agenda, does it?
YC: No, this is a bipartisan bill that passed overwhelmingly on both sides, by both the House and the Senate. I think it was justified mostly by national security concerns, but the committee hearings were closed doors. So the public doesn’t really know exactly what there is.
And as we’ve discussed before, there isn’t much public information to substantiate anything that we’re talking about. There’s no public evidence of the kind of content manipulation that TikTok is being accused of participating in.
JJ: I would just draw you out on that, because the Times report tells me that Judge Sri Srinivasan said, yes, Americans might lose access to an outlet for expression, a source of community and even a means of income, but national security threats, blah blah blah. But then also:
Because the record reflects that Congress’s decision was considered consistent with longstanding regulatory practice and devoid of an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas, [therefore] we are not in a position to set it aside.
And I wanted to hear how you respond to the idea that this has nothing to do with suppressing viewpoints, and it’s consistent with longstanding practice.
YC: Yeah, I’ll take the last one first. What Judge Srinivasan was alluding to with longstanding regulatory history on foreign control in communications, he’s talking about the broadcast space and the FCC. But broadcast and the FCC is kind of a special realm within the First Amendment, justified by bandwidth scarcity, or the amount of waves that are available to be used. So it receives, actually, a different level of First Amendment protection than other fora. So that’s one distinction.
And then also, certainly, the government and regulators can put in place restrictions for foreign control, but that doesn’t mean that they can do it in any way possible. So just because the government has that power with respect to some broadcasting does not mean that they have the power here. Remind me of the first part of that question, too.
JJ: What do we make of Judge Srinivasan’s contention that this conclusion, this ruling, has nothing to do with an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas? Now I think we can all say that it will, in effect, suppress particular messages or ideas, but this is trying to say, well, that’s not what it’s trying to do, so we shouldn’t address it in that way.
YC: Yeah, I think that position requires ignoring a lot of the statements that lawmakers said themselves. You have lawmakers on the record making statements about the type of content that not only TikTok is pushing, but US users are creating, that they take issue with. So you have to ignore all of the statements of the people who wrote the law themselves to get to that position. It’s hard to really swallow.
JJ: The statement that we’re not being offered evidence, actually, that what is being charged is happening—that should raise questions. But also in this context of where, US listeners, we hear all about the free market, the market responds to what people want, so banning an outlet isn’t a thing that should go down easy, generally speaking. And wouldn’t the government need to show that its stated goals could not be achieved any other way, other than banning this outlet? Shouldn’t they have to show that?
Yanni Chen: “It singles out a single app without really providing any justification why, and then they just say, ‘Congress picked this one.’”
YC: Yeah. So that’s actually the exact requirement of strict scrutiny, is that it needs to be the most tailored, or the narrowest restriction possible, to achieve the need that the government wishes to accomplish. So, yes, I think, formally and on the books, that is the requirement. And I think the application is where you see some problems.
And I think what you’re seeing, also, between the majority opinion’s application of strict scrutiny and Judge Srinivasan’s intermediate scrutiny dialogue, is that I think it is relatively clear that strict scrutiny does apply, because it is clearly a viewpoint-based restriction. It singles out a single app without really providing any justification why, and then they just say, “Congress picked this one.” That’s the definition of speaker discrimination. So you have that, but then you kind of have to do a backend to make it fit strict scrutiny and pass strict scrutiny. So you’re seeing some mental gymnastics happen in that logic.
And then, the other side of that, you have Judge Srinivasan, who says, “No, no, no, this is intermediate scrutiny.” And I think one reason, at least, motivating this is that strict scrutiny is a very high bar to meet, and most laws should not really pass it, just by definition of what that test is. And so having a law on the books that passed strict scrutiny does create risk of that precedent I talked about earlier, of creating bad law, where a flimsy application of strict scrutiny could lead to more laws passing strict scrutiny where they shouldn’t.
So that is one justification for applying intermediate scrutiny, but then making the law fit such that intermediate scrutiny is the right application, or the right test, then it strikes people as odd too, because it doesn’t actually do that. It is a law that requires a strict scrutiny test.
JJ: And I think it’s just weird, as a layperson, to hear, “Oh, we’re not trying to ban TikTok,Tiktok’s fine, we just need them to sell to a buyer that the US approves of.” I just feel like that lands weird, in terms of common sense, to folks.
YC: And that is something that was brought up in the litigation too. TikTok did raise the issue that, functionally, this divestment requirement would be a ban, and it’s kind of dealt with relatively, in a flip manner, in the decision itself. So you have Judge Ginsburg saying, “270 days, there’s plenty of time to meet a divestment requirement.” We just bypass the idea that it is something that you can’t do.
And the court does say, “Well, we can’t let the Chinese government set the standards for our requirements as the US government.” But what we’re talking about is the First Amendment. And the First Amendment applies to what the US government can do to US entities, and its citizens and Americans more broadly.
JJ: It just lands so weird to folks who are accustomed, at this point in 2024, to consuming news from around the world, from not unfettered, but relatively open access to media outlets from different countries, from different perspectives. It just sounds strange.
But part of the reason that this maybe has more legs than it might is that people do see a problem with platforms collecting their data, with using algorithms to push certain messages and to hold back others. And the question has to do with whether a wholesale ban of one platform is really the way to address that, or really how should we address that? If we were really concerned about privacy and targeted disinformation, what are some other responses that we might be looking at?
YC: Yeah, so TikTok is, as you recognize, not the only platform that collects too much data. Meta, certainly Google, other companies track data; they use it, they sell it, they sell it abroad, they sell it here and they sell it to governments. So TikTok is not a unique case.
So I think one thing at Free Press that we advocate for is wholesale data privacy protection, across the market, rather than targeting a single platform, and not only targeting a single platform, but taking it off the market. Because even if your concern is data collection by the Chinese government, in TikTok’s case, the Chinese government can still buy US user data through other intermediaries. So it doesn’t really make sense to cut people off from access from this single source—particularly, as you mentioned, people’s livelihoods depend on this platform, people really generate a sense of community through it—instead of addressing that larger issue. So I think there have been plenty of advocates for federal privacy law that is broadsweeping, but we can’t seem to get congressional momentum on that, where we can on a law that is, in at least some part, rooted in xenophobia.
JJ: And sinophobia, absolutely, which I think we’re going to be dealing with, anti-China—not “going to be dealing with,” we already are. Everything China is bad. It has a very musty feel about it, and I feel we’re in for a lot more of it.
YC: Yeah.
JJ: Finally, it feels a little bit like flailing. It feels a little bit like closing the barn door after the horses are out.
I mean, technology allows us to find news sources. Humanity makes us care about people, even if they are designated “official enemies.” Curiosity impels us to learn about what’s going on beyond our shores, and judgment helps us see what is weird disinformation, and what is news we can use. So the moment feels like people are far out in front of corporations and politicians. And I just want to ask you, finally, what hopeful thoughts you have about this.
YC: Hopeful thoughts? I mean, I do think that what you mentioned about, from a layman’s standpoint, that this strikes as odd. I do have a lot of hope that it seems like people are understanding that there’s something not right with this decision, and not right with this law. There was something not transparent about it in the first place. This is targeting a specific company, and how it affects our dialogue and our community, so that gives me a lot of hope that people aren’t taking what the court has said here as a wholesale endorsement of the law, and taking it for what it’s worth.
I think that that’s been something that’s really heartening, and I think that it puts the power in the people, and that will be even more important moving forward, where, as you mentioned, information like this is important, and it has a democratic value. And in closing that off here, we put ourselves in line with some of the more repressive governments that do this, and we legitimize that further, as the United States doing this as an example for other countries. So having the civilians, and people who aren’t in government necessarily, sense that there’s something wrong here is definitely heartening.
JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Yanni Chen; she’s policy counsel at Free Press. They’re online at FreePress.net, and they also have a YouTube channel where you can find their recent webinar on this, breaking down the TikTok ban. Yanni Chen, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
A state of emergency has been declared amid unprecedented gun violence, but no one in our stagnating government is taking responsibility
Just before the new year, Trinidad and Tobago’s government declared a state of emergency after a weekend of gun violence.
Trinidad and Tobago, a country of about 1.5 million people and once the wealthiest in the Caribbean, has been plagued by decades of poor economic and social leadership, gang violence, home invasions, murders and corruption.
Myanmar’s junta has enacted a cybersecurity law that will penalize unauthorized provision of virtual private networks, or VPNs, which many people use to circumvent internet restrictions to get access to news and information and to report on what is going on in their country.
The law, which came into effect on Wednesday, is aimed at preventing cyberattacks through electronic technology that threatens national sovereignty, peace, and stability, as well as to effectively investigate and bring charges against cybercrimes, the ruling military said in a statement published in newspapers.
Myanmar cracked down on the internet and the media after the military ousted an elected government in early 2021, sparking an armed uprising that has raised questions about the sustainability of widely unpopular army rule.
With the media under the control of the military largely a mouthpiece of the generals, many people rely on VPNs to skirt control and get access to independent and foreign media and to send material out of the country.
The law sets out a penalty of six months in prison and a fine for “unauthorized VPN installation or service.”
A VPN service provider told Radio Free Asia that the law could be disastrous for his business.
“It’s really bad for us,” said the service provider, who declined to be identified for security reasons.
“Even if there’s demand, we don’t dare sell it. We’ll keep an eye on whether they actually take action on it or not. If they really crack down on providing VPN service, we’ll have to register officially.”
The law also sets out jail for up to six months, and or a fine, for distributing, transferring, copying or selling information that is “inappropriate for the public” through electronic technology.
It also sets out jail of six months to a year for anyone found operating an illegal online gambling system. Illegal gambling, often organized by gangsters from China, has proliferated in more lawless parts of Myanmar and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
A legal expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that there should be a limit to the extent authorities can control online activity and the law posed a threat to public privacy and security.
“If these technologies are used for gambling or for criminal purposes, there needs to be a provision to take effective action. However, we see that the law’s intent is to harm the public’s security and privacy,” he said.
The law also states that Myanmar people living abroad can be punished.
“Myanmar citizens residing in foreign countries shall be liable to punishment under this law if they commit any offense,” according to a copy of the legislation published in newspapers.
Many Myanmar people living abroad try to report news from their country and organize opposition to the military via online communities.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
There are many challenges facing feminism, but a recent global gathering was a sanctuary and a rallying cry
Last month, 3,500 feminists from every corner of the world came together in Bangkok for a conference hosted by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (Awid). Eight years of planning went into the event, years that coincided with some of the most challenging and transformative global moments. The Covid pandemic, for example, ensured that an in-person 14th forum could not be held in 2020.
This December’s theme, Rising Together, spoke not just to the collective resilience of feminist movements but to the journey I have witnessed over decades of activism: one defined by courage, solidarity and a refusal to give up, no matter the odds.
From an exuberant mountaineering woman to a boy representing unheard refugees, here are some of the brave individuals that gave us hope
Nine years ago, Cecilia Llusco was one of 11 Indigenous women who made it to the summit of the 6,088 metre-high Huayna Potosí in Bolivia. They called themselves the cholitas escaladoras (the climbing cholitas) and went on to scale many more peaks in Bolivia and across South America. Their name comes from chola, once a pejorative term for Indigenous Aymara women.
Palestinians accuse UK firm of breaching human rights laws by piping oil allegedly used by Israeli army
Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza are taking legal action against BP for running a pipeline that supplies much of Israel’s crude oil.
The claimants have sent the British oil company a letter before claim, alleging it is breaching its stated commitments to human rights under international law.
Social media users will need to verify their identities under new decree 147, prompting fears it will undermine expression and expose anonymous dissidents
Social media users in Vietnam on platforms including Facebook and TikTok will need to verify their identities as part of strict new internet regulations that critics say further undermine freedom of expression in the communist country.
The law, which comes into force on Christmas Day, will compel tech companies operating in Vietnam to store user data, provide it to authorities on request, and remove content the government regards as “illegal” within 24 hours.
Human Rights Watch says Israeli forces have acted deliberately to cut availability of clean water
Israel’s restriction of Gaza’s water supply to levels below minimum needs amounts to an act of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, a human rights report has alleged.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigated Israeli attacks on the water supply infrastructure in Gaza over the course of its 14-month war there.
A new lawsuit accuses the State Department of failing to ever sanction Israeli military units under the Leahy Law, which was passed in 1997 to prevent the United States from funding foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. The case was brought by five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States and is supported by the human rights group DAWN. Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights office tasked with implementing the Leahy Law, says there is a mountain of evidence of Israel carrying out torture, extrajudicial killings, rape, enforced disappearances and other abuses. “Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law,” says Blaha, now a senior adviser at DAWN. We also speak with Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, who has family in Gaza and says the last year of genocide has made the lawsuit more urgent. “The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable,” says Moor.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Content warning: This article discusses the details of sexual assault.
The interview (This Week, 3/10/24) that cost ABC $15 million.
ABC has agreed to pay $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential library and $1 million toward Trump’s legal fees “to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll” (AP, 12/14/24).
Fox News (12/15/24) gloated that “Stephanopoulos and ABCNews also had to issue statements of ‘regret’ as an editor’s note” on the online version of the offending piece (This Week, 3/10/24). The note reads:
ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.
This settlement is a dangerous omen for press freedom, given Trump’s threats to use his power to go after his media critics (NPR, 10/23/24; CNN, 11/7/24; PEN America, 11/15/24; New York Times, 12/15/24; Deadline, 12/16/24).
‘Common modern parlance’
Washington Post (7/19/23): Judge Lewis Kaplan “says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.”
Trump has been found liable for defaming and sexually abusing Carroll in two cases, both of which he is appealing (Politico, 9/6/24). “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury,” Stephanopoulos said (ABC, 3/10/24). “Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge.”
However, there is a legal difference between “sexual abuse” and “rape” under New York law. The jury found that Trump had violated Carroll with his fingers, not with his penis, and thus the incident was legally classified as sexual abuse, not rape (USA Today, 1/29/24).
However, as the Washington Post (7/19/23) reported:
The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
In other words, Stephanopoulos’ initial description was not legally accurate, but was instead relying on the popular understanding of the word, according to the judge overseeing the case.
Legally perplexing
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid (Newsweek, 12/15/24): “This is the cowardice of legacy media out to make profit, rather than uphold principle.”
For most journalists, such an offense isn’t nothing: Journalists should always be as accurate as possible, and when they do slip up, they should issue corrections. He should have used the most accurate terminology the court used.
But should this mistake cost the network $16 million, most of which will be used to prop up the legacy of the person who made the complaint, a former president on his way back to power?
Newsweek (12/15/24) noted that it was legally perplexing for ABC to settle so early: “Legal experts also criticized the broadcaster for settling the lawsuit before depositions were due to take place,” it explained. The piece quoted former prosecutor Joyce Vance:
I’m old enough to remember—and to have worked on—cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was even deposed.
Because this case never went to trial, we will never know if there was any evidence of actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth in this misreporting, as would be required to secure a defamation reward under New York Times v. Sullivan (Knight First Amendment Institute, 3/18/24). And while correcting the record seems reasonable for ABC, forking over millions in cash that could be otherwise used to employ teams of working journalists seems excessive.
Newsweek (12/15/24) also covered some of the backlash to the deal:
Democratic attorney Marc Elias wrote: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”
Reporter Oliver Willis also chimed in, writing on Threads: “This is actually how democracy dies.”
Tech reporter Matt Novak said: “Not good for the rest of us when you do this shit, ABC.”
“But that’s probably half the point from management’s perspective,” he added Saturday.
A warning to other media
“The First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation,” attorney Floyd Abrams told CNN (11/1/24). “Mr. Trump may disagree with this or that coverage of him, but the First Amendment permits the press to decide how to cover elections, not the candidates seeking public office.”
The fact that the network is coughing up money as a result of Trump’s case sends a warning to other media that no media will be safe under a Trump regime. Trump has also sued CBS, “demanding $10 billion in damages over the network’s 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.” His suit alleges that the Harris interview and “the associated programming were ‘partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference’ intended to ‘mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales’ of the presidential election in her favor” (CNN, 11/1/24).
If continuing the CBS lawsuit sounds petty in light of the fact that Trump won the election, that’s because it is petty. But protracted litigation could inflict real damage on the network. Fox News (12/13/24) bragged that the “CBS suit could potentially impact an enormous media merger.” As we know, Trump hates journalists, and is vowing to go after them when he gets back into power (FAIR.org, 11/14/24).
To be fair, this strategy, which is meant to create a chilling effect on speech, can backfire on Trump, as when he was ordered to “pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to the New York Times and three investigative reporters after he sued them unsuccessfully over a Pulitzer Prize–winning 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices” (AP, 1/2/24). That’s all the more reason why ABC should be fighting this dubious claim by Trump.
The New York Post editorial board (12/15/24) saw this as a big win for Trump, noting that Stephanopoulos had used the R-word several times in the segment:
The law gives even public figures some rights against such smears; if the case had proceeded, Trump’s legal team would’ve been able to access ABCNews’ internal communications in order to prove the network’s reckless attitude toward the truth.
Trump was actually quite magnanimous in not making ABC pay him the settlement, even if the deal makes the company by far the largest donor to the Trump library.
Conservative legal commentator Jonathan Turley (Fox News, 12/16/24) speculated that ABC’s owner, Disney, likely wanted to start off on a better foot with a new Trump administration. “Disney is trying to adopt a more neutral stance after years of opposition to its stances on political issues and accusations of ultra-woke products,” he said. With “networks like MSNBC and CNN in a ratings and revenue free fall after the election, Disney clearly wants to start fresh with the new administration.”
In reality, ABC’s capitulation may have less to do with ratings and more to do with the GOP takeover of all three branches of federal power. Trump’s avowed plan to reward his friends and punish his enemies could force so-called “liberal” media into being more cheerleaders than a check on political power.
Even before the election, FAIR (10/25/24, 10/30/24) noted how the owners of the LA Times and Washington Post stepped in to keep their editorial boards neutral in the presidential race. In the case of the LA Times, owner Patrick Dr. Soon-Shiong has reportedly continued after the election to soften the paper’s editorial voice, a move that has “concerned many staff members who fear he is trying to be deferential to the incoming Trump administration” (New York Times, 12/12/24).
Now that Trump and his legal army see that at least one network will simply pay to have a legal complaint go away, they may feel emboldened to go after others. That could put a damper on critical coverage of the federal government when Americans need it the most.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – South Korea’s National Assembly voted on Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed bid to impose martial law, to the delight of a huge crowd of anti-Yoon protesters outside the legislature.
The impeachment motion will now be sent to the Constitutional Court, which will determine whether to uphold the parliamentary vote and remove Yoon from office or to reinstate him.
Yoon declared martial law on the night of Dec. 3 to counter “threats from North Korea” and “anti-state activities” by the domestic political opposition. However, the National Assembly rejected the decree nearly three hours later as protesters gathered outside, prompting Yoon to lift the order.
The impeachment motion against Yoon passed with a vote of 204 in favor and 85 against, with three abstentions and eight invalid ballots, as all 300 lawmakers cast their votes.
Once the impeachment resolution is delivered to Yoon’s office, he will be suspended from his duties, and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will assume the role of acting president.
“I will do my utmost to ensure the stable operation of the government operation,” said Han after the impeachment motion was passed.
A crowd of anti-Yoon protesters that media estimated at 200,000-strong welcomed the vote in favor of impeachment. Yoon’s conservative supporters held a smaller protest in another part of Seoul.
An initial bid to vote to impeach Yoon failed last week when most ruling party lawmakers boycotted the vote.
The second impeachment motion was introduced on Thursday by the main opposition Democratic Party and five other minor opposition parties, accusing Yoon of violating the Constitution and other laws by declaring martial law.
If the impeachment is upheld, Yoon will become the second president in South Korea’s history to be removed from office, following former President Park Geun-hye’s ouster in 2017 over corruption.
If the court rules to oust him, an election will be held for a new president.
On Thursday, Yoon defended his botched martial law declaration as an act of governance.
In a televised address, Yoon said he used his presidential power to declare martial law “to protect the nation and normalize state affairs” against the opposition that paralyzed the government, calling it a “highly calibrated political judgment.”
“The National Assembly, dominated by the large opposition party, has become a monster that destroys the Constitutional order of free democracy,” Yoon asserted.
The main opposition Democratic Party controls 171 seats in the 300-member parliament.
In particular, Yoon said that opposition parties blocked a revision to anti-espionage laws despite two separate instances in which Chinese nationals filmed South Korean military installations and the National Intelligence Service.
He also said the opposition parties were “advocating” to lift sanctions against North Korea.
In response, China’s foreign ministry said Thursday it was “deeply surprised and dissatisfied.”
“We are deeply surprised and dissatisfied with the remarks made by the South Korean side,” Mao Ning, Beijing foreign ministry’s spokesperson, said during a regular press briefing.
“We firmly oppose the South Korean side linking its internal issues with factors related to China, making up false charges of so-called Chinese spies and disgracing normal economic and trade cooperation,” said Mao, adding that a verdict has not been reached yet in the mentioned cases and that China is maintaining related communication with South Korea.
She also urged South Korea to guarantee the safety and legal rights of the individuals involved.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
President-elect Trump, himself found liable in court for sexual abuse, has picked a striking number of suspected sexual predators for key positions in his incoming administration. Trump’s early pick of former Florida Congressmember Matt Gaetz for attorney general was shot down amid a firestorm over sexual misconduct allegations. Now Trump is pushing hard to keep the rest of his picks on track, including Fox host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary. Hegseth paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. Meanwhile, a woman who worked for RFK Jr. as a babysitter accused him of sexual assault at his home in 1998. Even one of the few women Trump has chosen, professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon for education secretary, was sued for allegedly ignoring complaints that a WWE ringside announcer sexually abused children for years. “Trump really is the embodiment of a male entitlement,” says Deborah Tuerkheimer, professor of law at Northwestern University. Tuerkheimer says the president and these Cabinet picks are a bellwether for how society responds to abuse. “The #MeToo movement was about and continues to be about not just individual allegations, but this larger question of who’s held accountable and what kind of cultural toleration do we have for abuse by powerful men.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
One week later, North Korean state media has finally reported on South Korea’s brief period of martial law and the ensuing political crisis.
“The shocking incident of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime … suddenly declaring a martial law decree and unhesitatingly wielding the guns and knives of its fascist dictatorship wrought havoc across South Korea,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News.
North Korean media had been completely silent on the matter since last Tuesday, the day of the declaration, and experts said it was because Pyongyang wants to monitor the situation before saying anything, experts told Radio Free Asia.
Shortly after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law last Tuesday, an emergency meeting at the National Assembly nullified his order, forcing him to call it off.
Now lawmakers from both of the major parties are calling for Yoon to resign. If he does not, he could face impeachment or even prison time.
North Korea blocks the internet access of its citizens and tightly controls what outside news it shares with its people.
In the past, political scandals in South Korea were widely publicized in the North, as they could be used as evidence to showcase capitalism’s faults.
For example, in 2016 and 2017 state media was enthusiastically reported about disgraced South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment and trial, which lead to a conviction on charges related to influence-peddling.
President Yoon Seok-Yeol declares martial law in a special emergency address to the nation at the presidential office building in Yongsan, Seoul, Dec. 3, 2024.
But that coverage of Park’s downfall did not have the intended effect because it exposed North Koreans to South Korea’s vibrant democracy and booming economy, said Jonathan Corrado, policy director at the New York-based Korea Society nonprofit organization.
“First, (the 2016 and 2017 coverage) revealed the extent of South Korea’s urban modernization, with Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square lined with glass-covered high-rise buildings,” he said.
“Second, it showed the North Korean public the extent of South Korea’s civil society and democracy.”
Why mess up a good thing?
Pyongyang may also be relishing Yoon’s political crash-and-burn, Lee Hyun-seung, a North Korean escapee and lead program strategist at the Maryland-based Global Peace Foundation, told RFA.
Yoon, a conservative, is more of a hardliner against North Korea than his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, so Pyongyang may want to see him ousted.
“North Korea believes that President Yoon will be impeached even if they do not take action,” he said. “They are staying silent because they believe that if they step forward, they could provide an excuse for conservatives to oppose impeachment.”
Yoon’s martial law order cited “North Korean threats” as its justification, even though it is widely considered to have been a political move targeting the opposition party.
Lee said North Korea could mobilize its spy network to influence the situation in the South, however.
“There are organizations that operate to influence South Korea, such as the Unification Propaganda Department and the Reconnaissance General Bureau,” he said. “Since these organizations have to carry out operations against South Korea, they can deliver instructions through an underground network like in the past.”
The silence was not unusual to Robert Rapson, a former senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
“It’s quite simple if you look at it from the North Korean perspective. Why provoke and provide any distraction from Yoon’s colossal political blunder and anti-democratic actions,” Rapson said.
Kang Vu, a visiting political science scholar at Boston University, said that North Korea is shifting its focus away from South Korea now that is getting closer to Russia and is involving itself in Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
“(That) gives it an incentive it to maintain peace on the peninsula, and this pattern has been clear since the start of 2024,” said Vu.
Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Update adds that North Korea finally reported on the situation on Wednesday.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Cho Jinwoo for RFA Korean.
The Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday joined 55 partner organizations in a joint letter to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to ask her to act on Turkey’s temporarily shelved foreign “influence agent bill,” which introduces a vaguely defined new offense called “committing a crime against the security or political interests of the state” under the direction of a foreign group or state.
The signatories voiced their concerns about how the proposed law could be used to silence government critics if passed by the parliament, along with its predictable effects on rights and freedoms in Turkey. They asked the European Commission to “publicly call on Turkey to fully withdraw the bill,” “prioritize freedom of expression in EU-Turkey relations,” and “raise this matter at high-level dialogues with Turkey,” while supporting the civil society.
Aditya Dalal traces the legislative evolution of the 2024 amendment to the Law on Combatting Prostitution in Iraq, particularly highlighting its draconian provisions on criminalising same-sex sexual relationships, promoting or facilitating same-sex relationships, gender affirmation procedures, and cross-dressing. He criticises this amendment for violating the Constitution of Iraq, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Arab Charter on Human Rights.
On 27 April 2024, the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to Legislation No.8 of 1988, titled the Law on Combatting Prostitution. Under this amendment, which not only imposes unreasonable restrictions on prostitution, the rights of the LGBTQ+ community have been severely curtailed, and promotion or facilitation of same-sex relationships shall face a minimum imprisonment of seven years, which may extend to a maximum of 15 years. The amendment was passed in the presence of 170 out of 329 lawmakers and received overwhelming support from the Acting Speaker, Mr Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, who vehemently asserted that this step was necessary to prevent sexual deviance and moral decay in the Iraqi population and to ensure that there exists no place for homosexuality in Iraq, which is a country of the religious prophets and saints.
Legislative evolution of the amendment
This amendment was first proposed in mid-August 2023 by parliamentarian Mr Raad al-Maliki, and it also advocated for the death penalty as a punishment for engaging in same-sex relationships. The penal provisions also included within their ambit punishments for transgender women, providing for three years imprisonment and a monetary penalty from five million to 10 million IQD (approximately £3,000 to £6,000) for those who “imitate a woman”, meaning dressing like a woman, wearing make-up and appearing in public like a woman. Although the previous Speaker of the Parliament withdrew this Bill in September 2023, the Federal Court ruled that the withdrawal of the proposed amendment was illegal, returning the Bill to the Parliament. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed grave concern over imposing capital punishments for homosexuality, mainly due to Iraq’s ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1971, which provided for the abolishment of capital punishment. The voting on the Bill was postponed during a session in mid-April, which ultimately culminated in the passing of the Bill on April 27, 2024, but with the deletion of the provisions providing capital punishment for those individuals found engaging in same-sex relationships.
Draconian provisions
The amendment provides for a minimum imprisonment of 10 years and a maximum imprisonment of 15 years for all those individuals found indulging in same-sex relationships. In contrast, it also imposes imprisonment for seven years and a monetary penalty of 10 million to 15 million IQD (approximately £6,000 to £9,000) for individuals promoting or facilitating same-sex relationships/homosexuality. The law also criminalises gender affirmation operations or hormone replacement therapy by determining imprisonment for three years for both doctors performing those operations and patients undergoing those surgeries. It also criminalises individuals dressing up in clothing of the opposite gender with imprisonment for one year up to three years or a fine of a minimum of five million IQD (approximately £3,000). These draconian provisions severely curtail the fundamental human rights of Iraqi citizens, particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community, which faces rampant discrimination and malicious attacksof kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder in Iraq.
Violating the Constitution and international instruments
Although there was no specific law prohibiting homosexuality in Iraq before the amendment to Legislation No. 8 of 1988, homosexuality was still curtailed by using provisions of morality and decency in the penal laws. However, despite the arguments of the Iraqi Parliament supporting a complete ban and criminalisation of homosexuality, it is essential to note that the amendment of various instruments, especially the Iraqi Constitution. The amendment, which seeks to discriminate based on private consensual same-sex relationships, violates Articles 14, 15, and 17 of the Constitution of Iraq, 2005, which talk about the right to non-discrimination, the right to enjoy life, security, and liberty, and the right to privacy. Furthermore, the amendment violates Article 2 (non-discrimination) and Article 17 (right to privacy) of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Articles 1 (equality), 2 (non-discrimination), and 12 (right to privacy) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, and Articles 3 (non-discrimination) and 21 (right to privacy) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, 2004.
The passing of the amendment has been condemned by many nations, including the USA and Germany, and can potentially affect Iraq’s economy and foreign relations. While many countries celebrate the presence of the LGBTQ+ community, the situation in Iraq is nothing but a legal massacre of the LGBTQ+ community and those who support them. Considering the Iraqi Constitutional mandate and various international instruments promoting equality and non-discrimination, this situation demands urgent intervention.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Bureau of Prisons closes California facility and suspends operations at six others as rights activists call for clemency
The US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) announced on Thursday it was permanently closing a California women’s prison plagued by staff sexual misconduct scandals, and suspending operations at six other federal institutions.
