A West Papuan liberation advocacy group has condemned the arrest of 12 activists by Indonesian police and demanded their immediate release.
The West Papuan activists from the West Papua People’s Liberation Movement (GR-PWP) were arrested for handing out pamphlets supporting the new “Boycott Indonesia” campaign.
The GR-PWP activists were arrested in Sentani and taken to Jayapura police station yesterday.
In a statement by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), interim president Benny Wenda, said the activists were still “in the custody of the brutal Indonesian police”.
The arrested activists were named as:
Ones M. Kobak, GR-PWP leader, Sentani District
Elinatan Basini, deputy secretary, GR-PWP Central
Dasalves Suhun, GR-PWP member
Matikel Mirin, GR-PWP member
Apikus Lepitalen, GR-PWP member
Mane Kogoya, GR-PWP member
Obet Dogopia, GR-PWP member
Eloy Weya, GR-PWP member
Herry Mimin, GR-PWP member
Sem. R Kulka, GR-PWP member
Maikel Tabo, GR-PWP member
Koti Moses Uropmabin, GR-PWP member
“I demand that the Head of Police release the Sentani 12 from custody immediately,” Wenda said.
“This was an entirely peaceful action mobilising support for a peaceful campaign.
“The boycott campaign has won support from more than 90 tribes, political organisations, religious and customary groups — people from every part of West Papua are demanding a boycott of products complicit in the genocidal Indonesian occupation.”
Wenda said the arrest demonstrated the importance of the Boycott for West Papua campaign.
We express deep concern over the recent arrests of individuals in Sentani, West Papua for
distributing pamphlets advocating a boycott of Indonesian products from West Papua and
raising awareness of ongoing political issues in the region. The detention of these individuals
likely… pic.twitter.com/4e4hJ7FxUJ
Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States.
Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill. We write to affirm our commitment to supporting and exercising First Amendment rights for students, faculty, and staff on our campus — and, indeed, for all.
After Homeland Security seized and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, without charging him with any crime, many of our international students have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus.
They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security.
President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many.
These actions represent threats against political speech and the ability of the American press to do its essential job and are part of a larger design to silence voices that are out of favour with the current administration.
We have also seen reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport the Palestinian poet and journalist Mosab Abu Toha, who has written extensively in the New Yorker about the condition of the residents of Gaza and warned of the mortal danger to Palestinian journalists.
There are 13 million legal foreign residents (green card holders) in the United States. If the administration can deport Khalil, it means those 13 million people must live in fear if they dare speak up or publish something that runs afoul of government views.
There are more than one million international students in the United States. They, too, may worry that they are no longer free to speak their mind. Punishing even one person for their speech is meant to intimidate others into self-censorship.
One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy. The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press.
The President has sued CBS for an interview with Kamala Harris which Trump found too favourable. He has sued the Pulitzer Prize committee for awarding prizes to stories critical of him.
He has even sued the Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a pre-election poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead at that point in the state.
Large corporations like Disney and Meta settled lawsuits most lawyers thought they could win because they did not want to risk the wrath of the Trump administration and jeopardize business they have with the federal government.
Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided that the paper’s editorial pages would limit themselves to pieces celebrating “free markets and individual liberties.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration insists on hand-picking the journalists who will be permitted to cover the White House and Pentagon, and it has banned the Associated Press from press briefings because the AP is following its own style book and refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
The Columbia Journalism School stands in defence of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum. The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardise these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism.
Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recalled that 20 journalists were killed during the six-year Philippines presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, a regime marked by fierce repression of the press.
Former president Duterte was arrested earlier this week as part of an International Criminal Court investigation into crimes against humanity linked to his merciless war on drugs. He is now in The Hague awaiting trial.
The watchdog has called on the administration of current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom and combat impunity for the crimes against media committed by Duterte’s regime.
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Rodrigo Duterte said in his inauguration speech on 30 June 2016, which set the tone for the rest of his mandate — unrestrained violence against journalists and total disregard for press freedom, said RSF in a statement.
During the Duterte regime’s rule, RSF recorded 20 cases of journalists killed while working.
Among them was Jesus Yutrago Malabanan, shot dead after covering Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war for Reuters.
Online harassment surged, particularly targeting women journalists.
Maria Ressa troll target
The most prominent victim was Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the news site Rappler, who faced an orchestrated hate campaign led by troll armies allied with the government in response to her commitment to exposing the then-president’s bloody war.
“The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is good news for the Filipino journalism community, who were the direct targets of his campaign of terror,” said RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani.
RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani . . . “the Filipino journalism community were the direct targets of [former president Rodrigo Duterte]’s campaign of terror.” Image: RSF“President Marcos and his administration must immediately investigate Duterte’s past crimes and take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom.”
The repression carried out during Duterte’s tenure continues to impact on Filipino journalism: investigative journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio has been languishing in prison since her arrest in 2020, still awaiting a verdict in her trial for “financing terrorism” and “illegal possession of firearms” — trumped-up charges that could see her sentenced to 40 years in prison.
With 147 journalists murdered since the restoration of democracy in 1986, the Philippines remains one of the deadliest countries for media workers.
When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in Australia are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence.
With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes to the opportunity to imply Arab Australians, the Muslim community and Palestinian supporters are trying to destroy the lives of the Jewish community.
A case in point. The discovery in January this year of a caravan found in Dural, New South Wales, filled with explosives and a note that referenced the Great Synagogue in Sydney led to a frenzy of clearly uninformed and dangerous rhetoric from politicians and the media about an imminent terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community.
It was nothing of the sort as we now know with the revelation by police that this was a “fabricated terrorist plot”.
As the ABC reported on March 10: “Police have said an explosives-laden caravan discovered in January at Dural in Sydney’s north-west was a ‘fake terrorism plot’ with ties to organised crime”, and that “the Australian Federal Police said they were confident this was a ‘fabricated terrorist plot’,” adding the belief was held “very early on after the caravan was located”.
One would have thought the political and media class would know that it is critical in a society supposedly underpinned by the rule of law that police be allowed to get on with the job of investigating allegations without comment.
Particularly so in the hot-house atmosphere that exists in this nation today.
Opportunistic Dutton
But not the ever opportunistic and divisive federal opposition leader Peter Dutton.
After the Daily Telegraph reported the Dural caravan story on January 29, Dutton was quick to say that this “was potentially the biggest terrorist attack in our country’s history”. To his credit, Prime Anthony Albanese said in response he does not “talk about operational matters for an ongoing investigation”.
Dutton’s language was clearly designed to whip up fear and hysteria among the Jewish community and to demonise Palestinian supporters.
He was not Robinson Crusoe sadly. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told the media on January 29 that the Dural caravan discovery had the potential to have led to a “mass casualty event”.
The Zionist Federation of Australia, an organisation that is an unwavering supporter of Israel despite the horror that nation has inflicted on Gaza, was even more overblown in its claims.
It issued a statement that claimed: “This is undoubtedly the most severe threat to the Jewish community in Australia to date. The plot, if executed, would likely have resulted in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil.”
Note the word “undoubtedly”.
Uncritical Israeli claims
Then there was another uncritical Israel barracker, Sky News’ Sharri Markson, who claimed; “To think perpetrators would have potentially targeted a museum commemorating the Holocaust — a time when six million Jews were killed — is truly horrifying.”
And naturally, Jilian Segal, the highly partisan so-called “Antisemitism Envoy” said the discovery of the caravan was a “chilling reminder that the same hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust still exists today”.
In short, the response to the Dural caravan incident was simply an exercise in jumping on the antisemitism issue without any regard to the consequences for our community, including the fear it spread among Jewish Australians and the further demonising of the Arab Australian community.
No circumspection. No leadership. No insistence that the matter had not been investigated fully.
As the only Jewish organisation that represents humanity, the Jewish Council of Australia, said in a statement from its director Sarah Schwartz on March 10 the “statement from the AFP [Australian Federal Police] should prompt reflection from every politician, journalist and community leader who has sought to manipulate and weaponise fears within the Jewish community.
‘Irresponsible and dangerous’
“The attempt to link these events to the support of Palestinians — whether at protests, universities, conferences or writers’ festivals — has been irresponsible and dangerous.” Truth in spades.
And ask yourself this question. Let’s say the Dural caravan contained notes about mosques and Arab Australian community centres. Would the media, politicians and others have whipped up the same level of hysteria and divisive rhetoric?
The answer is no.
One assumes Dutton, Segal, the Zionist Federation and others who frothed at the mouth in January will now offer a collective mea culpa. Sadly, they won’t because there will be no demands to do so.
The damage to our legal system has been done because political opportunism and milking antisemitism for political ends comes first for those who should know better.
Greg Barns SC is national criminal justice spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations social policy journal and is republished with permission.
A New Zealand-based Filipino solidarity network has welcomed the arrest of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte by Interpol on charges of crimes against humanity on a warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“We congratulate the human rights activists — both from the Philippines and around the world — who held the line and relentlessly pursued justice for Filipino victims of the former Duterte regime,” said the Aotearoa-Philippines Solidarity (APS) in a statement.
“This arrest is a long time coming, with Duterte having been complicit in the extrajudicial killings of activists, trade unionists, indigenous peoples’ advocates, peasants and human rights lawyers since he was president back in 2016.
“His brutal and merciless so-called ‘war on drugs’ also led to the deaths of thousands of Filipinos — many of which were not involved in the drug trade at all or were merely drug addicts and low-level drug peddlers.
“Their only ‘crime’ was that they were poor, as documented by many human rights watchdogs that Duterte’s fake ‘drug war’ disproportionately targeted poor Filipinos.”
The APS statement said that Duterte had admitted to these crimes when he faced an inquiry before the Philippines’ House of Representatives in October last year.
“In that hearing, the former president admitted the existence of ‘death squads’ composed of ‘gang members’ and Philippine police personnel who would ‘neutralise’ drug suspects – both when he was president and as mayor of Davao City.
Police ordered to ‘goad suspects’
“He also [revealed] that he [had] instructed members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to goad suspects to fight back or attempt to escape so they would have a reason to kill them.”
The APS noted that all these actions constituted crimes against humanity, the very charge laid against him by the ICC. Since the initial charges were laid against Duterte in 2017 by human rights activists, many had anticipated the day he would finally face justice.
“This arrest is a historic step towards justice and a reminder to all that no one is above the law. The APS extends our best wishes to the bereaved families of those killed during Duterte’s unjust ‘war on drugs’ and also its survivors,” the statement said.
The APS said challenge now was to ensure that justice was meted out by the ICC and Duterte was punished for his crimes.
“Let us not allow this monumental victory slip from our hands and ensure that all evidence against Duterte is brought to light and he faces consequences for the human rights violations he committed against the Filipino people.”
The statement said that Duterte’s arrest also served as a “warning to the US-Marcos regime” that any abuse of their powers and attacks on human rights would not go unpunished.
The continuation of indiscriminate military operations which violated international humanitarian law would also lead to the downfall of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr — who is the son of the 1970s dictator who declared martial law.
A series of violent incidents and confrontations over the weekend in New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa and its surroundings, causing clashes with law enforcement agencies and several injuries.
On Saturday night, in a bar and night-club in downtown Nouméa, a “Ladies Night” event dedicated to International Women’s Day degenerated into an all-out brawl, involving mostly young customers.
The event was scheduled to end at 2am, but bar owners decided to close at 1am, prompting violent reactions from the young patrons, who started to throw glasses at the DJ, then ransacked the bar.
The incident was recorded and later broadcast on social networks.
“We should have closed at 2am, but shortly after midnight, we felt the pressure was mounting and most of the people were already quite inebriated”, the 1881 establishment owner told local media.
“So we decided to close earlier to avoid people getting more drunk. We stopped the music, that’s when they started to throw glasses to the bar”.
The brawl involved 300-400 youths in a bar and night-club in downtown Nouméa on Saturday night. Image: RNZ Pacific/FB
Public brawl outside Outside, in a parking lot, an estimated “300 to 400 hundred” customers began a public brawl.
Law enforcement units were called and later described themselves as finding “a dangerous situation” — confronted with “hostile” individuals, and having to resort to teargas and stun-balls.
The French High Commission reported during a press conference yesterday that seven people had been injured, including one gendarme and a police officer, in the face of people throwing “bottles, stones and even concrete blocks”.
The situation came back under control at around 2:30 am, officials said.
The High Commission said that at this stage no one had been arrested, but an investigation was underway that could lead to the bar and night club being closed down.
“This is a serious incident . . . but we are not back to the insurrection situation last year”, the French High Commission’s chief-of-staff, Anaïs Aït Mansour, told reporters.
She said a meeting had been called with all of Nouméa’s bar and nightclub owners and managers.
After months of prohibition on the sale of alcoholic beverages, following the violent unrest that started in May 2024, the restrictions were finally lifted only a few weeks ago.
A re-introduction of the restrictive measure was now “under consideration”, Aït Mansour said.
The incident has also prompted political reactions as parties were preparing for the return of French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls in less than two weeks to try to bring political talks to another level on New Caledonia’s political future.
Politicians warned not to amalgamate The incidents, widely condemned by the pro-France political groups, were also labelled as “unacceptable” by the major pro-independence Union Calédonienne (UC)-FLNKS party.
In a media statement, UC said these “acts of vandalism and violence committed by inebriated youths” had “nothing to do with the political claims from 13 May 2024, or with the Kanak people’s struggle”.
However, the pro-independence party warned against any attempt to “turn these youths into scapegoats for all of our society’s harms”.
UC said this behaviour could be explained by “a profound ill-being” among “a certain part” of the young Kanak population who felt disenfranchised.
Violent clashes on highway The weekend was also marred by another violent confrontation with law enforcement services on the territorial road RT1 between the capital Nouméa and the La Tontouta International Airport where motorists were targeted by people throwing stones at them.
The incidents took place early Sunday morning near the Saint-Laurent village, in an area usually referred to as Col de La Pirogue, close to the small town of Païta.
The Gendarmerie Commander, General Nicolas Matthéos, said those actions were from a group of up to 30 individuals under the influence of alcohol.
He said his services were now attempting to talk to traditional chiefs in the area so they could persuade those responsible for these “very aggressive” acts to surrender and be “brought to justice”.
He said four gendarmes had been slightly injured after being hit by stones.
“We had to use stun grenades and during those operations we had to stop all traffic on the RT1″,” he said.
Traffic was interrupted for almost one hour and a squadron of gendarmes remained in place to secure the area.
A judicial inquiry is also underway.
Sandalwood oil factory goes up in flames Also at the weekend, a sandalwood oil factory went up in flames late on Sunday evening on the island of Maré in the Loyalty Islands group.
Local firemen could not stop the destruction of the small factory’ production and refinery unit.
Another investigation is now underway from Nouméa-based gendarmerie investigators to determine the cause of the fire and whether it was accidental or criminal.
The locally-managed unit was created in 2010.
It is believed to be the world’s third largest producer of high-quality sandalwood essential oil, with international perfume and cosmetics clients such as Dior, Guerlain and Chanel.
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.
Here in this deep blue state, a coalition of judges, attorneys, youth advocates, civil liberties and racial justice organizations are trying to persuade Maryland lawmakers to amend Draconian legislation that requires prosecutors to charge children as young as 10 in adult criminal court for a wide range of felony offenses.
At issue is Senate Bill 422 , which, if passed by Maryland’s General Assembly in this legislative session, would reduce by nearly two-thirds the 33 criminal offenses for which juveniles in Maryland are automatically charged as adults.
A gripping three-part documentary series for ITV1 and ITVX: The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed – to be broadcast on 6, 13, and 20 March – is based on the book Deep Deception by founder members of Police Spies Out Of Lives. It will explore the story behind the now-infamous Spycops scandal, from the point of view of some of the survivors.
The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed
Five women who were deceived and blew the lid off this scandal, have entrusted ITV, makers of the award-winning drama series Mr Bates Vs the Post Office, to expose how they turned detective to uncover one of the state’s biggest secrets.
Speaking together on camera for the first time (some of them disguised with wigs and make-up to protect their anonymity) they explain the disturbing similarities between their experiences and how they brought the scandal to public attention: from the way the women were seduced into these relationships, to the almost identical letters they received when they were abandoned – and ghosted – by the men they loved.
The women featured in the documentary have been working together to expose this policing scandal since we first met in 2011.
They said in a joint statement:
Our lives were devastated by the actions of undercover police and this powerful three-part series highlights how we fought back against dehumanising spycops intrusion and abuse, which was sanctioned by the state for decades to undermine progressive campaigns for change.
By shining a light on the role of these undemocratic, secret, political policing units, we hope the programmes contribute to a dramatic shift away from the culture of misogyny that the police and security services have normalised and puts pressure on decision makers to reverse the current legislation that places undercover officers completely beyond the law.
From All3Media production company RAW, The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed features privileged access to the Guardian journalists who, alongside survivors at the heart of this scandal, broke the story.
Creating a culture shift
Together, they exposed the vast, systemic scale of this 40-year undercover policing operation and unearthed the chilling ‘Tradecraft Manual’ the cops created to guide their abhorrent behaviour. Ultimately, this story is ongoing with a fight for truth and justice that reaches into the present day.
Alison, one of the women who exposed the scandal, said:
We hope that this contributes to a shift in the culture, a shift away from misogyny and sexism that’s been institutionalised in the police. We hope it makes some change, because that is why we got involved in this in the first place.
Rebecca North, Executive Producer at RAW, said:
This is an inspirational, empowering story about women who refused to go away quietly, instead using their ingenuity and tenacity to expose the lies they’d been told by the men they loved, leading to a David vs Goliath battle with the Metropolitan Police. We hope it brings awareness to the scandal.
Jo Clinton-Davis, Controller of Factual ITV said:
When I first learnt about this story, I was determined it needed to be made for a TV audience – and made for ITV. That these five women finally agreed to give ITV and RAW up close and personal access is testament to their courage and resilience. They have been up against a state sponsored operation and with many of them turning detective, such a twist in the story could be the stuff of a thriller – except this is all too shockingly true. Another British scandal of major importance.
In the last five years, police forces in the UK have paid nearly £80m in compensation following claims against them. Figures obtained by Public Interest Lawyers found that 47,658 claims have been lodged against police forces since 2019.
Claims are often put in against a police force if someone feels they have been mistreated or if they feel the police abused their position.
Examples of claims against the police include malicious prosecution, wrongful arrest, sexual misconduct, assault, traffic accidents, and property damage.
Some claims against the police can be made for exceptional circumstances, for example, forces across the UK paid out more than £300,000 in compensation in the last three years after officers raided the homes of innocent people, according to the Express.
This amount resulted from at least 255 separate cases of police forces battering down the wrong doors.
Complaints against the police are rocketing
In 2019/2020, 8,240 claims were lodged against police forces, 2,627 of which were settled, the lowest number of claims over the past five years.
A year later, this number increased to 8,365 claims, with 2,237 of these settled.
Services have experienced another rise in claims over the past year, totalling 11,436.
Another reason for a claim against the police is sexual misconduct. Worryingly, this has become the main source of complaints to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) – the UK police watchdog.
In a May 2022 report, the IOPC said it was ‘highly likely’ the scale of sexual misconduct within law enforcement ‘remains under-represented’, as not all victims report misconduct, with some fearing they won’t be believed.
Signs of inappropriate sexual behaviour by a police officer, such as private contact, nurturing dependence or being overly familiar, have all been grounds for victims to pursue a claim in the past.
In the year ending March 2023, 1,300 police officers and staff across the 43 UK police forces were referred to formal misconduct proceedings as a result of cases such as police complaints, conduct matters and recordable conduct matters.
Also, during this time, 51,605 police complaints involving 42,854 identifiable police officers were finalised, involving 120,243 allegations.
The amount of compensation is also growing
Public Interest Lawyers also obtained figures on the amount of money police forces in the UK have paid out to successful claims since 2019.
Over the past five years, forces have paid out a total of £79,373,401.07, with the highest amount coming in 2023/24 standing at £18,201,878.46.
Compensation claims made against UK police forces since 2019 can include both public claims and those brought internally by police officers and staff.
The most common reason for claims is property damage, with motor-based claims such as car crashes also ranking high.
More alarmingly, claims for unlawful arrests, wrongful imprisonments, and forced entries into properties have been submitted more and more against police forces over the years.
Based on figures gathered from police forces across the country, the forces with the highest claim costs since 2019 have been revealed.
The Met Police had the highest claim costs at nearly £42m, while Police Service Northern Ireland and West Yorkshire Police also had costs of over £4m.
The rise in police compensation: endemic of other issues
Speaking to Public Interest Lawyers, JF Law solicitor Lucy Parker said:
The number of claims made against police forces in the UK shines a light on a crucial issue and highlights the importance of holding institutions accountable.
Potential reasons to claim may include wrongful arrest, assault, malicious prosecution, or negligence however, it’s crucial to remember that each case is unique.
Reasons such as property damage and forced entry by police, without lawful justification, are serious matters and can constitute a significant breach of an individual’s rights.
If you believe the police have wronged you, it’s essential to seek legal advice promptly to understand your options and potential outcomes.
Public Interest Lawyers offers support to people who believe the police have mistreated them and free advice on whether they can claim compensation.
They operate a 24-hour helpline and claim online form, which you can access on their website.
Police in Warwickshire, Thames Valley, Wiltshire, Surrey, Humberside, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Durham and Cumbria did not respond to Public Interest Lawyers’ Freedom of Information request.
Police killed over a thousand people in the U.S. in 2024, new data reveals — the deadliest year on record, with data showing that police killings are on the rise. According to a report by Mapping Police Violence, police killed at least 1,365 people in 2024, making it the deadliest year since the group began recording such data in 2013. This marks a 0.3 percent increase in the rate of…
The family of a Papua New Guinea police constable, killed in an ambush last month, has blocked a section of the Highlands Highway in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, demanding justice for his death.
Constable Harry Gorano succumbed to his injuries in intensive care two weeks ago after spending three weeks in a coma.
He was attacked alongside colleagues in the Southern Highlands in January, during which fellow officer Constable Noel Biape was fatally shot.
The recent announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump that he wanted to take over the Gaza Strip, remove its Palestinian citizens and establish a “Riviera for the Middle East” has been rightly condemned as “ethnic cleansing” by sane voices around the world.
Standing alongside a smirking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man with a long history of crushing any hope of Palestinian self-determination, Trump expressed a long-held dream of the Israeli Right, emptying Palestinians from Palestine. It’s a position that’s supported today by a majority of Israel’s Jewish population.
On Thursday morning, as scheduled, author and activist Yves Engler was arrested by the Montreal police for his social media posts criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Before turning himself in to Montreal Police at 980 Guy Street, Engler addressed the media, denouncing the politically motivated charges against him and the broader crackdown on those speaking out against Israeli violence.
Surrounded by supporters, Engler reaffirmed his commitment to freedom of expression and criticized the Montreal police’s collaboration with anti-Palestinian figures. He highlighted the absurdity of the new charges, which claim he harassed the police simply by writing about the accusations already brought against him.
This arrest follows a campaign led by anti-Palestinian media personality Dahlia Kurtz, who lobbied for Engler to be charged after he called out her pro-Israel rhetoric. Over 2,500 people have emailed the Montreal police, demanding they drop the charges.
Watch Engler’s final words before entering police custody.
In a UK first, South Wales Police is introducing ‘semi-permanent’ AI facial recognition cameras across Cardiff city centre, Wales, during this year’s Six Nations rugby internationals. The tech is being rolled out from this Saturday, 22 February – and campaign group Big Brother Watch has rightly hit back.
Facial recognition to go live in Wales
This marks a significant shift, as previously, forces have only deployed mobile live facial recognition vans equipped with a small number of cameras.
The live system is an authoritarian mass surveillance tool that turns the public into walking ID cards. By putting these cameras on our high streets, we’re all being treated like suspects in a digital police line-up, with our photos taken for repeated identity checks – often without us even realising it.
In the last three years of their deployments at sporting events, South Wales Police has made no arrests, yet the public is footing the bill for this expensive and intrusive tech.
Checkpoint Cymru
On Saturday 22 February mass surveillance cameras will be positioned across busy pedestrian points across the city making it impossible for members of the public to avoid them.
Despite limited notice:
Big Brother Watch is urgently working to engage MPs and Senedd Members to push back.
Members of the Big Brother Watch team plan to travel to Cardiff to observe.
The group’s response has been quoted in the press.
The UK: a democratic outlier on facial recognition?
Just this month, the EU’s AI act comes into force, which bans police use of live facial recognition in all but very few extreme circumstances – and only with judicial authorisation first.
Meanwhile, there are zero laws even mentioning the use of facial recognition in the UK, meaning that police forces are making the rules up as they go along.
Seven people have been arrested after Palestine Action shut down the Israeli-ownedRafael weapons factory in Newcastle on Tuesday 18 February. The group’s action was over the company’s direct supply of weapons to the genocidal state of Israel.
Palestine Action: seven nicked after Rafael action
Three people used a specially-adapted vehicle to block both entrance to the weapons plant, with an activist locked on inside the secured vehicle. Others climbed on top of the security box and covered the premise in blood-red paint to signify the blood of the Palestinians murdered by the weapons built by Rafael:
The activists were later removed and arrested by Northumbria police force and a further three members of the public were arrested for being seen to be supporting the blockade:
Another supporter was arrested outside the police station whilst awaiting the release of the others who were detained.
Speaking from the roof of the site, one of the activists said:
This factory is owned by the Israeli state and is aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza – and we want it gone.
Rafael is Israel’s third biggest weapons firm, and owned directly by the Israeli state. At the time they acquired Pearson Engineering and Armstrong Works, in September 2022, it was described as a vital part of the “strategic expansion” of Israel’s weapons manufacturing capabilities, as well as a way of trying to get round any future arms embargoes.
This morning’s action marks the start of an escalation of the direct action campaign against the Israeli weapons maker. Palestine Action said Rafael can expect to be increasingly targeted to disrupt the manufacture of Israeli weapons.
It takes place at a time when, despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to murder Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank, to take hostages and imprison them without trial, and to destroy homes on the West Bank, and whole towns and villages in Lebanon.
The police are arresting supporters and activists who oppose the Newcastle weapons factory which is owned by the Israeli government. All whilst they’ve done nothing about the fact that Pearson Engineering is owned by wanted war criminals. The actions by the police are a demonstration of how the state favors war criminals over its own citizens.
No matter what it takes, members of the public will continue to take action to disrupt Israeli weapons factories and won’t stop until factories like this one are shut down for good.
Featured image and additional images via Martin Pope
On March 31st, 2024, Lisa Davis, vice chair of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations, was attending a pro Palestine weekly vigil in South Orange, New Jersey, when a disturbed zionist aggressively ran towards the protestors, verbally assaulted her and aggressively got into her face.
The crowd had to intervene to make him back off. It is clear from the videos that it is the zionist who was the aggressor against Lisa and the demonstrators.
But New Jersey is protecting him and is falsely charging Lisa Davis with organizing a special event without a permit and for making excessive noise while using an amplification device.
Police in northern Laos said that last Friday’s deadly blast in a burning Chinese-owned vehicle parts shop that killed four people and injured three others was caused by illegal explosives located inside.
Though police could not confirm why the shop had a huge quantity of explosives on the premises, Oudomxay province’s chief of police said they were for “sale or other purposes,” and that that they are investigating.
“The shop owner smuggled the explosives and detonators and stored them away in his shop … and we don’t know exactly why yet,” he told reporters on Saturday. “We are still gathering information.”
The blast killed one Laotian and three Chinese nationals and critically injured another three Chinese. In addition, the surrounding buildings were severely damaged including a newly-built luxury house.
Chinese presence is palpable in Oudomxay and other regions in northern Laos, fueled in part by construction of the US$6 billion high-speed railway connecting Kunming, China to the Lao capital Vientiane.
Further investigation
Police were also unable to confirm what started the initial fire, an officer told RFA Lao on Monday.
“We are still gathering evidence and we’re not sure,” the officer said. “I am just in the office, so I don’t really know that many details.”
RFA also asked the nearby military headquarters and the Department of Industry and Commerce, but both declined to provide information and suggested following official announcements on the matter.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Consulate in nearby Luang Prabang province sent staff to visit the injured Chinese, a consular official, who requested not to be named, told RFA Lao.
“The Chinese Consulate is not sure about the responsibility,” he said. “For any reason, the Chinese Consulate also cannot release any detailed information to the news media.”
Meanwhile, while visiting with victims in a nearby hospital, Chinese Consular General Zhang Sheping called on the Lao government to determine the origin of the explosion and share information with the Chinese government, local media reported.
What were the explosives for?
The shop was probably hiding the explosives that would be used for mining purposes, a resident of Xay district told RFA Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Many people said it was some Chinese businessmen working together to bring in the explosives or that the owner was helping someone else store the explosive materials, and these are used in gold mining.”
Another resident on Monday said that while officials were cleaning up, nobody was allowed on the shop premises.
“I think they finished cleaning up yesterday, he said. “I think it is still under police investigation.”
Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.
The BBChas reported that “MI5 lied to three courts while defending its handling of a misogynistic neo-Nazi state agent who attacked his girlfriend with a machete”. It’s also emerged that secret service bosses then tried to persuade the BBC not to run the story.
Unfortunately, violence by state enforcers against women is nothing new – as Spycops survivors will attest to.
MI5: the lowest of the low
MI5 has apologised for its “serious error” in covering for agent ‘X’, who violently “terrorised his partner”. The latter’s lawyer, meanwhile, said:
I think this raises real concerns about MI5’s transparency, about whether we can trust MI5’s evidence to courts.
The BBC explained:
Exposure of MI5’s false testimony will also damage its credibility in other court proceedings, where judges are obliged to give enormous weight and deference to the Security Service’s evidence.
These often involve secret hearings which are closed even to those most affected
The Security Service claims its “neither confirm nor deny” policy is to “keep agents safe”. But the BBC questions how “it may stand in the way of agents being held accountable when they abuse their positions or commit crimes”.
For decades, secretive police units used undercover officers to infiltrate activist organisations. As the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance reported in 2023, police targeted “around 1,000 campaigning and left wing groups”, only three of which the Inquiry Chair found to have been “‘a legitimate target’ for undercover policing of any kind”. As Madoc Roberts, one of the film-makers behind the Spies Who Ruined Our Livesdocumentary, previously told the Canary:
unless you joined all the dots together, you wouldn’t have known that this was political policing, until you discover that it’s 1,000 groups and that all the groups just happened to be left-wing…
I think it is one of the biggest scandals that we’ve seen.
In 2024, the Canary spoke to Jessica, who is involved in ongoing civil claims. She told us how an undercover officer groomed her when she was a vulnerable 19-year-old “for no reason”. And she slammed “the absolute pointlessness” of what police spies did. She insisted that:
the institutional sexism along with the institutional racism and institutional corruption and institutional misogyny… play a massive part in everything that they did
She added “the more we find out, the worse it looks”.
You can see the trailer of vital documentary Spies Who Ruined Our Liveshere.
New Orleans, LA – On February 9, roughly 200 people took to the streets in downtown New Orleans for a rally and march against President Donald Trump’s visit to the Super Bowl LIX at the Superdome.
The protest was called by New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police, alongside a broad coalition of organizations. After Trump’s recent attacks on the most oppressed, protestors came out to demand Trump end ICE raids and deportations, stop attacks on trans people, and keep out of Gaza.
The rally began at Armstrong Park around 4:30, with speakers. The crowd chanted, “Donald Trump has got to go!” and “Un pueblo unido, hamas sera vencido! The people united, will never be defeated!”
Israeli police have confiscated hundreds of books with Palestinian titles or flags without understanding their contents in a draconian raid on a Palestinian educational bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem, say eyewitnesses.
More details have emerged on the Israeli police raid on a popular bookstore in occupied East Jerusalem.
The owners were arrested but police reportedly dropped charges of incitement while still detaining them for “disturbing the public order”.
The bookstore’s owners, Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and hundreds of titles related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict confiscated, before police ordered the store’s closure, according to May Muna, Mahmoud’s wife, reports Al Jazeera.
She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant”.
She said they used Google Translate on some of the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away in plastic bags.
Another police bookshop raid
Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City in East Jerusalem last week. In a statement, the police said the two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism”.
As an example, the police referred to an English-language children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea — a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The bookshop raids have been widely condemned as a “war on knowledge and literature”.
The Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem is full with shoppers in solidarity a day after the Israel Police raided the Palestinian store, arrested its owners and confiscated books. They dropped the charges of incitement but still detain them for ‘disturbing the public order’ pic.twitter.com/ZfnkBttfY3
