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Category: Police

  • Disinformation Isn’t the Problem: Government Coverups and Censorship Are the Problem

    What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.

    — Hannah Arendt

    In a perfect example of the Nanny State mindset at work, Hillary Clinton insists that the powers-that-be need “total control” in order to make the internet a safer place for users and protect us harm.

    Clinton is not alone in her distaste for unregulated, free speech online.

    A bipartisan chorus that includes both presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has long clamored to weaken or do away with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially acts as a bulwark against online censorship.

    It’s a complicated legal issue that involves debates over immunity, liability, net neutrality and whether or not internet sites are publishers with editorial responsibility for the content posted to their sites, but really, it comes down to the tug-of-war over where censorship (corporate and government) begins and free speech ends.

    As Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes for Reason, “What both the right and left attacks on the provision share is a willingness to use whatever excuses resonate—saving children, stopping bias, preventing terrorism, misogyny, and religious intolerance—to ensure more centralized control of online speech. They may couch these in partisan terms that play well with their respective bases, but their aim is essentially the same.”

    In other words, the government will use any excuse to suppress dissent and control the narrative.

    The internet may well be the final frontier where free speech still flourishes, especially for politically incorrect speech and disinformation, which test the limits of our so-called egalitarian commitment to the First Amendment’s broad-minded principles.

    On the internet, falsehoods and lies abound, misdirection and misinformation dominate, and conspiracy theories go viral.

    This is to be expected, and the response should be more speech, not less.

    As Justice Brandeis wrote nearly a century ago: “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

    Yet to the government, these forms of “disinformation” rank right up there with terrorism, drugs, violence, and disease: societal evils so threatening that “we the people” should be willing to relinquish a little of our freedoms for the sake of national security.

    Of course, it never works out that way.

    The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, the war on COVID-19: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns only to become weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands.

    Indeed, in the face of the government’s own authoritarian power-grabs, coverups, and conspiracies, a relatively unfettered internet may be our sole hope of speaking truth to power.

    The right to criticize the government and speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom.

    You see, disinformation isn’t the problem. Government coverups and censorship are the problem.

    Unfortunately, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. Every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.

    While there are all kinds of labels being put on so-called “unacceptable” speech today, the real message being conveyed by those in power is that Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if what they are saying is unpopular, controversial or at odds with what the government determines to be acceptable.

    Where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

    Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

    This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

    This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

    This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

    For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

    Thus, no matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.

    Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. For instance, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.

    We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

    The next phase of the government’s war on anti-government speech and so-called thought crimes could well be mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

    Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

    This is how it begins.

    In communities across the nation, police are already being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, based solely on their own judgment, even if those individuals pose no danger to others.

    In New York City, for example, you could find yourself forcibly hospitalized for suspected mental illness if you carry “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas,” exhibit a “willingness to engage in meaningful discussion,” have “excessive fears of specific stimuli,” or refuse “voluntary treatment recommendations.”

    While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, they could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

    As the Associated Press reports, federal officials are already looking into how to add “‘identifiable patient data,’ such as mental health, substance use and behavioral health information from group homes, shelters, jails, detox facilities and schools,” to its surveillance toolkit.

    Make no mistake: these are the building blocks for an American gulag no less sinister than that of the gulags of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.

    The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state.

    The gulag, according to historian Anne Applebaum, used as a form of “administrative exile—which required no trial and no sentencing procedure—was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.”

    This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by making them disappear—or forcing them to flee—or exiling them literally or figuratively or virtually from their fellow citizens—is happening with increasing frequency in America.

    Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the groundwork is being laid that would allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.

    Each state has its own set of civil, or involuntary, commitment laws. These laws are extensions of two legal principles: parens patriae Parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the country”), which allows the government to intervene on behalf of citizens who cannot act in their own best interest, and police power, which requires a state to protect the interests of its citizens.

    The fusion of these two principles, coupled with a shift towards a dangerousness standard, has resulted in a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.

    The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which the government and its corporate partners can penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.

    In fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as “a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures.”

    Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to John Lennon—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder.

    Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is how you subdue a populace.

    The ensuing silence in the face of government-sponsored tyranny, terror, brutality and injustice is deafening.

    The post Disinformation Isn’t the Problem: Government Coverups and Censorship Are the Problem first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Nigeria police charge 4 journalists with cybercrimes for corruption reporting

    Abuja, October 3, 2024—Despite recent reforms to Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act, journalists continue to be targeted for publishing news in the public interest, with four reporters being charged under the law last month.

    Cybercrime laws and other regulations governing online content have been widely used to jail journalists around the world. In Nigeria, at least 29 journalists have faced prosecution under the cybercrimes law since it was enacted in 2015.

    CPJ had warned that February’s amendments to the law, which followed years of advocacy by human rights groups and CPJ, still left journalists at risk of prosecution due to an overly broad definition of what is a criminal offense. Since the law was reformed, it has been used to summon, intimidate, and detain journalists for their work.

    On September 20, police in western Lagos State separately arrested Olurotimi Olawale, editor of the privately owned National Monitor newspaper, and Precious Eze Chukwunonso, publisher of the privately owned News Platform website, Nigerian Guild of Investigative Journalists’president, Abdulrahman Aliagan, told CPJ.

    On September 25, police arrested Rowland Olonishuwa, a reporter with the privately owned Herald newspaper, in western Kwara state and Seun Odunlami, publisher of privately owned Newsjaunts website, in nearby Ogun state, Aliagan and Kwara-based journalist Dare Akogun told CPJ.

    “Nigerian authorities should immediately release journalists, Olurotimi Olawale, Precious Eze Chukwunonso, Rowland Olonishuwa, and Seun Odunlami, and swiftly drop the cybercrime charges against them,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa Program, from New York. “Since Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act became law, it has been used to arrest and prosecute journalists, and these arrests emphasize that the recent reforms to the law have not reversed that trend.”

    On September 27, the four journalists were charged in a Lagos federal court with violating sections 24(1)(b) and 27 of the Cybercrimes Act for reporting that implicated Segun Agbaje, chief executive officer of Guaranty Trust Bank, in alleged fraud worth 1 trillion naira (US$600 million) according to Aliagan, Akogun, and a copy of the charge sheet reviewed by CPJ.

    Section 24 of Cybercrimes Act relates to pornographic or knowingly false messages “for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order, posing a threat to life, or causing such messages to be sent,” according to a copy of the law’s amendments signed by President Bola Tinubu in February. Violation of this section is punishable with up to three years in prison and a fine of 7 million naira (US$4,200).

    Section 27 relates to attempts to violate the law and conspiracy, as well as aiding and abetting. Conniving to commit “fraud using computer system(s) or network” carries a variable punishment based on the violation and/or up to seven years in prison and a requirement to refund or forfeit stolen funds, according to the same copy of the amendments.

    The journalists pleaded not guilty and were remanded at a Lagos correctional center, pending a bail hearing on October 4, Aliagan and Akogun told CPJ.

    Although the police compelled the journalists to take down their articles, Nigeria’s federal House of Representatives subsequently announced an investigation into the bank over fraud allegations.

    GTBank’s chief communications officer Oyinade Adegite confirmed to CPJ by phone that the bank had sought to have the journalists charged with cybercrime over their reporting, which she said was “defamatory.”

    CPJ’s call and text messages to request comment from Lagos State police spokesperson Hauwa Idris-Adamu on September 27 went unanswered.

    Editor’s note: This text has been updated in the ninth paragraph to add detail to the penalty for violating Section 27.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Chanukah 2023

    Boeing Headquarters, Chicago
    December 14, 2023

    On the last night night of Chanukah, you stand on a bridge, alongside twelve others, blocking traffic.  You hold a black rectangular posterboard with the letter “I” lit up in small holiday lights bright against the dark matting.  You are letter seven in the phrase CEASEFIRE NOW! “F” stands to your left, “R” to your right. You check in with each other, smiling. Each one of you, each letter, is a necessary part of the entire demand.

    On the sidewalk, a rally with speeches, singing and chanting continues, a determined, spirited din to accompany your blockade. Through the crowd, you see the face of your rabbi holding a mic, but it’s hard to distinguish his words.

    A row of police officers stands in front of you, and another row behind them, and a third behind the second, their faces impervious. They are young. Many of them are not white. They are too far away for you to read the last names on their badges, but you imagine they contain all the identities of contemporary working-class Chicago, all the ethnicities from which CPD now amply recruits.

    You note their guns, their batons, their body armor, their pepper spray. You are not inexperienced with police and are fairly certain that at this moment, the situation is under control. There will be no tasering, pepper spraying or shooting. Still, with the cops, there are no guarantees– those words spoken at your training last week come back to you -and you could imagine the situation unraveling and getting rough, but you don’t. You feel calm, strong, completely certain, no second thoughts or doubts.  Your parents, of blessed memory, taught you how to face the police.

    You are about to be arrested.

    Standing on this bridge and blockading traffic had taken more maneuvering than you expected.  The group had to line up in reverse order on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway without attracting police attention. Keeping police focused on the rally in front of Boeing headquarters would give you the space needed to figure out how to spell backwards, get in formation, cross the bridge on the green light and stop. You spread out and took position, resting the four-foot letters on the asphalt in front of you, your message shining: CEASEFIRE NOW! You stopped traffic in a matter of seconds. Now drivers wanting to head east onto the Washington bridge are stuck and their horns, blaring from behind the police line, make it clear that you’ve made a lot of people angry.

    You wear many layers. Underneath, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a fleece. On top, a parka and insulated vest. Wool socks, zippered boots, no strings-you’ve prepared for what you will be allowed to keep in your cell, which will be cold. Woolen hat, gloves, and of course, an N95 mask. You won’t be able to put it on later, so you’re wearing it in advance. Your ID is in the zippered vest pocket. You’ve made sure to get to a bathroom before the rally, since no one knows how long it will take for the police to clear everyone from the bridge. You wonder if the much younger people blockading the street with you have had the same concern. Probably not.

    Your underlayer, the lightweight cotton t-shirt, nestles against your skin. You bought it at the Yiddish Book Center last spring, after a week-long language class there. It is black, and has der aleph-beis, the alphabet, printed in white letters across the back.  No one can see your shirt, but you know it is there and you feel the language of your ancestors sprawled across your ribcage. Yiddish is buried deep inside you, protecting you. Khof curls like a reverse C, a strong spine protecting the top and bottom as they open to the left, like two outstretched arms in a battering wind. The sound of khof, its friction against the back palette, is easy for you to pronounce. You’ve heard it since you were a child, words like Khanike and kholem and Khelm, the town in Ashkenazi Jewish lore known for its harmless, charming simpletons.  Snuggling your back, mid-alphabet, khof lies somewhere near the bottom of your lungs and when you breathe, it comes to life, a seed germinating and sprouting inside you, rising from the black Galician soil where your grandmother raised her gardens.

    But now is not the time to dwell in your past. Not the time to lament how this language was passed on to you only as a relic, not something alive and breathing, even though your grandmothers were born into it, lived and loved and birthed their own children in it.

    You are here to protest what is happening right now. Today, the civilian death toll from the Israeli bombing of Gaza stands at 18,000. Among the dead, there are at least 8,000 children. You are standing on this bridge to disrupt, to say there can be no business as usual, that your tax dollars will not pay for meting out slaughter. You are blocking this bridge to call out the death company whose headquarters you stand in front of, the company that supplies the fighter jets and the bombs delivering this assault. On this last night of Chanukah you are saying not in our name, the slogan written in stark white letters across the black t-shirts worn by many in the crowd of protestors. By now, two months into public, continuous protest around the country, these t-shirts have become a familiar outfit.

    Squad cars arrive, blue lights flashing, followed by paddy wagons.  The lieutenant in charge is angry and frustrated by your surprise move which changed the scene from a rally easily monitored by officers on bicycles into one that would require much more.  He warns you that your action is illegal, and you are subject to arrest.  As if you didn’t know. As if this were not intentional.

    The arrests happen quickly. The lieutenant approaches you one at a time, starting with C, unraveling the demand for ceasefire from its beginning.  He gets close in your faces and repeats what he has already said -your action is illegal. He asks if you will agree to leave and walk off the bridge on your own, then asks if you understand that you are about to be arrested for disorderly conduct and obstruction.  R, to your left, seems subdued, maybe nervous. He is young, likely has a job to get to tomorrow or an interview for something next week, something consequential.  Most of your group is young. They are all putting themselves at risk. But no one breaks rank.

    No, I am not walking off this bridge. Yes, I understand I am going to be arrested and charged.

    You watch as the police detain C,E,A,S,E and F. The same procedure for all –several officers tie their hands behind their backs, capture their wrists in zipties. Each one is led from the bridge past the crowd towards the paddy wagons.  The crowd cheers and sings and sends love.

    It’s a parade of sorts and you wonder why the police have chosen to march people on this side of the bridge right past the rally, when they could have walked all of you on the other side where you would be far less visible to your admiring comrades. It is dramatic and theatrical.

    As your turn approaches, you remember your daughter’s advice, from her own arrest last month in New York. “Have them tie you up in front. It’s your legal right if you ask. It will be easier on your shoulders, Mom.”.

    Lately, your shoulders have been bothering you. You’ve been aware of your rotator cuffs in a way you weren’t before. When the lieutenant approaches you, you have already seen and heard six people arrested and you are ready. After he asks you if you will leave on your own, warns you of your imminent arrest and tells you the charges, you hold your wrists in front of you and make your request. To your surprise, though he is snarly and clearly tired of all of you, he agrees.

    And off you go, zip-tied in front, masked, bundled in layers, past the cheering crowd.  A friend and her daughter stand on the sidelines, taking pictures and a video you will watch later, over and over again, seeing yourself taken to a paddy wagon by the Chicago police.

    If your parents were still alive, they’d be in the crowd giving you the thumbs up.  If they could have heard another friend shout “Free Palestine,” as you were marched by, they would have agreed.

    Eventually, there are seven of you in the paddy wagon.  You’ve been sorted by perceived gender, or perhaps by what’s on your IDs. You’re careful about what you discuss.  Nothing about your action. There is only one other woman in your age range, and so when the conversation turns to music, you are pretty much lost.

    You sit in the wagon for a long time before it bounces off towards wherever you are heading.  There don’t seem to be any shock absorbers in the wagon, and no seat belts. You all agree that you are heading east over the same bridge you’ve been blocking, though of course you can’t see outside. Chicagoans internalize a sense of the grid. Zip-tied and jostled, you sit in two rows, lined up against either side. After a short ride, the wagon comes to an abrupt halt. You wait, perhaps fifteen long minutes, or more, no idea where you are. “They are probably getting dinner,” your companion to the right says.  She has an extensive arrest record and says it wouldn’t be the first time the cops stop for pizza while the protestors in the wagon wait.

    This remark leads to an exchange about previous arrest experiences, even though music is a safer topic. Surveillance. When one of your wagon mates asks you if you’ve been arrested before, you say no, only tear-gassed, but you note that you’ve been protesting your entire life, even while still in utero, at least according to family lore. Whatever was being protested in 1958 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before your birth month of October, well, you were there along with your mom. There was plenty to protest. The sixties were in their prequel and your parents were certainly not too happy about the fifties either.

    “And how does it feel now to be arrested?” she asks.

    “Overdue,” you say.

    This will become your go-to phrase when people ask you about the arrest.  You are not inclined to say that it is the least you can do, that it is nothing compared to the death and destruction raining down upon the people of Gaza, because it sounds trite, but, given your long protest history, it really is how you feel. The least you could do. And certainly overdue.

    In the collective holding cell at the precinct jail, you share stories. You bond. Seven women in a cell for an undetermined period, of course it happens. Demographically, there are obvious ways to distinguish the group.

    Two of you are in your sixties. The rest, much younger.

    One of you is Christian, a minister. The rest, Jewish.

    Three of you are well versed in the Frankfurt School. The rest, not so much but they do get the basic concepts. Everybody in this cell has at least an undergrad degree.

    Four of you work at non-profits. Two are professors (or retired, you, specifically.). And then there’s the one minister.

    Six of you have tattoos.  Only one does not. You. So you feel inadequate and explain that for five years, you and your daughter have been trying to decide on a mother-daughter tattoo.  You both can be indecisive, debating people and so it hasn’t happened yet, because you haven’t agreed on a design yet, but you will. Maybe a monarch on you, a milkweed pod on her. Or loons and canoes. She has some nostalgia for the Midwest, despite her decision to trot off to New York.

    And then, on this night of a Chanukah protest and arrest, the next division raises one of your important foundational stories. Of the six Jewish women, five have had a painful, conflictive break with Zionist ideology and the communities and families in which they were raised.  Only one has been raised as an anti-Zionist.  Only one has never supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish ethnostate at the expense of Palestinian freedom and self-determination.  Only one has been raised as an American Jewish minority within a minority.  You.

    “You are lucky,” someone tells you.  The others agree.

    You think about this before responding.

    On the one hand, you admire people who break with the ideas they have been raised in, if those ideas are unjust. You admire people who can make a break with received wisdom. There is liberation in that act. Rejecting at least some part of one’s parents’ thinking is usually necessary.  Each generation should be an improvement upon the preceding one, you often say to your kids, when they let you know that their ideas about something are different -i.e., more advanced-than yours.

    At many moments in your life, certain aspects of your parents’ Old Left beliefs have been a constraint.  Perhaps shackle. But you have always agreed with their most basic premises, certainly those about justice and equality and the evils of capitalism. And you have always admired their consistent walking the walk, the life of protest and boycotts and political actions, your upbringing among Black and brown people in hyper segregated Milwaukee, their clear, lived intention to provide you with something other than whiteness.  But it was not an easy way to grow up.

    And especially on the topic of Israel, the basic tenet in which they raised you–no, there should not be a Jewish ethnostate-one you have never broken with, has made it hard for you to find community with other American Jewish people, including your extended families.

    “Yes, lucky,” you agree.  There is nuance in everything, but not always.

    You’ve just heard the heartache of someone who told her rabbi that he had taught her a pack of lies.  They avoid each other.  Another whose parents have told her that they are deeply ashamed of her. And another, whose parents haven’t spoken to her in years, speaks with resignation about their rupture.

    The stories are painful.

    At some point, you leave the topic of Zionism and return to tatoos. Show and tell begins. But it is winter in Chicago and are dressed warmly, to have stood on a bridge in the cold, so you are all wearing long sleeves and warm leggings and sweatpants.  Someone rolls up the left sleeve of her shirt.  But how to show the upper arm?  Some minor undressing occurs. Another rolls up the leg of her sweatpants to show off the art on the back of her calf.  But how to show the thigh?  Pull them down!  Finally, a cellmate rolls up her shirt to show you a tattoo that extends from her neck along her spine, almost to her butt, a gorgeous breathtaking tattoo that elicits oohs and aahs from the entire group. Along with the tattoo we see her belly and bra, her ribs and backbone.  This escalation of the undressing is enough for the officers watching you from outside the thick glass windows of the collective cell.  Enough story-telling, enough female bonding, enough revealing of the artwork on covered limbs and backs. More than enough.  The show is over.  One by one they call you out, dissemble the collective. They “process” you, take your fingerprints, your mug shot, take you to another are of the jail where there are individual cells, each one of you on her own. You spend the rest of your time, another seven hours, in a cold cell with bright lights, a camera, a hard bench, an open toilet and sink combination with a trickle of water to wash hands and take a drink, left alone to ponder.  You sit in solitary, counting the cinder blocks of your cell, with lots of time to go over the shared stories, the laughter, the tears, the determination.

    At 3:30 a.m. you are released. The jail support team is waiting for you outside the precinct door to offer hugs, smiles, sufganyot, the jelly-donuts you eat at Chanukah, and a ride home. They’ve been waiting outside half the night.  Now the other half is yours.

    You wonder, where did this story begin? Where will it take me? How do I tell it?

    The post Chanukah 2023 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Discrimination faced by indigenous Papuans ‘isn’t something new’, says disturbing new rights report

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Racism, torture and arbitrary arrests are some examples of discrimination indigenous Papuans have dealt with over the last 60 years from Indonesia, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

    The report, If It’s Not Racism, What Is It? Discrimination and other abuses against Papuans in Indonesia, said the Indonesian government denies Papuans basic rights, like education and adequate health care.

    Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said Papuan people had been beaten, kidnapped and sexually abused for more than six decades.

    “I have heard about this day to day racism since I had my first Papuan friend when I was in my 20s in my college, it means that over the last 40 years, that kind of story keeps on going on today,” Harsono said.

    “Regarding torture again this is not something new.”

    The report said infant mortality rates in West Papua in some instances are close to 12 times higher than in Jakarta.

    Papuan children denied education
    Papuan children are denied adequate education because the government has failed to recruit teachers, in some instance’s soldiers have stepped into the positions “and mostly teach children about Indonesian nationalism”.

    It said Papuan students find it difficult to find accommodation with landlords unwilling to rent to them while others were ostracised because of their racial identity.

    In March, a video emerged of soldiers torturing Definus Kogoya in custody. He along with Alianus Murib and Warinus Kogoya were arrested in February for allegedly trying to burn down a medical clinic in Gome, Highland Papua province.

    According to the Indonesian army, Warinus Kogoya died after allegedly “jumping off” a military vehicle.

    President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s takes government next month.

    Harsono said the report was launched yesterday because of this.

    “We want this new [Indonesian] government to understand the problem and to think about new policies, new approaches, including to answer historical injustice, social injustice, economic injustice.”

    Subianto’s poor human rights record
    Harsono said Subianto has a poor human rights record but he hopes people close to him will flag the report.

    He said current President Joko Widodo had made promises while he was in power to allow foreign journalists into West Papua and release political prisoners, but this did not materialise.

    When he came to power the number of political prisoners was around 100 and now it’s about 200, Harsono said.

    He said few people inside Indonesia were aware of the discrimination West Papuan people face, with most only knowing West Papua only for its natural beauty.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French police shoot dead two Kanaks in New Caledonian ‘assassinations’

    By Stefan Armbruster and Harry Pearl of BenarNews

    French police have shot and killed two men in New Caledonia, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago.

    The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) decried the deaths yesterday as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

    The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence.

    The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Nouméa.

    Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media statement the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

    “The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

    Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie (elite police tactical unit) and the consequent death of the two persons sought”.

    Push back ‘peaceful solution’
    Union Calédonienne (UC) secretary-general Dominique Fochi said yesterday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

    Screenshot 2024-09-19 at 2.35.27 AM (1).png
    Pro-independence Union Calédonienne secretary-general Dominique Fochi addresses the media yesterday. Image: Andre Kaapo Ihnim/Radio Djiido

    “The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a FLNKS statement at a press conference.

    “We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarisation and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

    The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities”.

    Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

    “The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

    One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

    Deaths raise Citizenship Day tensions
    The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day on Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

    For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonisation of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

    Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

    “I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week.

    “This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 — we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

    Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 pm to 6 am between September 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms.

    Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

    UN decolonisation process
    New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

    A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo.

    However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

    Earlier this year, the president of Union Calédonienne proposed Septemnber 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders.

    The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (US $1.3 billion).

    Some 35,000 people are out of a job.

    Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Two Kanaks shot dead by French police in New Caledonia decried as ‘assassinations’

    French police shot and killed two men in New Caledonia on Thursday morning, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago. 

    The pro-independence FLNKS decried the deaths as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

    The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence. 

    The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Noumea.

    Public prosecutor Yves Dupas in a media statement said the police operation using armored vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

    “The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

    Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie [elite police tactical unit] and the consequent death of the two persons sought.”

    Union Caledonie secretary general Dominique Fochi said on Thursday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

    Screenshot 2024-09-19 at 2.35.27 AM (1).png
    Pro-independence Union Caledonie secretary-general Dominique Fochi addresses the media on Sept. 19, 2024. (Andre Kaapo Ihnim/Radio Diijo)

    “The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front statement at a press conference in Noumea.

    “We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarization and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

    The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities.”

    Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people  during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

    “The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

    One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

    The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day next Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

    For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonization of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

    Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7,000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

    “I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week. 

    “This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 – we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

    Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m between Sept. 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms. 

    Kanaks make up about 40% of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalized in their own land – they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

    New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a U.N.-mandated decolonization process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

    A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing with the status quo. However supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout – it was boycotted by the independence movement – and because it was held during a serious phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

    Earlier this year, the president of Union Caledonian proposed Sept. 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders. 

    The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (U.S. $1.3 billion). Some 35,000 people are out of a job. 

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stefan Armbruster and Harry Pearl for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ganesha idol in Bengaluru police van: Viral claims misleading; PM Modi leads Right Wing’s misinformation campaign

    Addressing a public meeting at Kurukshetra in poll-bound Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on September 14, 2024, “In Congress-ruled Karnataka, even Ganpati is being put in jail. They have placed and locked Ganpatiji in a police van. While the entire nation is celebrating the Ganesh Utsav, Congress is creating obstacles in worshipping Lord Ganesha, the destroyer of obstacles.” He added that Congress could go to any length for appeasement.

    He repeated the claim while making an address in Bhubaneswar on September 17. He said, “…in Karnataka, where their (Congress) government is in power, they committed an even greater offence by placing an idol of Lord Ganesha behind bars…”

    A picture of an idol of Hindu deity Ganesha in a police van had already gone viral on social media when PM Modi mentioned it in Haryana.

    Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya shared the image on X on September 13, 2024, and claimed that Congress was “hell-bent on insulting our dieties, & belittling the belief and faith of millions of Hindus(?)” (sic) (archive)

    The image was also shared by X user Girish Bharadwaj (@Girishvhp), who identifies himself as a ‘Swayamsevak’ on his X bio and is associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He claimed that “Bhagavan Ganesha… was detained by the Karnataka police.” He also wrote that “the arrest followed a protest condemning the incident of stone-pelting by Muslims on a Ganesh procession in Nagamangala, Mandya.” (archive)

    At the time of this article being written, the tweet was viewed over 2.6 Lakh times and reshared close to 5,000 times.

    Several X users, including top BJP leaders, amplified the claim. They include BJP national general secretary B L Santosh (@blsantosh), Karnataka state BJP president Vijayendra Yediyurappa (@BYVijayendra), national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala (@Shehzad_Ind), the party’s Bengaluru Central MP P C Mohan (@PCMohanMP), Varun Kumar Rana (@VarunKrRana), Manish Kashyap son of Bihar (@ManishKasyapsob), Shalendra Sharma (@Shalendervoice), Jitendra Pratap Singh (@jpsin1) and several others.

    Media outlets, too, reported on the incident. News agency ANI (@ANI) reached out to Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde for a byte on the viral claim and amplified the claim that “an idol of Ganapati had been seized.” (archive)

    Republic reported the PM speech and mentioned that the incident had taken place in Nagamangala taluk. The headline said, “Even Ganpati Being Put Behind Bars in Congress-Ruled Karnataka: PM Modi”. The subhead mentioned, “Today the situation has become such that even Ganpati is being put behind bars in the Congress-ruled Karnataka”, said PM Modi.”

    Fact Check

    A relevant keyword search led us to a report by The News Minute. Headlined “Controversy erupts in Bengaluru over Ganesha idol in police van: What really happened?”, the report narrates the sequence of events which resulted in the idol of Ganesha in a police van.

    The report says, “The incident unfolded during a protest at Bengaluru’s Town Hall on September 13, where protesters had gathered to demand a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the communal clash that erupted in Mandya district during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. Around 11:30 am, a group of protesters gathered at the Town Hall, with one of them carrying a Ganesha idol on a pedestal. The protest was organised by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Ganesh Utsava Committee.

    The problem started as city regulations allow protests only at Freedom Park. Protests at all other locations are clamped down by the police, following a Karnataka High Court order.

    “In an effort to manage the situation, a police officer placed the idol in an empty police van intended for the protesters. The move was to protect the deity. But it created confusion and resulted in accusations after the photos went viral,” a police official told TNM.

    The police detained around 40 protesters, and the Ganesha idol was later immersed in Ulsoor lake by the authorities.”

    A report in The Times of India corroborates this. It says, “… around 25 people had gathered, with one protester boldly holding up a 1ft-tall Ganesha idol on a pedestal. As per city rules, protests are only allowed at Freedom Park, so police arrived swiftly, ready to detain the crowd.”

    The official X handle of DCP central division of Bengaluru Police (@DCPCentralBCP) issued a statement in this regard.

    The first of their tweets said, “Clarification regarding viral social media posts stating that authorities snatched Ganesh idol from devotees going for immersion near Town Hall in Bengaluru…”

    A subsequent tweet mentioned that on September 13, 2024, Hindu groups defied High Court orders and protested at Bengaluru’s Town Hall over the Nagamangala incident. To this, the Karnataka police detained the demonstrators, and the Ganpati idol was later immersed by the authorities following rituals. They also shared pictures of the idol immersion.

    The readers should also note that within a short span of time, the idol was taken out of the van and shifted to a police jeep. The TOI report mentioned above states, “…the sight of the lonely Ganesha in the van caught the eye of photographers, and police soon realised how the scene might escalate. In a flurry of action, a police officer rushed back to the van, carefully retrieved the idol, and moved it to a police jeep.”

    There is video evidence to corroborate this:

    What Happened in Nagamangala?

    Several news reports documented an incident at Nagamangala, Mandya, on September 11, 2024, against which the demonstrators were agitating in Bengaluru. Clashes reportedly broke out between two groups during a Ganesh idol immersion procession. As many as 52 people had been arrested. The Economic Times writes, “According to police, an argument broke out between two groups, when the Ganesh idol procession by devotees from Badarikoppalu village reached a place of worship on Wednesday, and some miscreants hurled stones, which escalated the situation. Following the clashes between the two groups, a few shops were vandalised and goods torched and vehicles set on fire on Wednesday night, they added.”

    To sum up, that the viral social media claims that police ‘detained’ or ‘arrested’ Hindu deity Ganesha are false. The photo of the Ganesha idol in a police van was clicked after policemen had retrieved the idol from the protesters in Bengaluru. The claim by PM Modi, too, is hence misleading.

    The Times of India report mentioned in this story got the headline wrong as it claimed that the entire ruckus took place in Mandya.

    Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.

    The post Ganesha idol in Bengaluru police van: Viral claims misleading; PM Modi leads Right Wing’s misinformation campaign appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • France boosts Pacific security forces as symbolic ‘September 24’ date looms

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Fears of potential unrest on New Caledonia’s symbolic September 24 date have prompted stronger restrictions in New Caledonia and the deployment of large numbers of French security personnel.

    The date originally marked what France termed the “taking of possession” of New Caledonia in 1853.

    Since 2004, what the pro-independence Kanak movement has been calling for years “a day of mourning”, was consensually renamed “Citizenship Day” by the local government in a move to foster a sense of inclusiveness and common destiny.

    But since violent and deadly riots erupted four months ago, on May 13, the date has been mentioned several times by the pro-independence movement’s Union Calédonienne (UC) party.

    Since the riots emerged, UC leader Daniel Goa publicly claimed he intended to use the date to declare unilaterally the French Pacific archipelago’s independence.

    While the overall situation of New Caledonia has been slowly returning to some kind of normalcy and despite some pockets of resistance and roadblocks, including in the Greater Nouméa area, the French High commission on Friday announced a package of restrictions, combining the current curfew (10pm to 5am) with new measures.

    ‘I am being prudent’
    High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media: “There is considerable force to ensure that law and order will prevail . . .  I am being prudent.

    “I have asked for reinforcements and I have got them”, he told local anti-independence radio RRB on Friday.

    He said it is more than what was ever sent to New Caledonia during the hardest moments of 1984-1988 when the territory was in a state of insurrection.

    Le Franc detailed that the security contingent deployed would comprise “almost 7000” personnel, including mobile gendarmes, police (to “protect sensitive areas”) and military.

    General Nicolas Mathéos, who heads the French gendarmes in New Caledonia, also stressed he was determined.

    Speaking on Monday to local TV Caledonia, he said the reinforcements came as the French) state “has put in every necessary means to ensure this 24 September and the days before that take place in a climate of serenity”.

    “New Caledonia now needs serenity. It needs to rebuild. It needs to believe in its future after this violent crisis,” he said.

    Numbers ‘in control’
    “We will be in numbers to hold the territory, to control it, including on the roads, so that this day is a day of peace.

    “Because no one wants to go through again the nightmare of May.”

    The general said reinforcements had already arrived.

    “For the gendarmerie, this is almost 40 units mobilised.

    “Public order will be maintained, on September 24, before September 24 and after  September 24.”

    General Nicolas Mathéos, head of French gendarmes in New Caledonia speaking to TV Caledonia on 16 September 2024 - PHOTO screen capture TV Caledonia
    General Nicolas Mathéos, head of French gendarmes in New Caledonia, speaking to TV Caledonia on September 16. Image: TV Caledonia screenshot

    The curfew itself, which had been gradually relaxed over the past few weeks, is now returning to a stricter 6pm-6am duration for the whole of New Caledonia, specifically concerning the September 21-24 period (a long weekend).

    Additional measures include a ban on all public meetings within Nouméa and its outskirts.

    Firearms, alcohol banned
    Possession, transportation and sale of firearms, ammunition and alcohol also remain prohibited until September 24.

    Fuel distribution and transportation is subject to restrictions, the French High Commission said in a release on Friday.

    High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media that the measures were taken due to the current circumstances and the appearance of some posts seen on social media which “call on public order disturbances on 24 September 2024”.

    “Under those circumstances, a ban on circulation…is a measure that can efficiently prevent disruption of public order,” he said.

    The restrictions, however, do not apply to persons who can provide evidence that they need to move within the prohibited hours for professional, medical emergency, domestic or international air and sea travel reasons.

    Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation from New Caledonia is scheduled to travel to Paris next week to meet high officials, including the presidents of both Houses of Parliament, French media has reported.

    New Caledonia’s delegation is scheduled to travel from September 23 to October 4.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • France boosts Pacific security forces as symbolic ‘September 24’ date looms

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Fears of potential unrest on New Caledonia’s symbolic September 24 date have prompted stronger restrictions in New Caledonia and the deployment of large numbers of French security personnel.

    The date originally marked what France termed the “taking of possession” of New Caledonia in 1853.

    Since 2004, what the pro-independence Kanak movement has been calling for years “a day of mourning”, was consensually renamed “Citizenship Day” by the local government in a move to foster a sense of inclusiveness and common destiny.

    But since violent and deadly riots erupted four months ago, on May 13, the date has been mentioned several times by the pro-independence movement’s Union Calédonienne (UC) party.

    Since the riots emerged, UC leader Daniel Goa publicly claimed he intended to use the date to declare unilaterally the French Pacific archipelago’s independence.

    While the overall situation of New Caledonia has been slowly returning to some kind of normalcy and despite some pockets of resistance and roadblocks, including in the Greater Nouméa area, the French High commission on Friday announced a package of restrictions, combining the current curfew (10pm to 5am) with new measures.

    ‘I am being prudent’
    High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media: “There is considerable force to ensure that law and order will prevail . . .  I am being prudent.

    “I have asked for reinforcements and I have got them”, he told local anti-independence radio RRB on Friday.

    He said it is more than what was ever sent to New Caledonia during the hardest moments of 1984-1988 when the territory was in a state of insurrection.

    Le Franc detailed that the security contingent deployed would comprise “almost 7000” personnel, including mobile gendarmes, police (to “protect sensitive areas”) and military.

    General Nicolas Mathéos, who heads the French gendarmes in New Caledonia, also stressed he was determined.

    Speaking on Monday to local TV Caledonia, he said the reinforcements came as the French) state “has put in every necessary means to ensure this 24 September and the days before that take place in a climate of serenity”.

    “New Caledonia now needs serenity. It needs to rebuild. It needs to believe in its future after this violent crisis,” he said.

    Numbers ‘in control’
    “We will be in numbers to hold the territory, to control it, including on the roads, so that this day is a day of peace.

    “Because no one wants to go through again the nightmare of May.”

    The general said reinforcements had already arrived.

    “For the gendarmerie, this is almost 40 units mobilised.

    “Public order will be maintained, on September 24, before September 24 and after  September 24.”

    General Nicolas Mathéos, head of French gendarmes in New Caledonia speaking to TV Caledonia on 16 September 2024 - PHOTO screen capture TV Caledonia
    General Nicolas Mathéos, head of French gendarmes in New Caledonia, speaking to TV Caledonia on September 16. Image: TV Caledonia screenshot

    The curfew itself, which had been gradually relaxed over the past few weeks, is now returning to a stricter 6pm-6am duration for the whole of New Caledonia, specifically concerning the September 21-24 period (a long weekend).

    Additional measures include a ban on all public meetings within Nouméa and its outskirts.

    Firearms, alcohol banned
    Possession, transportation and sale of firearms, ammunition and alcohol also remain prohibited until September 24.

    Fuel distribution and transportation is subject to restrictions, the French High Commission said in a release on Friday.

    High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told local media that the measures were taken due to the current circumstances and the appearance of some posts seen on social media which “call on public order disturbances on 24 September 2024”.

    “Under those circumstances, a ban on circulation…is a measure that can efficiently prevent disruption of public order,” he said.

    The restrictions, however, do not apply to persons who can provide evidence that they need to move within the prohibited hours for professional, medical emergency, domestic or international air and sea travel reasons.

    Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation from New Caledonia is scheduled to travel to Paris next week to meet high officials, including the presidents of both Houses of Parliament, French media has reported.

    New Caledonia’s delegation is scheduled to travel from September 23 to October 4.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG police chief Manning declares emergency for Porgera

    The National

    Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning has declared emergency orders to safeguard infrastructure and residents in Porgera due to escalating law and order issues brought about by illegal miners.

    Manning said police would be increasing the legitimate use of force to remove combatants in order to protect critical infrastructure, including the Porgera Mine, a critical asset for the national economy facing increasing threats.

    Enga Governor Peter Ipatas on Sunday called on the government to implement a state of emergency due to escalating law and order issues in recent weeks.

    Ipatas said: “if these security challenges are not addressed promptly, there is an ongoing risk of the mine being shut down to safeguard its operations and personnel, which could have significant economic impact for the country”.

    Manning said: “This worsening situation is caused by illegal miners and settlers who are using violence to victimise and terrorise the traditional landowners.

    “Emergency orders have been declared to protect life and important infrastructure in the valley, where I have directed police to remove illegal miners and settlers.

    “We have 122 security personnel on the ground, including mobile squad, dog squads and Sector Response Unit as well as personnel from Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF).”

    He said Deputy Commissioner (Regional operations) Samson Kua was deployed to effect on-the-ground command in Porgera and would be aided by Assistant Commissioner Joseph Tondop.

    “Security personnel will use legitimate lethal force where appropriate to protect the innocent, meaning that any person carrying an offensive weapon in public will be considered a threat and dealt with accordingly, with force,” Manning said.

    “Porgera station is declared off-limits to people who are non-residents and a curfew is in effect between 6pm to 8pm, which will be strictly enforced along with a total liquor ban.”

    Governor Ipatas issued an urgent plea to the government following a surge in tribal violence in Porgera Valley over the past few days.

    “The violence has led to loss of many innocent lives, displacement of people, property destruction and heightened fears for the safety of local residents and businesses,” he said.

    “This situation is dire. We have witnessed innocent lives being claimed and properties destroyed within days. The current situation can’t continue,” said Ipatas.

    “The government must act swiftly to implement the SOE for Porgera Valley to restore peace and order.”

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 20 dead – PNG women, girls flee tribal fighting in Porgera mine valley

    By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

    Women, girls, the elderly, and young boys have rushed to pack any vehicle they could as they escaped heavy tribal fighting that has erupted in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley.

    The sound of gunfire erupts in the peaceful valley, shouts of war follow the gunfire, and amid the chaos, women and girls have been hiding, ever keeping a close eye on the scenes unfolding before them.

    The fight in the golden valley of Porgera started earlier this week when two factions of illegal miners fought among themselves and one faction of the group killed two men from the other faction.

    And the fight erupted from then on. With no leader since the death of their local member of Parliament, Maso Karipe, the valley has seen fighting intensify since Wednesday.

    Caught smack in the middle are security personnel who have tried their best to bring peace to the mining township.

    Papua New Guinea celebrates its independence from Australia on 16 September 1975 this weekend with a national holiday tomorrow.

    The PNG Post-Courier attempted to make contact with security personnel but could only hear gunfire as the men continued to protect the mining site and each other.

    Mass exodus of 5000
    Porgera has seen a mass exodus of more than 5000 people.

    The 20 people killed include two local mine workers and the numbers increase steadily each day. The electorate is run by gunmen, with all local services stopped and prices of goods the highest the electorate has seen in years.

    The main road via Mulitaka has been closed since the May 24 landslide. The bypass road is yet to be completed.

    A state of emergency must be declared, says Lagaip member Aikem Amos as his electorate borders the mining township.

    He said that the government had often said short-term pain for long-term gain. However, that had fallen on deaf ears as gunmen moved into the valley laying waste to those who dared stand up against them.

    Akem has called on the national government to intervene to stop the recent fight that has escalated.

    He confirmed that all the schools, hospitals, aid posts, and other government services, including the BSP banking service in Porgera, were all closed in fear of this tribal warfare that is flaring like wildfire, costing a lot of lives.

    Warlords ‘in control’
    He said the fight was not confined to the Porgerans themselves but men from Lagaip districts and Mulitaka LLG were also involved in this fight.

    “The fight is said to be covering all the Porgera valley,” Akem said.

    The Lagaip MP said there was no road network, no communications, and even the price of goods and services had sky-rocketed in the last few days due to the fight and the road reconstruction in Mulitaka.

    “The only thing that seems to be working is the Porgera gold mine,” Akem said.

    He added there were not enough policemen and soldiers to maintain peace in the valley.

    A few security personnel who were there were protecting the mine site and the nearby area and outside the mine premises all was in the hands of warlords.

    “I as the member for Lagaip call for the government to intervene and declare a state of emergency in Porgera Valley now,” Akem said.

    ‘Peaceful golden valley’ gone
    “If the government takes longer time to stop the fight in Porgera now, we might never have a mine in the next two weeks or months and years to come,” he added.

    He said that there was no leadership in Porgera and the place once called a “peaceful golden valley” was in the hands of warlords now as we were were speaking.

    Akem said without the late Maso Karipe there was nobody in Porgera to provide leadership.

    “I am a leader for the people of Lagaip and I cannot look after Porgera District too given the status of my capability. But as a leader, I will always call for the national government’s intervention,” he said.

    Prime Minister James Marape and coalition members were reminded in Parliament this week that law and order was the number one priority.

    PM Marape said: “In this meeting, this body of leaders, on behalf of the coalition government, has elevated the fight for law and order as a number one priority as we move our country into 50 years of Independence and beyond.

    “We resolved that, in the face of many competing needs, this government must, at the very earliest, explore every possible means to uphold the rule of law in our country, strengthen law enforcement, and ensure that the police and all systems of justice are functioning properly.

    Concerted effort needed
    “While we work on the economy, fixing health and education, and developing infrastructure through Connect PNG, every concerted effort must be made in the area of law and order, including fighting corruption.

    “This is the number one focus for our coalition government.”

    Prime Minister Marape emphasised that this initiative built upon the government’s ongoing efforts in the law and justice sector, including targeted personnel training to bolster ongoing force and the broader justice system.

    According to sources on the ground the New Porgera mine had shut down its operations for a day as fighting continued on Wednesday.

    However, by Thursday, the mine had reopened.

    Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 20 dead – PNG women, girls flee tribal fighting in Porgera mine valley

    By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

    Women, girls, the elderly, and young boys have rushed to pack any vehicle they could as they escaped heavy tribal fighting that has erupted in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley.

    The sound of gunfire erupts in the peaceful valley, shouts of war follow the gunfire, and amid the chaos, women and girls have been hiding, ever keeping a close eye on the scenes unfolding before them.

    The fight in the golden valley of Porgera started earlier this week when two factions of illegal miners fought among themselves and one faction of the group killed two men from the other faction.

    And the fight erupted from then on. With no leader since the death of their local member of Parliament, Maso Karipe, the valley has seen fighting intensify since Wednesday.

    Caught smack in the middle are security personnel who have tried their best to bring peace to the mining township.

    Papua New Guinea celebrates its independence from Australia on 16 September 1975 this weekend with a national holiday tomorrow.

    The PNG Post-Courier attempted to make contact with security personnel but could only hear gunfire as the men continued to protect the mining site and each other.

    Mass exodus of 5000
    Porgera has seen a mass exodus of more than 5000 people.

    The 20 people killed include two local mine workers and the numbers increase steadily each day. The electorate is run by gunmen, with all local services stopped and prices of goods the highest the electorate has seen in years.

    The main road via Mulitaka has been closed since the May 24 landslide. The bypass road is yet to be completed.

    A state of emergency must be declared, says Lagaip member Aikem Amos as his electorate borders the mining township.

    He said that the government had often said short-term pain for long-term gain. However, that had fallen on deaf ears as gunmen moved into the valley laying waste to those who dared stand up against them.

    Akem has called on the national government to intervene to stop the recent fight that has escalated.

    He confirmed that all the schools, hospitals, aid posts, and other government services, including the BSP banking service in Porgera, were all closed in fear of this tribal warfare that is flaring like wildfire, costing a lot of lives.

    Warlords ‘in control’
    He said the fight was not confined to the Porgerans themselves but men from Lagaip districts and Mulitaka LLG were also involved in this fight.

    “The fight is said to be covering all the Porgera valley,” Akem said.

    The Lagaip MP said there was no road network, no communications, and even the price of goods and services had sky-rocketed in the last few days due to the fight and the road reconstruction in Mulitaka.

    “The only thing that seems to be working is the Porgera gold mine,” Akem said.

    He added there were not enough policemen and soldiers to maintain peace in the valley.

    A few security personnel who were there were protecting the mine site and the nearby area and outside the mine premises all was in the hands of warlords.

    “I as the member for Lagaip call for the government to intervene and declare a state of emergency in Porgera Valley now,” Akem said.

    ‘Peaceful golden valley’ gone
    “If the government takes longer time to stop the fight in Porgera now, we might never have a mine in the next two weeks or months and years to come,” he added.

    He said that there was no leadership in Porgera and the place once called a “peaceful golden valley” was in the hands of warlords now as we were were speaking.

    Akem said without the late Maso Karipe there was nobody in Porgera to provide leadership.

    “I am a leader for the people of Lagaip and I cannot look after Porgera District too given the status of my capability. But as a leader, I will always call for the national government’s intervention,” he said.

    Prime Minister James Marape and coalition members were reminded in Parliament this week that law and order was the number one priority.

    PM Marape said: “In this meeting, this body of leaders, on behalf of the coalition government, has elevated the fight for law and order as a number one priority as we move our country into 50 years of Independence and beyond.

    “We resolved that, in the face of many competing needs, this government must, at the very earliest, explore every possible means to uphold the rule of law in our country, strengthen law enforcement, and ensure that the police and all systems of justice are functioning properly.

    Concerted effort needed
    “While we work on the economy, fixing health and education, and developing infrastructure through Connect PNG, every concerted effort must be made in the area of law and order, including fighting corruption.

    “This is the number one focus for our coalition government.”

    Prime Minister Marape emphasised that this initiative built upon the government’s ongoing efforts in the law and justice sector, including targeted personnel training to bolster ongoing force and the broader justice system.

    According to sources on the ground the New Porgera mine had shut down its operations for a day as fighting continued on Wednesday.

    However, by Thursday, the mine had reopened.

    Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • As “Cop Cities” Spread to Nearly Every State, Activists Are Pushing Back

    On June 11, a week after a police training facility in Richmond, California, broke ground, organizers from the Stop Cop City Bay Area Coalition marched to the Overaa Construction headquarters in protest. Citing concerns over rising police militarization and repression in the predominantly Black and Latino area, the protesters — joined by local residents — called on Overaa workers to boycott the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Police Want to Repress Palestine Solidarity — We Must Not Do Their Work for Them

    This past spring, in response to escalated campus protests in solidarity with Palestine, President Joe Biden proclaimed: “Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder.” Peace is framed as order, or a lack of conflict. Yet, as we surpass 40,000 Palestinians killed in an ongoing Israeli genocide, it raises the question: Peace for whom? Democracy for whom?

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024

    September 11.  Melbourne.  The scene: the area between Spencer Street Bridge and the Batman Park-Spencer Street tram stop. Heavily armed police, with glinting face coverings and shields, had seized and blocked the bridge over the course of the morning, preventing all traffic from transiting through it.  Behind them stood second tier personnel, lightly armed.  Then, barricades, followed by horse mounted police.  Holding up the rear: two fire trucks.

    In the skies, unmanned drones hovered like black, stationary ravens of menace.  But these were not deemed sufficient by Victoria Police.  Helicopters kept them company.  Surveillance cameras also stood prominently to the north end of the bridge.

    Before this assortment of marshalled force was an eclectic gathering of individuals from keffiyeh-swaddled pro-Palestinian activists to drummers kitted out in the Palestinian colours, and any number of theatrical types dressed in the shades and costumery of death.  At one point, a chilling Joker figure made an appearance, his outfit and suitcase covered in mock blood.  The share stock of chants was readily deployed: “No justice, no peace, no racist police”; “We, the people, will not be silenced.  Stop the bombing now, now, now”.  Innumerable placards condemning the arms industry and Israel’s war on Gaza also make their appearance.

    The purpose of this vast, costly exercise proved elementary and brutal: to defend Land Forces 2024, one of the largest arms fairs in the southern hemisphere, from Disrupt Land Forces, a collective demonised by the Victorian state government as the great unwashed, polluted rebel rousers and anarchists.  Much had been made of the potential size of the gathering, with uncritical journalists consuming gobbets of information from police sources keen to justify an operation deemed the largest since the 2000 World Economic Forum. Police officers from regional centres in the state had been called up, and while Chief Commissioner Shane Patton proved tight-lipped on the exact number, an estimate exceeding 1,000 was not refuted.  The total cost of the effort: somewhere between A$10 to A$15 million.

    It all began as a healthy gathering at the dawn of day, with protestors moving to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to picket entry points for those attending Land Forces.

    Over time, there was movement between the various entrances to prevent these modern merchants of death from spruiking their merchandise and touting for offers.  As Green Left Online noted, “The Victorian Police barricaded the entrance of the Melbourne Convention Centre so protestors marched to the back entrance to disrupt Land Forces whilst attendees are going through security checks.”

    In keeping with a variant of Anton Chekhov’s principle, if a loaded gun is placed upon the stage, it is bound to be used.  Otherwise, leave it out of the script.  A large police presence would hardly be worthwhile without a few cracked skulls, flesh wounds or arrests.  Scuffles accordingly broke out with banal predictability.  The mounted personnel were also brought out to add a snap of hostility and intimidation to the protestors as they sought to hamper access to the Convention.  For all of this, it was the police who left complaining, worried about their safety.

    Then came the broader push from the officers to create a zone of exclusion around the building, resulting in the closure of Clarendon Street to the south, up to Batman Park. Efforts were made to push the protests from the convention centre across the bridge towards the park.  This was in keeping with the promise by the Chief Commissioner that the MCEC site and its surrounds would be deemed a designated area over the duration of the arms fair from September 11 to 13.

    Such designated areas, enabled by the passage of a 2009 law, vests the police with powers to stop and search a person within the zone without a warrant.  Anything perceived to be a weapon can be seized, with officers having powers to request that civilians reveal their identity.

    Despite such exercisable powers, the relevant legislation imposes a time limit of 12 hours for such areas, something most conspicuously breached by the Commissioner.  But as Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) group remarks, the broader criteria outlined in the legislative regime are often not met and constitute a “method of protest control” that impairs “the rights to assembly, association, and political expression” protected by the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

    The Victorian government had little time for the language of protest.  In a stunningly grotesque twist, the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, defended those at the Land Forces conference as legitimate representatives of business engaging in a peaceful enterprise.  “Any industry deserves the right to have these sorts of events in a peaceful and respectful way.”  If the manufacture, sale and distribution of weapons constitutes a “peaceful and respectful” pursuit, we have disappeared down the rabbit hole with Alice at great speed.

    That theme continued with efforts by both Allan and the opposition leader, John Pesutto, to tarnish the efforts by fellow politicians to attend the protest.  Both fumed indignantly at the efforts of Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri to participate, with the premier calling the measure one designed for “divisive political purposes.”  The Green MP had a pertinent response: “The community has spoken loud and clear, they don’t want weapons and war profiting to come to our doorstep, and the Victorian Labor government is sponsoring this.”

    The absurd, morally inverted spectacle was duly affirmed: a taxpayer funded arms exposition, defended by the taxpayer funded police, used to repel the tax paying protestors keen to promote peace in the face of an industry that thrives on death, mutilation and misery.

    The post Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Police, SC registry refute unverified claims about CJI Chandrachud’s personal links with Mamata, Abhishek

    An image of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and his wife Kalpana Das has gone viral on the messaging platform WhatsApp. The text above the photo says, “CJI Chandrachur’s present wife is related to Dr. S. P. Das Orthopaedic surgeon and personal physician of CM Government of West Bengal. Also Justice Chandrachur and Abhishek Banerjee spend their holidays in Malaysia and Bangkok together! Just informing you without any intentions behind.” (sic)

    At a time when a CJI-led Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing the Kolkata rape and murder case, the image is being shared with the implicit suggestion that there is an understanding between the CJI and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

    Alt News has received multiple requests on its WhatsApp helpline (76000 11160) to fact check the claim tagged with the image.

    Click to view slideshow.

    The photo and/or the accompanying claim are also being shared across social media platforms. Below are a few instances:

    Click to view slideshow.

    Fact Check

    We first noticed that the image in the viral message/social media post is taken from an Instagram post by a user named supremecourtofindia1950. We looked at the timeline of this Instagram user and found that the photo had been shared on September 27, 2023. The photo is captioned, “Chief Justice of India D.Y.Chandrachud with his wife Kalpana Das at Rashtrapati Bhavan.” There is no mention of S P Das or Abhishek Banerjee.

    Next, we noticed that there were three separate claims in the social media post/message that is viral. These are:

    • S P Das is Mamata Banerjee’s physician.
    • Kalpana Das, the wife of CJI D Y Chandrachud, is related to S P Das.
    • Trinamool MP and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee travels/vacations with CJI Chandrachud.

    We found that both the Supreme Court registry and West Bengal Police had released statements refuting the claims in the viral image. The claim of any link between a family member of the CJI with a medical lobby in Bengal was termed ‘ill intended’ and ‘factually incorrect’ by the SC registry, according to Law Today.

    The statement read, “A malicious tweet had been circulated on X ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on the Kolkata rape and murder case attempting to link a member of the family of the Chief Justice of India with a medical lobby in Bengal. The tweet is ill intended, factually incorrect and an attempt to malign the judiciary. A complaint has been registered in this regard with the Delhi Police.”

    On the other hand, the official X handle of West Bengal Police first shared a tweet on September 7 in this regard. They said the claims in the viral message were ‘extremely derogatory’ and contained ‘baseless aspersions’.

    Further, on September 10, Krishnanagar District Police from West Bengal tweeted that a ‘fake news’ had been circulated to defame the CJI and a case had been registered in this regard against Sujit Haldar of Fulbari, Krishnaganj PS (Krishnaganj PS Case No 349/24) and an investigation was underway.

    Shyama Pada Das, an alumnus of North Bengal Medical College, is a senior orthopaedician practising in Kolkata. For years, he has been the personal physician of Mamata Banerjee. This is something he has himself publicly proclaimed on several occasions.

    Dr Shyama Pada Das

    Das is also allegedly a key player in the state’s medical establishment and wields enormous power in the health sector. According to sources in the state’s medical fraternity that Alt News spoke to, Das is at the helm of what is known as the ‘North Bengal lobby’. This has been widely reported by mainstream media much before the R G Kar incident. In the wake of the horrific crime, too, the role of the North Bengal lobby has come under the scanner.

    The readers should note that CJI DY Chandrachud’s wife Kalpana Das hails from the state of Odisha. This was publicly acknowledged by the CJI at a programme of the Odisha Judicial Academy in Bhubaneswar on May 6, 2023. “I think I have become a very constant visitor to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Now, the least of the reasons for which is that I am proudly regarded as the son-in-law of Odisha because my wife is an Odia,” Chandrachud said.

    The last claim in the viral image is that Trinamool general secretary Ahishek Banerjee and CJI D Y Chandrachud spent holidays in Malaysia and Bangkok together. Readers should note that Alt News could not find any publicly available data to support this.

    The post Police, SC registry refute unverified claims about CJI Chandrachud’s personal links with Mamata, Abhishek appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Greens accuse Australian police of ‘excessive force’ against anti-war protesters at arms expo

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Victorian Greens have demanded an independent inquiry into Australian police tactics and alleged excessive use of force today against antiwar protesters at the Land Forces expo in Melbourne.

    State Greens leader Ellen Sandell said her party had lodged a formal protest to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).

    “We have seen police throw flash grenades into crowds of protesters, use pepper spray indiscriminately, and whip people with horse whip,” she also said in a X post.

    “These are military-style tactics used by police against protesters who are trying to have their say, as is their democratic right.”

    Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people as officers were pelted with rocks, manure and tomatoes in what has been described as Melbourne’s biggest police operation in two decades, reports Al Jazeera.

    The Land Forces expo protest
    The Land Forces expo protest. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot

    The pro-Palestine protesters, also demanding a change in Canberra’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, clashed with the police outside the arms fair.

    Thousands picketed the Land Forces 2024 military weapons exposition. Australia has seen numerous protests against the country’s arms industry’s involvement in the war over the past 11 months.

    Protesting for ‘those killed’ in Gaza
    “We’re protesting to stand up for all those who have been killed by the type of weapons [in Gaza] on display at the convention,” said Jasmine Duff from organiser Students for Palestine in a statement.

    About 1800 police officers have been deployed at the Melbourne Convention Centre hosting the three-day weapons exhibition. Up to 25,000 people had previously been expected to turn up at the protest.

    Two dozen people were reported as requiring medical treatment, said a Victoria state police spokesperson in a statement.

    Demonstrators also lit fires in the street and disrupted traffic and public transport, while missiles were thrown at police horses.

    However, no serious injuries were reported, according to police.

    Deputy Greens leader backs protesters
    In a speech to the Senate, the deputy federal leader of the Greens, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, offered her solidarity to “the thousands protesting in Melbourne today to say no to the business of war”.

    Australian Greens Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi
    Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi . . . [Australia’s] Labor government is complicit in genocide”. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot
    “[The governing] Labor tries to distract and deflect, but there is no deflection. So long as we have defence contracts with Israeli weapons companies, the Labor government is complicit in genocide, so long as you refuse to impose sanctions on Israel, this Labor government is complicit in genocide, and there are no excuses for inaction,” she said.

    “The UK has suspended some arms sales to Israel. Canada today is halting more arms sales to Israel.

    “What will it take for [Australia’s] Labor government to take action against the apartheid state of Israel?”

    Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people
    Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people at today’s Land Forces expo in Melbourne, Victoria. Image: V_Palestine20

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Caledonia crisis: Another church burns, spate of attacks continues

    ANALYSIS: By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Another church has been set alight in New Caledonia, confirming a trend of arson which has already destroyed five Catholic churches and missions over the past two months.

    The latest fire took place on Sunday evening at the iconic Saint Denis Church of Balade, in Pouébo, on the northern tip of the main island of Grande Terre.

    The fire had been ignited in at least two locations — one at the main church entrance and the other on the altar, inside the building.

    The attack is highly symbolic: this was the first Catholic church established in New Caledonia, 10 years before France “took possession” of the South Pacific archipelago in 1853.

    It was the first Catholic settlement set up by the Marist mission and holds stained glass windows which have been classified as historic heritage in New Caledonia’s Northern Province.

    Those stained glasses picture scenes of the Marist fathers’ arrival in New Caledonia.

    Parts of the damages include the altar and the main church entrance door.

    In other parts of the building, walls have been tagged.

    A team of police investigators has been sent on location to gather further evidence, the Nouméa Public Prosecutor said.

    250 years after Cook’s landing
    The fire also comes as 250 years ago, on 5 September 1774, British navigator James Cook, aboard the vessel Resolution, made first landing in the Bay of Balade after a Pacific voyage that took him to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the Marquesas islands (French Polynesia), the kingdom of Tonga and what he called the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).

    It was Cook who called the Melanesian archipelago “New Caledonia”.

    Both New Caledonia and the New Hebrides were a direct reference to the islands of Caledonia (Scotland) and the Hebrides, an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland.

    Five churches targeted
    Since mid-July, five Catholic sites have been fully or partially destroyed in New Caledonia.

    This includes the Catholic Mission in Saint-Louis (near Nouméa), a stronghold still in the hands of a pro-independence hard-line faction (another historic Catholic mission settled in the 1860s and widely regarded as the cradle of New Caledonia’s Catholicism); the Vao Church in the Isle of Pines (off Nouméa), and other Catholic missions in Touho, Thio (east coast of New Caledonia’s main island) and Poindimié.

    Another Catholic church building, the Church of Hope in Nouméa, narrowly escaped a few weeks ago and was saved because one of the parishioners discovered packed-up benches and paper ready to be ignited.

    Since then, the building has been under permanent surveillance, relying on parishioners and the Catholic church priests.

    The series of targeted attacks comes as Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, is the largest religion in New Caledonia, where Protestants also make up a large proportion of the group.

    Each attack was followed by due investigations, but no one has yet been arrested.

    Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media these actions were “intolerable” attacks on New Caledonia’s “most fundamental symbols”.

    Why the Catholic church?
    Several theories about the motives behind such attacks are invoking some sort of “mix-up” between French colonisation and the advent of Christianity in New Caledonia.

    Nouméa Archbishop Michel-Marie Calvet, 80, himself a Marist, said “there’s been a clear determination to destroy all that represents some kind of organised order”

    “There are also a lot of amalgamations on colonisation issues,” he said.

    Nouméa archbishop Monsignor Michel-Marie Calvet on the scene of destroyed Saint Louis Mission – Photo NC la 1ère
    Nouméa Archbishop Monsignor Michel-Marie Calvet on the scene of the destroyed Saint Louis Mission. Image: NC la 1ère screenshot

    “But we’ve seen this before and elsewhere: when some people want to justify their actions, they always try to re-write history according to the ideology they want to support or believe they support.”

    While the first Catholic mission was founded in 1853, the protestant priests from the London Missionary Society also made first contact about the same time, in the Loyalty Islands, where, incidentally, the British-introduced cricket still remains a popular sport.

    On the protestant side, the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia (French: Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, EPKNC), has traditionally positioned itself in an open pro-independence stance.

    For a long time, Christian churches (Catholic and Protestants alike) were the only institutions to provide schooling to indigenous Kanaks.

    ‘Paradise’ islands now ‘closest to Hell’
    A few days after violent and deadly riots broke out in New Caledonia, under a state of emergency in mid-May, Monsignor Calvet held a Pentecost mass in an empty church, but relayed by social networks.

    At the time still under the shock from the eruption of violence, he told his virtual audience that New Caledonia, once known in tourism leaflets as the islands “closest to paradise”, had now become “closest to Hell”.

    He also launched a stinging attack on all politicians there, saying they had “failed their obligations” and that from now on their words were “no longer credible”.

    More recently, he told local media:

    “There is a very real problem with our youth. They have lost every landmark. The saddest thing is that we’re not only talking about youth. There are also adults around who have been influencing them.

    “What I know is that we Catholics have to stay away from any form of violence. This violence that tries to look like something it is not.

    “It is not an ideal that is being pursued, it is what we usually call ‘the politics of chaos’.”

    Declined Pope’s invitation to Port Moresby
    He said that although he had been invited to join Pope Francis in Port Moresby during his current Asia and Pacific tour he had declined the offer.

    “Even though many years ago, I personally invited one of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, to come and visit here. But Pope Francis’s visit [to PNG], it was definitely not the right time,” he said.

    Monsignor Calvet was ordained priest in April 1973 for the Society of Mary (Marist) order.

    Jean Marie Tjibaou
    Assassinated FLNKS leader Jean Marie Tjibaou in Kanaky/New Caledonia, 1985. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific

    He arrived in Nouméa in April 1979 and has been Nouméa’s Archbishop since 1981.

    He was also the chair of the Pacific Episcopal Conference (CEPAC) between 1996 and 2003, as well as the vice-president of the Federation of Oceania Episcopal Conferences (FCBCO).

    In 1988, charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as head of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accords with then French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, putting an end to half a decade of quasi civil war.

    One year later, he was gunned down by a member of the radical fringe of the pro-independence movement.

    Tjibaou was trained as a priest in the Society of Mary order.

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mexico City police arrest 2 journalists at human rights protest

    Mexico City, September 9, 2024—Police beat at least two journalists and arrested two others during a protest for human rights in Xochimilco, a southern borough of Mexico City, on Thursday, September 5, according to members of the media who witnessed the incidents.

    “By brutally repressing a social protest and attacking journalists who were simply covering the events, Mexico City authorities once again fail to recognize and protect press freedom, despite years of promises to the contrary,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “If Mexico City wants to uphold its self-proclaimed status as a city that respects human rights, it must immediately take all appropriate steps to guarantee journalists can safely cover protests without fear of police brutality or arrest.”

    Civilians, including members of the Otomí Indigenous community, were protesting in support of local human rights activist Hortensia Telésforo on Thursday when a group of unidentified people carrying sticks, knives, and firearms attacked them. 

    Shortly after the clashes began around 3:30 p.m., local police arrived, deployed tear gas, and then beat and arrested several protesters, according to two journalists who witnessed the events and spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

    Police arrested Penélope Estefanía Galicia Argumedo, a reporter with community radio station Radio Zapote, and Elizabeth Díaz, a freelance reporter, and detained them for several hours before they were released, according to information provided to CPJ in a Friday meeting by the Fundación por la Libertad de Expresión, a collective of human rights organizations.

    CPJ was unable to confirm whether they and the protestors detained would face charges; Mexico City interim mayor Martí Batres said his government does not want anyone arrested during the protests to face trial.

    Freelance reporter José Meza and another unnamed journalist reported being beaten by police and suffered minor injuries, the two witnesses told CPJ.

    Police confiscated work and personal phones from an attorney for international freedom of expression group Article 19, the organization’s regional director, Leopoldo Maldonado, told CPJ.

    CPJ’s several calls to the Mexico City Public Safety Secretariat for comment on the beatings and arrests were unanswered.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Spycops inquiry in “crisis” as Tory-imposed restrictions mean it may be doomed to failure

    Spycops victims have delivered a letter to the new home secretary Yvette Cooper highlighting a state of crisis in the Undercover Policing Inquiry and asking that she reconsider the arbitrary end date and financial constraints imposed by the last government.

    Spycops inquiry in “crisis”, Yvette Cooper must act

    Women deceived into long-term relationships with undercover officers, family justice campaigners and other victims of spycops delivered a letter to the new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, today asking her to lift the arbitrary December 2026 end date imposed by her predecessors, because it is plunging the inquiry into crisis just as it is beginning to uncover the truth.

    A group of core participants delivered the letter to the Home Office in Marsham Street this morning. The group included ‘Jessica’, ‘Alison’, and Eleanor Fairbraida, all women from Police Spies Out of Lives, Suresh Grover from The Monitoring Group, and family justice campaigners John and Linda Burke-Monerville.

    The Spycops inquiry was set up to investigate fifty years of undercover policing infiltrating and targeting a wide range of campaign groups and family justice campaigns.

    However, in June 2023, having heard only the first decade’s worth of evidence, the chair released an absolutely damning interim report. He concluded that the secret political policing operations, and the offensive tactics they employed, sanctioned by Met Police chiefs, were unjustifiable and should have been shut down in the 1970s.

    Following that report, the Home Office under the previous government brought pressure to bear on the inquiry to bring its investigations to a close and deliver a final report by December 2026, however it is clear that the inquiry does not have the resources or capacity to fairly and effectively fulfil its terms of reference to that timescale.

    A deepening chaos

    The letter highlights how a compressed timetable combined with ongoing delays in disclosure is creating chaos and unfairness, with non-state participants subjected to punishing deadlines, and unilateral decisions being made by the Inquiry without their input.

    It asks Yvette Cooper, the new home secretary, to reconsider the decisions imposed on the Spycops inquiry by her predecessor Suella Braverman which created this situation.

    This deepening crisis comes at a time when the full truth of the scandal is just beginning to come out. In July, the Met Police were forced to apologise for their infiltrators’ targeting women activists for fraudulent and abusive sexual relationships, and for their targeting of anti-racist and family justice campaigns.

    It is vital that the Spycops inquiry listens to its ‘Core Participants’, stops cutting corners, and is given the time and resources it needs to properly collect and hear all the relevant evidence.

    The Spycops report may not even be credible

    Jessica from Police Spies Out of Lives said today:

    There were massive delays at the start of this investigation. They spent nine years and over £82 million mainly on undercover officers’ applications for anonymity and State applications for secrecy and that process is still ongoing. Now the victims in this Inquiry are being squeezed up against arbitrary deadlines. Witnesses are not being given time to view the files before being asked to give evidence and that is causing real distress. The disparity in time given to us and to the state is completely unfair.

    For the final report to be credible, core participants and the public must have confidence in the Inquiry process. The scope of these human rights abuses and how they were allowed to happen must be fully understood if we are to ensure they cannot happen again.

    Suresh Grover from The Monitoring Group added:

    We urge the new Home Secretary to personally intervene to ensure that this Inquiry achieves what it was set to do – to examine policing spying of campaigns and protests and its disastrous implications for democracy thoroughly without cutting corners. It’s in her power to fix this.

    Core Participants are asking Yvette Cooper to meet with them urgently to explore ways to ensure the Spycops inquiry is able to meet its Terms of Reference and that victims are treated fairly.

    Hearings in the second phase of Tranche 2 of the Spycops Inquiry are due to commence on 30th September 2024, and will deal with some of the most significant deployments in the whole Inquiry, including HN10 Bob Lambert, an undercover officer who fathered a child and is alleged to have participated in serious crimes resulting in miscarriages of justice.

    Featured image via David Mirzoeff

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Pro-Palestinian activists hold protests to disrupt defense expo in Australia

    By Efe Özkan

    Pro-Palestinian anti-war activists in Australia have protested in Melbourne, disrupting a defence expo set to open on Wednesday.

    Protesters gathered yesterday in front of companies connected to weapons manufacturing across Melbourne as police were called to prevent an escalation of the events, according to 7News Melbourne.

    Many police cars and units were visible in front of company buildings to prevent an escalation of the protests.

    Protests are expected to move across the city to different areas ahead of the Land Forces Military Expo on Wednesday, with more than 25,000 participants, potentially one of the biggest in the country in decades.

    On Sunday, Extinction Rebellion activists blocked Montague Street near the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre where the expo is being held.

    Pro-Palestinian protesters in Australia have been urging the government to impose sanctions on Israel for its genocidal war on Gaza.

    Israel has continued a devastating military offensive in the Gaza Strip since an attack by Hamas resistance forces on October 7, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.

    More than 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 91,700 wounded, according to local health authorities.

    As the Israeli war enters its 12th month, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

    Israel has also intensified its attacks on the Occupied West Bank in recent weeks, killing at least 692 Palestinians.

    Extinction Rebellion disruption
    Formed in 2018, Extinction Rebellion has employed disruptive tactics targeting roads and airports to denounce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, reports Al Jazeera.

    However, since the war on Gaza, they have also taken a strong position on the fighting and have called for an immediate ceasefire.

    “If we believe in climate and ecological justice, we must seek justice in all forms. The climate and ecological emergency has roots in centuries of colonial violence, exploitation and oppression,” the UK-based group said in a statement in November.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Chicago journalist struck with police bike while covering protests

    Raven Geary, who operates the independent outlet Jinx Press, was struck with a bicycle by a Chicago Police Department officer while documenting a pro-Palestinian protest planned to coincide with the nearby Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20, 2024.

    A small gathering of protesters, unaffiliated with and more militant than other groups that had organized larger demonstrations earlier in the week, converged around 7 p.m. outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago’s West Loop section. The demonstrators and police, who far outnumbered them, clashed repeatedly. The protesters were later ordered to leave the area and police began arresting them, Block Club Chicago reported.

    Geary told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest “blew up really quickly.”

    “There was such a massive show of police, unlike we normally see, and a lot of just unclear directions — both to protesters and to journalists — about what the police wanted us to do,” she said. “At a certain point I guess they were giving dispersal orders over a megaphone, for example, and where I was situated I never even heard a single audible dispersal order.”

    She added that those who said they did hear the orders to disperse reported that police blocked them from doing so.

    Police corralled protesters and press multiple times over the course of several hours, Geary said, and at one point an officer struck her in the leg with a bicycle, bruising her. She told the Tracker that she was clearly identifiable as media and was wearing Jinx Press media credentials, but that given the chaos of the scene, she couldn’t be certain whether she was deliberately targeted.

    When reached by email for comment, the Chicago Police Department directed the Tracker to CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling’s news conferences during the DNC, declining to respond to questions about officers’ aggression toward journalists and reported attempts to revoke press credentials.

    “We want to allow you to do your jobs. We really do. But there are times when we’re calling a mass arrest or we’re attempting to move in, we need you guys to step to the side,” Snelling said of journalists during the Aug. 21 news conference. “If you don’t do that, it’s obstructing us and it makes it harder for us to take the people into custody that we’re trying to take into custody. And what we don’t want is for you to get caught in the middle of it and injured and hurt.”

    At least four other journalists were shoved or pulled by officers responding to the protests outside the consulate that day, and at least three were arrested.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Videojournalist shoved with batons by police during NYC protest

    Freelance videojournalist Peter Hambrecht was shoved repeatedly with batons by New York City police while documenting protests outside a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign on Aug. 14, 2024.

    State Democratic leaders — including Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul — and labor union members gathered in Harlem in a show of support for the Harris-Walz campaign ahead of the Democratic National Convention, Politico reported. Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the event, demonstrating against the Biden administration’s military support for Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

    Hambrecht told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest outside the campaign event was uneventful, but tensions escalated after protesters marched the 10 blocks north to a restaurant where the Democratic officials were holding an after-party. He said he was one of five or six journalists to make it into the restaurant alongside approximately 15 demonstrators.

    “I was kind of pulled out of the restaurant by the cops, who eventually came in. And then they just start pushing people down the sidewalk away from the restaurant for a while, just really ramming people,” Hambrecht said. “Most of us at the front were press anyway, by the end of it, and they just continued to do it.”

    He said that he was wearing his city-issued credentials while police shoved him multiple times with their batons, and he received multiple bruises around his ribs. Hambrecht said he licensed his footage from the protest to News2Share, a collective that sells footage to news outlets.

    At least four journalists, including Hambrecht, were struck or pushed by officers with batons during the chaos. Hambrecht, who routinely documents protests in New York City, told the Tracker that the police response on the night of Aug. 14 “was the craziest it’s been for a while.”

    “They just didn’t stop. It was very, very strange that they seemed to be the clear aggressors in that situation, when everyone was getting out of the way and they continued to push us,” he said.

    The New York City Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Independent journalist shoved with batons by NYC police at protest

    An independent journalist who writes under the moniker Spyder Monkey was repeatedly shoved with batons by New York City police while documenting protests outside a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign on Aug. 14, 2024.

    State Democratic leaders — including Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul — and labor union members gathered in Harlem in a show of support for the Harris-Walz campaign ahead of the Democratic National Convention, Politico reported. Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the event, demonstrating against the Biden administration’s military support for Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

    Spyder Monkey, who asked to be identified only by his pen name for safety reasons, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest outside the campaign event was uneventful, but tensions escalated after protesters marched the 10 blocks north to a restaurant where the Democratic officials were holding an after-party. He said protesters went into the restaurant, yelled at attendees and quickly exited.

    “As they were leaving, that’s when the police who were monitoring them from earlier in the day came in and immediately arrested two or three protesters, and that’s when the cop riot basically started,” Spyder Monkey said. “That’s where most of the violence kind of happened, with all the press filming everything around them, smoke bombs being thrown, arguments between police and protesters.”

    He said that the press became trapped between the protesters and a line of officers from the department’s Special Response Group, a rapid response unit that the New York Civil Liberties Union calls notoriously violent.

    “It was a lot of shoving, a lot of police pushing press who, including me, were just trying to hold their arms up to show nonviolence, but we just kept getting manhandled and pushed around,” Spyder Monkey said.

    In a clip Spyder Monkey posted on the social platform X, a supervisory officer can be seen using a baton to shove back independent photojournalist Gerard Dalbon — wearing a black shirt — while the journalist’s press credential is visible on a lanyard.

    At least four journalists, including Spyder Monkey and Dalbon, were struck or pushed by officers with batons during the chaos. Spyder Monkey told the Tracker that his city-issued press credentials were visible and that he was clearly identifiable as press.

    The New York City Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Photojournalist struck, shoved with police batons while covering NYC protest

    Independent photojournalist Gerard Dalbon was struck repeatedly with a baton by New York City police while documenting protests outside a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign on Aug. 14, 2024.

    State Democratic leaders — including Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul — and labor union members gathered in Harlem in a show of support for the Harris-Walz campaign ahead of the Democratic National Convention, Politico reported. Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the event, demonstrating against the Biden administration’s military support for Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

    Dalbon told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest outside the campaign event was uneventful, but tensions escalated after protesters marched the 10 blocks north to a restaurant where the Democratic officials were holding an after-party. Officers with the department’s Special Response Group, a rapid response unit that the New York Civil Liberties Union calls notoriously violent, quickly arrived and began pushing everyone back and hitting people with batons.

    He said that he was shoved by a supervisory officer who was one of the first to pull out his baton and begin striking at people. “I was repeatedly hit with a baton by him as we were getting pushed back. I was showing him my press badge and he did not care,” Dalbon said. “He was saying ‘fuck your press badge’ as he was hitting people.”

    In a clip posted on the social platform X, a supervisory officer can be seen using a baton to shove back Dalbon — wearing a black shirt — while the journalist’s press credential is visible on a lanyard.

    Dalbon told the Tracker that while he has covered many protests, this was the first time he had been hit by police. He added that there was a large group of press at the front between the police and protesters, and that because of that the journalists got “pummeled.” At least four journalists, including Dalbon, were struck or pushed by officers with batons during the chaos.

    The New York City Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Photojournalist shoved with police batons at NYC pro-Palestinian protest

    Independent photojournalist Alexa Wilkinson was repeatedly shoved with a baton by New York City police officers while documenting protests outside a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign on Aug. 14, 2024.

    State Democratic leaders — including Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul — and labor union members gathered in Harlem in a show of support for the Harris-Walz campaign ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Politico reported. Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the event, demonstrating against the Biden administration’s military support for Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

    Wilkinson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest outside the campaign event was uneventful, but tensions escalated after protesters marched the 10 blocks north to a restaurant where the Democratic officials were holding an after-party. She said she was near the front of the march when protesters arrived, and she was one of five or six journalists to make it into the restaurant alongside approximately 15 protesters.

    After yelling back and forth between demonstrators and event attendees in the restaurant, Wilkinson said the manager ordered the protesters and press out of the restaurant. As they exited, she added, police had already begun making arrests and she was quickly trapped between planter boxes by officers from the department’s Special Response Group, a rapid response unit that the New York Civil Liberties Union calls notoriously violent.

    “As I looked to my left, a door or two down there was one cop — who I now know to be one of the ones who had his baton out incorrectly and handle facing outward toward people — he was to the left sort of cornering press, an acquaintance of mine, and cracked him in the ribs,” Wilkinson said. “As press were trying to document that pocket of violence, SRG was then trying to push press and protesters out, very violently, down the sidewalk away from the restaurant and into the street.”

    She told the Tracker that a group of journalists accidentally became trapped between a line of police and the protesters. At least four journalists, including Wilkinson, were struck or pushed by officers with batons that night. Wilkinson said she was repeatedly shoved and an officer grabbed her by the arm and threw her sideways during the chaos.

    “That was the most brutal I’ve seen them be toward press,” she said. “And I was taken aback about how not quiet they were about their contempt for us.” Wilkinson added that she heard supervisory officers taunting the journalists and shouting things like “fuck your press pass” while pushing the journalists back.

    The New York City Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

    Officers also repeatedly attempted to grab Wilkinson’s camera by the lens and the phone from her hand; her backpack was also ripped, which she said caused her to lose some of her personal belongings. She added that she was wearing a lanyard with her city-issued press credentials and was clearly identifiable as a member of the press.

    After she left the protest at around 10 p.m., Wilkinson said she noticed bruises along the back of her arms and general soreness from the continuous shoving.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • What It Means to Go Back-to-School in the American Police State

    Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.

    —Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes

    It’s not easy being a child in the American police state.

    Danger lurks around every corner and comes at you from every direction, especially when Big Brother is involved.

    Out on the streets, you’ve got the menace posed by police officers who shoot first and ask questions later. In your neighborhoods, you’ve got to worry about the Nanny State and its network of busybodies turning parents in for allowing their children to walk to school alone, walk to the park alone, play at the beach alone, or even play in their own yard alone.

    The tentacles of the police state even intrude on the sanctity of one’s home, with the government believing it knows better than you—the parent—what is best for your child. This criminalization of parenthood has run the gamut in recent years from parents being arrested for attempting to walk their kids home from school to parents being fined and threatened with jail time for their kids’ bad behavior or tardiness at school.

    This doesn’t even touch on what happens to your kids when they’re at school—especially the public schools—where parents have little to no control over what their kids are taught, how they are taught, how and why they are disciplined, and the extent to which they are being indoctrinated into marching in lockstep with the government’s authoritarian playbook.

    The message is chillingly clear: your children are not your own but are, in fact, wards of the state who have been temporarily entrusted to your care. Should you fail to carry out your duties to the government’s satisfaction, the children in your care will be re-assigned elsewhere.

    This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today: where parents have to worry about school resource officers who taser teenagers and handcuff kindergartners, school officials who have criminalized childhood behavior, school lockdowns and terror drills that teach your children to fear and comply, and a police state mindset that has transformed the schools into quasi-prisons.

    Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.

    Indeed, while young people today are learning first-hand what it means to be at the epicenter of politically charged culture wars, test scores indicate that students are not learning how to succeed in social studies, math and reading. Rather, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.

    In turn, these young people are being brainwashed into adopting a worldview in which rights are negotiable rather than inalienable; free speech is dangerous; the virtual world is preferable to the real world; and history can be extinguished when inconvenient or offensive.

    What does it mean for the future of freedom at large when these young people, trained to be mindless automatons, are someday running the government?

    Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.

    From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:

    • draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
    • overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
    • school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
    • standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
    • politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
    • and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

    This is how you groom young people to march in lockstep with a police state.

    As Deborah Cadbury writes for The Washington Post, “Authoritarian rulers have long tried to assert control over the classroom as part of their totalitarian governments.”

    In Nazi Germany, the schools became indoctrination centers, breeding grounds for intolerance and compliance.

    In the American police state, the schools have become increasingly hostile to those who dare to question or challenge the status quo.

    America’s young people have become casualties of a post-9/11 mindset that has transformed the country into a locked-down, militarized, crisis-fueled mockery of a representative government.

    Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, America’s schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.

    Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

    Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.

    Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.

    Not even good deeds go unpunished.

    One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

    Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.

    Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.

    Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

    Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.

    In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”

    Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.

    On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

    In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.

    Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

    Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.

    This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.

    Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.

    For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).

    Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.

    These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.

    The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.

    Likewise, the harm caused by attitudes and policies that treat America’s young people as government property is not merely a short-term deprivation of individual rights. It is also a long-term effort to brainwash our young people into believing that civil liberties are luxuries that can and will be discarded at the whim and caprice of government officials if they deem doing so is for the so-called “greater good” (in other words, that which perpetuates the aims and goals of the police state).

    What we’re dealing with is a draconian mindset that sees young people as wards of the state—and the source of potential income—to do with as they will in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents. However, this is in keeping with the government’s approach towards individual freedoms in general.

    Surveillance cameras, government agents listening in on your phone calls, reading your emails and text messages and monitoring your spending, mandatory health care, sugary soda bans, anti-bullying laws, zero tolerance policies, political correctness: these are all outward signs of a government—i.e., a monied elite—that believes it knows what is best for you and can do a better job of managing your life than you can.

    This is tyranny disguised as “the better good.”

    Indeed, this is the tyranny of the Nanny State: marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots.

    This is what the world looks like when bureaucrats not only think they know better than the average citizen but are empowered to inflict their viewpoints on the rest of the populace on penalty of fines, arrest or death.

    So, what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now but for the future of this country, when these same young people are someday in charge?

    How do you convince someone who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

    Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums.

    The post What It Means to Go Back-to-School in the American Police State first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Hong Kongers march in London to mark subway station police attacks

    Read RFA coverage of this story in Mandarin from London and Canada

    Hundreds of Hong Kongers gathered in London over the weekend to mark the fifth anniversary of 2019 attacks by riot police on unarmed train passengers with baton’s and tear gas in Prince Edward subway station.

    Around 500 people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday, raising the colonial-era flag of British Hong Kong and singing the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” before lowering the flag to half-mast to mourn those who died during the months-long protests against Hong Kong’s vanishing autonomy under Chinese rule.

    The protesters then marched to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, shouting “Hong Kong is not China!” and “One Hong Kong, one nation!” and handing out information leaflets about the attacks to passers-by.

    Police were present at the march, and while the demonstration drew stares from some people around Chinese-owned businesses as the march passed through Chinatown, there was no physical or verbal altercation.

    Details of the attacks by riot police at the height of the 2019 protest movement remain shrouded in secrecy. Journalists and activists are having difficulty piecing together a coherent picture of what exactly happened in the station as much of the evidence remains in the hands of the authorities.

    While police and government officials have hit out at ‘malicious rumors’ that someone died, the selective release of stills from surveillance footage from cameras inside the station has done little to assuage public mistrust in the official narrative.

    Call for investigation

    A woman who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said she has been living in the U.K. for three years now, and has attended every rally marking the Aug. 31, 2019, attacks.

    Wong said the attacks were one of the most iconic events in the entire anti-extradition movement, adding that she “can’t accept” that the Hong Kong police charged into a subway station and “indiscriminately attacked” people.

    She said the government has yet to fully investigate the incident, and called for the truth about what happened in the subway station to be made public.

    ENG_CHN_HONG KONG PROTESTS_09022024_002.jpg
    Passers-by view an art exhibit about the 2019 Hong Kong protests in Vancouver, Aug. 31, 2024. (RFA/Liu Fei)

    The parents of a 6-year-old marcher told RFA Mandarin that they had “mixed feelings” about being allowed to hold peaceful demonstrations in the United Kingdom after moving to the country in June.

    They said they felt an obligation to tell people in Britain about how their freedoms were built on the sacrifices of others, and that Hong Kongers had been forced to emigrate to the U.K. by the ongoing political crackdown in their home city.

    In Canada, around 40 protesters gathered outside the Chinese Consulate in Calgary, burning photos of Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee and security chief Chris Tang, who was chief of police at the time of the protest movement, when rights groups hit out at the use of “excessive force” by the authorities.

    39 minutes

    Public anger against the police treatment of protesters began with the intense tear-gassing of unarmed crowds who had no escape route at the start of the anti-extradition protests.

    It gained momentum when officers took 39 minutes to respond to hundreds of emergency calls when unidentified mobsters in white T-shirts attacked passengers and passers-by at Yuen Long MTR on July 21, 2019.

    And it took on a much darker turn following the bloody attacks on train passengers, after which the MTR refused to release video footage from trains and platforms despite persistent rumors that at least one person died in the attacks.

    Photos of Lee’s second-in-command Eric Chan and Secretary for Justice Paul Lam were also burned.

    Protest organizer Paul Cheng, who organized the protest, called them Hong Kong’s “Gang of Four,” and called on the Canadian government to sanction them.

    “They helped the Communist Party destroy Hong Kong and kill Hong Kong,” Cheng told RFA Mandarin at the protest. “They are the Communist Party’s running dogs. The Communist Party is the culprit in the killing of Hong Kong, and they are its accomplices.”

    Cheng, who emigrated to Canada more than 40 years ago, says he remembers the freedoms once enjoyed by the city’s 7 million residents, adding that things are very different now.

    First sedition conviction

    Last Thursday, a Hong Kong court found two editors of the now-defunct Stand News guilty of conspiring to publish seditious material, marking the first sedition conviction against any journalist since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.

    The publication’s former editor-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen, and former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, could face a maximum prison term of two years under colonial-era sedition laws.

    A former Hong Kong journalist who gave only the nickname Stephen for fear of reprisals said he used to work as a journalist in the city, and was particularly saddened by those convictions.

    “All Hong Kong media have the same tone now,” he said. “There’s no opposing voices, just a unified message.”

    Meanwhile, Vancouver-based activist Christine described physical and mental “torment” after leaving the city she once called home.

    “I can’t let it go, to be honest,” she said. “It’s not easy. But fortunately, there is a group of us with the same aspirations, so we can use that discomfort as motivation.”

    “So we come out on days that need to be commemorated, which is better than pretending I’ve forgotten about it,” she said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jasmine Man and Liu Fei for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • UK police state arrests Richard Medhurst for speech crimes


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Peter Stefanovic has just exposed a shocking bit of news about Labour

    Lawyer and social justice campaigner Peter Stefanovic has just published one video that won’t be making it into the hallowed early hour TV showings of Good Morning Britain (GMB). That’s because, the days of Boris Johnson and his merry band of serial lying hard-right Tory successors have lost the keys to number 10. In their place? Labour continuing their work. And Stefanovic exposed one new-blue establishment stooge in particular. None other than GMB Ed Balls-up’s dear Westminster wife – home secretary Yvette Cooper.

    Peter Stefanovic pulling no punches on anti-protest law appeal

    It was for her shameless decision to pursue the previous Tory government’s appeal over its unlawful anti-protest laws. Crucially, this concerned former home secretary Suella Braverman’s authoritarian overreach of secondary legislation to ram through laws parliament had already rejected.

    Here’s the video where Peter Stefanovic rips into Labour:

    In particular, as Stefanovic pointed out, Braverman used these so-called Henry VIII powers to establish an especially authoritarian crack-down on the right to protest. Specifically, she handed police greater power to arrest protesters. She did so by redefining the meaning of “serious disruption” to encompass anything they deemed as causing ‘more than minor’ impact.

    Previously, the House of Lords had shot down this particular element lowering the threshold of what would constitute a “serious disruption” by protesters. However, Braverman didn’t let this lie. Instead, she pushed this through via the back door using secondary legislation. This doesn’t require parliamentary scrutiny – so MPs didn’t get to vote on this.

    Already, as Stefanovic and others also noted, police have arrested hundreds of protesters using these draconian powers. This includes climate activist Greta Thunberg and many other climate and Palestine activists:

    Enter human rights group Liberty. In May 2024, the group won a case challenging the government over this. Significantly, the High Court ruled that the government had acted unlawfully in imposing these powers and ignoring the will of parliament.

    Labour getting in on the Tory power-grab

    Predictably however, Braverman wasn’t giving up her dictatorial power-trip. Before Sunak announced the election, she launched an appeal against the High Court’s ruling.

    As Peter Stefanovic said, the new Labour government had a choice between continuing the appeal:

    in support of this Tory power-grab which would set an extremely dangerous precedent, or defend democracy and the rule of law by dropping the appeal and scrapping these unlawful powers.

    Of course, it chose the former. Now, the Labour government is set to waste vast sums of taxpayers money doing the same.

    Once again, Stefanovic dragged the government on this. First, he highlighted how Labour had opposed the Tories’ bill in parliament. Then, the clincher – he exposed the staggering scale of the party’s hypocrisy from one key recent speech.

    On the one hand, there was Labour’s attorney general Richard Hermer pronouncing in July that:

    The prime minister and the lord chancellor have both made clear that the promotion and the protection of the rule of law will underpin our approach to legislation and policy.

    Crucially, he declared that this meant:

    guarding against the abuse of the proper role of secondary legislation

    Now, here’s Cooper now doing the direct opposite of this. The decision to continue the appeal is guarding something alright, and that’s the establishment against the public’s democratic right to protest. In other words, the slimy home sec has done what the Starmerite cabinet does best – another whiplash-inducing U-turn.

    And speaking of staggering levels of hypocrisy, here’s the Home Office’s response to media outlet Hyphen quizzing the government on the decision:

    Labour’s opposition was always performative

    Of course, it’s hardly a surprise. Labour has consistently worn its business-buddy-buddy badge where all corporations can see it. From welcoming billionaire backers with open arms, to soliciting the support of financial titans in the City, since Starmer took to the helm, the party has been a teeming cesspit of corporate capitalist sell-outs.

    The Canary has consistently highlighted the party’s corporate and lobbyist connections. We’ve also underscored particularly its polluting industries ties. So, Braverman’s unlawful police powers enable it to protect these interests – whether that be climate-wrecking fossil fuel corporations, or companies supplying arms to Israel:

    What’s more, the writing was likely already on the wall, as one poster on X pointed out:

    Naturally, others – including the Canary – had also seen it coming a mile away. In October 2023, Steve Topple previously also expressed how:

    Labour’s outrage is performative – given it failed to support Green Party peer Jenny Jones’s fatal motion in the Lords which would have stopped Braverman.

    Then, at the end of July, fellow Canary journalist Samantha Asumadu wrote:

    However, the opposition day votes for a repeal of the Public Order Act 2023 on 16 May 2023 may be an indication of whether Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is likely to attempt to repeal it or not now they are in government. 57 Ayes and 278 Noes.

    The Act was not mentioned in the party’s manifesto. However, Labour has said that its mission in government is to “take back our streets”. Take back the streets from whom remains to be seen.

    In other words, this was all entirely predictable. A Labour Party cosying up to the corporate capitalist establishment would do one thing when it got into power, and one thing only. That is, shield CEOs and its big money-spinner revolving door.

    Any lingering notion the Labour government will bring about a real, meaningful break from the Tories’ authoritarian power-grab is as limp as the last vestiges of Starmer’s election promises gone the way of the U-turn. And Cooper proved beyond doubt that the Labour right is full of vacuous charlatans. But then, thanks to the home sec’s hubby regularly Ball-sing stuff up on morning-time TV, we already knew that.

    Welcome to “changed” Britain – new new Labour government edition – where supposed centrist sensible politicians are the new cheerleaders of the death of democracy and the descent into authoritarian fascism. Thanks to Peter Stefanovic – at least we know of part of the threat, now.

    Feature image via X – Peter Stefanovic/Youtube – Sky News/the Times and Sunday Times/the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.