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Category: Protest

  • My experience in a Greek deportation camp over pro-Palestine protests contextualises advocacy repression globally

    On Friday 24 May, 2024, I was one of the three European people released from Amygdaleza Deportation Camp, outside Athens, Greece. Nine non-Greek European passport-holders were amongst 28 people arrested on Tuesday 14 May, during a police raid of the Athens Law School, which had been declared occupied in solidarity with Palestine and in support of al-Aqsa Flood, the ongoing liberation struggle, waged by the Palestinian Resistance, since 7 October.

    The occupation of the law school entailed demands for academic boycott and divestment from any affiliated parties supporting or profiting from the Zionist entity’s retaliatory genocidal warfare, witnessed by the world for the last eight months.

    After a typically long and inconvenient detention and arrest procedure, followed by a night in the cell, all 28 defendants were declared free to go from the Evelpidon Courthouse, the next day – Nakba Day – pending a postponed hearing for charges of disturbing the peace.

    Upon the adjournment of the session, however, the police continued to cuff and detain the nine non-Greek European passport holders and conspired to lie to the legal representatives that the 9 people were required to return to the central police head quarters, where their documents would be checked to determine the ‘legitimacy’ of their presence on Greek territory.

    The deception of the ‘law enforcers’ was quickly realised due to the direction of travel; soon, the bus transporting the nine arrived at Allodipon, the immigration processing centre.

    Through extrapolation of the circumstances and rumours, the nine people gleaned the possibility they may be facing deportation, although this was never formally expressed by any police official and was only confirmed upon the visitation of lawyers.

    Beginning Wednesday 15 May – Nakba Day – the nine people were detained under administrative detention at Amygdaleza Deportation Camp. The subsequent Saturday, all nine people were handed deportation orders, which are currently being challenged; the administrative detention was also appealed. On Friday 24, three people were released from detention, while six remain, awaiting a response, which is anticipated to be delivered on Monday 27 May.

    The judge handling my case made their decision quicker than the others, which we were advised could happen. Many of us have visited the various detention camps and centres around Athens, before. Many of our friends have also been held inside such camps. But, it is a different to have been processed and detained, and then to leave the reality behind. I feel sick with rage.

    Not just for the comrades with European passports – if they let me out, the others are smooth sailing. But there are many others who’ll spend much longer, under worse conditions, awaiting their fate.

    The nine of us were separated from the general population, secluded to a segregated container compound, closed off at each end with barbed wire fencing, we suspected this had something to do with our status as ‘unwanted aliens’ who present a ‘threat to national security’. Seclusion was also no doubt due to fears we’d be exposed to the realities and conditions experienced by non-white, non-European people, despite the aforementioned, preexisting knowledge and interactions with these institutions, which has also been well documented by refugees and migrants.

    We had air conditioning, hot water, food delivered by a supportive network of comrades, lawyers on call, access to our phones. While inside, I learned in some camps the police remove inbuilt cameras completely from electronic devices belonging to detained people. Our period of detention was tainted with rage due to this shared understanding of the realities for others.

    I received the news that I would be free, while I was on the phone to Abdullah, a friend of mine who lives in Gaza. We had not talked for a while. He conveyed his deep faith in Allah, his family’s resolve to remain, and of course the urgency and necessity of raising funds to survive the unimaginable reality of genocide enacted by the imperialist-backed Zionist entity. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has amplified and donated to his fundraiser.

    The place in which Abdullah and his family are currently located, there is nothing; no infrastructure, just tents and makeshift living environments. The IOF-guarded and polluted sea is the only source of water.

    His family’s survival is indeed by the grace of God.

    Bathing in the sea, eating scarcely, drinking less. Sick, tired and exhausted. Physically and mentally drained. Witness to unspeakable atrocities. We strained a conversation through bad network reception; me from the camp, Abudllah from a particularly exposed and dangerous location. We talked about the fundraiser; how to amplify it; the complications with international money transfers; fundraiser accessibility issues for his Arabic speaking colleagues.

    The lawyer said me and two others would be free to go in a few hours. I was interrupted during a precious phone call; we don’t know when – or if – the next one will occur. Abdullah said he would go, to be “safer” – he was at increased risk in the area where internet access can approximately be found. He reiterated the need to purchase an e-sim compatible phone and hung up.

    The time came for me to leave the camp. Leave the others behind. Leave the 40 men from various non-European countries, cramped in the containers running parallel to ours, who announced a collective hunger strike in recent days.

    The European comrades I left behind have also announced a hunger strike, following the decision to release just three of us today. Like the 40 other detainees, the demands of the hunger strike pertain to the living conditions in the camp, the random and repressive structure of administrative detention and the release of those who remain.

    Medical negligence, withholding food, nutritionally-insufficient meals, arbitrary rules and abuse of power as a vehicle for psychological abuse; we experienced all these punitive measures and rights violations in 11 days of administrative detention. For us, it was 11 days. Some will spend months, years… When I think “11 days”, May 2021 comes to mind. Saif al-Quds, the 11-day battle sparked by the Unity Intifada, a collective uprising that erupted across Gaza, West Bank, and inside ‘48, duo to the increased colonial violence in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

    While being held under administrative detention, I thought of my friend Khalid.

    I met Khalid through We Are Not Numbers, an initiative in Gaza that provides training and workshops in creative writing, digital journalism, videography and presentation skills. Participants in Gaza and journalists aboard are paired up through a mentorship scheme. I was incredibly lucky to be introduced to Khaled, who had written an article about the Occupation’s use of administrative detention. I learnt then, how the Occupation entangles Palestinian prisoners in an endless loop of torturous incarceration.

    At present almost 10,000 Palestinian people – men, women and children – suffer under Zionist lock and key, a number which increased exponentially since 7 October. Prisoners are the compass of the struggle, negotiating their release was one of the principle motivating factors behind the inception of al-ِAqsa flood.

    In November, 2023, and multiple times since, the Resistance has indeed been victorious in forcing the Occupation to liberate streams of prisoners, including high profile people like Israa Jaabis. The release of the imprisoned exposed the horrors of detention.

    Needless to say, knowing the extent of abuse Palestinians face at the hands of their jailer made my detention at Amygdaleza practically inconsequential.

    As I departed the camp, I scrolled through the Resistance News Network; the occupation extended the administrative detention of Wissam Abu Zeid, a Palestinian resistance fighter from the Jenin Brigades, for a further four months. Abu Zeid has been imprisoned since Zionist soldiers failed to assassinate him, almost three years ago. Resistance in the West Bank, and especially in Jenin, has exploded in response to increased IOF invasions, since 7 October.

    For those who are not martyred while actively fighting for Palestine, the Occupation prisons – referred to as ‘slaughterhouses’ – are often the locations of slow and painful deaths due to torture, medical negligence, poor sanitation and ‘food’ that is better described as a health hazard. For all these reasons and more, Palestinian prisoners have long harnessed hunger striking as a form of protest, reclaiming their right to bodily autonomy in defiance of the Occupation’s grip on their freedom.

    Since 7 October, regimes around the world have resorted to myriad repressive tactics to silence Palestinians and the voices of their allies. Arrest, brutality, torture, administrative detention and deportation have been wielded with increased frequency. Deportation and displacement are weapons of repression straight from by the Zionist playbook.

    Since the waves of al-Aqsa Flood engulfed the world, Palestinians from Gaza have been detained in both the West Bank and ’48, with random releases and transfers back to Gaza taking place; hundreds of martyrs have ascended due to torture, malnutrition and medical negligence. Inside Gaza, vicious collective punishment has led to consistent scenes of mass kidnapping, humiliation and execution of civilians.

    Mass graves continue to be discovered, revealing decomposing bodies with their hands tied behind their back; wrist ties for babies, children and adults have been unearthed from shallow graves, pitifully covered.

    In the weeks before the Athens Law School action, the Hellenic police had cracked down severely on all and any expressions of solidarity with Palestine. On one occasion the mass detention of 42 people from solidarity gatherings outside the courthouse and the police HQ shocked the movement in Athens, highlighting, with utmost clarity, the need to assemble and organise in strong and protective numbers. One arrest followed the detention of 42, which was a pathetic move, aiming to deter and criminalise support for victims of the police state’s fascistic behaviour.

    The strategy of deportation is now being leveraged by repressive regimes across the world; last year, Jerusalem-born, French-Palestinian, Saleh Hamouri, was deported to France for his consistent resistance to colonial subjugation in Palestine. This marked a significant shift and revived the spotlight, internationally, on the illegal practice of deportation and the denial of the right to return. The lack of action from the international community and the direct collaboration between the Zionist entity and European regimes has now seen this silencing strategy spread to the European continent.

    In recent months, Samidoun Network have launched campaigns for Mohammed al-Khatib and Zaid Abdul-Nassr, who risk the revocation of their residency and refugee statuses, as well as deportation, from Belgium and Germany, respectively.

    In Jordan, after weeks of mass mobilisation in support of the Palestinian Resistance have triggered continued police sweeps. Various people were taken hostage by Jordanian authorities, crystalising the traitorous and normalising attitude of the Kingdom and it’s complicity with Zionism.

    For Jordanians citizens, the ramifications are bad, but for the refugee community, especially Syrian refugees, who have been ostracised, mistreated and segregated from Jordanian society, the threat of deportation back to a hostile homeland is enough to trigger hunger strikes. Syrian nationals, Wael al-Ashi and Atiya Abu Salem, are just two of the people holding refugee status who face the reality of deportation. Last week, Abu Salem comitted to a hunger strike in protest, as our comrades in Amygdaleza.

    Now, retaliation for Palestinian advocacy has become widespread, regardless of nationality, country of origin or documentation. Greece has entered the conversation with its recent move to deceptively administratively detain nine European passport holders, and threaten them with deportation. The decision to do so is, of course, not a deterrent for determined strugglers, but a catalyst for robust resistance and refusal to submit to techniques of silencing.

    While we witness the same fascist and intolerant practice rolling out across continents, it’s crucial to remember the impact will never be the same for everyone. Deporting Europeans back to France, Italy, Spain, the U.K and even Germany is a mere inconvenience, as opposed to a fearful prospect with deathly potential. In the US, international students participating in university campus uprisings are also increasingly facing threats to their immigration status and visas.

    During our time at Amydaleza, the authorities withheld food, refused access to visitors from outside, enacted medical negligence, prevented access to doctors, psychological support and other basic rights. Despite this, there was an ever-present cognizance of the dramatically different effect these abuses of power can have.

    The role Egypt plays in besieging Gazans, for example, through the application of restrictions on goods, services and rights violations. The decision of Egyptian authorities to prevent aid and access to Gaza has exacerbated the impact of the Occupation’s maniacal obliteration of all life-sustaining infrastructure, including disabling the healthcare system through incessantly bombing hospitals.

    Waves of starvation and sickness have spread rapidly across the strip due to Egypt’s prevention of aid and healthcare. This, twinned with the policies of extortion and bribery amounting to human trafficking, perpetrated at the Rafah crossing by the spineless Sisi regime, condemns Palestinians to confront their murderous oppressor with no way out.

    This despicable cheapening of Palestinian life contradicts the vast sums of money demanded for emergency evacuation through Rafah. This exorbitant cruelty puts a price tag on the right to seek safety from genocide, to the tune of thousands of dollars, depending on the size of families wishing to leave.

    The cost is inhumane and inconceivable, especially for a population of people who’ve spent eight months livestreaming their mass murder to little effect. The millions of social media followers who have borne witness, digitally, to the genocide are now rallying to share fundraisers, which aim expressly to raise money for the corrupted movement of people.

    These fundraisers are a veritable point of contention – from calls to boycott Zionist Go Fund Me, to abhorrent reports of disingenuous people stealing funds they assisted in raising – the fundraising last resort accentuates the crucial need to destroy and build alternative’s to the pervasive hegemony of racial capitalism.

    The tentacular spread of fascism, emanating from the beastly body of imperialism, grows audaciously each time the popular masses submit to repressive control by ‘authorities’ and governments. These entities pacify and condition their citizens – beneficiaries of exploitation – while scrambling to protect their economic and political interests. But, increased repression with always entail increased resistance. The call to escalate for Palestine is echoing around the world, strengthened by each reverberation.

    Actions and movements aiming to break international support and involvement in the genocide are increasing, not only in frequency, but also in militancy. As the wider axis of armed resistance across the Arab world continues to overwhelm the capabilities of the Occupation Forces, it is the duty of every person outside Palestine to heed the calls of the Palestinian people and their resistance.

    Now is the time to locate our positionalities in the struggle for collective liberation and to act upon our revolutionary duties. By any means necessary, we owe it to the Palestinian people to sacrifice and defy our personal, social, vocational, economical and political involvement in genocide.

    Actions speak louder than words, but never forget: silence is violence – don’t stop talking about Palestine.

    Featured image supplied

    By Jodie Jones

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine Action just CUT THE INTERNET to a major weapons factory. Oh, and repainted its model jets too.

    Activists from Palestine Action Scotland sabotaged the internet cables of Edinburgh’s Leonardo factory and sprayed red paint over their fighter jet model displays. It was over its supplying of kit to Israel, which is currently committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Palestine Action: breaking the internet

    In the early hours of Tuesday 28 May, activists from Palestine Action opened the box of cables, cut the internet wires, sprayed expanding foam inside the box and spray painted ‘Stop Arming Israel’ on the lid:

    At the front of the factory, others sprayed the fighter jet display with paint to symbolise the company’s role in spilling Palestinian blood:

    Leonardo who continue to arm the Israeli military is one of the world’s largest weapons producers.

    The Edinburgh Leonardo weapons factory specialise in ‘high-energy military lasers’, which are rigged to F-35 fighter jets, which Israel have been using extensively to bomb Gaza. Leonardo also supply Israel with Aermacchi M-346 aircraft and components for its Apache attack helicopters, all while benefitting from millions in Scottish Enterprise funding.

    The weapons firm also merged with Israeli arms company RADA Electronic Industries, in a move that gives Leonardo a “stable domestic presence in the Israeli industrial context”.

    In recent days, Israel has continued to bombard Rafah — where Palestinians were previously told to seek refuge as it was said to be the last “safe-zone” in the besieged Gaza strip. On Sunday 26 May, Israeli air strikes burned Palestinians alive in their tents and attacks on the area are continuing, despite the International Court of Justice ruling Israel must stop its bombing campaign.

    Since 7 October, Israel has killed over 36,000 Palestinians and injured more than 85,000. The occupying forces have used starvation as a weapon of war, cut off internet access and destroyed the majority of Gaza’s infrastructure.

    Featured image and video via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘We’re Seeing Universities Following a Corporate Agenda to Get Favor With Donors’: CounterSpin interview with Ellen Schrecker on the attack on academic freedom

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed historian Ellen Schrecker about the attack on academic freedom for the May 24, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

     

    Intercept: University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New McCarthyism” on Gaza

    Intercept (5/16/24)

    Janine Jackson: Any accounting of the impact of Israel’s Gaza assault on scholarship, on learning, has to start with the reduction to rubble of all 12 universities in Gaza, with the incalculable loss that entails, and the reported killing of at least 90 professors. But as the Intercept’s Natasha Lennard writes:

    Israel’s attempted eradication of intellectual life in Gaza echoes far beyond the territory, with US universities ensuring that some professors vocal in their support of Palestine can no longer do their jobs either.

    We are now learning of how many academics and teachers around the country are seeing their jobs targeted as part of a purge, aggressively encouraged by funders and—mostly, but not only—Republican politicians.

    It’s being called a new McCarthyism. But our guest, an expert on McCarthyism, suggests we understand other elements at play that make today different from, say, anti-Vietnam college protests in the 1960s, including the fact that today’s political repression aims not just at teachers themselves, but at what gets studied and taught.

    Historian Ellen Schrecker is author of numerous books, including The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s; No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities; and she’s editor, with Valerie C. Johnson and Jennifer Ruth, of the new book The Right to Learn: Resisting the Ring-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, out now from Beacon Press. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Ellen Schrecker.

    Ellen Schrecker: Thank you for having me on your program.

    JJ: There are a number of differences between student (in particular) protests today, and that of the 1960s. For one thing, today’s student protesters remember previous student protesters, and their impact on history. And I would say, also, the availability today of more person-to-person information sources, avenues outside of “all the news that’s fit to print.” But you note that the playing field of the university, as a site, as a place for voicing dissent, is itself importantly different. Tell us about that.

    ES: Yes, that’s really the key issue now. Every time there is an attempt to repress free speech and academic freedom, I’m always asked, how does this compare to McCarthyism? And I’m a trained historian, so I sort of put in a lot of nuance, and I’ll say, “Oh, it depends….” But I don’t do that anymore, because it’s worse than McCarthyism. Much worse.

    And that is really because the university of 2024 is a very different place than the academic community in the late 1960s. In the 1960s, American universities were expanding. They had a great reputation. People loved them. State governments and the federal government were throwing money at the universities.

    And that’s no longer the case. And what we’re seeing is a very much weaker system of American higher education than had existed during what was called the Golden Age of American higher education, in the late 1950s and 1960s.

    So I’d like to talk about what has changed between that period and now, and why what’s happening today is so much worse.

    When we look at McCarthyism itself—and up until recently, it was probably the longest-lasting and most widespread episode of political repression in the modern American university—what we saw was an attack on individual faculty members. It was part of a broader purge of left-wing scholars, movie stars, government officials. It was running throughout large sectors of American society, not specifically targeting the universities, but they probably accounted for a quarter or fifth, maybe, of the victims of McCarthyism, in the sense that these were the people who were losing their jobs as a result of the inquisition.

    To my knowledge, there were about a hundred people, more or less—probably more, because people kept this stuff secret, so they could keep their jobs—who were fired. And they were fired specifically because they had had some kind of connection with the American Communist movement earlier in the 1930s and ’40s, and did not want to cooperate with the ongoing anti-Communist inquisition that we now call McCarthyism. (Although we should have called it Hooverism, if we really understood how it operated.)

    But anyhow, what’s interesting, and what’s very different, of course, from today, is that these people were being fired for their external political activities, or former political activities, and were never questioned about their teaching or scholarship. That was simply not of interest. It was their political work, or former political work.

     

    Vox: The “anti-intellectual attack” on higher ed will take years to undo

    Vox (6/17/23)

    That’s not the case today. What is happening today is that there is a huge movement attacking all of American higher education. It’s been ongoing now for 40 years. It started as a response to the ’60s, to the student movement of the ’60s, to the originally nonviolent civil disobedience. These students were protesting, very much like students today, against what they saw as a dreadful moral calamity, a dreadful American participation in the Vietnam War. Certainly that was the main thing, but also, they were very involved with the movement for racial justice.

    And as they tried to get some kind of action to end the war—which they actually did do, but it wasn’t obvious at the time—and trying to open up American society to racial equality, they became frustrated and noticed that their own institutions, universities, had been collaborating in some way with these injustices that they were seeking to rectify.

    And so that’s why you get this sort of campus-focused movement on the part of students, because, after all, this was the only institution they could affect. They may not have been particularly realistic; in retrospect, maybe they should have emphasized electoral politics a lot more than they did, but that’s rewriting history. What we need to learn from history is the fact that as a result of the student unrest of the ’60s—which was essentially nonviolent on the part of the students, and only became particularly violent when universities and political bodies sought to repress it, just like today, of course—what we’re seeing on campuses is police violence; the kids have been remarkably restrained, much more so than in the ’60s, actually. They’re just sitting on the ground in their tents.

    They’re not bothering anybody, except, of course: if you look at this from the perspective of 40 years of repression against higher education, that is in large part, not entirely by any means, but in large part the product of a very self-conscious conspiracy, and I don’t use the word “conspiracy” a lot, on the part of a group of very wealthy businessmen and intellectuals who were seeking, as early as the 1960s, to roll back the political reforms of the ’60s, and impose a more right-wing, neoliberal political culture on the United States, that contained, as one of its main focuses, an attack on higher education.

    Because these wealthy conservatives felt that the kind of dispassionate and educated, evidence-based scholarship that was coming out of universities was attacking them, and they wanted to destroy the reputation of higher education. And they did so very self-consciously, by undermining the institutions of higher learning, by circulating propaganda about how universities have been taken over by left-wing professors, by—the word that they use today is “woke”—the forces of “woke” left-wing radicals, by weak-kneed administrators who are capitulating to these powerful forces.

    Well, that wasn’t the case at all. What happened was universities themselves changed in response, not just to this attack, but also in response to a very strong economic pullback on the part of the state legislatures and the federal government that had been funding them so well up until the end of the ’60s.

    So what we’re seeing is universities that then, for the past 40 years, have been responding to a very different financial economic situation, an economic climate that was punishing them, and they had to respond, administrators did, not by taking a more positive approach to what’s going on, and trying to sell what American higher education was doing for the country, for individuals, they thought to placate these forces of reaction.

    But they also responded by seeking other sources of income, when state funding shrank, and that’s key. And what did they do? They raised tuition, slowly at first, but then quite significantly. So we now have, of course, the student debt problem, which I think it’s up to $1.8 trillion of student debt. And we have people being very upset about how much higher education costs, when in so many other countries, it seems to be free.

    They also look for other sources of income: donors. The leaders of higher education began to curry favor with these very wealthy billionaires, many of whom were funding this attack on higher education. So we’re seeing that, and we’re also seeing universities themselves following a corporate agenda, on the assumption that this is what they can do to get favor with the new donors.

    Ellen Schrecker

    Ellen Schrecker: “Universities have also ignored their faculty members, and this is why they have put up, I think, such a pathetically weak and collaborationist response to the current repression.”

    But also because they have imbibed the neoliberalism that came about beginning in the 1970s, and continuing through til today, whereby the public good sort of disappears from the agenda and it’s intensely individualistic. Even a higher education now is something that’s good for individual people, and its role as a benefit to the rest of society has long since disappeared, which is really a total travesty.

    Anyhow, as a result, universities have also ignored their faculty members, and this is why they have put up, I think, such a pathetically weak and collaborationist response to the current repression.

    The final point here is that the way that the universities have been weakened is by ignoring their faculty members, but also by destroying the faculty:  Over the past 40 years or so, very gradually, the number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members has declined to the extent that 75% of all instruction is now being offered by faculty members who have no academic freedom.

    These are what we call contingent workers. They are part-time or contract temporary workers who have no academic freedom, no economic security. They can be fired at any time for any purpose or no purpose at all. And they are not in a position to fight back, and their administrations do not support them when they’re attacked from the outside.

    They’re very good teachers. They’re equally qualified with the tenured and tenure-track faculty members, but have terrible salaries. They often are hired to teach one course for one semester for $3,000 or so, that’s the average pay, and can be fired at any time.

    And I think we have to realize that this is a structural problem that needs to be addressed before we can really fight back and preserve the jobs of people who are now particularly threatened, especially after October 7, by another group, a very powerful political group of supporters of Israel.

    JJ: The fact that, of the many professors who’ve been fired, only one of them, as far as we know right now, had tenure—it is the adjuncts, it is the people who are basically at-will workers who are easier to just be cut off by these universities. So part of it is, it is this structural thing where you undermine the very idea that as a professor you would have some kind of job security, you would have some kind of protection.

    ES: Exactly. Yes.

    JJ: Let me just say, we have seen a number of professors putting themselves, sometimes physically, between students and police. We have seen professors standing up for, not only their own rights to speak, but their students’ rights to protest. And I would just say, because we’ve talked about this before, that faculty/student support and coalition-building, that’s part of a tradition too.

    ES: Exactly. And what we’re seeing, for the first time, really, since the 1960s, is faculties beginning to organize themselves in support of causes that many of us support. And that should be protected by the universities and has not been, because the administrations over the past 40 years have been seeking to curry favor with these right-wing billionaire donors, and have been living in a kind of right-wing bubble.

    They don’t know students, they don’t care about students. What they care about is getting money, getting support, growing their institutions, growing them in a way that will appear on the US News & World Report status ranking, without really paying attention to the kind of education they’re giving their students.

    And it’s been shown, there’s evidence that the predominance of these temporary and low-paid contingent workers are unable to give their students the kind of education they deserve. And that’s a very significant problem. But, together, what we’re seeing is a real beginning, however, of a new awareness that we’re all in this together.

    I would argue that the most powerful way to fight against this probably is through unionization, through organizing unions that can get contracts that include language supporting academic freedom. That’s very important. That seems to be the only way that these gig, part-time and temporary professors can gain a measure of economic security, so that they can speak out and keep their jobs.

    I mean, this is really destroying free speech within American society, because universities have traditionally been, and certainly at the moment still are, spaces where there is more support for intellectual freedom than anywhere else in American society.

    So it’s very important that faculty members begin to fight back, begin to form coalitions, can begin to argue for a serious pushback against these forces that, as we know, have been passing laws, certainly since 2020, in red states and in some blue, to sanction free speech and ideas that the right-wing Republicans do not think are appropriate. And this is a terrible threat to our whole democratic system.

    The Right to Learn

    Beacon Press, 2024

    JJ: The book talks about how we can’t just rhetorically defend academic freedom and free speech; we have to act, and the book is part of that. So I would just ask you, finally, this new book, The Right to Learn, I want to say, it’s not a tome; it’s immensely readable. I just would ask you, what do you and other contributors hope that this book will do in the world? How do you look for it to be used?

    ES: OK, we wrote this book more than two years ago, and I remember feeling it recently: “Oh my God, it’s out of date. How can it be used?” Well, it’s more relevant now than it was then. The situation has really worsened enormously since October 7.

    What we were hoping to do is give people some intellectual ammunition, the facts about what’s going on on American campuses, and how people have been distorting history, have been distorting constitutional measures, have been distorting the function of academic freedom, and how people can fight back, give people information that they need, so that then they can go out and become active on their campuses, recruit colleagues, recruit students, start teach-ins, start doing whatever they can to create a buzz on their campuses, which certainly is happening.

    But we’ve got to mobilize. We’ve got to organize. People have to have the information, and that’s what we felt was a necessary precursor for mounting a serious campaign to take back power on our campuses, to bring the faculty back into action as it has never been before. And we’re really asking for something very revolutionary, I guess.

    What we’d like to see is a much more democratic university, that isn’t under the sway of these reactionary politicians and businessmen. And it’s going to be hard to do. It’s going to require a lot of action, but we want that action to be well-informed, and we hope that this book will be useful, be a weapon. It’s not going to save the world, obviously, but it’s our contribution to this campaign.

    JJ: Thank you so much for that. We’ve been speaking with Ellen Schrecker, author of books, including The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom and the End of the American University. That’s available from the New Press. The new book we’re talking about is called The Right to Learn: Resisting the Ring-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom That’s out now from Beacon Press. Thank you so much, Ellen Schrecker, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

    ES: Thank you so much, Janine, for having me.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • After Oxford, cops violently tried to shut down Manchester Uni’s anti-genocide occupation – and failed

    On Monday 27 May at around 7pm, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) attempted to forcibly gain access and evict the student occupiers of Walid Daqqa (Whitworth) Hall at the University of Manchester; the ongoing occupation against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the university’s complicity. It comes after cops also moved in at a similar occupation on Oxford University campus.

    Cops move in on the University of Manchester occupation

    This attempt was blocked by hundreds of students and members of the community who gathered and formed crowds in front of the doors, resisting and deterring the police:

    University of Manchester

    The police responded with violence, including using batons against the protesters and injuring several University of Manchester students:

    However, they had no other option but to withdraw after seeing the determination and resilience of the crowd:

    This escalation occurred at the end of an emergency protest called by the Greater Manchester community in response to the horrific massacre committed by Israeli occupation forces in Rafah, a designated “safe zone” for the Palestinian refugees in south Gaza.

    A spokesperson for the University of Manchester students said:

    The student protestors denounce this unwarranted escalation by GMP, particularly the treatment of peaceful protestors, including several instances of physical assault.

    The police have yet again proven that they are an oppressive and violent tool of state that aims to silence us while extending endless support to Israel. The student protestors also believe that this confrontation would not have taken place if the University of Manchester had listened to the demands of the student body.

    This comes after close to eight months of the escalation of the genocide in Palestine, with at least 35,000 Palestinians killed, and millions displaced by Israel.

    Students will not be deterred

    Students have been campaigning since October for the University of Manchester to end its complicity with the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, with three previous building occupations and the recent Manchester Camp of Resistance for Palestine in Dr Adnan al-Bursh (Brunswick) Park, leading to the current occupation of Walid Daqqa Hall. The students’ demands are that the University of Manchester must:

    1. End its partnership with BAE Systems.
    2. Cut ties with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
    3. Adopt a policy ensuring that all research is ethical and doesn’t contribute towards the arms trade.
    4. Not pursue disciplinary action against any students involved in the Encampment, occupations or other protests.

    One of the University of Manchester student occupiers said:

    The Greater Manchester Community stands together for Palestine. We see the actions of the Police as what they are: defending the right of a state to commit genocide. We refuse to allow our University to follow suit, UoM must Disclose, Divest, Demilitarise.

    The Manchester Camp of Resistance for Palestine remains as steadfast as ever in its struggle against the University’s deadly ties, and not amount of repression will deter us.

    Featured image and additional image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Climate activists disrupt TotalEnergies AGM as company commits to more fossil fuels

    Climate crisis activists took French fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies to task at its annual general meeting. Unsurprisingly, the climate-wrecking company proved their action warranted, as it announced plans to double-down on fossil fuels.

    Activists take on TotalEnergies at AGM

    As TotalEnergies shareholders convened for their AGM, Greenpeace activists scaled the building:

    Greenpeace activists scale TotalEnergies building.

    They unfurled an enormous wanted poster style banner with TotalEnergies’ boss Patrick Pouyanne’s face:

    "WANTED" banner with Pouyanne's face unfurled on TotalEnergies building.

    The banner branded Pouyanne “the leader of France’s most polluting company”.

    In March, the company marked its 100 year anniversary. Then too, Greenpeace rained on the corporations celebratory parade. Notably, in a serendipitous ruling, a judge dismissed a legal case TotalEnergies had issued to silence the campaign group.

    Meanwhile, several hundred Extinction Rebellion activists gathered near the Paris offices of Amundi. The French asset manager is among TotalEnergies’ biggest shareholders.

    The boss of TotalEnergies told shareholders Friday the French energy giant needed to develop new oil fields to meet global demand, as their AGM was picketed by the climate activists.

    Predictably, cops came to scenes. As Extinction Rebellion activists occupied Amundi’s offices, French authorities begun issuing a number of arrests. At the TotalEnergies AGM, police quickly acted to protect corporate interests, taking down Greenpeace’s unflattering wanted banner.

    Climate strategy and hot air

    So while cops shielded the corporate climate criminals from the protesters, inside the AGM, Pouyanne was waxing lyrical about fossil fuels.

    First, he claimed that higher oil prices prompted by insufficient fossil fuel output:

    would quickly become unbearable for the populations in emerging countries, but also in our developed countries

    Of course, TotalEnergies is exploiting oil and gas in a number of these so-called “emerging countries”. For instance, this includes its notorious and human-rights violating East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Tanzania and Uganda.

    Pouyane purportedly argued that demand for oil was growing in line with the global population. In another predictable display of blatant greenwashing, Pouyanne also promised that TotalEnergies would pursue its “balanced strategy” of developing both fossil fuel and low-carbon energy production.

    Unironically, the oil and gas giant boss said that TotalEnergies had provided proof that it was possible:

    to be a profitable, or even the most profitable, company while pursuing a transformation

    Naturally, at Friday’s meeting, shareholders shored up their profits. Nearly 80% of them approved their company’s woefully inadequate climate strategy. Additionally, over two thirds voted to renew Pouyanne as the company’s CEO.

    “Wanted” for crimes against people and the planet

    Of course, climate activists and campaigners have repeatedly exposed this as palpable greenwashing bullshit.

    As the Canary reported on the 21 May, a new report by Oil Change International revealed the company’s climate catastrophic trajectory. Specifically, its continued emphasis on developing new oil and gas projects will send temperatures soaring well beyond the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°c limit.

    TotalEnergies’ latest piety to expanding fossil fuels comes as a group of nonprofits and members of the public have launched legal action against the company. The Canary previously explained that through the case:

    they are calling to try the company for involuntary manslaughter and other consequences of climate crisis “chaos”.

    Crucially, the case targets the company’s board, including Pouyanne and major shareholders that backed its climate strategy.

    As the stakes on climate breakdown grow, fossil fuel companies dig their heels in. However, climate activists and campaign organisations will continue to use all avenues to hold these criminal planet-killing corporations to account.

    As climate activists plastered Pouyanne’s ‘wanted’ poster at its AGM, TotalEnergies’ latest shareholder shenanigans only proved their point.

    Feature and in-text images via Greenpeace

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Hong Kong police arrest six people under new security law

    Six people including barrister held for social media posts before Tiananmen Square anniversary

    Hong Kong police have arrested six people, marking the first time that the city’s new national security law, known as Article 23, has been used against suspects since it was implemented in March.

    The six people, aged between 37 and 65, are accused of publishing messages with seditious intent ahead of an “upcoming sensitive date”, according to a police statement.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Manchester University is now OCCUPIED by students in latest escalation over Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    Late last night (Friday 24 May 2024), a group of several dozen students occupied the Whitworth building on the University of Manchester campus. It was over Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and the university’s complicity in this.

    University of Manchester: under occupation

    Students have barricaded all entrances to the building::

    Banners are also being flown:

    Protesters are linked to the nearby Encampment of Resistance for Palestine and are demanding that the University promises no disciplinary action for student activists and opens negotiations with the camp about their demands. They say the University of Manchester must:

    • End its partnership with BAE Systems.
    • Cut ties with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
    • Adopt a policy ensuring that all research is ethical and doesn’t contribute towards the arms trade.
    • Not pursue disciplinary action against any students involved in the Encampment, occupations or other protests.

    Despite the encampment now reaching its 25th day, the university has refused any communication with the camp and has instead chosen to continue to prioritise it’s profitable ties with companies and institutions directly involved in the genocide being carried out in Gaza.

    Over the last 25 days, over 500 students and community members from across Manchester have taken part in the camp to force the university to negotiate on their demands. The encampment in Manchester is just one of over 30 across universities in Britain, prompting Rishi Sunak to summon vice-chancellors from across the country to a meeting at Downing Street to discuss the encampments last week.

    At the University of Manchester, a student has been suspended for involvement in an earlier occupation for Palestine and another student had their visa revoked by the Home Office.

    Divest from Israel or face the consequences

    Occupiers said:

    The University must realise that targeting of student activists with disciplinary action will not dissuade protesters. We are witnessing a genocide and nothing that the University can threaten us with compares to the suffering of the Palestinian people. The student body has already voted overwhelmingly in favour of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions and our movement is only growing.

    Tel Aviv University – whom UoM has a research partnership with – helped develop the Dahiya Doctrine, which calls for the mass targeting of civilian infrastructure. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is built on illegally occupied land, with exchange students from UoM sent to live in these settlements.

    BAE Systems is Europe’s largest arms company and is involved in producing F-35 and F-16 jets, which are used against Palestinians in Gaza. The University of Manchester has no policy regulating whether research could be used to harm lives or for other unethical purposes, and has received at least £15m in research funding from arms companies in the last five years.

    The occupiers said:

    We have taken the Whitworth building to escalate our pressure on the University to end its ties with the genocide in Palestine. We have full control of this building which is due to hold hundreds of students for exams next week. We will not leave until the University commit to not disciplining any student protesters and enter negotiations on the other demands.

    If students are concerned about the potential impact of this action on their exams they should direct their complaints to the University, which continues to value its profitable links to genocide over the welfare of its students.

    Featured image and additional images suppled

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Georgians Demand Detainees’ Release At Latest Protest Over ‘Foreign Agent” Bill


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jury finds Palestine Action activists NOT GUILTY over Elbit occupation

    Two activists from Palestine Action were unanimously acquitted of criminal damage against arms manufacturer Elbit by a jury in Leicester Crown Court after a deliberation of just one hour and 40 minutes.

    Palestine Action: occupying Elbit

    For six days from 19 May 2021, four people from Palestine Action occupied the roof of UAV Tactical Systems, an Elbit drone factory in Leicester:

    The action was taken urgently in response to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza at the time.

    Whilst on the roof, the activists spray painted messages including “Shut Elbit Down” and “Free Palestine”, damaged a skylight to reveal a military drone inside and sprayed the building in blood red paint:

    In total, it was claimed that the knock on costs of extra security since the action amounted to £40,000 of losses per month, totalling £1.6m.

    Three days into the action, two of the four came off the roof in order to ration supplies. The jury heard from one defendant about how the two which remained on the roof and were subsequently charged, resorted to drinking rainwater in order to maintain the disruption for as long as possible in order to save lives in Palestine.

    The defendant explained how the factory, which is majority owned by the Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems, was used to assemble drone equipment for the Israeli military and the ways in which Elbit’s drone are deployed in Gaza. Between the defence and prosecution, the agreed facts of the cases included the factory’s export licenses of drones to Israel for use by the state of Israel.

    He spoke through reports by drone wars and human rights watch which explained the numerous war crimes which have been conducted in Gaza using Elbit’s drones, leading to deliberate massacres of the Palestinian people.

    Not guilty – obviously

    The jury also heard of how hundreds from the local community supported the action, several of which were arrested for attempting to throw water for to the activists on the roof.

    Cops eventually forced the activists down:

    The defence argued that the action taken was necessary in order to save lives and prevent the greater property damage in Palestine. In her closing speech, Mira Hammad from Garden Court North Chambers told the jury that:

    The consequences of failing to act would mean the death of children, parents, grandparents in Palestine

    and prioritising Elbit’s right to property over Palestinians right to live is a:

    smokescreen of dehumanisation.

    Clearly, the jury agreed.

    Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Cops begin arresting students at UK pro-Palestine camps as one group disrupts governors’ meeting

    UK cops arrested 16 people at a protest organised by a pro-Palestine student group at Oxford University. It comes as students across the UK stand their ground over Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Cops move in on Oxford camp

    Thames Valley Police said the individuals were arrested Thursday 23 May on suspicion of aggravated trespass, while one was also held on suspicion of common assault. Cops were breaking up a sit in in support of Palestine – and doing it violently:

    It follows protests in recent weeks at more than a dozen UK universities, including at world-renowned Oxford and Cambridge, emulating similar actions on campuses in the US and elsewhere.

    Demonstrators opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza have made various demands, including that universities sever academic and financial ties with the country.

    In Oxford, the arrests came after students entered a university administrative building on 23 May morning, claiming they had “exhausted all other avenues of communication” with administrators.

    UK universities not budging on Israel’s genocide

    A spokesperson for the Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) group said:

    Instead of engaging in dialogue with her students, the vice-chancellor chose to evacuate the building, place it on lockdown, and call the police to make arrests.

    We demand the administration meet with us to negotiate immediately.

    Videos posted on social media showed people sitting on the ground in front of a police van being dragged away by officers, as onlookers chanted “shame”:

    The university’s union, which represents academics, lecturers and staff, condemned “bringing in police to violently arrest” students who were “engaged in peaceful protest”.

    Meanwhile, on Friday 24 May pro-Palestinian students successfully disrupted a meeting of Falmouth University’s board of directors. The students are demanding that the university withdraws its money from Barclays:

    Barclays bank has over £2bn in shares and provides £6.1bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.

    In 2022-2023, Falmouth Uni had £24.3m pounds invested in Barclays.

    A spokesperson for the action said:

    As students, that is our money, and we refuse to see it used to fund companies directly implicated in genocide. The board of directors has power to change this. We refuse to allow this institution, that we invest and give so much money and time in, continue its complicity in genocide.

    Featured image via Oxford Action For Palestine – screengrab

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 71% of the public think the government is failing nature – but will a general election change that?

    As hundreds of thousands of people across the country prepare for what promises to be the biggest march to protect nature in a generation, new polling reveals that almost three-quarters of the public believe the government is failing to protect our country’s nature, threatening our very life support systems and compounding the biodiversity crisis. But will a general election change that and ‘restore nature now’?

    Most of the public think the government is failing nature

    A new poll released on International Day for Biodiversity reveals that a staggering 71% of the UK public thinks the government isn’t doing enough to protect the environment for the next generation. Voters from all political sides think nature is not being protected adequately for future generations. The polls found that this includes 56% of Conservative voters, 86% of Labour voters and 80% of Liberal Democrat 2019 voters.

    All major nature charities and climate and environmental groups in the UK are banding together to warn political parties today that their commitments to nature are falling far short, risking the lives of wildlife and the people of this country and the rest of the world. Together they are urging the public to join them in London in a month’s time on 22 June to voice alarm at the state of UK nature and demand that politicians Restore Nature Now.

    The warning comes ahead of an imminent announcement of the UK’s strategy to meet key international biodiversity agreements from COP15, to halt and restore nature loss and protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.

    Restore Nature Now

    With low expectations from nature groups that the plans will turn the tide for UK nature, it also comes hot on the heels of a warning from the National Audit Office last week, that the government’s flagship Biodiversity Net Gain scheme may not have the measures in place to ensure its success.

    Our politicians have a track record of allowing environment and climate destroying projects such as High Speed 2 (HS2), Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2), the West Cumbria Coal Mine, and Rosebank oil field to go ahead. It is clear beyond any doubt that protecting the lives of millions of people in and outside of the UK from climate and ecological breakdown is not a priority.

    TV wildlife star Chris Packham will spearhead the Restore Nature Now march in London on 22 June that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands people from campaign groups and nature conservation organisations including Extinction Rebellion, the RSPB, National Trust, Woodland Trust, and the Wildlife Trusts.

    Chris Packham, TV broadcaster and environmental campaigner, said:

    The vast majority of people in the UK care deeply about protecting the environment for the future. We all want a better world for the next generation, but as this research shows we have no faith that our politicians will deliver the change nature needs.

    There has never been a more critical time for nature, wildlife numbers continue to fall and our wild places continue to deteriorate. We have to shout it from the rooftops that we must Restore Nature Now, and politicians from all parties need to hear us roar.

    He also pointed out in an X video that ‘things can only get better – right?’

    Nature demands for a general election

    Daze Aghaji, spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion UK said:

    The people know that the state of nature in the UK, and all over the world, is bad. And we know that none of us can survive if the natural world collapses. If we, ordinary people, know this and see how vital it is to act, why are our politicians not acting with the urgency that is needed? It is time that we all stand together and unite to protect and restore nature now, before it is too late.

    Over 170 organisations from across the UK are backing the Restore Nature Now demonstration on 22 June to protest the poor state of nature in the UK and are united in calling on UK politicians to deliver:

    – A pay rise for nature – the nature and climate-friendly farming budget doubled.

    – Make polluters pay – new rules to make polluters contribute to nature and climate recovery

    – More space for nature – to expand and improve protected areas, and ensure public land and National Parks contribute more to recovery.

    – A right to a healthy environment –  an Environmental Rights Bill, which would drive better decisions for nature, improve public health and access to high-quality nature.

    – Fair and effective climate action – increasing home energy efficiency, supporting active travel and public transport, and replacing polluting fossil fuels with affordable renewables.

    All this seems especially pertinent given the general election on 4 July. We will wait and see whether or not the main parties commit to ‘restoring nature now’.

    Featured image via Restore Nature Now

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Student photojournalist detained while covering NYC protest

    Jason Alpert-Wisnia, a student photojournalist, was briefly detained by New York City police officers while covering a pro-Palestinian protest on the Manhattan Bridge on May 11, 2024.

    Alpert-Wisnia, who works for New York University’s student newspaper and also freelances, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting a protest that began in downtown Brooklyn. When a group of about 100 people split off and began heading over the bridge toward Manhattan, he followed alongside a fellow photojournalist who is an NYU alum.

    “We got in front of them — myself, him and a couple other journalists — and after we got past what is the first tower, I could see at least two dozen officers down the bridge. I took some photos of them from a distance and then I turned around to get some photos of the protesters,” Alpert-Wisnia said. “At some point, an officer came up behind me and said, ‘Put your arms behind your back.’ So I did. I complied.”

    He told the Tracker he identified himself as a journalist repeatedly and was wearing credentials issued by the mayor’s office and by the New York Press Photographers Association when he was zip-tied.

    Several minutes later, Alpert-Wisnia said, a community affairs officer approached him and asked for his press card: “He looked at me and said, ‘He’s press, let him go.’ And so they released me.” Alpert-Wisnia said he continued to document the arrests, but couldn’t get very close, as officers were ordering everyone to get off the bridge.

    “I knew, obviously, by going on that bridge that there was a risk, but it still caught me off guard regardless,” Alpert-Wisnia said. “Definitely, as a student journalist, this has been a learning experience.”

    At least two other journalists were detained while reporting on the bridge that day; both were released without charges.

    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.

  • LUSH and EachOther stage ‘shower’ protest to wash away toxic Tory rhetoric on human rights

    On 21 May, EachOther and LUSH activists took action over the Tories increasing toxic rhetoric on human rights.

    Toxic Tory rhetoric on human rights

    Over the past four years, government ministers have increasingly ramped up rhetoric demonising human rights campaigners. For instance, former prime minister Boris Johnson coined the phrase ‘‘lefty lawyer’ to malign law firms fighting the government’s corruption. Meanwhile, Suella Braverman referred to human rights campaigners as ‘tofu-eating wokerati”. There have been other cases of government ministers accusing lawyers of being ‘un-british’ and an enemy of the people.

    Now as some politicians try to make human rights a dirty word, activists have gathered at Parliament Square to wash away the stigma.

    The activists were from award-winning human rights charity EachOther, as well as high street cosmetics brand LUSH.  Protesters took a shower outside the Houses of Parliament, next to giant boxes of shower powder labelled Human Rights.

    LUSH and EachOther activists stage a shower protest in parliament square. Two activists stand having a shower in their swimming costume and trunks, while others hold a shower head over them and big box mock ups of LUSH's 'human rights' product that reads: "human rights for everyone"

    LUSH and EachOther countering dangerous disinformation

    Their action is part of a new campaign to educate the public and counter disinformation on human rights ahead of the next general election.

    As the Canary previously reported, EachOther and LUSH launched the campaign in light of the fact that:

    In the last five years, the UK has witnessed an increase in threats to minimise, remove or replace human rights laws in the UK – by the government. These are laws that currently protect all of our day-to-day lives and are there as a safety net should we ever need them.

    Over the last decade, the UK government has proposed withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – which is now a genuine threat.

    Moreover, as EachOther and LUSH have pointed out, Sunak hasn’t ruled out of the UK leaving the ECHR. Of course, this would be an unprecedented move. Specifically, it would spell the first time a nation party to the ECHR has jumped ship on rules it helped to create.

    Now, this alarming rhetoric is on the rise as the general election creeps ever closer.

    Since Sunak stated that he won’t allow ‘foreign courts’ – referring to the ECHR – to block the controversial Rwanda migration partnership, there has been growing misinformation about the European Court of Human Rights. The European Convention protects over 800 million people, and the European Court has considered over 800,000 cases since it was formed.

    EachOther and LUSH have teamed up to set the record straight.

    Protecting rights for future generations

    Notably, their campaign highlights that the ECHR isn’t in fact, a “foreign court”. In reality, it was a British Conservative politician and future Lord High Chancellor called Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, who was central to drafting the Convention. Winston Churchill was one of its biggest cheerleaders. Importantly, every member has its own judge, including the UK.

    Alongside their action in parliament square, the pair have created a product, shower-powder (showder), called ‘Human rights’, which will be available in UK LUSH stores between 16 May to 2 June. ‘Human rights’ sold out in Oxford street in the first two days of launching. LUSH is donating the total sales revenue (minus VAT) from the product to the campaign.

    Additionally, EachOther has published a briefing paper, which outlines the damaging rhetoric used in recent years surrounding human rights.

    Editor in chief of EachOther Emma Guy stated:

    The majority of the public (two-thirds) say they have little or no confidence that they have a say on the decisions made by the government – this is a growing concern for decision making on human rights issues in the UK. Over the past four years, human rights have increasingly been presented in a negative light.

    Guy continued:

    The way we talk about certain issues is important because it can be used for political gain, to fuel misinformation or to misrepresent something or someone. Today is the start of reminding ourselves that collectively, we can recognise our rights, invoke them and continue to educate each other about them – to protect them for future generations.

    Feature image and in-text image via Anna Fuchs/EachOther

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Criminalization of Solidarity: The Stop Cop City Prosecutions

    Georgia’s sweeping and political application of conspiracy law echoes a tactic that shattered the left roughly a hundred years ago, when the U.S. government targeted socialist parties and militant unions with laws against criminal syndicalism, espionage, and sedition.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Paid lobbyist John Woodcock’s monstrous protest report should ‘gather dust in the obscurity it deserves’

    The following article is a comment piece from Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

    On Tuesday 21 May, John Woodcock (Lord Walney) – inaccurately described by the government as an ‘Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption’ – published his much-trailed report calling for a crackdown on democratic protests. Michael Gove chose the same day to deliver a speech falsely accusing those who have marched for Palestinian rights of antisemitism.

    This comes just a day after International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan KC, applied for a series of arrest warrants for war crimes, including for the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s minister of defence.

    Woodcock: a paid lobbyist who should be ignored

    John Woodcock is a paid lobbyist for weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel companies and a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel. Several of his recommendations are transparent attempts to use the law to further his political disagreement with the recent marches in support of Palestinian rights. Others are extraordinarily draconian – including an effective ban on any protests outside council chambers.

    Using police resources to suppress political protests might serve the interests of Woodcock’s corporate paymasters but would seriously undermine long-held democratic principles. This comes on the very day that Liberty has won a court case to prevent an unlawful attempt by the government to overturn the will of parliament and restrict the right to demonstrate.

    Everyone who truly cares about preserving democratic freedoms will utterly reject these proposals. This thoroughly compromised report should be allowed to gather dust in the obscurity it deserves.

    Palestine protests are not antisemitic

    Unlike Michael Gove, the organisers of the recent demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza have a proud track-record of challenging all forms of racism.

    Every single one of the fourteen London demonstrations for Palestinian rights that we have organised in the past seven months has been attended by thousands of Jewish people, including an organised and highly visible Jewish bloc and Jewish speakers on every platform.

    At our demonstration in Hyde Park last month, Jewish Holocaust survivor, Stephen Kapos, spoke to a crowd of 200,000 – probably the largest audience ever addressed by a Holocaust survivor in Britain.

    Anyone who was genuinely motivated by a desire to combat antisemitism, as opposed to cynically shield the state of Israel from legitimate accountability, would celebrate rather than attempt to dismiss these facts.

    Those who continue to demonstrate against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, calling for a ceasefire, and for Palestinian human rights and international law to be upheld, are driven by consistent anti-racism. They are exercising precious democratic rights and represent the views of the vast majority of British people who, unlike the government, support these noble goals.

    Woodcock: trying to distract from Israel’s horrors

    These latest smears cannot be allowed to distract from the horrors that Israel continues to inflict on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The British government must end its complicity with Israel’s criminal violence by halting the arms trade with Israel and give full support to both the ICC and the ongoing work of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel is currently on trial for genocide.

    Ben Jamal, PSC director, said:

    The resumption of these baseless attacks by Michael Gove and John Woodcock amount to an admission: apologists for Israel’s genocidal violence and system of apartheid have lost the democratic and legal arguments, but continue to attempt to delegitimise Palestinian solidarity. They will not succeed.

    At a moment when Israel is on trial in the world’s highest court for the crime of genocide and the day after its Prime Minister has been threatened with ICC arrest warrants for war crimes, it is grotesque that these smears continue.

    The real issues are that the UK government continues to arm Israel, refuses to resume funding to UNRWA, and is attempting to protect Israel from legal accountability. Far from stopping the genocide in Gaza as required under international law, the UK is complicit and actors such as Gove and Woodcock attempt to deflect from that fact.

    They discredit themselves, not the Palestinian solidarity movement.

    Featured image via

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Guardian view on peaceful protests: the high court has preserved a fundamental right | Editorial

    Ministers should think again after judges ruled the authoritarian move to constrain demonstrations was unlawful

    Judges in the high court have found that the former home secretary Suella Braverman acted unlawfully in making it easier for the police to criminalise peaceful protest. That is a very good thing for society and democracy. The rights of non-violent assembly are among our fundamental freedoms, providing a touchstone to distinguish between a free society and a totalitarian one. Liberty, the civil rights campaigners who took the government to court, ought to be congratulated for standing up for all our rights. At the heart of this case was whether a minister could, without primary legislation, decide what words meant in law. The court, thankfully, thought that such matters were best left to the dictionary.

    During protests by environmental groups in the summer of 2023, Ms Braverman had decided to rule by diktat. Consulting only the police, and not the protesters who would have been affected, she used so-called Henry VIII powers that the government had conferred upon itself a year earlier. These allowed her to lower the threshold at which the police would intervene to impose conditions on public protest, defining “serious disruption” as anything “more than minor”. There’s an ocean of difference between the two. But Ms Braverman was unconcerned that she was shamefully pursuing a nakedly authoritarian move to constrain the right of peaceful protest by stripping words of their meaning.

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

    Continue reading…

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

  • High Court rules that Tory government crackdown on protests is illegal

    The Conservative government sidestepped parliament in order to increase anti-protest police powers. Now, on 21 May, the High Court ruled that the government acted unlawfully.

    High Court: Tory executive overreach

    The government used secondary legislation to change the law so that police can crackdown on protests that are considered ‘more than a minor’ disruption. This lowered the threshold from anything causing a ‘serious disruption’.

    The High Court said the government ignored the will of parliament in doing so. The House of Lords had already rejected the provision.

    Secondary legislation, known as Henry VIII powers, shifts power to the executive because the law changes face less parliamentary scrutiny and cannot be amended.

    Under the June 2023 overreach measures, police have arrested hundreds of protestors including climate activist Greta Thunberg.

    Indeed, the Home Office estimated that its lowering of the threshold would increase police intervention in protests by 50%.

    The government says it will appeal the High Court decision.

    “Victory for democracy”

    Campaign group Liberty brought the successful court challenge where the High Court also found the government acted unlawfully by only consulting police groups about the legislation. The government did not consult protest groups.

    Liberty’s director Akiko Hart said:

    This ruling is a huge victory for democracy, and sets down an important marker to show that the Government cannot step outside of the law to do whatever it wants.

    We all have the right to speak out on the issues we believe in, and it’s vital that the Government respects that. These dangerous powers were rejected by Parliament yet still sneaked through the back door with the clear intention of stopping protesters that the Government did not personally agree with, and were so vaguely worded that it meant that the police were given almost unlimited powers to shut down any other protest too.

    This judgment sends a clear message that accountability matters, and that those in power must make decisions that respect our rights

    CEO of Public Law Project Shameem Ahmad said:

    We welcome the Court’s ruling, which recognises that our rights and constitution cannot be unilaterally and arbitrarily undermined by the executive and that ministers must not act outside of the powers granted to them by Parliament.

    Attempts to further restrict the right to protest

    Suella Braverman, who was home secretary at the time the government enacted the measures, has also called for ministers to gain the power to outright ban protests.

    She accused anti-genocide marches in solidarity with Palestine of “mass extremism” and of ‘antisemitic chants’.

    Both Labour and Tory leadership are engaged in the smearing of those protesting Israel’s conduct. In Oct 2023, Labour leader Keir Starmer suspended Andy McDonald MP for comments he made at a pro-Palestine march.

    The apparently “deeply offensive” words were:

    We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty. Free, free Palestine!

    Starmer also enabled the arrest and charging of three pro-Palestine Youth Demand activists for protesting outside his house.

    Establishment managers in both Labour and Tory are seeking to restrict our rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Fortunately, the High Court ruling has quashed the government using executive power to do so.

    Featured image via Liberty – X

    By James Wright

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine Action hit back at John Woodcock after they had to lawyer-up over his new report

    The following article is a comment piece from Palestine Action

    On Tuesday 21 May, secretary of state James Cleverly will present former Labour MP John Woodcock (otherwise known as Lord Walney)’s 240-page review on disruptive protest to the House of Commons. The report’s release, initially set to be on Wednesday 15 May (Nakba Day) was delayed, after Palestine Action’s lawyers pointed out Woodcock’s failure to meet his legal obligations as an independent advisor to the government.

    Namely, he did not consult Palestine Action and the other groups mentioned in his report on its contents, nor provided the opportunity to ask for clarifications or a right to reply.  

    Woodcock: avoiding accountability via parliament

    Cleverly will now lay the document before MPs following the ‘Motion for Unopposed Return’ procedure, under the pretext that it was written by an independent advisor.

    This enables the report to be published as a House of Commons paper, which means it comes with the protection of parliamentary privilege — a form of legal immunity that prevents any group named in the report from claiming defamation.

    By publishing the review in this manner, Cleverly and Woodcock are using procedure in a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability – described by Shami Chakrabarti in a recent news article published by the Guardian as an ‘abuse of parliamentary privilege.’  

    John Woodcock, the so-called independent advisor responsible for writing the report, claimed to apply an “objective standard” throughout — though it was only in October 2023 that he referred to Palestine Action in a tweet as “Hamas’s little helpers.”

    Far from impartial

    This assertion of impartiality seems even more dubious, when one considers his ties to the arms industry and long-standing connections with the Israel lobby group “Labour Friends of Israel” — where he acted as chair of the organisation from July 2011 to January 2013. He also makes frequent visits to Israel, with his most recent trip taking place between 2-7 January 2024. Described as a “solidarity visit,” Woodcock’s flights and accommodation were paid for by the European Leadership Network (ElNet UK) – all amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

    Currently, Woodcock is advisor to the “Purpose Business Coalition”.

    One of its clients is Leonardo UK, which has worked with the Purpose Coalition since March 2022. Palestine Action identifies Leonardo UK as an arms company that is facilitating Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

    The weapons manufacturer has been a key focus of the group’s direct-action campaign to shut Elbit down and all its affiliates, with sites across the country repeatedly targeted — from activists occupying one of Leonardo’s factories in Edinburgh, to spray painting the London HQ.  

    Shilling for arms manufacturers and the West

    Whilst Woodcock registered his interest as chair of the Purpose Business Coalition, he excluded his role as chair for the Purpose of Defence Coalition (PDC) – a distinct entity from the Purpose Business Coalition.

    The PDC website was promptly removed, alongside a page on Leonardo and the Purpose Coalition, over the weekend after Woodcock was questioned on it. At the PDC’s launch event on 18 July 2023 in Parliament, which was “powered by Leonardo UK”, Woodcock said the following [emphasis added]:

    Russia’s war on Ukraine has caused a seismic shift in the world. It has highlighted the crucial nature of defence in upholding our values and the need for a vibrant, well-regulated defence industry. The best defence companies have always acted with high ethical standards but their central role in helping the Ukrainian people to defend their sovereignty, and the significant investment they make in the communities where they operate, is rightly prompting ESG investors to look again at the sector. 

    That is why I am proud to launch the Purpose Defence Coalition, part of the wider Purpose Coalition, to bring together the defence sector’s most innovative leaders and businesses to share best practice and develop policy solutions.

    Featured image via Palestine Action and Wikimedia

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Tories quietly change the law to give arms factories PROTECTION from protesters under ‘National Security’ guff

    The Tories have quietly changed the law to allow arms factories to call themselves “prohibited places”. This is under the guise of national security. It means companies such as Elbit can get protesters like Palestine Action arrested for simply protesting over Israel – and don’t think Elbit is already taking full advantage of this.

    Arms factories: National Security Act protection

    Campaigners say they will not be intimidated and will continue taking action against the arms trade despite a clause in the National Security Act that potentially outlaws protests at hundreds of arms companies across the country. This includes some of the UK’s biggest arms companies and others who are complicit in arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including BAE Systems and Elbit Systems.

    The act, which received Royal Assent in July 2023, was highlighted as a draconian threat by the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) in 2022 in relation to protests outside military bases.

    However, campaigners in Bristol noticed on 25 April that Elbit Systems is now displaying notices advising people that its premises is now a “prohibited place” under the act. A notice to defence contractors issued in April 2024 further reveals that its provisions have been extended to all arms companies that have contracts to supply UK defence.  The document also advises companies to display signage to show they are “prohibited places”:

    According to the notice, under the act, the factories and offices of these companies are now designated as “prohibited places” with a raft of offences attached to them.

    Banged up for protesting

    This includes an offence, with a maximum penalty of 14 years, if a person “accesses, enters, inspects, passes over or under, approaches or is in the vicinity of a prohibited place” and they “know or ought reasonably to know” their actions are “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom.”

    There is also a lesser offence, with a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment for accessing, entering or inspecting without prejudicing the interests of the UK.

    The act also gives the police new authoritarian powers to compel anyone in, or adjacent to, a prohibited place to leave the area if an officer “reasonably believe[s] that exercising the power is necessary to protect the safety or interests of the United Kingdom.” Failure to comply with an order carries a maximum sentence of three months imprisonment.

    However, a briefing published by Netpol highlights that while the use of signs and the threat of this legislation is designed to scare and deter people, protest against arms companies is still legal.

    The briefing also points out that while there is potential for repression and abuse of this legislation, there will be a very high threshold for a successful prosecution that shows anti-arms trade protesters are acting against the UK’s safety and interest.

    Repressing protest at arms factories

    Campaign Against Arms Trade’s media coordinator Emily Apple said:

    This is clearly an attempt to repress and deter protests against arms companies – but this is an attempt that will fail. These companies are complicit in the horrific war crimes Israel is committing in Gaza. They are profiting from genocide, and ordinary people across the country are taking action on an almost daily basis against these merchants of death.

    We will not be intimidated and we will not be deterred. Our government is refusing to impose an arms embargo despite overwhelming evidence Israel is breaking International Humanitarian Law so it is down to all of us to take action. It is not in the UK’s interest, and it does not make the UK safe, to break international law and arm a genocide, and we will challenge any attempt to use this act against campaigners.

    Network for Police Monitoring’s campaigns coordinator Kevin Blowe said:

    The wave of recent new anti-protest laws over the last few years have left many in the movements we work with uncertain about their rights and the limits of police powers. We feel this confusion is exactly what government wanted and the intention behind new signs threatening arrest on the grounds of “national security”.

    This is why it is so important for campaigners to know their rights and stand their ground when confronted by police efforts to try and move them. In Netpol’s experience, the prospect of arbitrary misuse of the stated aims of this legislation, simply because it is convenient in the moment for the police when facing demonstrators, is far greater than the likelihood of successful prosecutions.

    This is one of the reasons why we call on the Home Office to publish – sooner rather than later – its promised guidelines on how prohibited places are “policed appropriately”. We need to know what to expect – or else to expect the worst.

    Featured image via Netpol

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • News camera spray-painted twice during Seattle protest

    A news crew with KOMO-TV was harassed and its camera vandalized while reporting on student protests at the University of Washington in Seattle on May 7, 2024.

    Students erected an encampment on the Liberal Arts Quadrangle, the main gathering place on campus, on April 29, The Seattle Times reported, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war, divestment from Israeli companies and for the university to sever any ties with Boeing, which is a supplier for the Israeli Air Force.

    KOMO-TV reported that the demonstration grew to its largest size on May 7, with more than 200 pro-Palestinian protesters. Conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk appeared on campus that day for a speaking event and set up his own tent near the encampment.

    Amid heightened tensions, KOMO-TV reported that its news crew witnessed at least one fight, and that individuals sprayed the crew’s camera with spray paint twice.

    KOMO-TV News Director Philip Bruce did not respond to a request for additional information.


    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.

  • Parents Of Pakistani Students Protest After Mob Attack On Foreigners In Kyrgyzstan


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Climate-wrecking, genocide-complicit Lloyds AGM derailed by climate and pro-Palestine activists

    Climate and pro-Palestine activists joined forces to interrupt the Lloyds Annual General Meeting (AGM) to demand the bank stop financing in fossil fuel companies and companies profiting from Israel’s occupation and genocide.

    Lloyds AGM: disrupted over its complicity

    Several shareholders interrupted the chair of the meeting, demanding Lloyds rule out investments in coal, oil and gas, and arms companies – and companies operating on Occupied Palestinian territory:

    Despite a partnership with the Woodland Trust and claims that they will reduce the carbon emissions they finance by over 50% by 2030, Lloyds invested $1.8bn into the fossil fuel industry in 2023 alone. Between 2016-2022, Lloyds provided $15bn of financing for the fossil fuel companies. This includes financing of $720m in oil giant Shell.

    In addition to this, research by PAX conducted in 2022 showed that Lloyds Banking Group provided almost €4.5bn in financial services to arms companies, and was the 8th largest financier for arms companies in Europe. This includes €273.9m of financing for BAE Systems and €455.5m to Lockheed Martin.

    Protestors condemned Lloyds’ investments – but predictably security removed them:

    It must act now

    Cath Dyer from Christian Climate Action, said:

    Lloyd’s could be the first major bank in the world to be completely fossil-free. At this moment, there are countless organisations around the UK that are looking for ethical banking options. You are telling us that you are maximising the returns for your investors and at the same time, you are turning business away.

    22 universities and colleges are looking for a fossil-free bank right now. But they won’t switch their accounts to Lloyds as long as Lloyds keeps its ties with oil giants like Shell that are destroying our planet and are accused of human rights abuses.

    Gordon Keenan from Scottish Friends of Palestine said:

    We call on Lloyds to stop financing arms companies BAE systems and Lockheed Martin, which both supply the Israeli military. We are simply calling on the bank to comply with international law. As the ICJ has ruled, Palestinians must be protected from genocide.

    Lloyds must stop financing arms companies now if it does not want to be held responsible for genocide and human rights abuses linked to occupation.

    Josie, a climate justice campaigner, said:

    The climate crisis and Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide are intrinsically linked issues. Both have their roots in settler colonialism and both rely on financial institutions like Lloyds to operate. On top of this, Israeli occupation of Palestine has long relied on the contamination of water supplies and the destruction of nature.

    The movement for climate justice and for a free Palestine are united and Lloyds must listen.

    Nat Gorodnitski from Breaking the Bank and SOS-UK said:

    Lloyds prides itself on its reputation as a high street bank that everyday people can rely on, but its financing strategy is unreliable and destructive. Most of us in Scotland do not want the Rosebank oil field to go ahead. We don’t want to prop up oil giants like Shell that are destroying our planet and are accused of human rights abuses. Lloyds must stop financing arms and fossil fuels now.

    Featured image via Tipping Point UK

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A controversial medical conference is taking place behind closed doors, so the ME community calls it out

    The 11 to 17 May 2024 is myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) Awareness Week. This year, two major conferences are taking place throughout the week. One is the inaugural ‘Unite To Fight’ conference – a first of its kind community-driven, free long Covid and ME event. The other is the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS’s (BACME) annual gathering. And unlike ‘Unite To Fight’, BACME’s conference affairs are taking place behind closed doors. Given this, alongside a raft of other concerns, members of the ME community, coordinated by campaign group the Chronic Collaboration, have written to the group’s chair.

    Notably, the letter sets out a damning litany of BACME’s historic and current harms towards people living with the devastating disease.

    Behind the scenes of BACME

    Since 2021, BACME has been registered as a charity for medical professionals moving in ME research, treatment, and care. However, the organisation – of 200 paying members – has a longer and considerably controversial history. As the Canary has previously explained:

    BACME boasts that its charitable objective is the “relief of sickness for the public benefit”.

    However, its laudable-sounding aims obfuscate a contentious history in upholding a harmful status quo. For one, the organisation was the machination of notorious members of a lobby of medical professionals hell-bent on psychologising the chronic systemic disease. Members of the ME community sometimes refer to them as the “biopsychosocial” or “psych” lobby.

    Specifically, at its outset, professor Esther Crawley chaired the group. Crawley has a prolific record of endorsing treatments geared towards a psychosomatic basis for the disease.

    On top of this, the Chronic Collaboration dug into some of the speakers participating at this year’s conference. Alarmingly, BACME is platforming a prominent proponent of the flawed DWP part-funded PACE trial – Jessica Bavinton. You can read more on the PACE trial here, but essentially the study promulgated junk science to promote treatments actively harmful to ME patients.

    So of course, Bavinton is taking what is ostensibly a repackaged form of one of these damaging treatments – graded exercise therapy (GET) – to the conference.

    BACME “actively harming patients right now”

    As a result, members of the ME community, facilitated by campaign group the Chronic Collaboration have laid out a number of these issues in an open letter. It starts by stating:

    As individuals living with, or affected by, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS), we are growing increasingly concerned by the direction of travel of BACME, and the media reports around what we consider to be harmful and damaging approaches to caring for with people with ME.

    We are aware BACME has what many consider to be a controversial history. We are also aware that BACME has taken what it considers steps to rectify its previous conduct. However, as patients we feel none of that has been sufficient and that BACME is still actively harming patients right now.

    Following this, it articulated a number of the issues that the Canary, the Chronic Collaboration, and many members of the ME community have been highlighting. Perhaps most significantly, the letter expressed the Canary’s findings that healthcare teams are using BACME guidance documents to inform their treatment of patients with ME.

    In particular, the letter references the appalling abuse, gaslighting, and neglect that hospital staff have been putting severe ME patients through. The Canary has comprehensively documented the situation for three such women with severe ME – Millie, Carla, and Karen – that NHS hospitals are failing right now.

    As a result, the letter set out a number of key demands. These included:

    1. Make a public statement acknowledging that graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) harmed patients, that PACE trail was flawed, and you support the NICE guidelines. So far to patient’s knowledge, you only issued a statement in October 2020 withdrawing support for the deconditioning model of ME.

    The ME community raises its collective voice

    Letter signees emphasised many of these concerns. One highlighted how BACME’s documents have directly harmed Millie, Carla, and their families:

    Patients are being mistreated, sectioned and deprivation of liberty in hospital right now. If your information does not align with the current NICE Guidelines, you are causing confusion. A hospital quoted using your info, instead of NICE. Patients will end up harmed by the wrong support, please rectify your materials and website.

    One member of the ME community wasn’t pulling any punches:

    People who are perpetuating harm to those with ME/CFS should be struck off and locked up, there is absolutely ZERO excuse for doing what you are doing. In no other disease do people have to use legal advice from a Barrister to safeguard themselves with a Limitation of Consent before they dare see a doctor because of the horrifyingly harmful effects of seeing someone ignorant of the current ME science.

    We are singled out for a level of physical and psychological abuse like no other group of patients through the denial of the biological reality of ME which you are promoting. You should be ashamed, and know that generations of abused patients may have passed before us and may still pass before the low lives doing us harm are stopped, but one day we as a patient group will see justice on this.

    Of course, it shouldn’t take a group of severely unwell patients to draw attention to all this. However, BACME’s persistent decision to give prominence to pillars of the “psych” lobby continues to undermine people living with ME at every turn. Given years of valid distrust, you’d think BACME would open its conference to the patient community. After all, what does it have to hide?

    Responding to the ME community letter would be a start. However, both the letter and comments make clear that BACME has a lot to do to prove it’s on the side of patients living with this devastating chronic illness. Evidently to date, people with ME have little reason to believe this is the case.

    Support the ME community and sign the open letter to BACME here.

    Feature image via the Chronic Collaboration/Organise

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • REVEALED: John ‘Walney’ Woodcock’s links to Big Oil and Israel show he’s FAR from ‘independent’

    Recently, extracts have been released to the media from the report of the government’s so-called ‘independent adviser on domestic violence and disruption’, former Labour Party MP John Woodcock – now known as Lord Walney. It reportedly calls for campaign groups such as Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil to be banned, despite the groups themselves being denied access to the report. However, Woodcock’s associations with Big Oil and Israel show he is far from independent.

    John Woodcock: we must STOP all this protest

    As BBC News reported:

    An upcoming report from Lord Walney, which BBC News has seen extracts of, will recommend a new category for proscribing “extreme protest groups”.

    It defines these as those which routinely use criminal tactics to try to achieve their aims.

    The sanctions could restrict a group’s ability to fundraise and its right to assembly in the UK.

    The Home Office said ministers would consider the recommendations.

    “Militant groups like Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil are using criminal tactics to create mayhem and hold the public and workers to ransom without fear of consequence,” Lord Walney said.

    “Banning terror groups has made it harder for their activists to plan crimes – that approach should be extended to extreme protest groups too.”

    Of course, many people would not consider Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action “extreme” – given they are taking action over the extinction-threatening climate crisis and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    However, clearly Woodcock disagrees – and his links to certain companies and groups show why.

    Far from ‘independent’

    Woodcock serves vested corporate interests in the arms and fossil fuel industries, whose profits are being threatened by precisely the groups he’s proposing to ban.

    Amongst other roles, Woodcock:

    Woodcock also visited Israel in January of this year, funded by Elnet, an NGO promoting cooperation between Europe and Israel.

    The revelations echo a previous attempt by the so-called ‘think-tank’, Policy Exchange to brand climate activists as ‘extremists’ in 2019. It later emerged that Policy Exchange was also being funded by Big Oil.

    Woodcock: he’s a sham

    Tim Crosland, director of the climate justice charity Plan B, said:

    Lord Walney’s report is being presented as ‘independent’. But that’s not true. That’s dishonest. Lord Walney failed to disclose he is in fact the Chair of Defence Purpose Coalition, a group which represents the interests of arms companies, such as Leonardo, which Palestine Action are exposing for facilitating mass loss of life in Gaza.

    He is also a paid adviser to the Purpose Business Coalition, which includes BP, whose vast profits are threatened by Just Stop Oil. So his recommendations are not surprising, since they serve the vested corporate interests he represents. But it would be a shocking deception on the public for anyone to present those recommendations as ‘independent’.

    Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, said:

    Whilst our government remains complicit in the ongoing Gaza genocide, it is our duty to take direct action to halt the production of weapons in Britain which is being used against the Palestinian people.

    It is a sham for the government to try and claim Lord Walney is an ‘independent’ advisor, who only a few months ago travelled to Israel, whilst families were being massacred a couple of hours away. By writing this report, he is working to protect the interests of Israel’s military supply chain, over the will of the British people, who overwhelmingly support an arms embargo on Israel.

    Unelected politicians with vested interests in arms companies and genocidal entities should not be given airtime to dictate British policy.

    Woodcock was originally supposed to release his full report on Wednesday 15 May. It is understood that legal issues may now cause a short delay to publication.

    Featured image via Parliament TV

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • University Students Protest In Tbilisi After “Foreign Agent” Bill Approval


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • YouTube blocks banned Hong Kong protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’

    YouTube has blocked access to dozens of videos containing the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” for viewers in the territory following a court injunction last week that said it could be used as a “weapon” to bring down the government.

    The company, which is owned by Google’s parent Alphabet, said 32 videos featuring the banned song have been geoblocked and are now unavailable in the city, which is in the throes of an ongoing clampdown on public dissent.

    “We are disappointed by the Court’s decision but are complying with its removal order by blocking access to the listed videos for viewers in Hong Kong,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement sent to multiple media organizations. 

    “We’ll continue to consider our options for an appeal, to promote access to information,” the statement said, adding that Google search results for the song would also be invisible to users in the city.

    Public performances of the song are already banned in Hong Kong, as its lyrics are deemed illegal under stringent national security legislation.

    But the Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address its continued availability online, calling it a “weapon” that could be used to bring down the government, and an “insult” to China’s national anthem.

    “Glory to Hong Kong,” which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sporting fixtures, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police.

    The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

    Government injunction

    Last week’s ban came after the Court of First Instance rejected the government’s application for an injunction on July 28, 2023 citing a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression.

    The injunction bans anyone in Hong Kong from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing” the song with seditious intent, including online.

    The Hong Kong government had earlier asked Google to alter its search results, to no avail.

    While Hong Kong isn’t yet subject to China’s Great Firewall of blanket internet censorship, some websites linked to the protest movement including HKChronicles are blocked by internet service providers in the city. The website of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch is also blocked.

    A Wikipedia entry for the song appeared at the top of Google search results for the phrase “Hong Kong national anthem” outside the city on Wednesday. 

    The song’s labeling as “Hong Kong’s national anthem” on YouTube has been “highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests,” the Court of Appeal judges said when they granted the injunction last week.

    Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.

    “The song has also been sung and promoted by prominent anti-China destabilizing forces and national security offenses fugitives in events provoking hatred towards the People’s Republic of China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government,” the judges wrote.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Palestine Action smash roofs, block entrances – reminding Zionist arms manufacturers that the Nakba never ended

    Wednesday 15 May marked 76 years since Israel militia, backed by the UK, committed the Nakba against the Palestinian people. It’s arguable it never actually ended. So, to mark the day and send a clear message to warmongering arms manufacturers propping up Israel’s genocidal regime, Palestine Action has hit several targets across the country.

    Palestine Action: marking the Nakba with action

    First, at UAV Engines Ltd (UEL) factory in Shenstone, Palestine Action activists locked on outside:

    Whilst at Teledyne Defence and Space (TDS) in Shipley, activists occupied and dismantled the roof of the factory to bring operations to a halt:

    At the Elbit subsidiary UEL, seven activists from Palestine Action locked down the entrance to the weapons factory, using both vehicles and lock-on boxes to prevent any shipments or workers from entering and continuing their complicity in genocide:

    Palestine Action Nakba

    The factory is a crucial part of Israel’s war machine because it is owned by Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems — who provide 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet. Specifically, UEL designs and produces engines to power Elbit’s drones, which are used for both the surveillance and bombing of targets during the ongoing genocide.

    At Teledyne, Palestine Action activists occupied the factory’s roof and began taking it apart to render the factory inoperable:

    Palestine Action Nakba

    Through the occupation, Palestine Action activists halted the production of key components for missile systems – specifically missile filters – exported from the site to Israel.

    The US arms maker has often boasted of its involvement with missile products procured by Israel, including the AGM-Harpoon, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles – the latter reportedly being used by Israel to strike Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The site also produces parts fitted in F-35 Fighter jets, such as the Phobos ESM System used in the AN/APG-81 AESA radar (listed as ‘radar warning receiver’ on their radar components page).

    All actions were taken to mark 76 years since the Nakba.

    The Nakba has never ended

    The Nakba, (‘The Catastrophe’ in English) saw Zionist militias, armed and trained by the British Armed Forces, expel over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. These militias destroyed over 500 towns and villages, and massacred over 13,000 people – including entire families.

    This started an ongoing process of disposession and ethnic cleansing, which culminated in the ongoing genocide being waged by the Zionist entity since 7 October 2023.

    Since that date, over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed by the settler colonial state, with almost half of that number being children. Not only that, but the survivors are repeatedly being forced to flee on dangerous death marches to “safe places” where Israel’s military will inevitably bombard them again.

    A Palestine Action spokesperson said:

    It is a common phrase by Palestinians to say: the Nakba is not an event but a process. And just like the actions of Israel today were set in motion by the Nakba, so too was Britain’s complicity.

    The Zionist militias which perpetrated the catastrophe were trained by British soldiers, and today we see history repeat when Britain allows the companies we have targeted today to continue with their business backing brutality whilst Israel butchers Palestinians en mass. This is a crime, and one we fully intend to stop. As we have always said: we won’t stop till the Nakba does.

    Featured image via Neil Terry Photography and additional images via Neil Terry Photography and Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Vietnamese churchgoers protest authorities building schools on borrowed land | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Zionists and the far right are now attacking UK universities’ student anti-genocide camps

    Students are upping their game when it comes to anti-genocide encampments on UK universities. Protests and activism over Israel’s continued war crimes in Gaza have been spreading across the country. However, much like their US counterparts, UK students are now facing attacks from Zionists – but so far, cops have remained quite… for now.

    From the US to the UK via Greece and the Netherlands, students take action

    As the Canary has documented, there have already been violent crackdowns around the student protests in the US. Meanwhile, protests have been erupting in Greece, too:

    In the Netherlands, cops are cracking down in a similar fashion to the US:

    Now, as the Canary previously reported these protests are now spreading to UK universities. Encampments have been set up in both Manchester and Sheffield – as well as Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Goldsmiths in London, and Warwick.

    For example, in Sheffield students are protesting over their university’s complicity in Israel genocide. The university’s involvement in F-35 production supplying Israel is part of a pattern of close ties with the arms industry. In 2022, a freedom of information request (FOI) revealed that Sheffield took at least £72m in investment from the arms trade over the preceding decade.

    Now, these protests are spreading further.

    UK universities’ encampments: spreading like wildfire

    Falmouth and Exeter Students have begun their solidarity encampment – calling on students, faculty, and staff to resist the University of Exeter’s complicity in genocide:

    The new group “Fal Exe Solidarity Camp” has been established on Penryn Campus, just outside the exchange.

    A spokesperson for the group said:

    Both universities have investments in companies which are profiting from genocide – we as students reject the use of our money being used to fund war crimes. We are calling on people to come down, join us, support us and get involved in the conversation whilst we work together to formulate our list of demands”.

    Many groups at Universities across the UK have followed suit from America in taking to their campuses and joining in protest camps. As we watch a genocide continue to unfold on our screens, and the Israeli state’s aggression towards Rafah brings death and misery to Palestinian families, the call for academic institutions to cut ties with companies complicit in war crimes grows louder every day.

    We will remain in our encampment until our demands our met, and continue to pressure the universities to divest from genocide.

    King’s College London also saw students set up an encampment:

    Queen Mary University saw similar:

    Over at SOAS, campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) helped make student’s encampment accessible – as the university clearly wasn’t going to do it:

    Far-right and Zionists come out to play

    However, in other places the far right has been on the move. Racist, far-right Turning Point claimed that locals had ‘had enough’ of the Oxford Uni encampment. However, it’s more likely the group or a similar one shipped its goons in to disrupt it:

    This is because locals don’t all turn up in a taxi:

    Moreover, someone identified two of the goons:

    Similar has happened at University College London:

    Cops defending Israel’s genocide

    This came after cops arrested four activists on Saturday 4 May outside the student encampment at UCL. Police nicked them under terrorism laws – for holding a banner with a peace dove and bright blue sky on it:

    As the Canary previously wrote of the situation in the US:

    Student protests across America and around the rest of the world are not antisemitic – they’re a response to the interminable siege of Palestine.

    What else are students supposed to? Sit back and watch as universities in Palestine are razed to the ground? Do nothing while the US arms Israel? Twiddle their fingers while experts predict that 10,000 Palestinians are buried in rubble that will take years to clear?

    What are the police supposed to do then, you may ask?

    Stay the hell away.

    With UK university encampments spreading like wildfire, cops over here would do well to take that advice.

    Featured image via X screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.