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.
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We speak with Justin Jones, one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House of Representatives Thursday for peacefully protesting gun violence in the chamber last week as thousands rallied at the Capitol to demand gun control after the Covenant elementary school shooting in Nashville. A vote to expel their white colleague who joined them in…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Israel‘s hard-right government will undertake a second day of talks on 29 March over controversial judicial reforms. They come after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bowed to pressure in the face of a nationwide walkout on 27 March.
The judicial overhaul would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges. As the Canary previously reported, this led to vocal criticism of Netanyahu’s government, culminating in widespread protests against state overreach.
The 27 March general strike and mass protests were the country’s most severe in years. The strike hit airports, hospitals and more. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of opponents of the reforms rallied outside parliament in Jerusalem. As a result, Netanyahu paused progress on the reform. In a broadcast, he said:
Out of a will to prevent a rupture among our people, I have decided to pause the second and third readings of the bill [to allow time for dialogue]
The decision to halt the legislative process marked a dramatic U-turn for Netanyahu. He had announced he was sacking his defence minister, who had called for the very same step just a day earlier.
Israel amidst a ‘judicial coup’
President Isaac Herzog hosted the first day of talks between the government and two main centrist opposition parties – Yesh Atid and the National Unity Party. However, scepticism and suspicion over the negotations remained high throughout Israel. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank, remarked that it did not amount to a peace deal. He added:
Rather, it’s a ceasefire perhaps for regrouping, reorganising, reorienting and then charging – potentially – charging ahead
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid reacted warily, saying that he wanted to be sure “there is no ruse or bluff”. And a joint statement between Lapid’s Yesh Atid and the National Unity Party said talks would stop immediately “if the law is put on the Knesset’s (parliament’s) agenda”.
Meanwhile, activists vowed to continue their rallies, which have persisted for weeks, sometimes drawing tens of thousands of protesters. The Umbrella Movement of Resistance Against Dictatorship said:
We will not stop the protest until the judicial coup is completely stopped
Far right pulling the strings
The crisis has revealed deep rifts within Netanyahu’s fledgling coalition, an alliance with far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, had pressed his supporters to rally in favour of the reforms. He also threatened to quit if the government put the overhaul on hold. His Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party revealed that, as a result, the decision to delay the legislation involved an agreement to expand the Ben-Gvir’s portfolio.
The affair has hit the coalition’s standing among the Israeli public, just three months after it took office. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party has dipped seven points, according to a poll by Israel’s Channel 12. It went on to predict that the government would lose its majority in the 120-seat parliament if an election were held now.
Featured image via BBC News/YouTube
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
By Glen Black
This post was originally published on Canary.
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LGBTQ advocates are taking to the streets to protest the coordinated legislative attacks on transgender people nationwide after successfully beating back bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth in West Virginia and Wyoming. Trans activists have organized demonstrations at capitol buildings across the country and are currently coordinating protests for Trans Day of Visibility on March 31 and…
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Workers across Israel are taking part in a general strike Monday to protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to disempower Israel’s judiciary. This comes after Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Sunday over Gallant’s warning that the judicial overhaul represents “a clear, immediate and tangible threat to the security of the state.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis…
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This week, the City of Philadelphia agreed to a $9.25 million settlement with protesters who were brutalized with tear gas and pepper spray during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in late May 2020. Such accountability for police who crush protests with crowd-control weapons is rare both in the United States and across the world. The settlement comes as researchers report that…
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In Atlanta, a judge has denied bond for 8 of the people indiscriminately arrested at a music festival against the proposed “Cop City” police training facility in the Weelaunee Forest. Jailed since March 5, they are charged with domestic terrorism based on scant evidence like muddy clothes or simply being in the area at the time of the festival. We’re joined by Micah Herskind…
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Protests in Paris and across France have ramped up since President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Thursday used a controversial constitutional measure to force through a pension reform plan without a National Assembly vote. Fears that the Senate-approved measure — which would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 — did not have enough support to pass the lower house of Parliament led to a…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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(CC photo: Chad Davis)
This week on CounterSpin: If there are ideas, tools or tactics that are part of both this country’s horror-filled past, and some people’s vision for its dystopic future, they are at work in Cop City. Over-policing, racist policing, paramilitarization, the usurping of public resources, environmental racism, community voicelessness, and efforts to criminalize protest (that’s some kinds of protest)—it’s all here. Add to that a corporate press corps that, for one thing, disaggregates issues that are intertwined—Black people, for instance, are impacted not only by police brutality, but also by the environment, breathing air and drinking water as they do—and seems intent on pressing a vital, important situation into old, tired and harmful frames.
Kamau Franklin is founder of Community Movement Builders, the national grassroots organization, and co-host of the podcast Renegade Culture. We’ll hear from him about Cop City and the fight against it.
CounterSpin230317Franklin.mp3Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of DC’s crime bill.
CounterSpin230317Banter.mp3The post Kamau Franklin on Cop City Protests appeared first on FAIR.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the U.S. government over the use of low-flying, military-grade helicopters used to disturb and disperse protesters during the 2020 uprisings following the police murder of George Floyd. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of plaintiff Dzhuliya Dashtamirova, a participant in the protests who said that she…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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In the early evening of March 5, a noxious plume of black smoke wafted over the proposed site of the unpopular Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known as “Cop City.” Construction equipment and vehicles were reportedly set on fire, igniting an incendiary response by police on the second day of the Week of Action called by the Defenders of the Atlanta Forest. It was the fifth such week-long…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Bristol Crown court has sentenced two more people to prison this week, for charges arising out of the city’s 2021 Kill the Bill demonstrations.
Judge Patrick handed Jesse Geaney 12 months in prison on Monday 27 February for allegedly shining a laser pen towards a police helicopter at a Kill the Bill protest on 26 March 2021. He also sentenced Carl Davis to two and a half years for ‘riot’, for his role in the 21 March uprising outside Bridewell police station.
Supporters held a demonstration outside the court on 28 February, in support of the defendants.
Notorious sentencing
Judge Patrick has presided over almost all of the Kill the Bill trials since March 2021. He has become notorious for handing down harsh sentences. In fact, 34 of Bristol’s Kill the Bill demonstrators have now received a total of over a hundred years in prison between them.
The 2021 Kill the Bill protest was against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act (then a Bill), and came in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer. The mood was angry and defiant. And when police used shields and batons to attack the crowd, the protesters had had enough. People fought back – seizing police batons, shields, and helmets. Demonstrators breached the windows of the police station, and set several police vehicles on fire.
Carl Davis was allegedly one of a crowd of people who kicked at the windows of Bridewell police station. The reinforced glass frontage eventually buckled and broke, as demonstrators attacked it with rocks, a skateboard, a bicycle, and reappropriated police batons.
Before the sentencing on 28 February, Carl wrote this statement:
Guess I’m off to Butlins to take one for the team! Plead guilty for riot as the evidence seemed too strong for trial. Ironically one of the main pieces of evidence was traces of my blood that in fact came from an injury caused by riot police which is a classic example of what really happened that day…
I don’t even like to consider it as a riot when in my eyes it was just a peaceful protest against an inhumane bill that was turned violent by the police who broke countless laws and then lied to the media about getting injuries. All we did was defend each other and show the world that if the people who enforce the laws won’t abide by them then neither will we.
Imprisoned for shining a laser pen
On 27 February, Jesse Geaney was imprisoned for 12 months for allegedly shining a laser pen at a police helicopter. Jesse had been part of one of the Kill the Bill protests which followed the Bridewell uprising.
On the Tuesday two days after the clash at Bridewell, a vigil was held on Bristol’s College Green in support of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community, who the PCSC Bill directly targeted. The cops were out for revenge. Hundreds of riot police attacked the vigil, bringing down their riot shields as weapons on the heads of protesters. The police violence set the scene for at least 10 more demonstrations, which saw intense physical force from riot cops, as crowds fought back.
Police arrested Jesse after the third mass Kill the Bill demonstration, the following Friday 26 March. Riot cops – many of them on horseback – had been viciously attacking the crowd. Jesse was arrested after police claimed that the laser pen had forced their helicopter to change its flight path.The Tory government has passed legislation specifically against the use of laser pens to disrupt aircraft and other vehicles in recent years.
Defence barrister Margot Munro-Kerr said that her client had a rare health condition called Marfans syndrome. This would make Jesse’s stay in prison more difficult. She explained that the prison was unable to provide Jesse with adequate care. However, Judge Patrick chose to impose a custodial sentence anyway.
‘Harsh and brutal’ sentencing
Justice for Bristol Protesters (JBP) told The Canary that their members were “heartbroken” at the “callous and inequitable” sentences. JBP is a campaign made up of friends, families, and supporters of the defendants. One parent said:
The prison sentences handed down this week have been harsh and brutal. The judge chose to totally disregard probation reports and their recommendations, which begs the question of why spend public money producing them.
They emphasised the toll the sentences were taking on the defendants’ mental health. They also said that the agonising wait for trial is already comparable to serving a prison sentence:
Given that these cases have taken the best part of two years to come to court and the devastating impact this has had on the mental health of the defendants and their families they have already served a sentence.These cases need to be reviewed and a full enquiry undertaken.Two years of state repression
As we approach the second anniversary of the Bridewell uprising, the state’s repressive response is nowhere near over. The Kill the Bill trials are set to carry on at least until this summer. 34 people have already received custodial sentences, and many more are awaiting trial.
In many ways, what’s happening in Bristol is a microcosm of what’s happening across the UK, as well as on a global scale. Here in the UK, the state is handing out more and more prison sentences to those who resist. On an international scale, states routinely act to stamp out rebellion wherever peoples’ anger spills out onto the streets. Local struggles like the one in Bristol are just one part of the global struggle of people against power. Perhaps we can take solace in the thought that when we suffer state crackdowns we are not alone. Countless others are experiencing the same struggle, and that state repression will only make people fight harder.
Click here to donate to the Kill the Bill prisoners’ support fund.
Featured images via Bristol Anti Repression Campaign and Carl Davis (with permission)
By Tom Anderson
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In a new article titled “European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates,” The Grayzone’s Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal document the many large demonstrations that have been occurring in France, the UK, Germany, Greece, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium and elsewhere opposing the western empire’s brinkmanship with Russia and proxy warfare in Ukraine.
Pabst and Blumenthal conclude their report with a denouncement of the way the western media have either been ignoring or sneering at these protests while actively cheerleading smaller demonstrations in support of arming Ukraine.
“When Western media has not ignored Europe’s antiwar protest wave altogether, its coverage has alternated between dismissive and contemptuous,” they write. “German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle sneeringly characterized the February 25 demonstration in Berlin as ‘naive’ while providing glowing coverage to smaller shows of support for the war by the Ukrainian diaspora. The New York Times, for its part, mentioned the European protests in just a single generic line buried in an article on minuscule anti-Putin protests held by Russian emigres.”
This bias is of course blatantly propagandistic, which won’t surprise anyone who understands that the mainstream western media exist first and foremost to administer propaganda on behalf of the US-centralized empire. And chief among their propaganda duties is to suppress the emergence of a genuine peace movement.
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European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates@stavroulapabst and @MaxBlumenthal cover the surge of antiwar activity across the continent over the past year, from Athens to Prague to London to Berlin to Paris and beyondhttps://t.co/At63ggS8M4
— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) February 27, 2023
As we’ve discussed previously, it has never in human history been more urgent to have a massive, forceful protest movement in opposition to the empire’s rapidly accelerating trajectory toward a global conflict against Russia and China. Other peace movements have arisen in the past in response to horrific wars which would go on to claim millions of lives, but a world war in the Atomic Age could easily wind up killing billions, and must never be allowed to happen.
And yet the public is not treating this unparalleled threat with the urgency it deserves. A few protests here and there is great, but it’s not nearly enough. And the reason the people have not answered the call is because the mass media have been successfully propagandizing them into accepting the continuous escalations toward world war that we’ve been seeing.
People aren’t going to protest what their government is doing if they believe that what their government is doing is appropriate, and the only reason so many people believe what their government is doing with regard to Russia and China is appropriate is because they have been propagandized into thinking so.
The mass media are not telling the public about the many well-documented western provocations which led to the war in Ukraine and sabotaged peace at every turn; they’re just telling everyone that Putin invaded because he’s an evil Hitler sequel who loves killing and hates freedom. The mass media are not telling the public about the way the US empire has been encircling China with war machinery in ways it would never permit itself to be encircled while deliberately staging incendiary provocations in Taiwan; they’re just telling everyone that China is run by evil warmongering tyrants. The mass media are not reminding the public that after the fall of the Soviet Union the US empire espoused a doctrine asserting that the rise of any foreign superpower must be prevented at all cost; they’re letting that agenda fade into the memory hole.
Because people believe Russia and China are the sole aggressors and the US and its allies are only responding defensively to those unprovoked aggressions, they don’t see the need for a mass protest movement against their own governments. If you tell the average coastal American liberal that you’re holding a protest about the war in Ukraine, they’re going to assume you mean you’re protesting against Putin, and they’ll look at you strangely if you tell them you’re actually protesting your own government’s aggressions.
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There Has Never In History Been A Greater Need For A Large Anti-War Movement
"The wars in Vietnam and Iraq killed millions; we're talking about a conflict that can kill billions."https://t.co/eMXpSNBuLH
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 27, 2023
The narrative that Russia and China are acting with unprovoked aggression actually prevents peace, because if your government isn’t doing anything to make things worse, then there’s nothing it can change about its own behavior to make things better. But of course there is a massive, massive amount that the western power alliance can change about its own behavior with regard to Russia and China that would greatly improve matters. Instead of working to subordinate the entire planet to the will of Washington and its drivers, they can work toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
We’re not going to get de-escalation, diplomacy and detente unless the people use the power of their numbers to demand those things, and the people are not going to use the power of their numbers to demand those things as long as they are successfully propagandized not to. This means propaganda is the ultimate problem that needs to be addressed. Ordinary people can only address it by waking the public up to the fact that the political/media class are lying to them about what’s happening with Russia and China, using whatever means we have access to.
So that’s what we need to do. We need to fight the imperial disinformation campaign using information. Tell people the truth using every medium available to us to sow distrust in the imperial propaganda machine, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you.
Our rulers are always babbling about how they’re fighting an “information war” against enemy nations, but in reality they’re fighting an information war against normal westerners like us. So we must fight back. We need to cripple public trust in the propaganda machine and begin awakening one another from our propaganda-induced sleep, so that we can begin organizing against the horrific end they are driving us toward.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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Thousands of people from across the political spectrum gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to protest US militarism, proxy warfare and nuclear brinkmanship in Ukraine on Sunday.
I’ve been seeing some people try to downplay the numbers on social media, but footage from the Rage Against the War Machine rally makes it clear that attendance was in the thousands; people who were there place the number at around three thousand.
This is significantly better attendance than any other American anti-war demonstration in recent years that I’m aware of. It’s nowhere remotely close to the historic numbers people demonstrated in to protest the war in Iraq, and it’s nowhere remotely close to what it should be for an issue of such existential importance.
But it’s a start. Maybe the start of something good. The ANSWER Coalition has a March on Washington scheduled for March 18th for the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion demanding “Negotiations not escalation” in Ukraine and an end to US militarism abroad. We shall see if this thing continues to pick up steam.
#RageAgainstWar is out here pic.twitter.com/31fiEP8enH
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 19, 2023
One criticism I hear of anti-war demonstrations is that they don’t make a difference. “Millions of us marched in opposition to the Iraq invasion, and they did it anyway!” is a common sentiment.
While it’s true that demonstrations failed to stop the invasion of Iraq, if you look at the US war machine’s actual behavior following that war, it has clearly been reacting defensively to public opposition.
If anti-war protests made no difference, the US empire wouldn’t have completely abandoned full-scale ground invasions after 2003 and switched to sneakier, less effective means of warfare while launching unprecedented narrative management systems to suppress anti-war sentiments. They abandoned Bush-era Hulk Smash ground invasions in favor of drones, proxy warfare, covert ops and sanctions because enough people rose up and said “NO” to make them afraid of the masses beginning to wake up and begin turning against them and their institutions.
And now people are even beginning to protest the proxy warfare. I guarantee you that’s making our rulers nervous about the possibility of losing the ability to effectively dominate the world with violence and coercion, and even losing the ability to continue to rule us.
These things very clearly and obviously make a difference. The only reason Syria and Iran remain sovereign, unabsorbed governments, and the only reason the imperial body count isn’t much higher today, is because enough people put their foot down and said “NO” to that kind of war.
On Feb 15 2003 millions marched against the impending invasion of Iraq, a war which in the end killed over 100,000 Iraqis.
Now 20 years later, in its proxy war, the US is determined to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Join us again to say NO to ALL US WARS!
Info below⤵️ pic.twitter.com/37yOFdkPw0
— ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition) February 15, 2023
Our rulers pour so much effort into manufacturing consent because they absolutely require that consent in order to rule. Their worst-case nightmare scenario is the emergence of a large, robust movement of people saying “NO” to the imperial war machine, because military violence and the threat thereof is the glue that holds the empire together. It’s bringing public consciousness to the very most important aspect of the empire, which also happens to be the very least defensible.
Noam Chomsky said “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state” because over the centuries those who seek large-scale power over other humans have discovered that dominating people psychologically is more energy-efficient than dominating them with brute force, and is far less likely to see them wind up on the business end of a guillotine blade. If you can simply trick a profoundly unfree populace into thinking that they are free, you don’t have to waste any further energy wrestling their freedom away from them.
But what this means is that the entire power structure which rules over us is entirely dependent on the ability to successfully administer propaganda and maintain the illusion of freedom. If it can’t manufacture consent for the things it wants to do, it has to either refrain from doing those things until it can manufacture the necessary consent or do those things anyway without the consent of the public. If they do that, public trust in the ruling institutions will immediately begin to disintegrate, and they won’t be able to propagandize people anymore because propaganda only works if people trust its source.
Our rulers could of course then switch to the direct bludgeon of totalitarianism if they want to, but then they’re up against an angry populace, and in America’s case a very heavily armed one. All the narrative management that holds the US-centralized power structure together would lose trust around the world, because the “Freedom-Loving Good Guys Vs Tyrannical Bad Guys” framing of imperial propaganda would no longer be believable.
The US-centralized empire will crumble if it cannot preserve the illusion that it is accountable and responsive to the public.
Of course a few thousand people at one protest is not going to bring peace to our world. Even a few million wouldn’t be enough. But public demonstrations are one of the many ways in which our society can be drawn toward awareness of what’s really going on in our world, what our rulers are really up to, and how much we’ve been lied to all our lives. From there health can follow, because with enough awareness people will cease consenting to things that they’ve come to recognize as being against their interests.
All positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. Demonstrations are one of the many different tools ordinary people have to spread awareness so that positive change can occur; that’s why they’ve featured so prominently in civil rights movements throughout history, and that’s why the US empire has been pouring so much energy into preventing the reemergence of a lively antiwar movement in the western world ever since Vietnam.
All we’re doing is nudging our species bit by bit toward consciousness. Other tools we can use toward this end include new media like online videos, blogs, tweets and memes, and old media like pamphlets, public speaking and graffiti. Anything we can do to get people opening their eyes to the horrors of imperial warmongering and start bringing some actual movement into the anti-war movement will help. Our survival may very well depend on it.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Alison Hogg/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.
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The Owen Wilkes book Peacemonger, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby, was due to be launched in Wellington today after earlier launches in Auckland and Christchurch. Here Buller conservationist Peter Lusk reflects on his mahi with Owen.
COMMENTARY: By Peter Lusk
I worked closely with peace researcher Owen Wilkes in 1973 and 1974, writing stories for the student newspaper Canta from files of newspaper clippings and hand written jottings that Owen had collected over a period of years.
These stories covered quite a range of subjects. For example, an American millionaire named Stockton Rush who purchased a beautiful valley near Te Anau from the Crown and built a luxury lodge. There was controversy over this. I can’t remember exactly why, probably the Crown selling the land when it shouldn’t.
Then a file on Ivan Watkins Dow who were making Agent Orange or similar at their plant in New Plymouth. They were releasing gases at night and the gases would drift over the city wiping out home vegetable gardens.
The company’s CEO described objectors as “eco-nuts”.
Owen’s biggest file was on Comalco. I went to the Bluff smelter and Manapouri power station and met activists in the area. Also interviewed Stockton Rush while in the area, namely Southland.
Peacemonger . . . the first full-length account of peace researcher Owen Wilkes’ life and work. Image: Raekaihau Press Another file was on a self proclaimed millionaire who had been in the media over his proposed housing development in Governors Bay on Lyttelton Harbour, with a new tunnel to be built through Port Hills. This guy turned out to be a conman and we were able to expose him.
I wrote up the story, we printed it as a centrefold in Canta, then used the centrefold as a leaflet to assist the action group in Governors Bay. This was very successful at exposing the conman whose name I cannot recall.
There were a few other files of Owen’s that I turned into stories, and the sum of the stories were the basis of a 4 page leaflet we printed off for the South Island Resistance Ride held at end of 1974.
I never got to write up the files on Stockton Rush and Ivan Watkins Dow which was a personal disappointment. From memory it was due to Owen suddenly getting the peace research job in Norway [at SIPRI – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute].
“The only time in my life I’ve ever met, let alone worked with, a genius. He had a huge amount of energy.”
I found Owen very good to work with. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever met, let alone worked with, a genius. He had a huge amount of energy. Far more than me, and I was a full-on activist along with others in our little group like Canta editor Murray Horton and graphics/layout man Ron Currie.
I worked alongside Owen at Boons bakery for a single night. It came about when one of my flatmates, who regularly worked there, needed a night off and convinced me to cover his shift.
So I turned up at Boons at 8pm or whenever it was. The foreman was none too pleased, but he showed me the ropes. I was taking cooked bread out of one oven, while Owen was doing the same from a bigger oven beside me.
The bread was coming out fast, in hot tins, and it was very easy to get burned on the tins, specially for a novice. I got several burns in the course of the shift. Looking over at Owen, I couldn’t help notice how he revelled in the job, he was like a well-oiled machine, banging the bread out of the tins, and oiling them up.
Very competent, no burns for him because he was a regular at Boons and had everything well worked out.
Something else. Owen was living at a commune at Oxford at the time. They had two pigs needing to be slaughtered. I’d killed and dressed a few sheep in my farm worker days, so offered to help.
Owen had never done such “home-kills”, but in typical Owen fashion had got hold of a book on butchering and he took it with him to the pig sty. He’d previously read-up on how to “stick” a pig, stabbing it between the ribs and slicing its heart, all in one motion.
He accomplished this very successfully. One pig, then two pigs, then haul them over to a bath full of hot water to scald, then scrape. After that we gutted them and hung up the tidy carcasses to cool.
Yes, I had great admiration for Owen.
Photo of Owen Wilkes
About the picture at the start of this article: This photo is from the 1974 Long March across Australia against US imperialism and the Vietnam War.We overnighted in all sorts of places and this was the campground at Mildura in Victoria.
I like the photo because it typifies Owen with his steel box of files — so heavy and awkward to handle. But it was strong and, from memory, lockable.
Having the files with him, meant Owen could immediately provide evidence for media if they asked for verification on something he said. Even though the Long March was organised from Australia, Owen was still the onboard authority on what the US was doing over there.
- Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes: International peace researcher, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby. Wellington: Raekaihau Press, 196 pages. $35. ISBN 978-1-99-115386-9
- The Wellington launch scheduled for today, 14 February 2023, at Minerva Handcraft Bookshop has been cancelled. It will be rescheduled. Guest speaker: Nicky Hager
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Image Credit: (Right Pic) Instagram: #StopCopCity Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced Tuesday that a proposed $90 million police training facility known as “Cop City” is moving forward, despite growing opposition and the police killing of a forest defender. Just weeks ago, law enforcement officers — including a SWAT team — were violently evicting protesters who had occupied a wooded area outside…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Twenty House Democrats on Monday pressed the Biden administration to immediately halt the flow of security funding to the Peruvian government over its vicious crackdown on protests against unelected President Dina Boluarte, who rose to power following the arrest of leftist President Pedro Castillo last month. Since Castillo’s arrest and imprisonment — which drew vocal opposition from political…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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My stomach turned when I first watched the video of Memphis police officers yanking Tyre Nichols out of his car to Tase and pursue him, and then beat him. I felt my heart wrench while watching the police officers prop a beaten and handcuffed Nichols against a patrol car only to hear one officer yell, “Bruh, sit up!” after Nichols fell over, as if he were in any condition to comply.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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With all eyes on the fight for democratic government in Brazil, with its obvious parallels to events in the United States, it’s easy to miss another equally alarming struggle in the region. Peru has been shaken by protests and violence since the Peruvian Congress removed President Pedro Castillo from office on December 7 following his own attempt to shutter Congress. As of this writing…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…
People took to the streets across the United States Friday night after the city of Memphis, Tennessee released videos of a January 7 traffic stop that led to five police officers being fired and charged with the murder of 29-year-old Black motorist Tyre Nichols.
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
The Memphis-based Commercial Appeal reported that protesters advocating for police reform shut down the Interstate 55 bridge that connects Tennessee and Arkansas:
As of 8:30 pm, more than 100 people remained on the Harahan Bridge with protest leaders saying they wanted to talk with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis before disbanding. MPD officers closed off roads leading to the bridge―and several others downtown―but had not directly confronted protesters.
Protesters started moving off of the bridge around 9:00 pm. As they marched eastbound on E.H. Crump Boulevard towards police, they locked arms and chanted “we ready, we ready, we ready for y’all.” Protestors then turned north, toward central downtown. As they passed by residences, some people came out on their balconies to cheer.Surrounded by protestors on I-55, NBC News‘ Priscilla Thompson said that “they are chanting, they are calling the name of Tyre Nichols. They are calling for change.”
\u201c”They are chanting, they are calling the name of Tyre Nichols.”\n\n@PriscillaWT reports from protests on a Memphis highway after the release of a video showing the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols. https://t.co/KYY7bFKvMQ\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1674868123Demonstrators and the Nichols family have called for disbanding the MPD Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) team that launched in 2021 and was involved in the traffic stop. The Memphis mayor said Friday afternoon that the unit has been inactive since Nichols’ January 10 death.
The footage shows that after police brutally beat Nichols—pushing him to the ground; using pepper spray; punching and kicking him; and striking him with a baton—it took 22 minutes from when officers said he was in custody for an ambulance to arrive and take him to the hospital, where he later died from cardiac arrest and kidney failure.
\u201c#Breaking LIVE: Memphis protesters block traffic on Old Bridge on I-55 call for justice for Tyre Nichols and out about #PoliceBrutality. “Please don’t shoot me dead. I got my hands above my head.” \n\nFull Video: https://t.co/ddGVpjTe29\n\n#JusticeforTyreNichols #TyreNichols\u201d— Status Coup News (@Status Coup News) 1674870579ATLANTA, GEORGIA
In Georgia, though Republican Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this week signed an executive order enabling him to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops “as necessary” following protests in Atlanta over law enforcement killing 26-year-old forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, those who gathered after the video release Friday night “expressed outrage but did so peacefully.”
That’s according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which detailed that “a small but spirited crowd” of roughly 50 people formed in downtown Atlanta.
“We want to make one thing very clear, no executive order and no National Guard is going to stop the people for fighting for justice,” Zara Azad said at the corner of Marietta Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive. “We do not fear them because we are for justice.”
\u201c#Memphis chief, Davis, also led Atlanta\u2019s REDDOG unit, which was disbanded after being sued for excessive force. https://t.co/2TUvnaJ7Gw\u201d— Atlanta Community Press Collective (@Atlanta Community Press Collective) 1674877239BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Just before the footage was released Friday, a vigil was held at “The Embrace” statue installed on Boston Common to honor Rev. Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
The Boston Globe reported that Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director of King Boston, which installed the monument, highlighted that the civil rights icon was assassinated while visiting Memphis in 1968 to advocate for sanitation workers whose slogan was “Am I a man?”
“Today we are thinking about Memphis and Brother Tyre, and the slogan of today is still, ‘Am I a man?’” Jeffries said. “Seeing the humanity in each of us is the cornerstone of true change. Experiencing another heinous display reminds us that no family should feel this pain, ever. And there’s still work to do.”
“This is a problem that confronts us all,” he added. “This is a problem that we need to defeat together, as a family, as a community.”
\u201c\u201cThey executed him!\u201d\n\nProtests erupt across the country in wake of video showing brutal police beating of Tyre Nichols in TN. Protesters in Boston last night called for justice. \n\nDetails on another demonstration today in Boston on @boston25 from 8-10 AM\u201d— Julianne Lima (@Julianne Lima) 1674912243CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“From Memphis to Chicago, these killer cops have got to go,” chanted about a dozen people who gathered near a police precinct in the Illinois city despite freezing temperatures, according to USA TODAY. Their signs read, “Justice for Tyre Nichols” and “End police terror.”
Kamran Sidiqi, a 27-year-old who helped organize the protest—one of the multiple peaceful gatherings held throughout the city—told the newspaper that “it’s tough to imagine what justice is here because Tyre is never coming back.”
“That’s someone’s son, someone’s friend lost forever. That’s a human being’s life that is gone,” he said. “But a modicum of justice would be putting these killer cops in jail. A modicum of justice would be building a whole new system so that this can’t happen again.”
\u201cAna Santoyo, 33, a Chicago native running for alderperson, said the killing is another reminder that police brutality is pervasive in the U.S. \u201cIt\u2019s not just bad apples. It\u2019s the whole bunch,\u201d she said.\n\nhttps://t.co/7xnFV94oo0\u201d— Ana Santoyo for Alderperson (@Ana Santoyo for Alderperson) 1674875708DALLAS, TEXAS
In Texas, The Dallas Morning News reported that Dominique Alexander, founder of the Next Generation Action Network, called Nichols’ death a “total disregard for life, for humanity.”
“The culture of policing is what is allowing these officers to feel like they can take our lives,” Alexander said. “We want peace and calm in our communities, and we will do whatever is necessary to demand justice so our children don’t have to deal with the same bullcrap we are dealing with now.”
Around two dozen people who came together outside the Dallas Police Department headquarters Friday night shouted, “No justice, no peace” and “No good cops in a racist system,” and held signs that said, “Stop the war on Black America” and “Justice for Tyre Nichols,” according to the newspaper.
\u201cAt a Friday night protest at the Dallas Police Department headquarters, community organizer Shenita Cleveland recounted the events shown in the recently released body cam footage of Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating by Memphis police officers.\n\nRead more here: https://t.co/L4y13l0m3S\u201d— Dallas Morning News (@Dallas Morning News) 1674872544Five former MPD cops, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills Jr.—who are all Black—were charged Thursday with second-degree murder and other crimes.
After the videos were released Friday, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. announced that two deputies “who appeared on the scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols” have been relieved of duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
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Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency through at least February 9 that will enable him to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops “as necessary.” The order follows protests in Atlanta after 26-year-old forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran was shot dead last week during a multi-agency raid on an encampment to oppose…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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We get an update on calls for an independent investigation into the Atlanta police killing of an activist during a violent raid Wednesday on a proposed $90 million training facility in a public forest, known by opponents to the facility as “Cop City.” Law enforcement officers — including a SWAT team — were violently evicting protesters who had occupied a wooded area outside the center when they…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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It was a dramatic scene when scientist and climate activist Rose Abramoff joined fellow scientist Peter Kalmus in December to disrupt the world’s biggest meeting of scientists who study Earth and space: the American Geophysical Union. The nonviolent protest was meant as a call to action to address the climate crisis. She and Kalmus went up on stage and unfurled a banner that read, “Out of the lab &
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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The streets of France filled with outraged workers on Thursday as rail employees, teachers, and others walked off the job to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular plan to overhaul the nation’s pension system by raising the official retirement age from 62 to 64. The union-led demonstrations — which ground significant portions of the country, including many schools and transportation…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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An activist was shot and killed by police on Wednesday during a violent raid of the protest camp and community gathering space that has blocked construction of an enormous police training facility known as “Cop City” on roughly 100 acres of public forest in southeast Atlanta. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation initially said a suspect was shot and killed after allegedly firing a gun and injuring…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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The way was cleared for the complete demolition of the German village of Lützerath and the expansion of a coal mine on Monday after the last two anti-coal campaigners taking part in a dayslong standoff with authorities left the protest site. The two activists—identified in media reports by their nicknames, “Pinky” and “Brain”—spent several days in a tunnel they’d dug themselves as thousands of…
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Tens of thousands of Israelis marched in central Tel Aviv and in two other major cities on Saturday night, protesting far rightwing PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the legal system and weaken the Supreme Court — undermining democratic rule just weeks after his election. Despite cold, rainy weather, marchers, many covered with umbrellas, held Israeli flags and placards saying “Criminal…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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On December 7, a soft coup took place in Peru involving the impeachment of the country’s President Pedro Castillo by the right-wing national Congress and his arrest by local police in Lima. Since then, the nation has exploded into massive protests followed by serious repression by government authorities. As of December 21, some 26 people have been killed and up to 500 protesters and security…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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A record number of people face execution after allegations of their involvement with ongoing protests in Iran. Meanwhile, the country’s jailing of journalists has pushed worldwide figures to a new high. However, despite these unwanted milestones, there are no signs of the protests subsiding.
“Unprecedented” levels
The executions in the past week of Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, the first people put to death over the protests, sparked an outcry. However, campaigners warn that more executions will follow without tougher international action. Iran has already sentenced a dozen more people to death.
At the same time, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stated on 14 December that the crackdown has pushed the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide to a record high of 533 in 2022. Iran is now third on the list of countries with the greatest numbers of jailed reporters. It’s also the only country that was not part of the list last year, said RSF, which has published the annual tally since 1995. RSF said Iran had locked up an “unprecedented” 34 media professionals since protests broke out in September.
Iran’s protests erupted after police jailed and killed Iranian-Kurdish woman Jîna Mahsa Amini for allegedly not properly observing hijab laws.
Silencing and spreading fear
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group, said of the executions that Iran is trying to:
spread fear among people and save the regime from the nationwide protests.
It appears that the move to lock up journalists is part of the same drive. RSF highlighted the cases of Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi. The pair are among 15 female journalists arrested during the protests who drew attention to the death of Amini. They now face a potential death penalty on the charge of sedition – which IHR describes as “fabricated accusations”. It also said the arrests of Hamedi and Mohammadi are:
indicative of the Iranian authorities’ desire to systematically reduce women to silence.
Protesters have faced similar spurious charges. Mohammad Ghobadlou was sentenced to death on charges of running over police officials with a car, killing one and injuring several others. Saman Seydi, a young Kurdish rapper, was sentenced to death on charges of firing a pistol three times into the air during protests. Toomaj Salehi, a prominent rapper, was charged solely for music and social media posts critical of the government. Amnesty International said that all of these charges are based on confessions gained after torture.
Nonetheless, there are no reports of a slackening in Iran’s protest activity in recent days, even after the executions.
The UK’s “half-hearted” response
Campaigners are highlighting all of the individuals facing the death penalty in the hope that increased scrutiny on specific cases can help spare lives. However, they also warn that the executions are often sudden. Authorities hanged Rahnavard just 23 days after his arrest, shortly after a last meeting with his mother. She had no idea he was about to be hanged. Shekari’s case was unknown until state media announced his execution.
Amnesty said Iranian authorities are issuing, upholding, and carrying out death sentences in a “speedy manner”. As a result, there is a “serious risk” that Iran could execute unknown detainees “at any moment”.
IHR’s Amiry-Moghaddam is urging international action on Iran:
Unless the political cost of the executions is increased significantly, we will be facing mass executions.
However, the UK’s response so far has been poor. One Iranian caller on radio station LBC said the UK’s sanctions are “half-hearted” and “not cutting it”.
Featured image via Channel 4 News/YouTube
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
By Glen Black
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By Veronica Koman in Sydney
As an Indonesian lawyer living in exile in Australia, I find it deeply troubling that the changes to the Indonesian Criminal Code are seen through the lens that touchy tourists will be denied their freedom to fornicate on holiday in Bali.
What the far-reaching amendments will actually mean is that hundreds of millions of Indonesians will not be able to criticise any government officials, including the president, police and military.
You can be assured that the implementation of the Criminal Code will not affect the lucrative tourism industry which the Indonesian government depends on – it will affect ordinary people in what is the world’s third largest democracy.
With just 18 out of 575 parliamentarians physically attending the plenary session, Indonesia passed the problematic revised Criminal Code last week. It’s a death knell to democracy in Indonesia.
I live here as an exile because of my work on the armed conflict in West Papua. The United Nations has repeatedly asked Indonesia to drop the politicised charges against me. One of the six laws used against me, about “distributing fake news”, is now incorporated into the Criminal Code.
In West Papua, any other version of events that are different to the statement of police and military, are often labelled “fake news”. In 2019, a piece from independent news agency Reuters was called a hoax by the Indonesian armed forces.
Now, the authors of that article can be charged under the new Criminal Code which will effectively silence journalists and human rights defenders.
Same-sex couples marginalised
Moreover, the ban on sex outside marriage is heteronormative and effectively further marginalises same-sex couples because they can’t marry under Indonesian law.The law requires as little as a complaint from a relative of someone in a same sex relationship to be enforced, meaning LGBTQIA+ people would live in fear of their disapproving family members weaponising their identity against them.
Meanwhile, technically speaking, the heteronormative cohabitation clause exempts same-sex couples. However, based on existing practice, LGBTQIA+ people would be disproportionately targeted now that people have the moral licence to do it.
The criminal code has predictably sparked Islamophobic commentary from the international community but, for us, this is about the continued erosion of democracy under President Joko Widodo. This is about consolidated power of the oligarchs including the conservatives shrinking the civic space.
Back when I was still able to live in my home country, it was acceptable to notify the police a day prior, or even on the day of a protest. About six years ago, police started to treat the notification as if it was a permit and made the requirements much stricter.
The new Criminal Code makes snap protests illegal, violating international human rights law.
Under the new code, any discussion about Marxism and Communism is illegal. Indonesia is still trapped in the past without any truth-telling about the crimes against humanity that occurred in 1965-66. At least 500,000 Communists and people accused of being communists were killed.
Justice never served
Justice has never been served despite time running out because the remaining survivors are getting older.It will be West Papuans rather than frisky Australian tourists who bear the brunt of the updated criminal code. The repression there, which I have seen first hand, is beyond anything I’ve seen anywhere else in the country.
Treason charges which normally carry life imprisonment are often abused to silence West Papuans. Just last week, three West Papuans were charged with treason for peacefully flying the symbol of West Papuan independence — the Morning Star flag. The new treason law comes with the death penalty.
It’s shameful that Australia just awarded the chief of Indonesian armed forces the Order of Australia, given that his institution is the main perpetrator of human rights abuses in West Papua.
The new Criminal Code will take effect in three years. There is a window open for the international community, including Australia, to help safeguard the world’s third largest democracy.
Indonesians need you to raise your voice and not just because you’re worried about your trip to Bali.
Veronica Koman is an Indonesian human rights lawyer in exile and a campaigner at Amnesty International Australia. This article was first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
