The bitter and protracted battle over the Jordan Cove Energy Project has finally come to a close. The Calgary-based Pembina company formally asked federal energy regulators Wednesday to withdraw authorizations for the proposed pipeline and liquified natural gas export terminal in southwest Oregon. Pembina’s plan called for a 229-mile-long natural gas pipeline that would have run from Malin, Oregon, on the California border, over the Coast Range to Coos Bay. The gas would then have been super-cooled into a liquified form (LNG), loaded onto ships and exported to Asia.
Kellogg workers’ nearly two-month strike in Cereal City may be over soon. In a Wednesday update to members, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union said it had reached a tentative agreement with The Kellogg Company after additional negotiations in Chicago. The five-year deal would deliver 3% raises while maintaining current worker health benefits. Cost of living adjustments would be tacked on starting in the second year of the contract, according to an overview provided by The Kellogg Company.
Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse pro-democracy protesters near the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, as tens of thousands marched against military rule following last month’s coup. The rally on Tuesday was the latest show of opposition to military rule since last month’s coup that ended a partnership between civilian political groups and the military. Heavily armed police forces took to central Khartoum, fired tear gas, and began chasing protesters as they gathered about a kilometre from the palace, blocking a main road and chanting “Soldiers, go back to the barracks”. Other protests took place in cities including Port Sudan, Kassala, Nyala and Atbara.
On Sunday, November 28, housing rights groups and other progressive sections in the Dutch city of Groningen marched under the banner #Woonstrijd to protest the acute housing crisis in the city. Various groups including Shelter Our Students (SOS), International Socialists Groningen, New Communist Party of the Netherlands (NCPN), Communist Youth Movement (CJB), RED Groningen, Young Socialists Groningen, Democratic Academy Groningen, Groningen Feminist Network, and others, participated in the march while adhering to COVID-19 safety protocols. The protesters demanded a radical housing policy from the authorities which will be beneficial for all residents of the city.
Food production workers at El Milagro, one of Chicago’s most popular tortilla companies, join with community allies for a Day of the Dead vigil Nov. 2, 2021, in honor of five coworkers who died after contracting Covid-19 on the job. With candles and sugar skulls outside the company’s flagship taqueria in the Little Village neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side, workers and supporters spoke about their ongoing standoff with management — and their demands for justice on the job.
Every few days, Jaike Spotted-Wolf walks over to a well near Camp Migizi to refill several five-gallon water containers. At the camp, where Spotted-Wolf is one of several matriarchs, there is no plumbing, no pipes and no faucets. Residents take turns getting water, which they need for basics such as cooking and showers. The camp was — and is — one of several resistance camps formed to oppose Enbridge’s now-completed Line 3 project, which replaced a corroding oil pipeline built in the 1960s with a new, larger pipeline. The pipeline runs through northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Nearly a month and a half after oil-laden tar sands began flowing through the pipes, activists are still living at Camp Migizi and other sites.
In Santa Fe Springs, California, located in the Los Angeles area, a group of largely immigrant Latina factory workers is waging a high-stakes strike against the multibillion-dollar food manufacturing company Rich Products. Since November 3, the group of well over 100 strikers has been on the picket line at the Rich Products-owned Jon Donaire Desserts plant, demanding better wages, improved retirement benefits, and changes to the company’s abusive, punitive point system, which provides workers with only three days of sick leave per year.
The violence against the Wet’suwet’en has included the early criminalization of their land defenders, disregard of a Supreme Court ruling and UN Convention, apparent collusion between the RCMP and Coastal GasLink and state investment in the LNG mega-project.
On 19 November 2021, a week before the first anniversary of the farmers’ revolt, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi surrendered. He accepted that the three laws on agricultural markets that had been pushed through the parliament in 2020 would be repealed. The farmers of India had won. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), one of the organisers of the protest movement, celebrated the triumph and declared that ‘this victory gives more confidence for future struggles’. Many pressing struggles remain, including the fight for a law to guarantee a minimum support price that is one and a half times the cost of production for all crops of all farmers.
On 26th November 2021, as the historic protest led by India’s farmers completes a year, La Via Campesina joins others social movements in expressing our solidarity and support. As movements united in our global struggles for food sovereignty, we draw inspiration from this year long struggle led by India’s farmers that has demonstrated what resilience and unity of the working class can achieve even in the face of adversities. Read the full text below.
A total of 15 Amazon fulfilment centres in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands have been blocked by Extinction Rebellion ahead of major global discount day, Black Friday. In the UK, activists from across the country are taking part, with 13 blockades in Doncaster, Darlington, Newcastle, Manchester, Peterborough, Derby, Coventry, Rugeley, Dartford, Bristol, Tilbury, Milton Keynes and Dunfermline. These sites account for just over 50 per cent of Amazon deliveries in the UK.
Climate activists are blockading Amazon warehouses across the U.K. on Friday in an attempt to pressure the ecommerce giant on one of its busiest days of the year to improve working conditions and end business practices that hurt the environment. Members of Extinction Rebellion targeted 13 Amazon fulfilment centers in the United Kingdom with the aim of disrupting 50% of the company’s deliveries on Black Friday, which marks the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season.
On November 19, 2021, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said, “[W]e have decided to repeal all three agricultural laws.” The prime minister was referring to the three agriculture laws that were rushed through the parliament in 2020. During his speech to announce the rollback, Modi told the farmers that they “should return to [their] homes, fields and to [their] families. Let’s make a fresh start.” At no point did Modi admit that his government had passed laws that would negatively impact the farmers, who have spent a year protesting the laws thrust upon them.
A blockade shut down the LaSalle Causeway for part of Sunday afternoon. The Causeway was unusable for nearly an hour due to the protest, before Kingston Police officers were dispatched to remove the crowd from the crossing between Kingston East and downtown. This comes in the wake of continued and escalating RCMP presence, which on Thursday saw dozens of heavily armed police officers move in on a blocked stretch of access road, arresting fifteen. Among those fifteen arrested were two journalists documenting the standoff.
Ten people remain in custody in Prince George after a bail hearing for those arrested on Wet’suwet’en territory last week went overtime Monday. Most of those released agreed to a condition that they not return to the Morice West Forest Service Road, the area where Coastal GasLink’s 670-kilometre gas pipeline is under construction from northeast B.C. to Kitimat.Photojournalist Amber Bracken and filmmaker Michael Toledano’s conditions allow them to return to the territory, where they have been covering the ongoing dispute over the pipeline since the first police action occurred on the Morice forestry road in January 2019.
“I have faith and respect in our democratic process, and I will defend it with my life. I say this with deepest conviction.
“Our people need to and must understand that our actions in defending democracy is not merely a lip service. It is conviction in the principles and values that underpins our democracy and all democracies around the world.”
Sogavare said in a radio broadcast to the nation the past 36 hours had seen the country, especially, Honiara brought to its knees.
“I have been asked to step down and while I acknowledge that call I must also respect our democracy. I am elected as the Prime Minister of our beloved country by 35 members of Parliament who represent their people.
Politicians’ ‘hunger for power’
“The call for me to step down is premised on the hunger for power by certain politicians who do not have any respect for the principles of democracy and due process,” he said.
Sogavare said that in 2006 a precedent had been set when the then Prime Minister was asked to resign after a riot in Honiara.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare … “If I am to step down, what message would that send to our people, children and generations to come?” Image: SIBC
“That event is the precedent for our current situation. If I am to step down, what message would that send to our people, children and generations to come?” he asked.
“Some of us are of the opinion that if I step down the protests and riots will stop. This is the easiest decision to make.
“However, the effect of this decision is what weighs heavy in my heart. Are we saying to our young children and youths that whenever we are not happy with those in authority we take the laws into our own hands?
“If we do this, it is a very dangerous message to our people and future generations.
“We are effectively saying to our children, take the law into your hands if [and] whenever you are not happy. This must never be the message we send nor the conviction we instill in our citizens if we are to progress as a peaceful democracy.”
‘Return to your homes’
Sogavare said in his appeal: “I call on all our people to please return to your homes. Our city has already been ransacked with properties burnt to the ground. It will take a lot of effort and money to rebuild it.
“I appeal to you all to respect our city, public and private properties and the safety of innocent civilians.
“Destruction, looting and violence is not how we address our grievances but instead through dialogue and consultation which the government has been advancing despite misinformation being circulated by certain individuals and leaders who have no regard for the collateral and irreversible damage caused by such unwarranted actions,” he said.
Sogavare asked the the churches to pray for the country and people.
Sogavare also urged all ministers and members of Parliament to “defend our democracy”.
He said the government had not been idle with its efforts to protect the country from covid-19, sustain the economy and progress crucial reforms in the best interests of the nation as a whole.
Regional support “I have been in contact with the government of Australia and Papua New Guinea seeking their assistance to assist our country which is forthcoming. We cannot allow our country, people and our future to be held at ransom by very few people representing their own narrow interests,” he said.
“I am extremely saddened that people have been misled by politicians for their own agenda. Our unsuspecting people have continuously been misled and are victims in this sad and unfortunate situation.
“I do not blame the people who are protesting and rioting, they are citizens of our country, and unfortunately they have been used by certain politicians and individuals to further their own selfish and narrow agendas.”
While the LO, TCO and Saco top officials suffer from consensus fundamentalism, opposition among the grassroots often suffers from a fixation on strikes. Among the grassroots labor movement in Sweden, a call for big strikes or even a general strike is often heard. Strikes were called in response to the current attack on the Swedish Employment Protection Act, low wages, and attacks on the right to strike. In 2019, an attempt was made to stage a symbolic strike to highlight the climate crisis. As far as we are aware, no workplace was shut down. It should be acknowledged that sometimes we SAC members also have gotten lost in strike fixation and have tried to rush strikes into existence. An example is a strike in defense of the Unemployment Insurance Funds in 2006, which were being attacked by the Swedish government. It ended in a painful defeat.
New Delhi, November 24, 2021 — Indian authorities must conduct a swift and transparent investigation into the recent attacks on journalists in the eastern state of Tripura, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
On November 21, in the run-up to municipal elections scheduled to begin tomorrow, groups of people allegedly working for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition Trinamool Congress clashed in the streets of the state capital, Agartala, injuring at least 19 people, according to news reports.
At least five journalists were among those injured, according to the news website Newslaundry and Santosh Gope, secretary of Tripura Journalists Union, a local trade group, who spoke to CPJ over the phone.
“Authorities in India’s Tripura state must thoroughly investigate recent attacks on journalists, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The state government has a responsibility to guarantee that journalists can do their jobs safely, without threats to their lives.”
Gope and Newslaundry identified the injured journalists as Ali Akbar Lashkar and Mamoni Bhattacharya, reporters with Kolkata-based news website Ab Tak Khabar; Miltan Dhar, a photographer with the news channel News Vanguard; Bapan Das, a photographer with the news channel Times24; and Prashant Dey, a photographer with the news channel Headlines Tripura.
Lashkar told CPJ in a phone interview that he and Bhattacharya had traveled to Agartala from Kolkata to cover the election. In the evening of November 21, he and the other reporters were interviewing government officials and politicians outside the East Agartala Women’s Police Station, where a Trinamool Congress politician had been detained, when a group of nearly 200 arrived and started attacking people.
Members of the mob wore helmets and brandished hockey sticks, batons, and rods, according to Newslaundry.
Lashkar told CPJ that he did not know the identities or affiliations of the people who attacked him. He said the attackers stole his press card, broke his boom mic, punched him, and beat him with batons as he struggled to enter the police station for his safety. He told CPJ that he sustained injuries to his back, head, and eyes.
Police took Lashkar and Bhattacharya to a nearby government hospital for treatment, but another group of about 20 people attempted to attack them there, and the journalists hid inside a bathroom for their safety, Lashkar told CPJ.
After about two hours in the hospital’s bathroom, Lashkar and Bhattacharya fled to their hotel, but the owner asked them to leave fearing further violence, the journalist told CPJ. They reached the airport early on the morning of November 22, and a Trinamool Congress politician helped Lashkar reach Kolkata where he is undergoing medical treatment at the SSKM Hospital, he said.
Gope told CPJ that Dhar, Das, and Dey also suffered injuries during the clash at the police station, and said they were treated at a local hospital and released later on November 21. CPJ was unable to find contact information for Das and Dey. Dhar did not respond to a text message and call from CPJ requesting comment.
Tripura Police Director General V.S. Yadav did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. CPJ texted BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress Governor Subal Bhowmik for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.
Previously, on November 3, Tripura police opened investigations into five journalists on terror charges, and on November 15, authorities in the state charged two journalists for allegedly spreading communal violence, according to news reports and CPJ’s reporting.
Videos on social media show police firing tear gas to disperse looters, and buildings on fire.
RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in the capital Honiara, Georgina Kekea, was in the Kukum area where the police station and shops were set alight, and said at least one building had been burned down.
Police she spoke to said the large crowds had been at the other end of town, and officers had not expected the crowd to attack their police station.
“So when they came out and they just saw all the protestors there and they had to run into a room and hide. There were about 10 of them,” she said.
“They were in the rooms when they started breathing in smoke and they realised that the building was being burnt, so they came out and the building has [now] burnt down.”
Earlier in the day a plume of black smoke was seen rising from Parliament’s grounds, where Kekea said a leaf hut used for coffee breaks was on fire, before firefighters from the fire station next to Parliament put the blaze out.
Kekea said local police were calling for calm as they tried to restore order.
They said much of the looting was being carried out by criminal opportunists, most of them young men.
Police station in Honiara burnt down by the protestors. Kukum traffic police station. Police continue to call on people to refrain from illegal activities & call on leaders to come down & assist in calming the situation down. pic.twitter.com/eqk88NvCdF
The original protest at Parliament was led by citizens from Malaita province, who were voicing their frustrations with the national government and calling for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to step down.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The rioting in Honiara today. Image: The Pacific Newsroom
The struggle of the miners and the Amazon Army appears in no major labor history book. I decided to leave it out in my first book When Workers Shot Back (Ovetz, 2019) due to the lack of documentary evidence to write an entire chapter on it. This oversight is a mistake. The Amazon Army has much to teach us today about the interconnected struggle between waged and unwaged workers, immigrant and native labor, productive and reproductive labor, industrial unionism and organizing for power on the shopfloor, and the use of labor law and unions as a strategy for managing and suppressing class struggle.
Hon. Marco Mendicino Minister of Public Safety Confederation Building, Suite 203 House of Commons Ottawa, ON
Sent via email
Dear Minister Mendicino,
We at the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-governmental organization that champions press freedom globally, write to express our grave concern about the November 19 arrest and ongoing detention of journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
They should be released immediately and unconditionally; any charges they are currently facing should be dropped. The RCMP owes Bracken, Toledano, and the public an explanation about why these two journalists are still being held.
Bracken, an award-winning photojournalist on assignment for TheNarwhal, and Toledano, an independent filmmaker, were reporting on land defenders’ demonstrations inside an injunction area in Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.
The RCMP has accused Bracken and Toledano of embedding with the protesters. However, legal precedent shows that reporters embedding with protesters is not cause for arrest or prosecution in Canada. In the Crown’s case against journalist Justin Brake, the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court affirmed reporters’ rights to be present and report on protests in areas that are closed to the public.
In a November 19 statement, the RCMP confirmed that two individuals who identified themselves as journalists were arrested along with land defenders. Public attention surrounding the detentions and correspondence with the RCMP’s British Columbia team have made it apparent that they are aware that two journalists are in the RCMP’s custody. It is hard to fathom why the RCMP has decided to keep Bracken and Toledano in its custody.
At CPJ, we have documented the increasingly challenging reporting conditions–including arbitrary arrest–that reporters face around the world while reporting on protests. We are deeply disappointed that we are witnessing this pattern of behavior in Canada.
The CAJ and CPJ have documented the RCMP’s restrictive behavior of detaining reporters who are reporting on land rights issues on Indigenous territory. It is time for this pattern to stop.
As a member of the Media Freedom Coalition’s Executive Group, it is imperative that Canada’s commitment to democratic values and the defense of a free press around the world be applied locally, in accordance with Section 2b of its Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The RCMP needs to be held accountable for its repeated violations of the rights of the Canadian media. As the minister responsible for their oversight, we call on you to take immediate steps to correct the RCMP’s actions and to ensure that going forward, journalists’ right to report will be protected in this country.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon, Executive Director, The Committee to Protect Journalists
Brent Jolly, President, The Canadian Association of Journalists
The covid protest outside Parliament earlier this month served as a warning that Aotearoa New Zealand is not immune to the kinds of anger seen overseas. As Labour Party whip Kieran McAnulty put it, “I think everyone needs to be aware that things are starting to escalate.”
McAnulty himself had been abused by some with strong anti-vaccination views, and there has been increasingly violent rhetoric directed at government politicians and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
As a result, security for MPs has been stepped up.
As the recent report from research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini showed, there has been a sharp increase in the “popularity and intensity of covid-19 specific disinformation and other forms of ‘dangerous speech’ and disinformation, related to far-right ideologies”.
The analysis noted a broader threat: “That covid-19 and vaccination are being used as a kind of Trojan Horse for norm-setting and norm-entrenchment of far-right ideologies in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Terror threat: medium Last year, New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) warned of the “realistic possibility” that continued covid restrictions or further vaccination requirements could trigger an act of violent extremism.
The country is not alone in this, of course. Covid-19 has seen dissent and angry protest rise globally, with inevitable concern over an increased risk of terrorism or violent extremism.
Right now, New Zealand’s official terror threat level is assessed as “medium”, meaning an attack is deemed “feasible and could well occur”.
By contrast, Australia’s threat level is set at “probable” and Britain’s at “severe”. According to its Department of Homeland Security, the US “continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment as it approaches several religious holidays and associated mass gatherings”.
Riot police were deployed in Melbourne in September when protests over mandatory vaccination for construction workers turned violent. Image: The Conversation/GettyImages
The lone actor problem An SIS terrorism threat assessment from February this year, coupled with a “Threat Insight” from the Combined Threat Assessment Group in November 2020, divided potential terrorists in New Zealand into three groups based on faith, identity and politics. What they share is a willingness to use violence to achieve their goals.
The most likely scenario involves a lone actor, inspired by any ideology and probably using an unsophisticated means of attack, without any intelligence warning. However, a small anti-government cell was also considered a realistic possibility.
The SIS assessment noted there are almost certainly individuals who advocate the use of violence to promote racial or ethnic identity beliefs, as well as individuals potentially prone to faith-based violent extremism. As for politically motivated actors, the SIS was more reassuring:
While some individuals and groups have lawfully advocated for signicant change to current political and social systems, there continues to be little indication of any serious intent to engage in violence to acheive that change.
The February report is heavily redacted, so needs to be placed next to the November “Threat Insight”. That report noted a “realistic possibility” of terrorist acts depending on how Covid-19 and the associated economic and social impacts unfolded, and how individual extremists might be affected. It concluded:
The situation in New Zealand over the next 12 months is likely to remain dynamic. There is a realistic possibility further restrictions or potential vaccination programmes […] could be triggers for New Zealand-based violent extremists to conduct an act of terrorist violence.
Still a peaceful place?
If there is any comfort to take, it might be that New Zealand has risen in the 2021 Global Peace Index, putting the country second only to Iceland.
This represents a return to relative normality after the 2019 Christchurch terror attack saw New Zealand drop 79 places in the Global Terrorism Index in 2020 (ranking 42nd, just behind Russia, Israel and South Africa).
There has also been an increase in firearms injuries, many (but not all) gang-related. Figures released under the Official Information Act show the police are facing increased risks: between March 2019 and July 2021, officers had firearms pointed or discharged at them 46 times.
New Zealanders can have some faith the system, however. Two potential shooting events, one involving a school, were foiled by police. The New Lynn extremist was already subject to monitoring so tight he was shot within 60 seconds of launching his attack.
Security intelligence also detected espionage in the military, and was instrumental in New Zealand Cricket calling off its tour of Pakistan due to a plausible terror threat.
A ‘see something, say something’ culture All of this underscores the need for everyone to do what they can to combat alienation and misinformation in the community, anchored by tolerance, respect and civil behaviour. And it also requires that people be prepared to report acts of suspicious activity or threats of violence (online or not).
As the Royal Commission on the Christchurch terror attacks noted, the likeliest thing to have prevented the tragedy would have been a “see something, say something” culture — one where people could safely raise their concerns with the appropriate authorities.
“Such reporting,” the commission concluded, “would have provided the best chance of disrupting the terrorist attack.”
As the pandemic stretches into the next year, with likely ongoing restrictions and unforeseeable complications, this remarkable sentence is worth remembering. It suggests the best defence against extremism is to be found within ourselves, and in the robust and safe communities we must create.
The protests demonstrated a raw wave of emotions felt across the nation after Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all five charges he faced, including intentional homicide, after he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured Gaige Grosskreutz at a demonstration in Kenosha, Wis., following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Reactions to the verdict were divided along partisan lines, with conservatives cheering the decision, even offering Rittenhouse congressional internships, while Democrats rebuked it.
Supporters of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, who are trying to stop construction of British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, march to the Royal Bank of Canada headquarters during a protest in Toronto, Ontario, Canada November 19, 2021. REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Washington, D.C., November 20, 2021—The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed grave concern about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s arrest and detention yesterday of two journalists covering land rights protests in northern British Columbia.
Photojournalist Amber Bracken, who was on assignment for the environmental news outlet the Narwhal, and independent documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano were covering ongoing demonstrations against the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline through Indigenous Wet’suwet’en territory at the time of their arrests, according to the Canadian Association of Journalists. The CAJ says both journalists are still in custody.
Narwhal editor Emma Gilchrist told CPJ via email that Bracken is being held in jail until a bail hearing on Nov. 22. CPJ was unable to confirm the whereabouts of Toledano, who, according to the CAJ, has been living in Wet’suwet’en territory as a member of the media for the last three years to make a documentary about events there.
“We are alarmed by the overnight detention of two journalists by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” said CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The RCMP should immediately release Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano and offer a full explanation as to why they were detained in the first place.”
The RCMP did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email or voicemail requesting comment.
As CPJ has previously documented, the RCMP has previously restricted media access to demonstrations on both Wet’suwet’en territory and territory belonging to other First Nation groups.
After fighting for almost a year, farmers in India finally won a victory against the three farms laws enacted by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government last year. Prime minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday, November 19, that the three laws would be repealed and all legal processes related to the matter will be completed during the upcoming session of parliament.
The RCMP arrested 15 people on Thursday November 18 as the land defence struggle against the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia continues. Gidimt’en land defender Sleydo’ says: “[The RCMP] came with intent and the ability to kill people and seriously harm people.” Those arrested included two Elders, a journalist and three legal observers.
Workers at Kellogg’s went on strike early October for the first time since 1972. It’s now mid-November, snow is falling, and it’s starting to get really cold outside. At the request of the company, workers briefly returned to the negotiating table in what turned out to be a corporate PR stunt for the annual shareholders’ meeting. The Kellogg Company has shut them out, hired scabs, and still refuses to budge from their desire to make every community look more like the maquiladoras or sweatshops in Mexico, where they have been shifting North American production for decades.
New York, November 19, 2021 – Sudanese authorities must immediately release journalist Ali Farsab, ensure journalists can safely cover protests, and refrain from targeting members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
On November 17, Sudanese security forces in the city of Khartoum Bahri beat, shot, and detained Farsab, a reporter for the local independent newspaper Al-Tayar, according to newsreports, a statement by the local press freedom group the Sudanese Journalists Network, and Yuosif Doka, a local journalist familiar with the incident, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.
Farsab was covering protests against Sudan’s recent military coup when security forces began beating him, breaking his collarbone and finger; one officer fired a bullet that grazed Farsab’s head, according to those sources.
The officers arrested Farsab after the beating, and held him at Khartoum Bahri’s Murqin Police Station until today, when authorities transferred him to a hospital, where he remains in their custody, according to a local journalist who knows Farsab and spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.
“Sudanese security forces’ shooting and beating of journalist Ali Farsab make a mockery of the coup government’s alleged commitment to a democratic transitional phase in the country,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release both Farsab and detained journalist Maher Abugoukh and ensure that members of the press can work safely without fear of being attacked by security forces.”
During anti-coup protests throughout the country on November 17, security forces shot and killed at least 15 people, according to news reports, which described it as the deadliest day since the military seized power and dissolved Sudan’s civilian government on October 25.
Authorities arrested Maher Abugoukh, the manager of several news and political programs on Sudan’s state television channels, from his home in Khartoum on the day of the coup, as CPJ reported at the time. Abugoukh remains in custody as of today, according to the journalist who anonymously spoke with CPJ.
On November 14, authorities also arrested journalist Al-Musalmi al-Kabbashi, the Khartoum bureau chief of the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera, from his home in Khartoum, as CPJ documented at the time. He was released the following day without charge, that journalist said.
CPJ emailed the Sudanese Justice Ministry and the military for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.
Concert operators may like Amazon’s palm recognition system, but some performers and activists are less than thrilled. A group of 200 artists and 30 rights groups has penned an open letter demanding the Red Rocks amphitheater, its ticketing provider AXS and AEG (AXS’ parent company) “immediately cancel” contracts to use Amazon One scanning at any venue. They also want the firms to ban all biometric surveillance at those events.
After a two-week hunger strike and two months of sit-ins, dozens of taxi drivers in New York City hosted a long-awaited celebration outside City Hall on November 10. On November 3, New York City reached an agreement with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), the union fighting to relieve drivers of thousands of dollars in debt they owe for medallions, the physical permits to operate taxis. According to the NYTWA, the average debt owed on medallions by taxi drivers is $600,000.
