Category: Protests

  • Prahlad Iyengar recently came across a video of children in Gaza reacting to the sound of their school bell ringing through a pair of headphones. Iyengar watched as the children burst into tears over how much they missed school, unsure which of their teachers and friends were still alive. Iyengar, a Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has felt similarly in…

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  • From 12.30PM on Christmas day, Palestine Action begun breaking through the walls of Elbit’s UAV Engines’ (UEL) Shenstone drone factory. Palestine Action have repeatedly targeted the Lynn Lane production site, and today, from within two buckets attached to two cherry pickers, a dedicated team of activists are using demolition tools to target the factory walls. The drivers have secured themselves inside the two vehicles, using lock-ons to remain in position, allowing more time to put the Israeli weapons maker out of commission.

    The post On Christmas Day, Palestine Action Break The Walls Of Elbit’s UAV Engines appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Why must we tell our government that murdering children and conducting a genocide is wrong, against the law and a crime against humanity? Our Resistance Solidarity included
    Veterans For Peace, Up-State Drone Action, Peace Action, Jewish Voice For Peace, Pax Christi NYS, Downtown Berrigan Collective – Ithaca, and Students For Justice in Palestine. Concerned citizens of NYS dug a grave for the children of Gaza at the Federal Building in Syracuse, NY on December 9, 2024. . On December 9, 1948 the UN adopted the Conventions against genocide unanimously.

    The post Gaza – A Children’s Graveyard; Three Arrested! appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unveiled new charges on Tuesday against Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. While Mangione already faced second-degree murder and weapons charges, the unsealed indictment reveals an escalation: New York prosecutors have charged Mangione with first-degree murder “in furtherance of terrorism.

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  • Four years and two presidential election seasons after the 2020 uprisings, much of the intense mainstream attention around issues of abolition and police violence has receded into increasingly distant memory. But many who took to the streets to demand justice for George Floyd and other Black and brown people brutalized by police are still grappling with the consequences of rising up.

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  • For many of our readers, the writings of Kelly Hayes and Maya Schenwar — longtime organizers and oft-time collaborators — are likely touchstones for orienting their own vision of the work of ending prisons. In the following interview, Hayes and Schenwar spoke with Inquest Coeditor-in-Chief Andrew Manuel Crespo and Managing Editor Adam McGee about how to respond to Donald Trump’s reelection.

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

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  • On the cold winter night of December 3, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol appeared on national television to declare martial law due to “threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements.” It was the first time that martial law had been declared in the country since 1980, when Gen. Chun Doo-hwan deployed the South Korean military to massacre hundreds of pro…

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

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  • “Canada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo.” In Ottawa, over 100 Jewish activists began a sit-in inside a Canadian parliamentary building Tuesday to demand Canada stop arming Israel. Rachel Small, a member of the Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition and a member of the sit-in, says that the Canadian government’s claims that it is halting arms shipments to Israel are…

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

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

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  • Pakistan authorities must immediately and unconditionally release senior journalist Matiullah Jan and stop harassing him for his journalistic work, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Thursday.

     “CPJ is dismayed by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan following his coverage of protests in Islamabad,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Jan and ensure that journalists are not subjected to retaliation for their reporting.”

    On November 28, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, ordered Jan, an anchor with NEO TV Network, to remain in detention for two days after his arrest at a security checkpoint following an alleged altercation with police, according to news reports and Jan’s lawyer, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, who spoke to CPJ. Mazari-Hazir disputed the police account of the arrest, and Jan’s son, Abdul Razzaq, said in a social media post that his father and another journalist had been abducted by men in an unmarked vehicle from the parking lot of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences the previous night.

    The Islamabad police’s First Information Report (FIR) opening an investigation into Jan accuses the journalist of terrorism under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 and the Pakistan Penal Code and with possessing narcotics the Control of Narcotic Substances Act (CNSA) 1997. The FIR, reviewed by CPJ, alleges that Jan was found in possession of 246 grams of methamphetamine when his vehicle was stopped.

    Before his arrest, Jan had been reporting on this week’s protests by supporters of Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan. News anchor Munizae Jahangir posted on social media platform X that Jan had been reporting from hospitals on those injured or killed by gunfire, and it “seems that’s why he has been arrested for his journalistic work.”

    Jan has previously faced legal action in what he says was retaliation for critical commentary on Pakistani authorities and his press freedom activism. On July 21, 2020, he was abducted by a dozen men in Islamabad in a still-unresolved incident.

    CPJ contacted via messaging app Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, on Jan’s detention but did not receive a response.


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

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  • The world ponders at the destruction that Israel has inflicted upon the Middle East and North Africa and questions why the United States serves as a surrogate force that assists Israel in accomplishing its purposes. How did a relatively few Zionists deceive an unknowing world to trust its cause and actions were legitimate, convince the United States government to aid and abet in the genocide of the Palestinian people, and achieve decisive power? If there were an obvious answer, and the answer predicted the future, then alerted governments would take remedial action. This has not happened. Approaches to ascertain the cause of the genocide of the Palestinian people and finding the solution to prevent it warrant scrutiny.

    Zionism succeeded as a concept and failed as a mission. Starting with spurious premises, Zionism fulfilled promises to its followers, enabled some Jews to obtain a better life, and added little to what the established Jewish community had already achieved and was continuing to achieve. It traded destruction, oppression, and decades of suffering of the Palestinian community for a contrived state, an ideal nation where Jews could easily integrate and be safe from persecution and physical danger. The latter has not happened. The narrative consisted of unproven and fantastic propositions that scattered Jewish communities throughout the world, who spoke different languages, had different histories, ate different foods, and practiced different customs, constituted a nation. Although a limited number of Jews lived, visited, or had any interest in the area for 2000 years, this nation had a national home in Palestine. The latter concept succeeded from another preposterous supposition ─ 19th century Jews, separated by 100 generations, were descendants of Hebrew tribes that wandered the area, and their wanderings, which left no significant footprints on the soil, were mesmerizing connections, beckoning Jews to return. The preposterous narrative remains relatively unchallenged in a preposterous world.

    Palestinians watched helplessly as Zionists seized their lands and kept them in submission. Caught between “heads I lose,” and ”tails you win” choices, the Palestinians had no choice but to participate in meetings of  “peace proposals” that offered establishment of two states, while knowing  that the Israeli government never intended to fulfill a “two state agreement.” If the PLO refused to continue with the farce, it faced accusations of sabotaging peace; going along with the farce meant diverting from countering Israel’s aggressions that prevented peace. This had become obvious during the 1980s, when Palestinians in the West Bank were hopeful, willing to cooperate with Israeli authorities, and eager to pave a path to self-governance. During that decade, Jewish terrorists planted bombs in the cars of elected Mayors Karim Khalaf of Ramallah and Bassam Shakaa of Nablus. Khalaf lost a foot and Shakaalost both of his legs. A third bomb planted in the car of Ibrahim Tawil, elected Mayor of El Bireh, was discovered before detonation. Between 1980 and 1984, Jewish terrorists killed 23 and injured 191 Palestinians in 354 attacks. The terrorist attacks on Palestinians motivated Hamas, a charity organization, to rebrand itself into an organization fighting for Palestinian rights. As usual, the Zionists used the charges against them for their benefit; the terrorist Israelis who murdered Palestinians provoked Hamas to retaliate and Hamas became known as a terrorist organization murdering innocent Israelis.

    Not until recent years, after several Israeli invasions brought death and destruction to the Gazans, not until illegal settlers stole land, proliferated throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, and casually murdered Palestinians, and not until the 2023 invasion of Gaza has the world’s populace realized the extent of Israel’s murderous rampages and intent to commit genocide of the Palestinian people. Not until contemporary times has the extent of a worldwide propaganda machine that obscured the truth of the Zionist endeavor been completely recognized. There is no Israeli state, no Israeli people, no Israeli government with which to deliberate and arbitrate. They refuse all entreaties and, by doing that, deny their existence. Three salient characteristics describe the Zionism that led to the establishment of Israel:

    (1)   The Zionist adventure is best characterized as an enterprise, which became criminal in its manifestation. An enterprising band of discontented and idealistic Jewish outliers organized themselves as a business enterprise. Their Histadrut, the General Organization of Workers in Israel, became one of the most powerful institutions in the British mandate and turned into a state sponsored enterprise. As an enterprise, the marauding Zionists resembled the Puritans; their sponsors, Jewish entrepreneurs throughout the world, duplicated the Massachusetts Bay Company, financiers of the Puritan voyage.

    A small congregation of Puritans refused to reconcile their independent organization with the established Church of England. Desiring to preserve their identity and feeling constantly persecuted, they sought new places to live their unique social and communal life. In the year 1621, they concluded Europe would never accept them and sought an opportunity in America. The Massachusetts Bay Company sponsored the Puritan settlements and constructed the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose fatal encounter with the local native population set the stage for the settlement of the entire coast-to-coast American territory and the decimation of the native peoples.

    The Zionist experience is not being detoured and, because the result may be the same ─ decimation of the native population ─ it is important that the crisis be accurately characterized. Israel is a criminal state that willfully murders Palestinians, steals their lands, ethnically cleanses them, buries their villages under rubble, and destroys their history and heritage.

    One word summarizes the taking of another person’s property, livelihood, and dignity – theft! In this case, there is a specific type of theft, Raubwirtschaft, German for “plunder economy.” In Raubwirtschaft, the state economy is partially based on robbery, looting and plundering conquered territories. States that engage in Raubwirtschaft are in continuous warfare with their neighbors and usurp the resources of their conquered subjects, while claiming security objectives and defensive actions against defenseless people.

    (2) Israel is a mirror image of the Nazi state.
    Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany result from its constant wars and policies that insinuate Israel as a repressive and militaristic nation.

    • Virulent nationalism ─ Israel, similar to Nazi Germany, combines a virulent nationalism with militarism.
    • Irredentism ─ Annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, drove the Third Reich. Israel’s irredentism regains mythical lands and joins a single folk in these lands.
    • Military adventures ─ The Third Reich fought continuous wars for about eight years. Israel has been fighting continuously for 75 years. The former explained their military thrusts as revenging a “stab in the back” loss in World War I. Israel explains its battles by warranted reprisals, defensive, and security measures.
    • Using overwhelming military force to subdue powerless antagonists ─ The Nazis and its Panzer troops went full attack against all opponents, regardless of their strengths. Israel uses a strategy that minimizes its casualties, and despite its claim of being a humane army, has always attacked with pulverizing force, with kill ratios of tens to one and having civilians constitute a large proportion of casualties
    • Racist laws ─ The Nazis had their Nuremberg laws. In Israel, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew within the boundaries of Israel, similar to a Nuremberg Law that prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans. The Nakba Law, states that “groups or institutions that mourn Israel’s Independence or deny the state’s Jewish and democratic nature” can be denied state funds. The Citizenship Law allows the state to revoke citizenship and imprison anyone convicted of acting against “the sovereignty of the state.” Few Palestinian Israelis can rent housing or buy property in West Jerusalem. Immigrant Jews are able to acquire property and not allowed to sell the property to Arab citizens. Few, if any Arabs, have been able to purchase government sponsored housing and obtain mortgages. A separation of ethnicities results in the separation of their activities, recreation centers, schools, and education.
    • Severe repression in occupied territories ─ Israel duplicates Nazi repression of conquered people, and construction of ghettoes to house them. Repression of Palestinians under occupation includes confiscation of Palestinian lands for military use, destruction of wells, olive trees and agriculture, raids on villages, obtrusive checkpoints, mass arrests of opposition, and denial of highway use. Walls separate Palestinian communities and families and farmers from livestock and fields, choke the Palestinian economy, and obstruct daily exchanges between people.
    • Killing of opposition and punitive measures after an attack ─ The Nazis used punitive measures and collective punishment to terrorize its captive peoples and crushed resistance. Israel has done the same. The Nazis had Lidice, a village destroyed after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi leader in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1953, in retaliation for a Palestinian guerrilla incursion into Israel that killed several Israeli civilians, the Israeli military raided the West Bank village of Qibya, killed 67 Palestinians and destroyed 56 houses. Palestine has been victim to tens of Lidicies ─ destruction of areas and houses due to accusations of being the homes of suicide bombers.
    • Ethnic cleansing ─ The Nazis planned to move populations in Eastern European nations and repopulate the areas with Germans. After the 1948 and 1967 wars, Israel destroyed 412 Palestinian villages and eventually created 1.2 million refugees who were not permitted to return to their homes. Palestinian bank accounts, land, homes, and industries were confiscated. Incursions have destroyed patrimony, archives, and cultural identity of the Palestinians. Israel military seized the Palestinian archives in Beirut during the war in Lebanon and, under international pressure, eventually returned them.
    • Propaganda ─ Due to its international reach, the Israel propaganda machine exceeds that of the Nazis, churning out each day books, films, plays, music, and articles that extend memories of the Holocaust, references to anti-Semitism, and the greatness of little Israel who needs support as it fights against the world’s evils. An army of several hundreds of thousands of Israeli supporters include planted “emigrants” to the United States and Germany, who invade civic life and institutions throughout the western word, lobby support for Israel, criticize opponents, spread false charges of anti-Semitism, and convince the world of Israel’s cause.
    • Genocide ─ The Nazis are identified with a genocide of European Jews. Israel’s policies are paving a route to destruction of the Palestinian people. Hopelessness, despair, immobility, lack of redress for the loss of their lands, economic insecurity, and constant attacks against their persona and livelihood drive the Palestinians to a difficult existence. Israel’s occupying force shows no care for the rights of the occupied people and no desire to address the fatal issues concerning them; even reinforcing the misery.

    (3) Psychologically disturbed ─ Widely known and not widely discussed, are the disturbing comments and activities of Jewish Israelis and Zionist Jews around the world. Rarely censored by the Israeli government and their native countries, they give an impression that Zionist Jews are morally corrupt, psychologically disturbed, and gain pleasure in lying, deceiving, and harming others, even murdering innocents. Zionist Jews elevate themselves to a superior and unique place in the firmament, the chosen people to whom all others must give homage. Claiming to be eternal victims of anti-Semitism, they daily demand restitution and forgiveness for mostly fabricated crimes committed against them.

    Nowhere and never in the civilized world have a preponderance of a nation’s leaders and its citizens expressed hatred and violence against others equivalent to the expressions from Israel’s leaders and citizens. Without shame, without control, and without concern of their malevolent appearance to others, their detestable utterances have become commonplace and are well known.

    • Israeli Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities” in the current conflict.
    • Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinians as “human animals.”
    • Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “The Palestinian village of Huwwara should be wiped out. The state needs to do it and not private citizens.”
    • David Ben-Gurion said, “it doesn’t matter what the gentiles say, only what the Jews do.
    • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins.”
    • Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave orders “to break the bones of Palestinian inciters.”
    • Ariel Kallner, a member of Israel’s parliament, said, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ’48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join! Their Nakba, because like then in 1948, the alternative is clear.”

    Israel’s citizens reflect an indoctrination of hate and violence that complement their government’s expressions. Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arriving at Ben Gurion airport from Amsterdam sang: “Ole ole, ole ole ole, Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” An X user commented, “These people are deranged. They have lost all humanity. A culture of murder and theft doesn’t come without cost.”

    A rocket hit the northern Israel home of Safa Awad, a Palestinian Israeli schoolteacher, and killed her. The Middle East Eye reports that a volunteer at Magen David Adom, an Israeli rescue service organization, wrote, in a post that has received more than a thousand likes, that, “There is nothing to feel sorry for. She is a terrorist in every respect. She is not in our favour in any way. May her getting fucked be blessed.”

    Go to Quora, and observe a string of comments by Israeli propagandists who plant  question and then answer it: “Gaza has a fertility rate of 3.38 in 2023. In 2005 its fertility rate was 6.2. Islam at its finest. They breed like cockroaches.”

    Contending  those defending Israel’s genocidal tactics as geopolitical power politics (USA), guilt for the Holocaust (Germany), and as a settler colonial state (Western nations) have legs, but are counterproductive and have not moved nations to contend Israel. Accusing nations of duplicity only makes them defend themselves and reinforce their duplicity. Showing that Israel cannot be defended and is an immoral, social, economic, and military threat to humanity ─ well, who wants to defend a nation of that description?

    Unless others share in the proceeds, a criminal nation has no defenders. What benefit is it for the Western nations to support criminal activities that negatively affects them?

    Western nations and the Soviet Union fought a World War to defeat Nazism and bring order to the world.

    • How can nations allow the transfer of the racist and genocidal doctrines of the German Nazis to a similar regime? Why did we fight the war?
    • How can Germany claim to makes amends for its past Nazi experience and support the transfer of that experience to another nation?
    • How can nations allow Israel serve as a model and catalyst for ultra-reactionary regimes?

    The mentality that perpetrates the genocide and regales in it is unacceptable. Turning protests against genocide into attacks on Jews, and using the anti-Semitism word are delusionary. We need protection against people who exhibit murderous, racist, venomous, and delusionary characteristics and not offerings of invitations for them to manipulate our society.

    The analysis may seem overkill, but for understanding the critical situation, it is necessary to place in proper perspective the nature of the Israeli regime. Treating it as a despotic nation is incomplete. People make a country and the Israeli people and their worldwide supporters are not the empathetic and cordial populace that guarantees healthy living.

    The post Bringing Reality to the Palestinian Struggle first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

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  • The Heritage Foundation got a lot of publicity during this election cycle for its infamous Project 2025. But that’s not the only project they intend to carry out now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House. Project Esther is a new proposal from Heritage that claims to lay out a plan to combat antisemitism in the United States. In fact, it aims to destroy the Palestine solidarity…

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  • Pre-trial hearings for students who participated in a Gaza solidarity encampment in central Illinois last spring are being held on November 20 and December 4, 2024. The outcome of the four students’ trials will determine whether they will risk up to three years of incarceration on felony “mob action” charges for having exercised their free speech rights on campus. The students from the…

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  • Pacific Media Watch

    New Zealand’s leading daily newspaper has joined the debate about the haka that stunned Parliament and the nation last week, defending the youngest MP for her actions, saying she is a “product of her forebears” and “shining a light” on the new national conversation about the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

    That haka has been criticised by some conservative politicians and civic leaders as “appalling behaviour” and led to Te Pāti Māori’s 22-year-old Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke being “named” by the Speaker and suspended from the House for 24 hours.

    However, among many have rallied to her support across the nation, with The New Zealand Herald declaring in an editorial on Tuesday that her haka “shines the light on a new conversation growing louder daily and describing where many Māori are at politically”.

    In light of the haka performed in Parliament, The Herald said, it was “important to understand what was on show” 184 years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by the British Crown and more than 40 Māori chiefs as the founding document for New Zealand.

    The haka protest came as thousands joined a massive nine-day Te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti that marched the 1600km length of the country from north and south ending at Parliament in an impressive show of solidarity against the unpopular bill.

    “Culturally, haka is the ability to express thoughts and views in a way that provides clarity with the thoughts of those who deliver it. Haka can be delivered and invoked in many different ways and many different times,” said The Herald.

    “It can be delivered at the beginning of a kaupapa (cause) — like the All Blacks’ pre-match haka — or delivered near the end as a tangi when a tūpāpaku (body) is being taken to its final destination.”

    The newspaper said that when Maipi-Clarke broke into that haka in Parliament, it was her way of expressing her “absolute disgust and loathing of David Seymour’s Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill”.

    Unapologetically Māori
    “Toitū Te Tiriti, the kōhanga reo generation and unapologetically Māori whānau are intertwined. Their whakapapa is the same,” The Herald said.

    “Toitū Te Tiriti says Te Tiriti will endure no matter what. The first of the kōhanga reo generation – the babies brought up in kōhanga reo over 40 years ago, like Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi – and casting their leadership across te ao Māori.

    “They have been in the workforce for 20+ years, using te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori (Māori intelligence) as their north compass.

    “Maipi-Clarke is part of all three groups. She is a product of her forebears.

    “Maipi-Clarke looks at the world through a kaupapa Māori lens. The things which drive her are Māori-centric, first and foremost. That is who she is and what defines her. The new Māori Queen, Nga wai hono i te po, is of the same ilk.

    “Unapologetically Māori is a statement that serves as a declaration to the world about who Maipi-Clarke and those of her generation are, their truth and how to act from a holistic Māori world view.”

    ‘Their very identity threatened’
    The newspaper said Maipi-Clarke, her Te Pāti Māori colleagues and other politicians in the House “reacted when they felt their very identity was threatened”.

    “They acted the only way they believed was appropriate, with class and with mana.”

    The Herald said Maipi-Clarke, like many Māori and non-Māori, were angry with the progression of this bill.

    “She responded to it as she was taught by her predecessors and peers with a haka,” the paper said.

    “That’s the way Māori of the kōhanga reo generation were brought up to voice their concerns.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New York, November 20, 2024—Local rights groups recorded at least four incidents of police assaulting or obstructing journalists covering a November 19 election protest in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. 

    Georgian opposition parties have alleged fraud and are protesting the results of the October 26 parliamentary election, in which the ruling Georgian Dream party was declared winner.

    “Georgian police officers’ detention of camera operator Sergi Baramidze and forceful obstruction of other journalists covering ongoing election protests is unacceptable and threatens the Georgian people’s access to information on important public events,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities in Georgia should swiftly investigate all instances of police violence against members of the press and ensure that perpetrators are held to account.”

    Police used force against these four journalists during the November 19 protest: 

    Sergi Baramidze, a camera operator for pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi, shows his injuries from police after he filmed a protest contesting the results of Georgia’s parliamentary election in Tbilisi on November 19, 2024. (Photo: Facebook/Mtavari Arkhi)
    Sergi Baramidze, a camera operator for pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi, shows his injuries from police after he filmed a protest contesting the results of Georgia’s parliamentary election in Tbilisi on November 19, 2024. (Photo: Facebook/Mtavari Arkhi)
    • Five or six officers grabbed Sergi Baramidze, a camera operator for pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi, while he filmed police dragging a protester, according to news reports and footage of the incident posted by his employer. The officers pulled Baramidze, held him by the neck, and briefly detained him at a police station. 

    Tamta Muradashvili, director of Mtavari Arkhi, told CPJ the journalist was released after signing a document agreeing to appear if summoned, adding that it is unclear if he’ll be charged. 

    Muradashvili told CPJ that Baramidze sustained injuries to his eye and lip.

    • Three officers repeatedly shoved Mindia Gabadze, a reporter for independent news website Publika, while he filmed police dispersing. Gabadze told CPJ he identified himself to police as a journalist and described one of the shoves as “forceful,” leaving him in significant pain.
    • Officers briefly confiscated the phone of independent regional outlet OC Media chief editor Mariam Nikuradze, obstructing her work. 
    • Officers pushed Givi Avaliani, a reporter with independent news website Netgazeti, preventing him from filming police.

    Georgia’s Special Investigation Service, a government body responsible for investigating crimes against journalists, opened investigations into incidents of obstruction of journalistic activities during the protests. CPJ’s message to the service on its Facebook page for comment did not immediately receive a reply.

    Ahead of the elections, Georgian authorities denied entry to Czech photojournalist Ray Baseley and Swiss photojournalist Stephan Goss, who both reported on large anti-government protests earlier this year.

    During the elections, media rights groups recorded dozens of incidents of obstruction and intimidation of journalists, many of them reporting on alleged election fraud. Local journalists and advocates previously told CPJ they feared the ruling party’s victory could diminish press freedom in the country.  


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  • For many of us, the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s decisive electoral victory has been a time of deep despair and mourning. There has been plenty of commentary trying to make sense of Trump’s win and the factors that led to it. But no analysis changes the fact that the outcome represents a serious blow to our most vulnerable communities, a sharp setback for causes of economic and social…

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  • What will it mean to resist fascism under a second Trump administration? During Trump’s first term, we saw mass marches, blockade actions, and daily denunciations of Trump’s words and edicts. Some of these tactics were successful, at times. For example, ADAPT’s 2017 mass action at the Capitol may have played a major role in saving the Affordable Care Act. Mass marches promoted a new sense of…

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  • KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia said it is protesting two new Philippine maritime laws that it contends encroach on its South China Sea boundaries, in a move that comes amid heightened regional tension over Beijing’s increasing assertiveness about its expansive claims.

    In October, Malaysia lodged a complaint against Vietnam, Reuters news agency reported last week.

    One security analyst said that despite regional tension, there is little risk of confrontation between Malaysia and the Philippines, or Vietnam, while a regional observer said Manila and Hanoi were the transgressors in both cases.

    Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamad Alamin told his country’s parliament on Thursday that the new Philippine laws encroach on Malaysia’s oil-rich state of Sabah, which borders the South China Sea.

    “We’ve finalized and reviewed key issues in our protest note, which we’ll send today [Thursday] to affirm our commitment to protecting Sabah’s sovereignty and rights,” Alamin said, referring to the state that is claimed by both Malaysia and the Philippines.

    Manila on Nov. 8 enacted the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, which Alamin said extend into Malaysia’s boundaries mapped out in 1979, which Kuala Lumpur regards as internationally recognized.

    The Philippines had said the laws were intended to declare Manila’s maritime claims in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and restrict foreign ships and aircraft to designated lanes.

    Philippine officials did not immediately respond to Alamin’s comments.

    Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (left) speaks with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as they attend the 27th ASEAN-China Summit at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Oct. 10, 2024.
    Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (left) speaks with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as they attend the 27th ASEAN-China Summit at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Oct. 10, 2024.

    Located off the southwestern region of the Philippines, Sabah has long been a thorny issue between the neighboring countries.

    In September 2020, the two countries took their dispute over who owns Sabah to the United Nations. The dispute remains unresolved.

    Separately, in June 2023, a Paris court upheld Malaysia’s challenge to a U.S. $15 billion arbitration award to purported heirs of an erstwhile ruler of the Sultanate of Sulu. Part of the former sultanate is in Sabah.

    An arbitration court in Paris had in February 2022 ordered Malaysia to pay that amount to settle a colonial-era land deal.

    The former Sultanate of Sulu was situated in a small archipelago in the far southern Philippines.

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    An analyst at the non-profit Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies said Malaysia has had to deal with the Philippines’ expansion efforts in the South China Sea.

    “From the point of view of Malaysia, the Philippines is the troublemaker-in-chief,” Benjamin Blandin, a network coordinator at the council, told BenarNews.

    He said the Philippines destroyed Malaysian sovereignty markers in the Spratlys, a South China Sea island chain, in the 1970s and 1980s and later occupied Commodore Reef within the Malaysian exclusive economic zone.

    A country’s EEZs extends up to 200 nautical miles from its coastline.

    “So based on this bilateral ‘history,’ Malaysia can only interpret negatively any further move of the Philippines, at least as long as the Sabah case is not solved,” Blandin said.

    He added that Vietnam had also destroyed markers at two maritime features in Malaysia’s EEZ before occupying them.

    Broken ships are visible during the ASEAN Solidarity Exercise Natuna 2023 involving  Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos on Natuna waters in Indonesia’s Riau Islands province, Sept. 21, 2023.
    Broken ships are visible during the ASEAN Solidarity Exercise Natuna 2023 involving Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos on Natuna waters in Indonesia’s Riau Islands province, Sept. 21, 2023.

    Another analyst, Shahriman Lockman at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, told BenarNews he blamed Vietnam’s actions.

    “Recent reports of Malaysia’s protest note to Vietnam, if accurate, reflect a growing impatience with Vietnam’s recalcitrance in the South China Sea and reluctance to engage in constructive discussions – behavior that deserves as much attention as China’s,” Lockman, a senior analyst at the institute told RFA affiliate BenarNews.

    “Even so, I don’t anticipate any major escalation as long as Vietnam tries to restrain its fishermen who have a tendency to intrude into foreign EEZs, not only in Southeast Asia but across the Asia Pacific.”

    Similarly, “unless Manila actively pursues its legal claims, I don’t see a high risk of confrontation with Malaysia,” Lockman said.

    “This [complaint] is just a routine aspect of diplomatic relations – a typical day at the office for our diplomats. …As countries build the legal foundations for their territorial and jurisdictional claims, it’s inevitable that overlaps are going to be reiterated.”

    Overlapping claims

    Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Brunei and Indonesia, as well as Taiwan, hold overlapping claims in the South China Sea and its islands and reefs.

    Beijing claims nearly all of the sea as its own based on so-called historic rights, which were invalidated in a 2016 arbitration ruling by the international court in The Hague,

    Since the Philippines enacted its two new laws, Beijing and Manila have launched protests against each other over contested South China Sea claims.

    Following Beijing’s protest, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said his government would maintain its stance on its South China Sea territories, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported.

    “[T]hey will continue to protect what they define as their sovereign territory,” he told journalists.

    “Of course, we do not agree with their definition of sovereign territory.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Iman Muttaqin Yusof for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.