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Category: terrorists

  • How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”?

    So Hamas have finally got around to appealing against the UK Government branding their political wing a terrorist organisation.

    In their legal submission, they say “the proscription has hindered the group’s ability to broker a political solution to the conflict, stifled conversations in securing a long-term political settlement, criminalised ordinary Palestinians residing in Gaza, and undermined the possibility of a peaceful settlement”.

    They also argue that being branded terrorists infringes fundamental rights and has a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and open debate and political expression, which makes sensible journalism and public discourse on Israel’s actions in Palestine impossible.

    Hamas’s submission also points out that Britain’s Terrorism Act “covers all groups and organisations around the world that use violence to achieve political objectives, including the Israeli armed forces, the Ukrainian Army and, indeed, the British armed forces”.

    And it claims proscription obstructs humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip because any form of assistance can be labelled “terrorism” if it is “seen as supporting a group that has been labelled a terrorist organisation”.

    On the other hand, proscribing Hamas was a clever move because it makes it so much easier for Israel’s stooges at Westminster to avoid having to explain that regime’s far worse war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have to thank Priti Patel who, while International Development Secretary, was so taken-in by Zionist claptrap and so adoring of Israel that, in 2017, she reportedly had around a dozen meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a middle finger to the Ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

    She was also said to have tried persuading colleagues to send British taxpayers’ money as aid for an Israeli forces project in the Golan Heights…. and she actually visited the Golan. As everyone and his dog knows, the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was another serious diplomatic blunder.

    Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak, an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s who joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s difficult to see what political service Polak performed for anyone other than the Israeli regime.

    Patel was forced to resign but later restored to favour and promoted to Home Secretary. She proscribed Hamas’s political wing in 2021 with hardly a murmur of opposition. There seemed no legitimate reason for doing so unless it was part of the UK/US/Israel axis aim to bring about coercive regime change. But would that be legal? Are the Palestinians to be denied self-determination and the right to choose their own government? Well, yes, so it seems.

    What’s to fear from Hamas?

    No-one in the UK Government has properly explained, probably because no-one has bothered to sit down and shoot the breeze with them. Instead they eagerly welcome Netanyahu and his thugs with red-carpet hugs, handshakes and vows of affection and endless co-operation, and soak up the nonsense they talk.

    And has anyone at Westminster bothered to read Hamas’s 2017 Charter? If so, did they notice Sections 16 and 20? They are reasonably in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

    1. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
    2. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

    Under international law the correct way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and theft of Palestinian resources.

    JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), who claim to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, said of the genocide in Gaza: “We’re organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.” Here’s an extract from their no-nonsense statement on the hostilities in Palestine.

    “The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

    For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

    For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

    For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

    The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.”

    The Zionists’ Dalet Plan, or Plan D

    It’s not just America’s complicity and Britain’s 110-years of betrayal that have brought us to this appalling situation. Plan D was the Zionists’ terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland drawn up 77 years ago by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency, and relentless pursued by the Israeli regime to this day.

    Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there.

    It’s a sign of the shoddy times we live in that the lawyers involved in the appeal case felt obliged to state that Hamas did not pay them or the experts who provided evidence for their submission, as it is illegal to receive funds from a group designated as a terrorist organisation.

    Hopefully their appeal will skewer the Government’s utter hypocrisy and undying support for the real terrorists in the Holy Land. Priti Patel will have to reckon with the consequences of her actions in terms of the huge numbers of innocent lives lost or reduced to unimaginable misery.

    I hasten to add that I am no supporter of Hamas. I support truth and justice, simple as that. And of course the Laws of Cricket.

    The post How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Did the US propose that scammers in Myanmar be called terrorists?

    Some Chinese social media users claimed that the United States proposed scammers in Myanmar be called “terrorists” at the United Nations, which was vetoed by China, citing information provided by Chinese AI chatbot Doubao.

    But the claim is false. The U.S. has never made such a proposal. Experts warn that AI responses are not always accurate.

    The claim was shared by an X user on Jan. 12 who said China rejected a U.S. proposal at the U.N. to label scammers in Myanmar as terrorists, following the recent high-profile abduction and subsequent rescue of Chinese actor Wang Xing.

    Wang was rescued after being lured to Thailand under the pretense of a film role and subsequently trafficked to a scam center in Myanmar. Following his return to China on Jan. 11, Wang revealed in a live stream that approximately 50 other Chinese victims were freed from the same facility.

    The X user cited a response from AI chatbot “Duobao” as evidence that the U.S. has proposed calling the scam operators “terrorists.”

    Duobao is an advanced artificial intelligence chatbot developed by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

    Launched in August 2024, Doubao has rapidly become China’s most popular AI application, boasting 51 million monthly active users as of November 2024.

    An AI response was used as evidence that the U.S. had proposed at the U.N. to classify scammers in Myanmar as terrorists
    An AI response was used as evidence that the U.S. had proposed at the U.N. to classify scammers in Myanmar as terrorists
    (X)

    But the claim is false.

    Keyword searches found no official or credible reports to show that the U.S. made such a proposal at the U.N.

    A review of minutes of the U.N. Security Council meetings in 2024 also found no such discussion.

    Duobao response

    AFCL asked Doubao a question about the purported U.S. proposal.

    The AI chatbot responded: “There is currently no firm information confirming the U.S. made such a proposal nor that China or any other country vetoed it.”

    Doubao said there was no evidence that the U.S. had proposed designating the scammers in Myanmar as terrorists.
    Doubao said there was no evidence that the U.S. had proposed designating the scammers in Myanmar as terrorists.
    (Duobao)

    AI systems reflect the material used to “train” them, experts say.

    “Doubao is a large-scale language model trained using similar methods and facing similar problems as ChatGPT,” said Hsin-Min Wang, an information science researcher at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica.

    AFCL has previously reported that Chat GPT is not always credible, as it responds to prompts based on probability calculations after being trained with large amounts of online text.

    Ethan Tu, the founder of Taiwan AI Labs, previously told AFCL that AI learns the bias and ideas from the assorted texts of the collected corpus it is being fed for language training.

    “Its output reflects the cultural ideas found in the market it was trained in.”

    Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.

    Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.

  • Biden To Keep Terrorist Designation On ‘Rebels’ Controlling Syria

    Outgoing US President Joe Biden will not lift the terrorist designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) US officials revealed on 8 January, leaving the decision to the government of President-elect Donald Trump.

    Senior officials who spoke with the Washington Post said HTS “must demonstrate they have made a clean break with extremist groups, in particular Al-Qaeda before the label can be lifted.” “Actions will speak louder than words,” an unnamed official told the US daily.

    According to the reports, Washington has “lingering concerns” after Syria’s de facto new ruler Ahmad al-Sharaa – the former deputy commander of ISIS and founder of Al-Qaeda in Syria – green-lighted the promotion of foreign extremists to the ranks of officers in the newly formed armed forces.

    The post Biden To Keep Terrorist Designation On ‘Rebels’ Controlling Syria appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • How USAID Paved The Way For Syria’s Jihadist Takeover

    As the designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes its proto-government in Idlib, notoriously corrupt NGOs are stepping in to fill the gaps in public services, with some even defecting to work alongside the group.

    The United States, which spent two decades and $5.4 trillion overthrowing governments hostile to al-Qaeda, now finds itself in a paradoxical position. Modern al-Qaeda has carved out its own quasi-state in Syria, yet remains on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To characterize this as a foreign policy misstep would be reductive; the U.S. has actively facilitated HTS’s conquest of parts of Syria while maintaining its official terrorist designation.

    The post How USAID Paved The Way For Syria’s Jihadist Takeover appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • How USAID Paved The Way For Syria’s Jihadist Takeover

    As the designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes its proto-government in Idlib, notoriously corrupt NGOs are stepping in to fill the gaps in public services, with some even defecting to work alongside the group.

    The United States, which spent two decades and $5.4 trillion overthrowing governments hostile to al-Qaeda, now finds itself in a paradoxical position. Modern al-Qaeda has carved out its own quasi-state in Syria, yet remains on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To characterize this as a foreign policy misstep would be reductive; the U.S. has actively facilitated HTS’s conquest of parts of Syria while maintaining its official terrorist designation.

    The post How USAID Paved The Way For Syria’s Jihadist Takeover appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Compatible Left Joins Imperialism In Celebrating Defeat Of Syria

    It may be no surprise that the “mainstream” corporate news media have turned into advertising agencies for US government policy. But it still surprises that what the CIA called a compatible left – those on the left it deemed compatible with maintaining imperialist rule – celebrates another US successful “regime change,” this time, Syria.

    Portside ran an article, Liberation in Syria Is a Victory Worth Embracing, which criticized “some self-styled Western ‘anti-imperialists’” for their lack of enthusiasm for the “victory.” While it does note Israel bombed Syria 220 times up to mid-November this past year, one finds no mention of the long US blockade imposed on Syrians. 

    The post Compatible Left Joins Imperialism In Celebrating Defeat Of Syria appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • US Proxies In Syria Plead With Israel For Help

    Kurdish militants in northern Syria have been reaching out to Israel for “assistance” after their villages were stormed by extremist groups who were involved in the assault that resulted in the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, according to a 12 December report by Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom.

    “Senior Kurdish militia figures are turning to Israel for urgent help, in light of the seizure of territories from them by Islamist militias backed by Turkiye,” the report said.

    The daily added that the Israeli security establishment is deliberating on whether or not it should respond to these Kurdish requests for aid, highlighting there has been ongoing communication between Tel Aviv and the Kurds, which has increased since Assad’s government fell on 8 December.

    The post US Proxies In Syria Plead With Israel For Help appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Myanmar junta invites insurgents, ‘terrorists’ to join election

    Myanmar’s junta has called on its insurgent enemies to abandon their “terrorist way” and join a planned election but a parallel civilian government spearheading opposition to military rule dismissed the offer as a trick by the junta to burnish its international image.

    The junta, which seized power in early 2021 with the overthrow of a government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, says it will hold a “multiparty democratic general election” some time next year, although its opponents say a vote under military rule, with Suu Kyi and hundreds of supporters in jail and her party disbanded, would be a sham.

    Giant neighbor China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, including energy pipelines from the Indian Ocean coast, has been pressing Myanmar’s rivals to work out their differences and has offered to help organize the election.

    “Ethnic armed organizations and PDF terrorists fighting against the state are invited to contact the state to resolve the political issues through party political or electoral processes in order to be able to join hands with the people to emphasize durable peace and development by discarding the armed terrorist way,” the junta said in a statement published in its media late on Thursday.

    Ethnic minority insurgents who have been battling for self-determination for decades have formed alliances with pro-democracy activists who took up arms after the 2021 coup and formed what they call People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, throughout the country.

    The PDFs, which have been relentlessly attacking junta forces in central, heartland areas like the Sagaing and Mandalay regions, are loyal to a civilian government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG, formed by pro-democracy politicians largely from Suu Kyi’s party, after the coup.

    A spokesman for the NUG’s Presidential Office dismissed the junta’s invasion as fake.

    “The terrorist junta council’s invitation to our revolutionary forces to abandon the armed path and discuss this is just a bogus offer,” the spokesman, Kyaw Zaw, told Radio Free Asia. 

    “It has never intended there to be political dialogue and now it’s making this deception just to sound good and look good internationally,” he said, adding that if the military was sincere, it would stop its “terrorism that is killing the people” and get out of politics altogether.

    There was no immediate response to the junta’s invitation from major ethnic minority insurgent forces.

    RELATED STORIES

    EXPLAINED: Why does Myanmar’s junta want to hold elections?

    A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change

    No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime


    Election record

    Myanmar’s military has ruled since 1962, apart from a decade of tentative reform that was snuffed out with the 2021 coup, and is deeply unpopular with most of the population.

    Suu Kyi’s party trounced a party organized by the generals in 1990 – the military ignored – and again in 2015, when Suu Kui was allowed to form a government under the generals’ auspices. 

    Again in late 2020, Suu Kyi’s party swept the polls. The military defended its coup weeks later by saying the voting had been marred by fraud. Election organizers and observers said there was little if any evidence of cheating.

    A census that the military is organizing to “ensure the accuracy of voter lists” is due to be launched next week and completed by mid-October but analysts say it will likely only include about 30 million of Myanmar’s estimated 56 million people because only residents of major cities, which the junta still controls, are being counted.

    Armed conflict is underway in 233 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, according to the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar in a July report. The junta has said that if the census is not complete by mid-October it will “increase security and extend the date” to finalize it.

    The United Nations says about 3 million people have been forced from their homes by fighting between junta troops and those who oppose the military’s coup, many since clashes surged at the beginning of the year.

    Hundreds of thousands of people have moved abroad since the coup, escaping repression, conscription into the military and an economy in freefall.

    Editing by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mozambican authorities accuse journalists of colluding with ‘terrorists’

    New York, March 7, 2024—Senior officials in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province must withdraw comments accusing journalists of colluding with terrorists and publishing false news and the authorities must allow the media to report on the conflict without intimidation, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday.

    In a public address on February 17 in the provincial capital of Pemba, Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo accused unnamed journalists and media outlets of striking “deals” with terrorists and being “in sync with terrorists,” according to news reports.

    Tauabo said that coverage of the region had an “imprint of evil” because journalists’ views had been “formatted by terrorists” and he warned the media “not to create a situation,” those sources said.

    In a February 16 radio interview, Sidónio José, administrator of Quissanga district in Cabo Delgado, accused unnamed journalists of “fabricating false news about terrorism to traumatize communities,” according to the privately owned Integrity Magazine and the Mozambican chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa rights group.

    The government has been fighting an Islamic State-linked insurgency in Cabo Delgado since 2017, which has displaced about 1 million people. In 2021, Rwanda and southern African neighbors sent troops to support the government. Since December, a new wave of attacks has forced about 70,000 people to flee their homes, United Nations data shows.

    “It is alarming that officials in Cabo Delgado are issuing threats against the media and making inflammatory comments about journalists who already face high levels of risk covering the insurgency in Cabo Delgado,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo from Nairobi. “Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo and Quissanga district administrator Sidónio José must withdraw their comments accusing journalists of colluding with terrorists and fabricating the news. Instead of intimidating the press, authorities should support the journalism that Mozambicans need to make crucial decisions about their lives.”

    A local journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said authorities rarely provided timely responses to journalistic queries about the conflict, creating a “vacuum of official information that feeds disinformation about the security situation.”

    Another journalist, who also asked not to be named due to safety concerns, told CPJ that the “narrative of blaming journalists for the difficulties of combating the insurgency” had been a problem for the media for several years.

    In 2020, radio journalist Ibraimo Mbaruco disappeared after he texted a colleague that he was “surrounded by soldiers.” Authorities have yet to provide a credible account of his whereabouts.

    Radio journalist Amade Abubacar and Arlindo Chissale, editor of Pinnacle News, which specializes in reporting on the insurgency, were arrested and accused of terrorism, in 2019 and 2022 respectively, while reporting in Cabo Delgado.

    CPJ’s calls to Tauabo requesting comment on his public address did not receive a response.

    When contacted via messaging app, José declined to comment, adding that “only the defense institutions can speak about the delicate situation in the region.”


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CIVICUS protests to Marcos over ‘judicial harassment’, ‘terrorist’ label on human rights activists

    Asia Pacific Report

    A global alliance of civil society organisations has protested to Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr in an open letter over the “judicial harassment” of human rights defenders and the designation of five indigenous rights activists as “terrorists“.

    CIVICUS, representing some 15,000 members in 75 countries, says the harassment is putting the defenders “at great risk”.

    It has also condemned the “draconian” Republic Act No. 11479 — the Anti-Terrorism Act — for its “weaponisation’ against political dissent and human rights work and advocacy in the Philippines.

    The CIVICUS open letter said there were “dire implications on the rights to due process and against warrantless arrests, among others”.

    The letter called on the Philippine authorities to:

    • Immediately end the judicial harassment against 10 human rights defenders by withdrawing the petition in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84;
    • Repeal Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating the six human rights defenders as terrorist individuals and unfreeze their property and funds immediately and unconditionally;
    • Drop all charges under the ATA against activists in the Southern Tagalog region; and
    • Halt all forms of intimidation and attacks on human rights defenders, ensure an enabling environment for human rights defenders and enact a law for their protection.

    The full letter states:

    President of the Republic of the Philippines
    Malacañang Palace Compound
    P. Laurel St., San Miguel, Manila
    The Philippines.

    Dear President Marcos, Jr.,

    Philippines: Halt harassment against human rights defenders

    CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is a global alliance of civil society organisations (CSOs) and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide. Founded in 1993, CIVICUS has over 15,000 members in 175 countries.

    We are writing to you regarding a number of cases where human rights defenders are facing judicial harassment or have been designated as terrorists, putting them at great risk.

    Judicial harassment against previously acquitted human rights defenders
    CIVICUS is concerned about renewed judicial harassment against ten human rights defenders that had been previously acquitted for perjury. In March 2023, a petition was filed by prosecutors from the Quezon City Office of the Prosecutor, with General Esperon and current NSA General Eduardo Ano seeking a review of a lower court’s decision against the ten human rights defenders. They include Karapatan National Council members Elisa Tita Lubi, Cristina Palabay, Roneo Clamor, Gabriela Krista Dalena, Dr. Edita Burgos, Jose Mari Callueng and Fr. Wilfredo Ruazol as well as Joan May Salvador and Gertrudes Libang of GABRIELA and Sr Elenita Belardo of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP).

    The petition also includes the judge that presided over the case Judge Aimee Marie B. Alcera. They alleged that Judge Alcera committed “grave abuse of discretion” in acquitting the defenders. The petition is now pending before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84 Presiding Judge Luisito Galvez Cortez, who has asked the respondents to comment on Esperon’s motion this July and has scheduled a hearing on 29 August 2023.

    Human rights defenders designated as terrorists
    CIVICUS is also concerned that on 7 June 2023, the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) signed Resolution No. 41 (2022) designating five indigenous peoples’ leaders and advocates – Sarah Abellon Alikes, Jennifer R. Awingan, Windel Bolinget, Stephen Tauli, and May Casilao – as terrorist individuals. The resolution also freezes their property and funds, including related accounts.

    The four indigenous peoples’ human rights defenders – Alikes, Awingan, Bolinget and Tauli — are leaders of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA). May Casilao has been active in Panalipdan! Mindanao (Defend Mindanao), a Mindanao-wide interfaith network of various sectoral organizations and individuals focused on providing education on, and conducting campaigns against, threats to the environment and people of the island, especially the Lumad. Previously, on 7 December 2022, the ATC signed Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating indigenous peoples’ rights defender Ma. Natividad “Doc Naty” Castro, former National Council member of Karapatan and a community-based health worker, as a “terrorist individual.”

    The arbitrary and baseless designation of these human rights defenders highlights the concerns of human rights organizations against Republic Act No. 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act, particularly on the weaponization of the draconian law against political dissent and human rights work and advocacy in the Philippines and the dire implications on the rights to due process and against warrantless arrests, among others.

    Anti-terrorism law deployed against activists in the Southern Tagalog region
    We are also concerned about reports that the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) has been deployed to suppress and persecute human rights defenders in the Southern Tagalog region, which has the most number of human rights defenders and other political activists criminalised by this law. As of July 2023, up to 13 human rights defenders from Southern Tagalog face trumped-up criminal complaints citing violations under the ATA. Among those targeted include Rev. Glofie Baluntong, Hailey Pecayo, Kenneth Rementilla and Jasmin Rubio.

    International human rights obligations
    The Philippines government has made repeated assurances to other states that it will protect human rights defenders including most recently during its Universal Periodic Review in November 2022. However, the cases above highlight that an ongoing and unchanging pattern of the government targeting human rights defenders.

    These actions are also inconsistent with Philippines’ international human rights obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which Philippines ratified in 1986. These include obligations to respect and protect fundamental freedoms which are also guaranteed in the Philippines Constitution. The Philippines government also has an obligation to protect human rights defenders as provided for in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and to prevent any reprisals against them for their activism.

    Therefore, we call on the Philippines authorities to:

    • Immediately end the judicial harassment against the ten human rights defenders by withdrawing the petition in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84;
    • Repeal Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating the six human rights defenders as terrorist individuals and unfreeze their property and funds immediately and unconditionally;Drop all charges under the ATA against activists in the Southern Tagalog region;
    • Halt all forms of intimidation and attacks on human rights defenders, ensure an enabling environment for human rights defenders and enact a law for their protection.

    We urge your government to look into these concerns as a matter of priority and we hope to hear from you regarding our inquiries as soon as possible.

    Regards,

    Sincerely,

    David Kode
    Advocacy & Campaigns Lead
    CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation

    Cc: Eduardo Año, National Security Adviser and Director General of the National Security Council
    Jesus Crispin C. Remulla, Secretary, Department of Justice of the Philippines
    Atty. Richard Palpal-latoc, Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Plea to PNG prime minister to tell truth about ransom paid to ‘terrorists’

    PNG Post-Courier

    A recent cash payment by Papua New Guinea for the release of three hostages held captive by armed gunmen in Southern Highlands province has set a “dangerous precedent”, says the opposition.

    Deputy opposition leader Douglas Tomuriesa said in a statement that the Marape government had set a bad precedent in allowing ransom money to be paid to the kidnappers for the release of the three hostages late last month instead of eliminating the gunmen.

    The shadow treasurer said that thankfully the three captives had been set free without any harm but he expressed sadness that such a bad precedent had been set for the country which was likely to spur similar hostage-taking incidents in future.

    The Post-Courier's front page today 270223
    How the Post-Courier’s front page reported the release of the hostages on February 27. Image: PNG Post-Courier screenshot APR

    Tomuriesa said since the hostages were now free, Police Commissioner David Manning must ensure that the culprits would be brought to justice and face the full force of the law.

    He said it was “shameful” that the Prime Minister had contradicted his Police Commissioner by initially denying that any ransom had been paid.

    “I now demand the Prime Minister tell the truth and reveal the actual amount of ransom paid to the criminals and why a third party was involved,” Tomuriesa said.

    One of three women captives was released on February 23 while the other two were released with Australia-based New Zealand academic Professor Bryce Barker on February 26 after K100,000 (NZ$46,000) had been paid, according to one news report.

    “If all the government can do is pay ransom to terrorists, then PNG can forget about promoting tourism and foreign investment in the country as investors will view the country as too dangerous.

    “By very quickly resorting to allowing payment of ransom money, the government has now realised that the PNG police and military are very ill-equipped to deal with a dangerous hostage-taking situation.

    “The whole country will remain at risk unless the gunmen are made to surrender all their guns, including the high-powered machines stolen from the PNG Defence Force armoury.”

    Tomuriesa said the government must now seek specialised training and assistance from friendly countries like Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, or the United States to establish and train a special task force for the PNG police and military.

    The special force would need to be capable of undertaking search and rescue operations should similar hostage-taking situations arise in future.

    Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Long After Leaving Iran, Dual Nationals Now Labeled Terrorists — Because of Mandatory Military Service

    Talks with Iran to revive the nuclear deal appear to be progressing, but in recent weeks, the United States’s designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, as a terror group has emerged as a major obstacle. The listing isn’t just about nuclear diplomacy: Countless Iranians who served in the IRGC are now labeled as terrorists — including hundreds of thousands who were conscripted without a choice. This week on Intercepted, senior news editor Ali Gharib and reporter Murtaza Hussain examine the effects the terrorist designation has had on former conscripts who have lived for decades in the West. These dual nationals have been banned from the U.S., lost jobs, and separated from family as a result of the policy. join.theintercept.com/donate/now

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    This content originally appeared on Intercepted and was authored by The Intercept.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In 2018, The US Was At War With Uyghur Terrorists

    Washington, DC – In the dying months of his administration, President Donald Trump removed from the United States terrorist list a little-known paramilitary organization called ETIM, an acronym that stands for either the East Turkestan Independence Movement or the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, depending on whom one asks. The group is also sometimes known as the [East] Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP or ETIP).

    Explaining the decision, the State Department said that “ETIM was removed from the list because, for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.” The move was hailed by a wide range of Uyghur groups in the United States, who saw it as a step towards blocking China’s actions against Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province.

    The post In 2018, The US Was At War With Uyghur Terrorists appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Kevin McCarthy Is “Lying” About Terrorists Crossing the Border, Says AZ Lawmaker

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy addresses the press during the congressional border delegation visit to El Paso, Texas on March 15, 2021.

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) made some bold assertions while visiting the U.S.-Mexico border on Monday that Democratic lawmakers say is likely a lie. McCarthy claimed that border agents had told him that terrorists had entered the country due to a relaxation of immigration rules by the Biden administration.

    Speaking to reporters on Monday, McCarthy said that he was told directly by agents that terrorists had entered the U.S. “You saw it in their eyes. They talked about, ‘They’re on the list.’ … The terrorist watch list,” McCarthy said, per reporting from The Washington Post.

    McCarthy also claimed that these purported terrorists were entering the country from places like Yemen, Iran and Sri Lanka. Border agents “even talked about Chinese, as well,” the California Republican said.

    None of the claims made by McCarthy on Monday hold up to scrutiny. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not responded to media inquiries regarding McCarthy’s assertions, and the lawmaker’s office has similarly not provided any evidence that would confirm his statements.

    The claims from McCarthy match those made by former President Donald Trump, who similarly said in 2018 that terrorists were being caught while crossing the border. Those claims by Trump could not be confirmed as well, and according to reporting from Reuters at the time, sources within the federal government said they were untrue.

    Democratic members of Congress from states that share a border with Mexico were openly skeptical of McCarthy’s evidence-lacking claims. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said she also recently spoke with Border Patrol agents, none of whom made any comments suggesting terrorists were crossing the border.

    In a tweet he authored on Monday, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) described the assertions by McCarthy as “weird,” and said that if such a thing were happening, he would have probably known about it, too.

    “As the Chairman of the subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations and a border state member of Congress [I] haven’t heard anything about this,” Gallego said.

    The Arizona congressman added that he was going to request a briefing from McCarthy in order to learn more. But he also expressed doubts over the veracity of what the Republican leader had suggested.

    “Pretty sure he is either wrong or lying,” Gallego said.

    Despite McCarthy’s questionable claims, there is legitimate reason for concern about other matters pertaining to the U.S.’s southern border. Many more migrants than usual are coming to the U.S., fleeing poverty, natural disasters, crime and repressive governments from their home countries, overwhelming U.S. officials and their ability to process asylum claims.

    The U.S. is witnessing a 20-year high in the number of migrants arriving at the border. Many of those who are braving the trek are young children, a number of whom are unaccompanied by adults, and who are being packed into detention centers in close proximity to each other during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a worrying development for immigrant rights activists.

    As of Sunday, around 4,200 children were being housed in these facilities, a 31 percent increase from one week prior. About 3,000 of those children have been stuck in the facilities for more than 72 hours, the legal limit for how long minors are meant to be kept before being transferred to health officials within the Office of Refugee Resettlement for more permanent housing solutions.

    Journalists haven’t been allowed into these detention centers to document what’s happening, but lawyers representing the children have said the facilities are cramped and overcrowded. Children have reported that they lack basic hygiene needs, including soap, and that they have not had adequate access to food at times, the lawyers said.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.